By William H. Benson
The Parallel Lives
Of The NOBLE AMERICAN RELIGIOUS THINKERS AND BELIEVERS:
Roger Williams VS. Cotton Mathers
NEW ARTICLES
Thoughts on Kings
In Shakespeare’s play, “Henry IV, Part II,” Act 3, Scene 1, the King, dressed in a nightgown, delivers a monologue. In it, the king asks, “How many thousands of my poorest subjects are at this hour asleep?” Yet, “Nature’s soft nurse,” is not for him. He finishes with often-quoted words,
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” a reflection back to Damocles’s hanging sword.
Thomas Paine hated the idea of a king, a monarch. In much of his work, “Common Sense,” Paine ridicules the idea that a king must rule over people. Paine writes,
“There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the World.”
Throughout “Common Sense,” Paine calls for independence from England, from Parliament, from King George III, saying, “Let us come to a final separation.”
Thomas Paine felt thrilled when he saw “Common Sense,” first published on January 10, 1776. Six months later, on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress that brought together representatives from the thirteen colonies approved Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.
After the French Revolution, the autocratic general Napoleon claimed the title of king. On December 2, 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame de Paris.
During the coronation, he received the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowned himself, a signal that he rejected the Pontiff’s authority.
Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints, claimed for himself three titles, that of Prophet, Priest, and King, at Nauvoo, Illinois, on April 11, 1844, three months after he announced he was running for President in the November 1844 election.
Smith did not win that election, because he was assassinated on June 27, 1844.
This past week, the nation read the chilling words, “Long live the king,” in reference to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s attempt to end the congestion pricing program in the State of New York, a state policy that has worked ok the past seven weeks to reduce city traffic.
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, felt outraged. She said,
“The state of New York has not labored under a king in 250 years, and we’re not going to start now. The streets of this city were where battles were fought, and we stood up to a king, and we won then. You know New Yorkers. We do not back down, not now, not ever.”
The governor is correct about the American Revolution’s battles in and around New York City. George Washington was close to defeat on numerous occasions there, but he would escape to fight another day, summoning reserves of strength to defeat the British and King George III.
Washington achieved that win in Virginia, his native state, with the French navy’s assistance.
Thomas Paine asks a question, “Where is the King of America?” To answer, Paine suggests a formal ceremony, where an official would place a written Charter of laws atop a Bible, and “let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that in America the law is king.”
A second quote by William Shakespeare. “Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, to unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.” The Bard is saying that over time the world’s grasping kings will experience a humbling, that truth will appear, and it will banish falsehood.
The paradox is that “life often presents a confused picture of events, and it is difficult to discern truth from falsehood.” It is to the historians that we look for clarity between the two.
Common sense tells us much. Shakespeare tells us much more.
Stars
The one constellation I can identify without much effort is Ursa Major, “the greater or larger Bear,” or the Big Dipper, in the northern sky.
Last time in these pages, I talked about Ralph Waldo Emerson’s fruit trees, and that the wise men, who came from the east to Judea, came bearing expensive gifts, three minerals, and yet today we give three types of foods—fruits, nuts, and sweets—to our children on Christmas Day.
Fruits
In 1905, the USDA published a bulletin: Nomenclature of the Apple: A Catalog, that listed 17,000 names. After removing the duplicate names, it still listed 14,000 different varieties of the apple.
Between Captain John Smith in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and the beginning of the 20th century,
A look at the amendments of the U.S. Constitution
On Sept. 25, 1789, James Madison submitted 12 amendments to the new Constitution. This is the story of what happened to those amendments.
Milton Hershey School, part II
Last time in these pages I began a review of a recent book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City. Its author, Andrea Elliott, focused on a middle school girl named Dasani, who grew up in a series of New York City housing projects, a step away from homelessness.
After Elliott published an expose in the New York Times on Dasani’s plight, the girl was awarded a scholarship to attend Milton Hershey’s middle school, in Hershey, Pennsylvania. She arrived at the private school in late January of 2015, as a 14-year-old African-American girl, lonely and scared.
Milton Hershey School
Earlier this month, a New York Times reporter named Andrea Elliott published a book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City.
In the book, Andrea delves into the life of a family: Chanel, the mother; Supreme, her husband; and her seven children. In 2012, the family resided in a single room in the Auburn Family Residence, in Brooklyn, New York.
Andrea started her investigative reporting on the city’s poor and destitute by drifting around the Auburn’s front door. In October of 2012, she met Chanel, whose seven children would follow her out the building and down the sidewalk. The family soon let Andrea into their home, via the fire escape.
Tuskegee University
Tuskegee UniversityTuskegee University is a “private, historically black, land-grant university” in east central Alabama, with an endowment of $129 million, as of 2019. That same year 2,876 students were enrolled, and of those, 2,379 were black. Of the 560 degrees...
Older Posts
Smallpox
Called “the most dreadful scourge of the human species,” smallpox begins with fever, muscle pain, headache, and fatigue. Days later lesions will appear first inside the mouth and on the tongue, and later, lesions will attack the skin on forehead, face, trunk, and arms.
The Road to 9-11
During the 1990’s, the Clinton administration received sufficient warnings that Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, intended to continue to carry out attacks upon U. S. citizens and their property, by enlisting suicide bombers.
Afghanistan
The United States will depart Afghanistan on Aug. 31, after almost 20 years of nation-building, the most recent foreign power to surrender that harsh, cold, Himalayan terrain, “the graveyard of empires,” back to the Afghan people.
The British tried three times to tame the poor but fierce Afghan fighters. In the first Afghan War, 1839-1840,
Euclid’s Elements
The Greek mathematician Euclid, who wrote Elements of Geometry, “the most successful textbook of all time,” around 300 BCE, in Alexandria, in Egypt, in northern Africa. Lincoln though took to heart Euclid’s talent for making sense out of the bewildering. Euclid started with 35 definitions, a handful of postulates, a dozen or more axioms, a series of postulates, and argued for a set of theorems, all about triangles, lines, angles, squares, and circles.
Plagues
Rarely do men and women seem free, even for a moment, from the evils that have plagued human beings for millennium: war, poverty, famine, slavery, racism, diseases, pestilence, and natural disasters.
The U.S. armed forces first attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, and now, the twin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are winding down after two decades, wars that have cut short many human lives and caused painful, debilitating injuries. On the horizon is a menacing conflict with China.
Iceland
In recent days a native Icelander named Egill Bjarnason published a book, “How Iceland Changed the World.” I wonder about that title’s bold claim, but nonetheless he writes well, is entertaining.
He begins with the Vikings, and then steps forward, chapter by chapter, until he finishes in the 21st century. Along the way, he brings in plenty of fascinating details about the island’s towns, people, weather, government, and the Northern Lights, an enjoyable and readable geography primer.
One of University of Northern Colorado’s 2020 Honored Alumni
William H. Benson
Local has provided scholarships for history students for 15 years
A Sterling resident is among five alumni selected to be recognized this year by the University of Northern Colorado. Bill Benson is one of college’s 2020 Honored Alumni.
Each year UNC honors alumni in recognition for their outstanding contributions to the college, their profession and their community. This year’s honorees were to be recognized at an awards ceremony on March 27, but due to the COVID-19 outbreak that event has been cancelled. Instead UNC will recognize the honorees in the fall during homecoming Oct. 10 and 11……
Newspaper Columns
The Duodecimal System
For centuries, the ancient Romans calculated sums with their clunky numerals: I, V, X, L, C, D, and M; or one, five, ten, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000. They knew nothing better.
The Thirteenth Amendment
On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and by it, he declared that “all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are and henceforward shall be free.” Lincoln’s Proclamation freed some 3.1 million slaves within the Confederacy.
The Fourteenth Amendment
After Congress and enough states ratified the thirteenth amendment that terminated slavery, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This law declared that “all people born in the United States are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.” The Act equated birth to citizenship.
The New-York Packet and the Constitution
Jill Lepore, the Harvard historian, published her newest book a month ago, These Truths: A History of the United States. In a short introduction, she describes in detail the Oct. 30, 1787 edition of a semi-weekly newspaper, The New-York Packet.
Mr. Benson’s writings on the U.S. Constitution are a great addition to the South Platte Sentinel. Its inspiring to see the history of the highest laws of this country passed on to others.
– Richard Hogan
Mr. Benson, I cannot thank you enough for this scholarship. As a first-generation college student, the prospect of finding a way to afford college is a very daunting one. Thanks to your generous donation, my dream of attending UNC and continuing my success here is far more achievable
– Cedric Sage Nixon
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– Extra Times
FUTURE BOOKS
- Thomas Paine vs. George Whitefield
- Ralph Waldo Emerson vs. Joseph Smith
- William James vs. Mary Baker Eddy
- Mark Twain vs. Billy Graham
- Henry Louis Mencken vs. Jim Bakker
