It's a little-known fact, but the Cave of the Moonbat does have a "BREAKING!!!" desk – it just doesn't get used much. Still, when I heard that my blog-friend, co-Never In Our Names poster, and fellow Kossack possum was about to announce a run for Delaware's at-large seat in the House of Representatives, I couldn't get the piles of outdated, half-finished news analyses cleared off fast enough – it's not every day that an historian has the chance to work on a literature drop that doesn't involve sore feet and talking through screen doors.
So join me, if you will, for a special request from Jerry Northington, Delaware's next Representative in Washington – and in the process, get turned on to the history of the "First State" and one of her more famous sons – inspirational Declaration of Independence-signer Caesar Rodney.
Historiorant: Jerry's official campaign announcement is currently scheduled for Friday, September 14, but things at northington08.com are already moving at full speed ahead. If you're a denizen of cyberspace, visit the site to see what the campaign of a progressive blogger and compelling voice of reason looks like; If you live in Delaware, go to there to learn more about a Vietnam vet-cum-educator-cum veterinarian who's promising to "say 'stop' to this insanity and speak up for peace, jobs and truth in the halls of Congress" on your behalf.
Meet Delaware
Delaware is one of only a handful of states that has more Senators than Representatives, which is largely a function of size – it's 49th in area (2491 sq. miles), but 45th in population (783,600, by 2000 census), putting the "Blue Hen State" at 7th on the list of highest population densities. It did, at one point, have two representatives, but that was back when the flag had 15 stars and 15 stripes – not since 1823 has Delaware claimed more than a single seat in the House. It's similarly modest in terms of elevation – the high point is just shy of 450 feet above sea level, and is marked with a sign, a geodetic marker, and white paint on the edge of a sidewalk. Yet there's a reason Thomas Jefferson referred to the place as a "jewel;" its strategic location at the approaches to Philadelphia and the Chesapeake and the natural beauty of Delaware's low, rolling hills and flat, sandy coastal plains have made it a desirable place to live since long before the arrival of even the third President's ancestors.
The Lenape tribes and kinship groups who lived in the region prior to the Europeans were mobile pastoralists, using small-scale agriculture and a semi-nomadic lifestyle to support their hunting and gathering activities. They and their cultural-linguistic brethren (they were considered the oldest of the Algonquin-speaking tribes) occupied a region stretching from the northern reaches of Delaware Bay to beyond West Point on the Hudson, encompassing all of New Jersey, much of extreme eastern Pennsylvania, and the land now occupied by New York City and its Long Island environs.
When Europeans arrived and renamed the land they were standing on, the tribes in the southern reaches became known as the Delaware, and this is the name which stuck as they endured a long-running conflict with the Iroquois, relentless pressure from European colonialists, and finally nearly a dozen forced relocations that by 1860 found the remaining Delaware living in Oklahoma. Nevertheless, it may be they who inspired that famous sense of "firstness" for which the state is noted – the Lenape were the first tribe to sign an alliance with the Revolutionary government, on the promise of a leadership role in a future Native American state that, despite their contributions to the anti-English effort, never materialized after the war was won.
In a sense, the Lenape were bedeviled by their own good taste in land – it was a Lenape clan that "sold" Manhattan to the Dutch (a transaction which has been traditionally and profitably taken wildly out of context), and Lenape tribes that struck the first fur-trapping deals with Europeans. The entire region was eventually cleared of the stream-clogging pestilence of beavers after the Dutch got the Iroquois involved in some healthy, market-glutting competition, and the two tribes began to fight over who could provide the most pelts. To facilitate their operations in the New World, the Netherlanders started sprinkling colonies and trading posts at strategic places along the coast, basing their right to do so on claims made on their behalf in 1609 by Englishman Henry Hudson, a mercenary explorer then in Dutch employ.
17th Century Smackdown: Sweden versus Holland!
If "I saw it first" counted, then the Spanish or Portuguese (whose explorers had sighted the shores, but not attempted to settle anything permanent) would've had a case, but as things turned out, they were more interested in exploiting points south. In 1610, Englishman Samuel Argall sailed into the Bay after being blown off course in a storm; it was he who gave the region its name, in honor of Thomas West, the 3rd Baron De La Warr, whom Argall had brought to Jamestown just in time to refocus the settler's energies from starvation to attacking local Indians in the First Anglo-Powhatan War. West, who had been named Governor-for-life, likely never laid eyes upon his namesake territory, as he sickened and returned to England after only a couple of years in Virginia.
The English might have named it, but it was the Dutch who were the first Europeans to attempt to settle Delaware. In 1631, Captain David Pietersen de Vries organized a group of about 30 Dutchmen into a trading company, and under the command of Captain Peter Heyes (of the ship De Walvis, "The Whale") they built a small settlement at Zwaanendael, near modern-day Lewes. Alas, when Captain de Vries arrived the next year, he found the colony had gone Roanoke on him (though the evidence was a little more clear that in the case of "Valley of the Swans" that the destruction of the settlement was the doing of the natives).
Six years later, the Swedes showed up and tried to get a late foot in the door of the colony game by establishing a settlement near what's now the center of the city of Wilmington. They were aided in this through the not-so-good offices of Peter Minuit, a colonial governor who'd been recalled to Holland and sacked (the long shadow of Zwaanendael?) from his job as Director of New Netherland. Hearing that King Gustavus Adolphus was interested in expanding the Realm of Sweden, the opportunistic Minuit made his way to Stockholm. Over the course of the five years after the King's death in November, 1632 (at the Battle of Luetzen in the 30 Years' War), he wrangled himself a leadership gig at the head of two ships and a couple hundred Swedish and Finnish settlers.
Weird Historical Sidenotes: A replica of one of the Swedish ships, Kalmar Nyckel ("Key of Kalmar"), was launched in 1997, and is billed by her official website as "the tall ship of Delaware." The other, smaller ship under Minuit's direction was named Fogel Grip ("Griffen"), though spellings vary.
As to the Finns, since Sweden included modern Finland back in those heady 30 Years of War, many of the "Swedish" settlers who came to Delaware were in fact Finnish-speakers from the boondock provinces of Savonia and Kainuu. The fact that they were already slash-and-burn agriculturalists from deep in a wilderness frontier made them excellent recruits for transatlantic transplanting.
Upon making landfall, the colonists erected a fort at the confluence of Brandywine Creek and the Christina River, about two miles upstream of the Christina's mouth on the Delaware. The Swedes named both the Christina River and their fort after Gustavus' 12 year-old daughter and new Queen of Sweden, and set about expanding her Realm by building the first of the log cabins that were later to become such a fixture on the American frontier (that's right: Abe Lincoln was born in what was essentially a Swede-designed home that came to Kentucky via Wilmington, Delaware. Viva Ikea. – u.m.).
In 1651, the Dutch showed up again, this time under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant, the Governor of New Netherland from 1647 to 1664. A few years earlier, Stuyvesant had lost a leg fighting the Portuguese in the Caribbean, but this didn't deter him from brazenly erecting a settlement at Fort Casimir (near present-day Newcastle), only 7 miles south of Fort Christina. By 1654, the Swedes had had enough of Dutch menacing, and in one of colonial America's great miscalculations, attacked and occupied Fort Casimir. This invited retaliation the following year by an enraged Peter Stuyvesant and a force of around 700 men, which retook the Dutch fort and ended Sweden's territorial ambitions in the New World once and for all. The sealed the matter by renaming the Swede's fort "Altena," and within a short time were obligated by demographics to construct the town of New Amstel (later renamed New Castle) so as to accommodate a new wave of Dutch West India Company enthusiasts.
Nine years later, at his New Amsterdam (interesting link about African residents of the colony – u.m.) headquarters, it was Stuyvesant's turn to face the sting of defeat. The English, having already forced him into concessions relating to Connecticut's borders, now showed up offshore (and during a period of uneasy peace between the two countries) in four frigates, all of which were training their canon on what would someday be lower Manhattan south of Wall Street. Stuyvesant, who had received bad intel about British intentions, was forced to surrender the town and fort without firing a shot.
The conquerors promptly renamed the settlement in honor of the Duke of York – the future James II, last Catholic King of England) – and though the Dutch tried to re-designate it once more (after an armada captured it in 1673), the Treaty of Westminster the following year placed New York conclusively in British hands and ended Dutch colonial ambitions the same way they'd ended that of the Swedes. For his part, Stuyvesant, returning home to face the music, endured the predictable scapegoating and afterward relocated to New York for good, working his farm – known as "Bouwerie" – from 1667 until his death in 1672.
Circles, Wedges, and the Diamond State
Caecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore and Proprietor of Maryland (man, parents knew how to name a kid back then! – u.m.) made a power play for possession of the Delaware region, but the Duke subverted his plans by tossing control to William Penn, who agreed to a leasing arrangement so as to secure ocean access for his colony of Pennsylvania (est. 1681) and city of Philadelphia (founded 1682, incorporated 1701). These "Three Lower Counties" – from north to south, they are Newcastle, Kent (formerly St. Jones), and Sussex (formerly Deale) – were represented in Pennsylvania's General Assembly from 1682 to 1704, and Newcastle served as Penn's initial headquarters upon his arrival in the territory that bore his name.
By the dawn of the 18th century, it was clear that Delaware's interests were not always going to be the same as those of the rest of the Province of Pennsylvania, despite the loyalty oath taken upon Penn's arrival and a defined place in his "Frame of Government." Still, even after their respective legislative bodies began meeting separately in Philadelphia and Newcastle, Penn's heirs retained their proprietary claim over the Lower Counties, and were obligated to beat back occasional attempts by Baron Baltimore's heirs to redraw Delaware's boundaries.
That particular dispute was largely put to rest with the survey completed between 1763 and 1768 by Line-drawing surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, but it was far from the last of Delaware's border oddities. There's The Wdege, for one, but even more unique is that in 1750, the borders around Newcastle were drawn by the simple expedient of taking a compass scaled to represent an arc of 12 miles on a map, placing the point at the cupola of the Newcastle courthouse, and drawing a circle. Everything inside the Twelve-Mile Circle belonged to Delaware, including the tip of a tiny peninsula on the New Jersey side and the entire mouth of the Delaware River. The claim goes back to a 1682 document Penned by the man himself:
all that the Towne of Newcastle otherwise called Delaware and All that Tract of Land lying within the Compass or Circle of Twelve Miles about the same scituate lying and being upon the River Delaware in America And all Islands in the same River Delaware and the said River and Soyle thereof lying North of the Southermost part of the said Circle of Twelve Miles about the said Towne.
Weird Historical Sidenote: New Jersey has periodically made a fuss about the fact that virtually every other river border is determined at the thalweg - the middle of the channel. In 1934 and 1935, the Supreme Court told the states that the borders were fixed and they were never to bring the matter up again, but it's turned out to be the sort of thing that never really goes away. In 2005, New Jersey sought to grant natural gas concessions to BP on its side of the River, but this was opposed by Delaware as it would have run afoul of that state's Coastal Zone Act, a 1971 environmental law. In January, 2006, bureaucrats were dispatched to study the matter, and their decision is almost certain to ensure legal limbo for decades to come. In the meantime, men of symbolic action in the Delaware Congress yelled for a calling up of the militia, but backed down when Jerseyites started muttering about their legendary Battleship, moored just upriver.
However oddly-defined its borders, people kept coming to - and being born in - Delaware in the early 1700s. The majority of the (mostly Anglican) colonials in Kent and Sussex Counties had their interests represented by a faction known as the "Court" party, and followed a generally conciliatory path toward the British, even into the Revolution. Ulster Scots settled were attracted to New Castle County, were they gathered under the banner of the smaller but more anti-British "Country" party. Though technically still a part of Pennsylvania, Delaware was growing more distinct as its own entity, and when it later voted to declare independence from the Crown, it also asserted the right to formulate a state government entirely free of Pennsylvania's ministrations.
The Compulsion of Conscience
It was into this milieu that Caesar Rodney was born in 1728, on an aristocratic, 800-acre farm in Kent County called Byfield, in a prosperous district known as the Dover One Hundred. He was the scion of some of the original, Penn-sponsored English settlers, and his family was politically very well connected – his grandfather William had been Speaker of the Colonial Assembly of the Lower Counties in 1704, and Byfield was next door to Poplar Hall, the farm of the powerful Dickinson family (John Dickinson was a contemporary of Caesar Rodney's and one of only four men to sign both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution – though he declined to put his John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence). Caesar traced his family's wealth back to the Old World, too – his Christian (Episcopalian, to be precise) name honored his comfortably-situated Aldemare family ancestors in the town of Treviso, Italy (who were presumably not Episcopalian).
In any event, his father seemed a little nonplussed about the whole thing. In his journal, he wrote:
October 7 - Hung some tobacco. Came in, got dinner and killed some squirrels ... About eleven o'clock at night, my wife awakened me for she was very bad. I got up and sent for ye midwife and women. But before any came, ye child was born and it was a SON. There was no soul with her but myself, being I believe just about midnight.
Delaware's Hero for all Times
Caesar Rodney (a classic name, even from an era when parents seemed to delight in creating reversible monikers) was home-schooled in his primary years, but later attended Latin School in Philadelphia. His father died in 1745, when the boy was only 17, and Caesar – though the eldest son, and thus responsible for running the farm and the slaves that worked it – fell under the guardianship of Nicholas Ridgely, Clerk of the Peace for Kent County. It is here that his interest in politics seems to have developed, and Ridegly seems to have taken the lad under his wing: by the time he was 22, Rodney was being commissioned High Sheriff of Kent County, and performed the job well enough that he saw the responsibilities of the office expand to include all manner of record-keeping and justice-of-the-peacing. He never did marry – the story goes that early on, the love of his life ran off with a preacher, and he never really recovered from the blow. If the descriptions of him are to be considered objective, one might see how he could have developed a certain degree of social awkwardness – from the Wikipedia entry:
John Adams described Rodney, suffering from asthma as well as skin cancer of the face, as "the oddest looking man in the world; he is tall, thin and slender as a reed, and pale; his face is not bigger than a large apple, yet there is sense and fire, spirit, wit and humor in this countenance." The cancer on his face was a source of great discomfort for many years and was so disfiguring that he often wore a green silk scarf to conceal it. Goodrich summed up his character as "a man of great integrity, and of pure patriotic feeling. He delighted, when necessary, to sacrifice his private interests for the public good. He was remarkably distinguished for a degree of good humor and vivacity; and in generosity of character was an ornament to human nature."
Against the far-off backdrop of the French and Indian/Seven Years' War (he was commissioned a captain in the Dover Hundred Company of a regiment of Delaware militia; the unit never saw action), Rodney was first elected to the post of Assemblyman in 1761 - thus, when Prime Minister Pitt's bills came due at the end of the war, Rodney was in a position to do more than mutter into an ale mug about the onerous Stamp Act that was to be used to relieve the debt. His politics had always aligned more closely with the sentiments of the folks in New Castle than the Court Party neighbors of his youth, and in the great debates of the time, Rodney usually sided with the independence-minded Thomas McKean of New Castle instead of with fellow Kent/Sussex gentrymen like John Dickinson and George Read.
Caesar Rodney's developing political views, which mirrored those of many increasingly-frustrated colonials, were well-described by Daily Kos and Progressive Historians author mkfox as part of the epic Forgotten Founding Fathers series:
Like most who opposed Parliament's taxes, Rodney remained loyal to the King and Britain at this time but was annoyed by Parliament's increased infringements on the colonists' liberty: "If our fellow-subjects of Great Britain, who derive no authority from us, who cannot in our humble opinion represent us, and to whom we will not yield in loyalty and affection to your majesty, can at their will and pleasure, of right, give and grant away our property; if they enforce an implicit obedience to every order or act of theirs for that purpose, and deprive all, or any of the assemblies on this continent, of the power of legislation, for differing with them in opinion in matters which intimately affect their rights and interests, and every thing that is dear and valuable to Englishmen, we cannot imagine a case more miserable; we cannot think that we shall have even the shadow of liberty left."
mkfox, Forgotten Founding Fathers: Caesar Rodney
As the 1760s wore on, Rodney became increasingly pro-independence, and like many like-minded folk since, took up pen and quill and began blogging about it. In those days – especially after British misbehavior during the Gaspee incident in 1772 – blogs were known as Committees of Correspondence, and diaries/stories/articles as "broadsides," but the idea was the same – establish lines of communication between like-minded folks and report to one another about threats to liberty.
Weird Historio-Political Parallel: Another of Delaware's sons, Jerry Northington, is a member of today's progressive Committees of Correspondence – under the pseudonym possum, he has been a voice of reasoned, compassionate experience – what would you expect from a veterinarian? – at blogs like Daily Kos and Never In Our Names. In the interest of both transparency in politics and exploring the organizational and people-powered aspects of netroots politics, Jerry is maintaining a frequently-updated campaign blog. Check it out, for a taste of that old Tom Paine spirit!
Listen my children, and you shall hear,
Of the midnight ride of Caesar Rodney
As relations with England continued to deteriorate in the early 1770s, Rodney agitated openly for a new paradigm. He was Speaker of the Assembly of the Lower Counties on June 15, 1775, when, "with Rodney in the chair and McKean leading the debate on the floor," Delaware severed its ties with Parliament and the King, which put him on a collision course with his old Kent/Sussex colleagues and neighbors, who were roundly siding with the Loyalist/Tory cause. It also put him in the unenviable position of alternating his time between serving as one of Delaware's three delegates to the First Continental Congress and as a Brigadier General in Delaware's patriot militia in charge of suppressing Loyalists in the southern counties.
Weird Historio-Political Parallel: Jerry Northington also wore the uniform of his nation, in a combat zone and in a time of war – something that can be said about very few Democratic candidates for office, to say nothing of the near-nonexistent Republican veteran. Rodney and Northington both saw first hand the nature and consequences of war, and the experience helped to define the men both of them became. Jerry's written more about his service and stint in Vietnam on his official campaign site.
So it was that Caesar Rodney found himself in Dover, putting down yet another Loyalist insurrection in Sussex County, on July 1, 1776. This was when he received word that Delaware's two other delegates were in Philadelphia, debating the wording and adoption of the Declaration of Independence with the other delegates to the Continental Congress. On the morrow the state delegations would vote on ratification, and it was obvious to all that the state-by-state voting would be close. Of the three-member Delaware delegation, Representatives McKean and Dickinson were about to cast votes that would cancel each other out – with the end result that Delaware would not support the Declaration.
Rodney rode into a driving thunderstorm on the night of July 1st-2nd, 1776, and...well, sometimes it's best to let traditional poems with unknown authors tell of the stakes and the story:
Caesar Rodney's Ride
Traditional, author unknown
In that soft mid-land where the breezes bear
The North and South on the genial air,
Through the county of Kent on affairs of State,
Rode Caesar Rodney, the delegate.
Burley and big, and bold and bluff,
In his three-cornered hat and coat of snuff,
A foe to King George and the English State,
Was Caesar Rodney, the delegate.
Into Dover village he rode apace,
And his kinsfolk knew from his anxious face,
It was matter grave that brought him there,
To the counties three upon the Delaware.
"Money and men we must have," he said,
"Or the Congress fails and our cause is dead,
Give us both and the King shall not work his will,
We are men, since the battle of Bunker Hill."
Comes a rider swift on a panting bay;
"Ho, Rodney, ho! you must save the day,
For the Congress halts at a deed so great,
And your voice alone may decide its fate."
Answered Rodney then; "I will ride with speed;
It is Liberty's stress; it is Freedom's need."
"When stands it?" "To-night." "not a moment to spare,
But ride like the wind from Delaware."
"Ho, saddle the black! I've but half a day,
And the Congress sits eighty miles away —
But I'll be in time, if God grants me grace,
To shake my fist in King George's face."
He is up; he is off! and the black horse flies
On the northward road ere the "God-speed" dies,
It is gallop and spur, as the leagues they clear,
And the Clustering mile-stones move a-rear.
It is two of the clock; and the fleet hoofs fling
The Fieldsboro dust with a clang and a cling,
It is three; and he gallops with slack rein where
The road winds down to the Delaware.
Four; and he spurs into New Castle town,
From his panting steed he gets him down
"A fresh one quick! and not a moment's wait!"
And off speeds Rodney, the delegate.
It is five; and the beams of the western sun
Tinge the spires of Wilmington, gold and dun;
Six; and the dust of Chester street
Flies back in a cloud from his courser's feet.
It is seven; the horse-boat, broad of beam,
At the Schuylkill ferry crawls over the stream
And at seven fifteen by the Rittenhouse clock,
He flings his rein to the tavern jock.
The Congress is met; the debate's begun,
And Liberty lags for the vote of one
When into the hall, not a moment late,
Walks Caesar Rodney, the delegate.
Not a moment late! and that half day's ride
Forwards the world with a mighty stride;
For the act was passed; ere the midnight stroke
O'er the Quaker City its echoes woke.
At Tyranny's feet was the gauntlet flung;
"We are free!" all the bells through the colonies rung,
And the sons of the free may recall with pride,
The day of Delegate Rodney's ride.
Rodney fully understood that his vote meant war, and having cast it, he did his part. After briefly serving with General Washington after the Battle of Princeton in 1777 (at which a dear friend of his had been killed), Rodney was promoted to Major-General and returned to Delaware to suppress Loyalists and deter British incursion. After the disaster at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11th and the subsequent loss of Philadelphia and Wilmington, he was elected President of Delaware on March 31, 1778. In this office, he didn't quite have the power of a governor: the President was elected by the legislature, and the only means of enforcing his authority was subject to the loyalty of his patriot militia.
Weird Historio-Political Parallel: Back then, and again in the Civil War, Delaware's position on a crossroads of North and South led to close majorities, internal dissension and strife, and tough-but-successful uphill fights for people strong enough to lead others of strong conviction. Now, none of that happens to have anything to do with the fact that Delaware is one of the Bluest states in America (Gore '00; Kerry '04) still being represented by a Republican in the House, and that Jerry Northington is just the kind of candidate who can tap into such a zeitgeist – I'm just sayin'...
Numbers vary, but Delaware provided around 4000 men for the militia and Continental Army during the war, with Rodney effectively deploying his resources during the long years of deprivation and crisis in support of the independence effort. Delaware men – who picked up the nickname "Blue Hens" for their habit of bringing their fighting cocks with them for their after-the-march, round-the-campfire entertainment – served in a regiment in battles from Long Island to Monmouth, though they were folded into a reformed regiment from Maryland after the crushing defeat at Camden, South Carolina.
Rodney also faced insurrection in his own back yard, with the rise of Loyalist Cheney Clow, who gathered a small army and built a fort just east of the Maryland/Delaware line. After a couple of small skirmishes in April, 1778, Clow's forces abandoned the fort to patriot torches and took to the swamps and forests, thereafter waging a low-intensity terror campaign against Whigs and (from their perspective) Rebels for the remainder of the war. Like other governors with large Loyalist contingents, Rodney was forced to adopt strict measures such as embargoes and loyalty oaths in order to curtail Tory activities – and in those days of strong convictions, compelling a man to take an oath against his own beliefs brought on great mental anguish.
Weird Historical Sidenote: According to the Dover Post, Cheney Clow was finally Ruby Ridged at his homestead in 1782, and though he successfully argued that he hadn't committed treason – based on the argument that he'd been a British officer at the time – he was convicted of murder for the killing of one of the sheriff's men who'd surrounded him at his capture. He languished in prison for 5 years (the family history claims it was more like 10), until he demanded that the governor either execute or free him. Owing to public pressure and long memories, Cheney Clow swung from a noose in 1788.
Rodney's health declined amid the stress of war and Sussex privateers, but he hung on to office until after the surrender of Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown in the fall of 1781. He tried to stay busy and put his health and faith in the hands of his physicians –
He referred to his cancer as "that horrid and most obstinate disorder." He later wrote, "The doctor must conquer the cancer, or the cancer will conquer me .... my constitution requires rest and my wish is to indulge it".
Via Delaware's Hero for all Times at www.russpickett.com
- even as the Delaware State Assembly elected him to the United States Congress as it formed under the Articles of Confederation. His health precluded his attendance, but the elected representatives of a new, free state of Delaware still sought to honor and hear the opinion of the wise, principled, convivial leader – in 1783/84, the Legislative Council made him their Speaker one last time, and when Caesar Rodney's condition finally confined him to his home, the upper house of Delaware's legislature moved its meetings there, until his passing around June 25, 1784.
Caesar Rodney was buried in a family plot on Byerly, but the location of his remains has become obscured over time – a marker at local church indicates a spot where they may have once rested, as does a small slab at the old farmsite. Perhaps it's meant to be that way – in a way, Caesar Rodney's spirit is about all of Delaware, not a single spot somewhere within it. It's a spirit perhaps best embodied by the words traditional holds Rodney spoke as he passed through the doors of Independence Hall, bedraggled from his 80-mile gallop through the mud and rain:
"As I believe the voice of my constituents and of all sensible and honest men is in favor of independence, my own judgment concurs with them. I vote for independence."
Jerry Northington holds dear the same impassioned belief in representative government as his Delaware forebear; that's why he's evoking the memory of Caesar Rodney as part of his campaign for Delaware's At-Large House seat in the 2008 Elections. Like his state's President of elevenscore years ago, Jerry has consistently shown a dual ability to express and act upon principled beliefs and a clear understanding of how government by the people is supposed to work. He'd appreciate your dropping by his site - northington08.com - and participating in the process of tapping the energy of a new generation of patriots.
Historiorant:
Apologies to those who may have tuned in for Part II of the Plain Progressive saga, but as I mentioned in the intro, I don't get to BREAK!!! such cool stories all that often. We'll be back to the Silver Bugs and the positively Rovian Mark Hanna next week – in the meantime, please think about showing our progressive brother possum some love! And since possum supports Road2DC.com, you should go there and support them, too!
Historically hip entrances to the Cave of the Moonbat can be found at Daily Kos, Progressive Historians, and Never In Our Names