Latest news with #Colonists
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Is Gloucester ready for Bunker Hill?
Ready or not, Gloucester is about to find out, because on Saturday and Sunday, the city's Stage Fort Park will play host to An aerial view of the Bunker Hill monument in Charlestown in 2021. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Advertisement Picture a thousand reenactors portraying Colonists and British soldiers. Three schooners, standing in for the British Navy, firing cannons from Gloucester Harbor. And perhaps tens of thousands of visitors who are expected to flood the city for the event. The rebels lost at Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, in the first major battle of the Revolutionary War, but proved their mettle against a trained, British army. The reenactment is part of a wider celebration this year of the beginning of the American Revolution. Related : 'While we would love to host this event on the original ground, we just don't have that kind of space in Charlestown, and the goal is to do it justice on a larger scale than that piece of land would allow,' said Tom Dietzel, president of the 10th Massachusetts Regiment and one of the organizers of the event. Advertisement 'It's a dream come true to be able to pull off something with this scope,' he said, noting that you'd have to go back to the Bicentennial celebrations in 1976 to find a Massachusetts reenactment that approaches this scale. Still, many locals are unaware, or confused about why the event is taking place at Visitors climbed the steps on the seawall at Cressy's Beach at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester May 22, 2020. John Blanding/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe And while there is certainly some buzz in Gloucester for the battle reenactment — which will be performed over two days to break up the anticipated crowds — it has stiff competition. That's because the following week is Related : 'All anyone's talking about is Fiesta,' said Horgan, a 31-year-old Gloucesterman who will be walking the greasy pole for the ninth time this year. 'That's all Gloucester thinks about this time of year, but it sounds like we need to start thinking about Bunker Hill before all these people show up.' Advertisement And it could be easy to get people excited, for America's oldest seaport loves its ships. And never has anyone seen what's about to happen in the harbor. 'Very rarely do we in the reenactment community have a chance to involve a naval presence,' said Steve Cole, the captain of the It's going to be big. It's going to be loud,' Cole said. 'And come Saturday, it's going to take over the city, whether the locals know it or not. Billy Baker can be reached at
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump is the kinglike president many feared when arguing over the US Constitution in 1789 – and his address to Congress showed it
If there are any limits to a president's power, it wasn't evident from Donald Trump's speech before a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025. In that speech, the first before lawmakers of Trump's second term, the president declared vast accomplishments during the brief six weeks of his presidency. He claimed to have 'brought back free speech' to the country. He declared that there were only two sexes, 'male and female.' He reminded the audience that he had unilaterally renamed an international body of water as well as the country's tallest mountain. 'Our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and perhaps will never witness again,' Trump asserted. The extravagant claims appear to match Trump's view of the presidency – one virtually kinglike in its unilateral power. It's true that the U.S. Constitution's crucial section about the executive branch, Article 2, does not grant the president unlimited power. But it does make this figure the sole 'Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States.' This monopoly on the use of force is one way Trump could support his 2019 claim that he can do 'whatever I want as President.' Before Trump's speech, protesters outside had taken issue with Trump's wielding of such unchecked power. One protester's sign said, 'We the People don't want false kings in our house.' With those words, she echoed a concern about presidential power that originated more than 200 years ago. When the Constitution was written, many people – from those who drafted the document to those who read it – believed that endowing the president with such powers was dangerous. Ratified after a lot of huffing and puffing, on May 29, 1790, by rather nervous citizens, the text of the Constitution had stirred many controversies. It wasn't just the oftentimes vague language, which includes head-scratchers such as the very preamble, 'We the People of the United States.' Nor was the discomfort due solely to the document's jarring brevity – at 4,543 words, the U.S. Constitution is the shortest written Constitution of any major nation in the world. No, what made that document especially problematic, to borrow from John Adams, was that it provided for 'a monarchical Republick, or if you will a limited Monarchy.' Adams would eventually become the nation's second president in 1797. Even though he was a staunch supporter of the Constitution, he was honest enough to take a hard look over the political layout of the new nation. And what he found were remnants of the British monarchy and traces of a king whose unchecked abuses had led the Colonists to demand their independence in the first place. 'The Name of President,' Adams couldn't help concluding in a letter to prominent Massachusetts lawyer William Tudor, 'does not alter the Nature of his office nor diminish the Regal Authorities and Powers which appear clearly in the Writing.' While Adams was only somewhat uncomfortable, as a historian of the early republic I can stress that other observers at the time were downright appalled. In a 1787 article published in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, 'An Old Whig' – identity unknown – wrote, 'The office of President of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous.' As the commander in chief of the Army, the American president 'is in reality to be a king as much a King as the King of Great Britain, and a King too of the worst kind – an elective King.' Consequently, as the author of this article resolved, 'I shall despair of any happiness in the United States' until this office is 'reduced to a lower pitch of power.' Concern over a commander in chief declaring martial law, no matter the legality of the measure, was similarly on the minds of the Americans who had read the Constitution. In 1788, a patriot who went under the pseudonym of 'Philadelphiensis' – real name, Benjamin Workman – issued a sweeping warning. Should the president decide to impose martial law, 'your character of free citizens' would be 'changed to that of the subjects of a military king.' A president turned military king could 'wantonly inflict the most disgraceful punishment on a peaceable citizen,' the piece continued, 'under pretence of disobedience, or the smallest neglect of militia duty.' Another power given to the president was also universally considered extremely dangerous: that of granting pardons to individuals guilty of treason. Maryland Attorney General Luther Martin reasoned that the treason most likely to take place was 'that in which the president himself might be engaged.' What the president would do, Martin wrote, would be 'to secure from punishment the creatures of his ambition, the associates and abettors of his treasonable practices, by granting them pardons.' George Mason, who participated in the Constitutional Convention and also drafted Virginia's state Constitution, foresaw a gloomy scenario. He shivered at the idea of a president who would 'screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.' The framers did limit executive power in one significant way: The president of the United States is subject to impeachment and, upon conviction of treason or other high crimes, removal from office. But in the meantime, the president may enact irreparable damage. The Constitution was finally ratified – but only begrudgingly by the American citizens, who feared a president's abuse of power. More persuasive than the legal restraints placed on the office, the belief that the people would choose their leader wisely tipped the scale toward approval. Delegate John Dickinson asked a rhetorical question: 'Will a virtuous and sensible people chuse villains or fools for their officers?' Also, 18th-century common sense deemed it improbable that a person without virtue and magnanimity would run for the nation's highest office. Americans' faith in their first president, the upstanding George Washington, helped convince them that all would end well and their Constitution would be sufficient to protect the republic. The Federalist Papers, the 85 essays written to persuade voters to support ratification, were suffused with this optimism. People 'of the character marked out for that of the President of the United States' were widely available, said the Federalist #67. 'It will not be too strong to say,' reads Federalist #68, 'that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue.' Adams wasn't so optimistic. He wavered. And then he flipped the issue on its head. 'There must be a positive Passion for the public good … established in the Minds of the People,' he had written in a 1776 letter, 'or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real liberty.' After almost 250 years of uninterrupted republican life, Americans are used to thinking that their nation is secured by checks and balances. As Adams kept repeating, America aims at becoming 'a government of laws, and not of men.' Americans, in other words, have long believed it is their institutions that make the nation. But the opposite is true: The people are the soul and the conscience of the republic. Everything, in the end, boils down to the character of these people and the control they assert over who becomes their most important leader. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Maurizio Valsania, Università di Torino Read more: Trump's claims of vast presidential powers run up against Article 2 of the Constitution and exceed previous presidents' power grabs 3 ways Trump is acting like a king and bypassing the Constitution's checks and balances on presidential authority What's a constitutional crisis? Here's how Trump's recent moves are challenging the Constitution's separation of powers Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
America's designs on annexing Canada have a long history − and record of political failures
Donald Trump has repeatedly raised the specter of annexing Canada since his inauguration to a second term as president. The president's rhetoric about making Canada 'the 51st state' may seem to project confidence, a 21st-century vision of manifest destiny, a belief in the United States' right and obligation to expand. Trump is not the first American leader to dream of northern expansion. To me, a historian of early U.S.-Canadian relations, these designs suggest not power, but weakness and simmering divisions inside the United States. Even before independence, social conflict helped turn American eyes northward. Throughout the 18th century, England's Colonial population in North America doubled every 25 years. Successive generations of Colonists along the Eastern Seaboard had to compete with each other, and with Indigenous people, for resources, arable land and trade. These unhappy, land-hungry Colonists clamored for expansion, instigating a series of wars against both the French and Spanish empires for control of the northeastern half of the continent, culminating in the French and Indian War, from 1754 to 1763. While these Colonists were animated by their thirst for expansion, they had little else unifying them. Many Americans today are familiar with the 'Join, or Die' cartoon Ben Franklin printed, featuring a segmented snake with each section representing one of the Colonies. However, few realize that it was not crafted during the Revolution to unite Colonists against Britain, but in 1754, to rally divided British Colonists in their war against France. Britain finished conquering Canada in 1763, but the empire never fully supported Colonial expansion northward. In the 1750s and 1760s, British troops forcibly removed French colonists from Acadia in Nova Scotia and recruited thousands of Colonists from neighboring New England to move north. These settlers had long imagined the region rich in fishing and timber to be a land of opportunity. But disillusioned by the financial cost of sustaining their settlements, many of these Colonists returned to New England by the early 1770s. Attempts to settle other lands ceded by France were no more successful. Fearful that Colonists might provoke a costly war with Indigenous people, Parliament issued the Proclamation of 1763, which attempted to protect native land by discouraging Colonial expansion westward. Many Colonists turned against Britain in response, especially those like George Washington, who had speculated in the land west of the Appalachian Mountains. In the earliest months of the Revolution, the Continental Congress authorized an American invasion of British-occupied Quebec. In a letter addressed to 'Friends and Brethren' of Canada, Washington himself implored Canadians to join invading troops. 'The Cause of America, and of Liberty, is the Cause of every virtuous American Citizen,' he wrote. 'Come then, ye generous Citizens, range yourselves under the Standard of general Liberty.' But at home, Colonists were far from united in their rebellion. Historians estimate that around 20% of the white Colonial population, more than 500,000 people, remained loyal to Britain, and an even larger number hoped to remain neutral. The difficult realities of conquest also turned many soldiers against the invasion of Canada. In late October 1775, nearly a quarter of the underfed and overworked troops under the command of soon-to-be turncoat Benedict Arnold abandoned their arduous journey through interior Maine toward Canada. The soldiers who carried on prayed these deserters 'might die by the way, or meet with some disaster, Equal to the Cowardly dastardly and unfriendly Spirit they discover'd in returning Back without orders.' The more resilient troops who reached Quebec were emphatically defeated by British forces in December, making Washington skeptical of any future efforts to attack Canada. Following American independence, tens of thousands of loyal Colonists sailed north to Canada, determined to build British colonies that would become what one of these refugees called 'the envy of the American States.' Their presence on the contested northern border was an unsettling reminder to the new American nation about the power Britain still exerted on the continent. Conflict with Britain over land and trade in the early 1800s reopened old divisions among Americans. Virginia Congressman John Randolph expressed his frustrations with renewed calls for a northern invasion. 'We have but one word, like the whip-poor-will, but one eternal monstrous tone,' an exasperated Randolph noted, 'Canada! Canada! Canada!' The debate over Canada was one of many issues dividing the nation, and as President James Madison would later explain, he hoped that war would help unify a polarized nation. His gamble paid off, but only after opponents from New England flirted with the idea of secession to negotiate their own end to conflict. When the popular editor and columnist John O'Sullivan called for the annexation of Texas and war with Mexico in 1845, he also suggested the annexation of Canada would naturally follow. The anti-expansionist response united pacifists, abolitionists and a variety of religious and literary figures, helping deepen the divides that would lead to the Civil War. Trump's posturing has served to unite Canadians and revive Canadian nationalism. In the U.S., most people seem to understand the practical hurdles of adding a new state or dismiss the idea altogether. One example of annexation talk from the 20th century, however, might serve as a warning to Trump, showing how aggressive rhetoric toward Canada has led to political defeat. In 1911, a bill creating free trade with Canada passed Congress with the support of President William Taft, despite objections from protectionists in both parties. In an attempt to have the agreement defeated in the Canadian Parliament, U.S. opponents from both sides of the aisle attempted to stir popular sentiment against the U.S. in Canada. Champ Clark, the Democratic speaker of the House and a front-runner for the presidential nomination in 1912, seized on the moment. 'I hope to see the day when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions, clear to the North Pole,' Champ proclaimed on the House floor. William Stiles Bennet, a Republican, proposed a resolution that would authorize the president to begin negotiations for annexation. Their approach to defeating the trade agreement worked, at least in Canada. In the general election of September 1911, worried Canadian voters ousted the Liberal Party, which had supported free trade, and the new Conservative majority rejected the agreement. Back home, however, the plan backfired. Woodrow Wilson, not Clark, secured the Democratic nomination in 1912 and would go on to defeat both the incumbent Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt. The bluster led not to success and victory, but loss and defeat. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: G. Patrick O'Brien, University of Tampa Read more: Canada and Greenland aren't likely to join the US anytime soon – but 'GrAmeriCa' is a revealing thought experiment Trudeau taps out: How Trump's taunts and tariff threats added to domestic woes confronting Canada's long-standing PM If US attempts World Bank retreat, the China-led AIIB could be poised to step in – and provide a model of global cooperation G. Patrick O'Brien does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
