On December 27, 1657, a group of English citizens in Flushing, New York, who were not themselves Quakers, signed a petition protesting the persecution of Quakers, a document that has become known as the Flushing Remonstrance. An eloquent statement of the principle of religious liberty, it is widely regarded as a forerunner to the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The petition was delivered to Director-General of New Netherlands, Peter Stuyvesant.
On December 26, 1799, four thousand people attended George Washington’s funeral where Henry Lee III honored him as ”first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
The Decembrist revolt againt Tsar Nicholas I occurred on the 26th of December in 1825. It was, alas, put down. Later revolts would prove less liberty-minded, more communist, and far bloodier.
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. . . . Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Victor Frankenstein of Justine Moritz in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), Introduction to the 1831 edition
Merry Christmas! Oh, and before you get too comfortable, click on over to Townhall. Then come back here for more nog:
On Christmas night, 1776, General George Washington led a column of the Continental Army across the icy Delaware River to attack Hessian forces stationed at Trenton, New Jersey. The difficult raid, which took place in the early hours the day after Christmas, was a success — and an early, celebrated victory in the Revolutionary War.
On Christmas Day in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. Ukraine’s referendum was also finalized and Ukraine officially left the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union itself dissolved the next day, in what might be described as the “best belated Christmas present ever.”
On December 25, 1910, economist Rose Director Friedman was born. She may be best known as the wife of Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, and co-author with her husband of the bestseller Free to Choose.
A holiday message from Paul Jacob:
What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.
Dorothy L. Sayers, “Are Women Human?” (1938)
On December 24, 1818, the first performance of “Silent Night” took place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria. Father Joseph Mohr had written the lyrics some time earlier, commissioning nearby schoolteacher and organist, Franz Xavier Gruber, to compose a melody appropriate for guitar accompaniment. It is one of the world’s most recognizable songs, and a favorite Christmas carol.
Christopher Buckley, author of satirical novels such as Thank You For Smoking and Supreme Courtship, was born on Christmas Eve, 1952
Talking with most people usually involves a search for truth. Talking with congressmen is strictly special effects.
Jack McDevitt, Odyssey (2006), Chapter 5.
On December 23, 1783, George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.