postdated

The manuscript written on vellum, dated July 4, 1776, now displayed in a baroque case at the National Archives, where it is protected by bulletproof glass, argon gas and the 55-ton underground vault it is lowered into every night ... was not written on July 4; it was a handwritten copy that Congress ordered later that summer and post-dated. The version that was in the room as the vote was taken has never been seen since then.

Ted Widmer writing in Looking for Liberty (in this morning's New York Times) about the extant copies of the Declaration of Independence, which was spirited away for printing and distribution shortly after it was signed, and then misplaced.

Caught my attention because I was once sternly advised by the legal department of the organization I worked for that it was NOT okay to sign and postdate documents -- if we all wanted to stay out of jail.

This also caught my attention when I pulled out the replica of the Declaration that I picked up at the Library of Congress on its fake crinkly parchment (that yes makes me cry every time I read it -- how many ways can you spell g.e.e.k.?):

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Just sayin'.



& p.s. The Declaration in "American" as translated by H.L. Mencken and run just recently in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch »

land of lincoln

Lest we forget, he came to Washington from Illinois. Even though we think of him as the American Jesus, he had a little Mayor Daley in him too.

Sarah Vowell writing about, er, Abraham Lincoln and his Gettysburgh Address in The Partly Cloudy Patriot.

I picked up Vowell's book hard on the heels of reading Garry Wills' Two Speeches on Race in the 1 May 2008 issue of the New York Review of Books, in which Wills favorably compares Obama's speech on race and Lincoln's 1860 Cooper Union speech in which Lincoln addressed his association with John Brown and commented on the Dred Scott Decision. Says Wills:

What is of lasting interest is their similar strategy for meeting the charge of extremism.

Both argued against the politics of fear. Neither denied the darker aspects of our history, yet they held out hope for what Lincoln called here the better 'lights of current experience' -- what he would later call the 'better angels of our nature.'

Each looked for larger patterns under the surface bitternesses of their day. Each forged a moral position that rose above the occasions for their speaking.

Apologies for the lack of linkage & the funky formatting -- queuing this up en route to Vegas. Will update soon.

Update: Linked.