Novanglus and Massachusettensis

July 4, 2014

Many people have a vague idea that the battle for American independence from Great Britain began with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. But the battle really began much earlier—almost a decade earlier, when American colonists first began protesting “taxation without representation” in the British Parliament. Unrest turned to violence in 1770, when a crowd of angry Boston colonists surrounded a group of British soldiers, who fired into the crowd and killed three people in what became known as the Boston Massacre. In 1773 came the Boston Tea Party, during which saboteurs dressed as Mohawks dumped over 300 chests of British tea into Boston Harbor. Punishment was swift: the British government closed Boston Harbor and passed the “Intolerable Acts,” which, among other things, stripped the Massachusetts Bay Colony of its right to self-government.

The battle wasn’t just waged in the streets or in the harbor. A bitter war of words erupted among the intellectual elite of the colonies, who were split in their opinions of Parliament’s actions. Among the combatants was a feisty Boston lawyer named John Adams (1735-1826), a future Founding Father and President of the United States. Adams, ironically, represented several of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, and his strong self-defense arguments resulted in acquittals. But Adams was no less of a patriot for that. He simply understood how important it was for the American cause to ensure that the soldiers had a fair trial.

Adams

John Adams

A few years later, as American-British relations deteriorated, Adams employed his brilliant legal skills to respond to a series of pro-British letters, by someone calling himself “Massachusettensis,” published in a Loyalist Boston newspaper beginning in December 1774. Writing as “Novanglus,” Adams set forth his argument that the colonies were not answerable to the British Parliament.  In 1819, these letters were collected in a volume entitled Novanglus, and Massachusettensis; or Political Essays, Published in the Years 1774 and 1775, on the Principal Points of Controversy, between Great Britain and Her Colonies. The edition that DP volunteers used to prepare the Project Gutenberg e-book was the presentation copy to John Adams from the printers.

In 1775—more than a year before the Declaration of Independence—Adams was not yet arguing for independence from Britain; he expressly disclaimed such a treasonous view. Instead, he stuck to the more subtle argument that the colonies might be subject to the will of the Crown, but they were not subject to Parliament, because they were self-governing. He argued extensively from British statutes and cases involving the similar status of Ireland and Wales.

Adams’s arguments were brilliant, but his opponent “Massachusettensis” was every bit a match for him, arguing his Loyalist views with equal vigor and skill.  Indeed, because “Massachusettensis” was the better writer, his arguments can seem more compelling than Adams’s “huge pile of learning,” as “Massachusettensis” sneeringly called Adams’s scholarly legal citations.

The exchange between “Novanglus” and “Massachusettensis” came to an abrupt halt in April, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The revolution had begun, and there was no going back.

The 1819 edition identifies “Massachusettensis” as Adams’s onetime friend Jonathan Sewall, the last King’s Attorney General for Massachusetts, and Adams himself long believed it was Sewall. But “Massachusettensis” was actually Taunton lawyer and Loyalist Daniel Leonard, another friend from whom Adams later became irrevocably estranged in the turmoil of the Revolution. Leonard was forced to flee America when the British evacuated Boston in 1776; he later became chief justice of Bermuda and then retired to London. When the letters were published in London in 1822, he revealed himself to be “Massachusettensis.”

The 1819 edition of Novanglus, and Massachusettensis also features letters that Adams wrote to various friends and colleagues later in life, recounting the events leading up to the American Revolution. John Adams died on July 4, 1826, at the age of 90. His last words were said to be, “Thomas Jefferson survives”—but the author of the Declaration of Independence had also passed away that very day.

Today, July 4, 2014, is the 238th anniversary of American independence.

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Posted by LCantoni

A Diplomat in Japan: A British view of the Meiji Restoration

May 3, 2014

Every country has at least one historical era that forms the basis of much of its books, film, and television. The United States has the Wild West, and Japan has the Meiji Restoration.

The Meiji Restoration has the makings of great drama. Sparked by Commodore Perry’s opening of Japan, there was dramatic conflict between the Southern Coalition demanding the expulsion of “the barbarians” from Japan, and the Tokugawa Shogunate trying to placate everybody. In that conflict were lies and intrigue; plots, conspiracies, and assassinations; masterless samurai and royalty; and crimes of passion and honor.

There was also a story-book hero: Saigo Takamori. While he helped overthrow the Shogunate and form a modern government, he then led a rebellion against that government when it threatened the samurai class. He came to symbolize a romanticized samurai culture, and the Tom Cruise movie “The Last Samurai” presented a fictionalized version of his story.

Most of the stories about the Meiji Restoration focus on the internal conflict within Japan. The foreigners were mainly treated like secondary characters whose function was comical relief. In woodblock prints, foreigners were represented by grotesque caricatures of ape-like creatures with large noses and red cheeks.

After decades of knowing the story from the Japanese point of view, it was interesting to read A Diplomat in Japan, a recollection of incidents from the viewpoint of the secretary of the British legation in Tokyo. This story is told many years later, in 1903, after Ernest Satow became Sir Ernest.

Sir Ernest based his account upon diaries and letters written at the time of the events described. He did not rely on his memory of what happened decades before. For that I commend him.

In one instance, he wrote:

“My diary contains no further entry until the middle of May, and letters I wrote to my parents narrating the incidents which befel us at Kiôto have not been preserved.”

He states the foreign community has been described by an English diplomat as “the scum of Europe,” but said:

 “No doubt there was a fair sprinkling of men who, suddenly relieved from the restraints which social opinion places upon their class at home, and exposed to the temptations of Eastern life, did not conduct themselves with the strict propriety of students at a theological college. That they were really worse than their co-equals elsewhere is unlikely.”

Describing Yokohama society:

“There were few ladies in the settlement. Japan was a long way from Europe, with no regular steam communication, and the lives of foreigners were supposed to be not very safe at the hands of the arm-bearing classes.”

The danger of the arm-bearing classes is shown in the killing of foreigners, like a merchant named Richardson who was riding with friend when they met with a train of a daimiô’s retainers, who bid them stand aside.

“They passed on at the edge of the road, until they came in sight of a palanquin, occupied by Shimadzu Saburô, father of the Prince of Satsuma. They were now ordered to turn back, and as they were wheeling their horses in obedience, were suddenly set upon by several armed men belonging to the train, who hacked at them with their sharp-edged heavy swords.”

After the Richardson murder, the British demanded satisfaction. The Shogunate cooperated, but the Satsuma clan did not, so British ships attacked the clan in Kagoshima and burnt much of the city.

“The Admiral in his report, which was published in the London ‘Gazette,’ took credit for the destruction of the town, and Mr. Bright very properly called attention to this unnecessary act of severity in the House of Commons; whereupon he wrote again, or Colonel Neale wrote, to explain that the conflagration was accidental. But that I cannot think was a correct representation of what took place, in face of the fact that the “Perseus” continued to fire rockets into the town after the engagement with the batteries was at an end, and it is also inconsistent with the air of satisfaction which marks the despatch reporting that £1,000,000 worth of property had been destroyed during the bombardment.”

The bombardment convinced the Satsuma clan of the superiority of Western weapons, and Sir Ernest eventually became friends with the leaders of the clan.

Later, a conflict with the Choushûu resulted in naval operations against their Shimonoseki batteries. The Choushûu clan also learned the superiority of Western weapons, and Sir Ernest eventually became friends with the leaders of that clan as well.

This led to the situation where Great Britain was friendly with the Southern Coalition while the French were friendly with the Tokugawa Shogunate. The book speaks much of this rivalry between Great Britain and France.

Subsequently the writer witnessed the execution of two murderers by decapitation, and says:

“It was a horrible sight to see the attendants holding the headless corpse down to the hole, and kneading it so as to make the blood flow more readily into the hole, and I left the spot in all haste, vowing that mere curiosity should never induce me to witness another execution.”

There were other incidents, including times when his life was in danger, partly by his own recklessness. He was a bold man, sometimes more reckless than prudent. He was also a good storyteller, but part of the story that he told (maybe unintentionally) was the ignoble role that the European forces played in Japanese society. The British weren’t there for noble reasons, but then neither were the French, Dutch, Americans, North-Germans and Italians. They were all there for the great adventure, and the thrill of the chase for wealth.

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Posted by usbengoshi

Castes and Tribes of Southern India by Edgar Thurston

April 23, 2014

Image of front cover of bookBack in 1995-96, I lived in India for about one and a half years, with the initial idea of making a number of multimedia productions on Indian art, culture, and history, but ended up mostly working on Indian language dictionary databases….

One of the sources I encountered in India was the various multi-volume sets entitled “Castes and Tribes of…” for various regions, such as the Central Provinces, Bengal, The Punjab, and, one of the biggest sets, the seven volume work covering Southern India. All these books were put together at the behest of the British Government by officials and their Indian assistants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. There are even several volumes on “Criminal Tribes”. These sets describe, in its entire intricate detail, the mind-baffling complexity of Indian society a hundred years ago. A society that has been quickly changing and has already lost much of this complexity—sometimes for the better, but sometimes not—and is today changing at an even faster rate, losing much of its colourful diversity in the process.

For one of the multimedia productions, I proposed to digitize the entire set, and produce a CD “Castes and Tribes of India”, to make this massive piece of work available again. The project never made it.

Image of Malayan Devil-Dancers (pl4-441)

Malayan Devil-Dancers

The books are of an encyclopedic nature. After a relatively short general introduction, they treat the castes and tribes in alphabetical order, in articles, that can sometimes just encompass a single paragraph, but sometimes as long enough to fill a monograph. For the time, many of these volumes are lavishly illustrated with photographs (The original set on the Central Provinces even used collotypes, a costly raster-free reproduction technique that preserves the sharpness and details of the original photographs). As the articles are written by various people, and often based on older publications or articles, the quality and scope of the articles varies somewhat, but in general, they give an interesting oversight of each caste or tribe described. Since the terms “caste” and “tribe” are used liberally, you can also find very interesting articles in those books on for example Anglo-Indians, Mar Thoma Christians, and Cochin Jews, and groups living in almost stone-age conditions such as the Irula, as well as the highly secluded Nambudiri Brahmins.

A few years after my return to Holland, in 1998, I managed to purchase an original 1909 copy of Thurston’s 7-volume set on Southern India, as well as reprints of many of the other sets, for digitization and inclusion in Project Gutenberg. At that time, I started scanning these volumes, but just as quickly stopped doing so, as I found out that the scanning would damage the costly volumes, and put the project on hold. I did continue with the (less costly) 4-volume facsimile reprint on the Central Provinces. Several years later, I purchased a scanner that would cause less damage to the books, and continued scanning, and shortly afterwards discovered that the scans were being added to the Internet Archive collection, so I no longer needed to scan the remaining volumes (except for a few missing pages). Anyway, starting from 2006, the projects appeared on the Distributed Proofreading site, slowly but steadily making their moves through the rounds, until, finally, the last volume left the rounds in 2011, and the huge task of post-processing this work started, which was complicated, due to the many words with accents, and the numerous tables in the books. Finally, on 21 June 2013, the entire set got posted on Project Gutenberg.

Almost 18 years after first envisioning this project, and 15 years after starting work on it, one of the biggest projects I’ve worked on for Project Gutenberg has come to a close. If somebody is interested, the original volumes are for sale (they won’t be cheap though). For the time being, I will leave the remaining sets to be picked up by other volunteers.

The 7 volumes of  Castes and Tribes and of Southern India are available here: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII.

The 4 volumes of The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India are available here: I, II, III, VI.

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Posted by Jeroen Hellingman

A Very Special 27,000th Title

March 29, 2014

27,000 titles

It’s time to celebrate another Distributed Proofreaders achievement—our 27,000th title posted to Project Gutenberg, Storia della decadenza e rovina dell’impero romano, an Italian translation of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by the famed English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794).

Decline and Fall is a monumental work, distinguished not only by Gibbon’s outstanding scholarship, but also by his witty, ironic commentary and iconoclastic views of the events he describes. His theory of Rome’s decline and fall was essentially that her citizens had become spoiled by success. The most controversial part of his argument was that Christianity contributed to Rome’s fall by shifting people’s focus from real-life practicalities to a spiritual afterlife.

The Italian translation, by the noted Italian author Davide Bertolotti, is a 13-volume tour-de-force, published in Milan between 1820 and 1824. He based his translation on a 1791 London edition, which Bertolotti described as “ottima e sicura edizione” (“an excellent and trustworthy edition”), mentioned by Gibbon himself in his Memoirs. Bertolotti promised that, unlike a previous Italian translation, “Non una idea, non una parola importante, venne ad essa tolta, mutata od aggiunta” (“Not a single idea, not a single important word, was deleted, changed or added”). That might be a motto for what DP does.

Congratulazioni e grazie to the dedicated DP volunteers who made this milestone possible!

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Posted by LCantoni

Spinning-Wheel Stories

February 13, 2014

Some time ago I smooth-read Spinning-Wheel Stories, by Louisa May Alcott. What a fun book to read! I enjoy Alcott’s story-telling style, and her ability to inject small morals into stories without being too preachy most of the time. She has occasional lapses, as most authors do, but in general she is able to capture and hold my interest. This particular book is a collection of short stories, recited to amuse children who are visiting their grandmother over the Christmas holidays. The children are kept indoors by severe winter weather, and are slowly going stir-crazy. In an effort to amuse the children, Grandmother and Aunt Elinore tell them stories each evening.

One of my favorite little stories in this book is the incident where the children are romping in the attic, and they discover the old spinning wheel. Almost everything else in the attic is dusty and obviously has not been touched for a long time. But the spinning wheel is clean and there is still flax on the distaff. The children lug the spinning wheel down to where Grandmother is sitting next to the fire, and the girls ask her to teach them how to spin.

Grandma's Story

Grandma’s Story

A thrilling tale ensues, as the wheel goes round and round while Grandmother begins her story. There are wolves, a race, and much excitement in this story! And best of all, it’s a true tale of Grandmother’s life.

If I still had young children, I would love to read this book with them. The stories told here recount events from days long gone by: spinning wheels, big-wheel bicycles, young girls learning to cook, heroic Native Americans, and many others. I think youngsters today would probably enjoy the stories, given an opportunity to read them.

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Posted by genknit

The Salem witchcraft, The planchette mystery, and Modern spiritualism

March 13, 2013

Some time ago I worked on a few pages of  The Salem witchcraft, The planchette mystery, and Modern spiritualism, a collection of articles reprinted by the Phrenological Journal.

It got me intrigued, so when I was notified the other week that it was available for smooth reading, I downloaded it.

The book contains three articles, as indicated in the title. The first article: The Salem Witchcraft, was what got me so intrigued back then. I had heard of the Salem witches, but never actually knew what happened there, so this was my chance to find out.

The article is a review of the work of Charles W. Upham. I think it is adequate to say that it is a summary of his work, although I am not (yet) familiar with his books.

The article neatly describes what happened in Salem in the 17th Century, tries to explain how and why things took the dreadful course they took. If you are curious to get the whole picture, you are in luck, because you can find Upham’s work on Project Gutenberg, too:

Salem witchcraft; with an account of Salem village and a history of opinions on witchcraft and kindred subjects. Volume 1 and 2

and

Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather

But back to the article: it certainly gives you a very good idea of the people, the circumstances and the goings on in Salem and surrounding areas. You can use it as an introduction to the Upham books, or as a good overview if you don’t have the time or inclination to go into too much detail. It certainly left me counting my lucky stars that I didn’t live there and then.

The Planchette

The planchette mystery had me in stitches. It was a welcome distraction after the Salem horrors.

The author tries to lift the mystery of the Planchette. If, like me, you don’t know what a Planchette is, you’ll be a lot wiser by the end of the article. I got to know where it got its name, what it does, even how to use it.

The author of the articles goes to great lengths to show the flaws in theories which don’t fit his conviction, demanding proof of them, while at the same time failing to give a single proof himself.

However, he lists lots of examples of the wondrous results when using a planchette. It must indeed be a tiny miracle. You can have a nearly philosophical discussion with it, and it will answer you (well, it answered the author) in intelligible sentences up to 300 words of length. Go figure. I want a planchette now.

The article about Modern Spiritualism, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe of  Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame, rounds the book off. Mrs Beecher Stowe is a devout Christian and as such has a word or two to say about spiritualism. She laments that the churches don’t go back to their roots and have no comfort to offer, thus involuntarily helping bereft people to search solace in spiritualism. She compares the beliefs and traditions of the primitive Christians of the beginning of Christianity with the Christians of the (her) present day and shows how spiritualism wouldn’t stand a chance if only people still knew that there were angels, Satan and miracles, as Jesus and the Apostles knew. Nobody would ever have to lament a beloved one who died because … but read for yourself.

At first, I thought it was an odd compilation of articles, but on second thoughts I realised the ingenuity of it.

You have one example for the horrors caused by overzealous Christians; one example glorifying phrenology and mesmerism, and one condemning spiritualism and promoting Christianity. All of the phenomena discussed in the book above have one common denominator:

They have no proof.

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Posted by Bel

Mendelssohn in Italy

February 3, 2013

Sometimes we DP volunteers wonder whether anyone actually reads or uses the e-books we produce. After all, with most of the world’s best-known works already posted to Project Gutenberg, nowadays we tend to labor on the somewhat obscure.

Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn in 1839

But the books we produce are being read and used every day, by readers, students, teachers, scholars, and even musicians. Here’s a real-life example: Last year, my husband, an orchestra conductor, asked me to put together some program notes for one of his concerts. His idea was to have me be a sort of narrator, reading the notes to the audience before each piece. One of the pieces was to be Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4, the “Italian.”

Because the notes were to be given live, I wanted to make sure they’d be especially interesting to a general audience.

Technical details about the music were not going to do the trick. With the Italian Symphony, I was in luck twice over. First, in the course of my research, I learned that it had been inspired by Mendelssohn’s first trip to Italy in 1830, when he was just 21. Second, better yet, I remembered a book then in progress at DP and since posted to PG: the Letters of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy from Italy and Switzerland. I decided to take appropriate excerpts from the letters and read one before each movement of the symphony.

These exuberant letters to Mendelssohn’s parents, brother, and sisters back home in Berlin express the manifold wonders he experienced on his journey. The ruined glory of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, the stunning loveliness of the hills, the romantic palazzi and canals of Venice, all spoke to his deepest sense of beauty.

Here is young Mendelssohn, newly arrived in Venice, eagerly writing to his parents on October 10, 1830:

Italy at last! And what I have all my life considered as the greatest possible felicity is now begun, and I am basking in it.

You can hear this youthful enthusiasm in the exciting opening bars of the Italian Symphony, which he began writing on this trip. As he wrote to his sister Fanny from Rome on February 22, 1831:

I have once more begun to compose with fresh vigour, and the Italian symphony makes rapid progress; it will be the most sportive piece I have yet composed, especially the last movement.

Except for the last movement, which is based on a lively Italian dance called the saltarello, there is nothing particularly Italian about the music itself. Rather, it evokes the impressions of an awestruck tourist, impressions he shared with his family in his letters home.

The stately tone of the symphony’s second movement is reflected in this letter to his parents, from Rome, November 8, 1830:

Just as Venice, with her past, reminded me of a vast monument: her crumbling modern palaces, and the perpetual remembrance of former splendour, causing sad and discordant sensations; so does the past of Rome suggest the impersonation of history; her monuments elevate the soul, inspiring solemn yet serene feelings, and it is a thought fraught with exultation that man is capable of producing creations, which, after the lapse of a thousand years, still renovate and animate others.

The third movement of the symphony, a graceful minuet, puts one in mind of Botticelli’s lovely painting, Primavera. It hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where Mendelssohn immersed himself in the glories of Italian art, as he wrote to his sisters, June 25, 1831:

I have to-day passed the whole forenoon, from ten till three, in the gallery; it was glorious!… I wandered about among the pictures, feeling so much sympathy, and such kindly emotions in gazing at them. I now first thoroughly realized the great charm of a large collection of the highest works of art. You pass from one to the other, sitting and dreaming for an hour before some picture, and then on to the next…. I could not help meditating on all these great men, so long passed away from earth, though their whole inner soul is still displayed in such lustre to us, and to all the world.

The symphony’s rushing, leaping saltarello finale may have been inspired by something like the festival Mendelssohn saw in Florence, as he described it to his sisters on June 26, 1831:

It was Midsummer’s day, and a celebrated fête was to take place in Florence the same evening…. I heard a tumult, and looking out of the window I saw crowds, both young and old, all hurrying in their holiday costumes across the bridges. I followed them to the Corso, and then to the races; afterwards to the illuminated Pergola, and last of all to a masked ball in the Goldoni Theatre…. I recalled to myself the various occurrences of the day, and the thoughts that had chased each other through my mind, and resolved to write them all to you. It is in fact a reminiscence for myself, for it may not be so suggestive to you, but it will one day be of service to me, enabling me to recall various scenes connected with fair Italy.

It was indeed of service to him. The memories and inspirations of the trip, recorded in his letters, enabled him to finish the symphony quickly upon his return to Germany, and he himself conducted the premiere in London in 1833. Although he was never entirely happy with it, it deservedly remains one of the most popular works in the symphonic repertoire.

And, thanks to DP, the audience at my husband’s concert, hearing Mendelssohn’s own words accompany his music, cheered loud and long.

This post was contributed by Linda Cantoni, a Distributed Proofreaders volunteer.

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Posted by LCantoni

Notes of Founding Fathers

January 14, 2013

In the recent electoral campaigns in America, and in the discussions occurring after the recent shootings, there has been much talk about what the Founding Fathers would have wanted. The implied premise was that the Founding Fathers were an homogenous group of men with a common consensus on what they believed and wanted for America. James Madison‘s notes of the Constitutional Convention indicates otherwise.

The proceedings of the Constitutional Convention were secret at the time, but Madison kept comprehensive notes. Others took notes too, but his notes are the most complete.

Madison bequeathed these notes to his wife, the government bought them for $30,000 in 1837, and three years later they were published in The Papers of James Madison Purchased by Order of Congress, edited by Henry D. Gilpin.

In 1908, these notes were reprinted in the two volumes of The Journal of the Debates in the Convention Which Framed The Constitution of the United States May-September, 1787, edited by Gaillard Hunt. Volume one covered the convention through July 18th, and volume two covered the rest of the convention. This work included not only Madison’s notes but also those of Robert Yates (delegate from New York), Rufus King (delegate from Massachusetts), and William Pierce (delegate from Georgia).

Pierce’s notes included sketches of the delegates, including the following:

Mr. Madison is a character who has long been in public life; and what is very remarkable every Person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician, with the Scholar. In the management of every great question he evidently took the lead in the Convention, and tho’ he cannot be called an Orator, he is a most agreeable, eloquent, and convincing Speaker. From a spirit of industry and application which he possesses in a most eminent degree, he always comes forward the best informed Man of any point in debate. The affairs of the United States, he perhaps, has the most correct knowledge of, of any Man in the Union. He has been twice a Member of Congress, and was always thought one of the ablest Members that ever sat in that Council. Mr. Maddison is about 37 years of age, a Gentleman of great modesty,—with a remarkable sweet temper. He is easy and unreserved among his acquaintance, and has a most agreeable style of conversation.

Mr. Yates is said to be an able Judge. He is a Man of great legal abilities, but not distinguished as an Orator. Some of his Enemies say he is an anti-federal Man, but I discovered no such disposition in him. He is about 45 years old, and enjoys a great share of health.

Mr King is a Man much distinguished for his eloquence and great parliamentary talents. He was educated in Massachusetts, and is said to have good classical as well as legal knowledge. He has served for three years in the Congress of the United States with great and deserved applause, and is at this time high in the confidence and approbation of his Country-men. This Gentleman is about thirty three years of age, about five feet ten inches high, well formed, an handsome face, with a strong expressive Eye, and a sweet high toned voice. In his public speaking there is something peculiarly strong and rich in his expression, clear, and convincing in his arguments, rapid and irresistible at times in his eloquence but he is not always equal. His action is natural, swimming, and graceful, but there is a rudeness of manner sometimes accompanying it. But take him tout en semble, he may with propriety be ranked among the luminaries of the present Age.

Dr. Franklin is well known to be the greatest phylosopher of the present age;—all the operations of nature he seems to understand,—the very heavens obey him, and the Clouds yield up their Lightning to be imprisoned in his rod. But what claim he has to the politician, posterity must determine. It is certain that he does not shine much in public Council,—he is no Speaker, nor does he seem to let politics engage his attention. He is, however, a most extraordinary Man, and he tells a story in a style more engaging than anything I ever heard. Let his Biographer finish his character. He is 82 years old, and possesses an activity of mind equal to a youth of 25 years of age.

What is most striking about reading these two volumes is the radical differences in thought among basically good men.

One major difference was what the delegates feared to be the biggest danger of abuse. Some thought that danger lay in the Executive, others the Legislature.

Some thought the Executive power should be lodged in three men because if the power was lodged in a single person, that person would be an elective king. Others thought that the Executive power should be lodged in a single person.

Some thought the Executive should serve one set term and be ineligible for reelection, and others thought the executive should serve “during good behavior”.

Some thought the Executive should be elected by the Legislature. Others thought the Executive should be elected through state conventions.

Dr. Franklin proposed that the Executive should receive no salary, stipend fee or reward whatsoever for services.

Some thought that the final power rested in the people through their state legislatures. Others thought the states should be eliminated and replaced by districts answerable to the Legislature.

Some thought that only people who owned land should be qualified to serve in the Legislature. Others thought that this qualification was a scheme of the landed against the monied interests, “whose aids may be essential in particular emergencies to the public safety.”

There was major controversy between having the Legislature based primarily upon population (which favoured the large states) and upon equal power for each state (which favoured the small states). There was even controversy about whether or not the power of the current Atlantic states should be protected from Western states that would be added later. George Clymer thought “the encouragement of the Western Country was suicide on the old States.”

This controversy between large states and small paled in comparison to the controversy on the issue of slavery. That difference almost scuttled the convention.

Gouverneur Morris called domestic slavery “a nefarious institution,” “the curse of heaven on the States where it prevailed.”

Charles Pinkney warned that if the Committee should fail to insert some security to the Southern States against an emancipation of slaves he would have to vote against the plan.

In a way, the issue of slavery could have been a deal breaker. The Southern states did not get security that slaves would never be emancipated, but they did get enough political power (e.g., slaves being partly counted in determining the number of representatives) that they prevented emancipation for almost eighty years.

Some of these differences among our Founding Fathers were minor but many were major, and they all debunk the myth that they were an homogenous group of men with a common consensus on what they believed and wanted for America.

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Posted by usbengoshi

24,000 Books Posted – Celebrating with Lamartine’s “Cours Familier de Littérature”

November 6, 2012

Having had very busy post-processors in October, the celebration day for the 24,000th book snuck up on us quite suddenly. It turned out that we’d reach that point before October was over! I couldn’t assemble the information for today’s post any sooner, so sorry for being a week late.

It’s a long-standing tradition that we pick one book for the round number, and this time the honour went to volume 14 of the 28-volume “Cours Familier de Littérature” by Lamartine. Volume 14 was the last volume to be posted of all the volumes of this series that were in progress at Distributed Proofreaders.

Since I don’t speak French and know nothing of this series, I asked Mireille, who’s been managing all the Lamartine projects since starting on the series in 2007, for some information. Here’s what she has to say:

The name of Lamartine (1790-1869), one of the greatest French poets, is well known. He wrote “Les Méditations” (1820), “Le dernier chant du pèlerinage d’Harold” (1825), “Jocelyn” (1836),  and “La Chute d’un ange” (1838).

But the “Cours Familier de Littérature”, written for his living during 13 years, from 1856 until his death, is not so well known, and most probably is totally ignored by many people, French or not. That is why I have chosen and started, in 2007, to produce the 20 volumes of the series available on Gallica with Distributed Proofreaders.

The “Cours familier de Littérature” is quite unique in literature. It is more than a series of lessons about literature, it is the live illustration of Lamartine’s personal and profound feelings about events which occurred at that time and also in the past and in the entire world.

It is now difficult to find and buy the complete series of the 28 volumes written by Lamartine.

Volumes 18 and 23-28 are still missing in the Gallica collection, volume 2 was not prepared because of the very bad quality of the Gallica PDF format. Thanks to everybody who can help to find them.

Warm thanks to Lostpaces, the PPer of the 20 e-books published by Project Gutenberg.

Thanks, Mireille, for taking on and completing such an ambitious project! And thanks to all the volunteers who worked on those books over the years.

As soon as this information, including the missing volumes, was posted to the DP forums, offers for help poured in. It turns out that what was true back then isn’t necessarily true now. Thanks to the big scanning projects that digitize whole libraries, the missing volumes are available now with high quality scans. So the celebration of the last volume of this series on DP spawned a few new projects – the missing volumes will be run as well, so the series will be available with all its volumes on Project Gutenberg in the future.

2 Comments | Project Gutenberg, Volunteers' Stories | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by dpgenmgr

The Pony Express

May 13, 2012

When I was about seven, I read a story about the Pony Express in a book my grandparents had given me. This fascinated me, the idea of young men galloping through the wilderness to deliver mail, fighting off Indians and thundering into a depot to pass the mail on to the next rider. The Pony Express rider who was featured was Bill Cody, Buffalo Bill. The Pony Express only lasted for a couple of years, moving mail rapidly east and west in the old American West until tracks were laid and mail was shipped by train.

I had to write a report in elementary school on a topic about the development of the American West and was able to use the Pony Express as the central theme of my report. I had access to general reference books, history books, and Encyclopedias, but no first-hand accounts of the time.

How exciting, then, for me to get to work on two books here at Distributed Proofreaders, in a period of a few weeks, with accounts of the Pony Express and the settling of the West. These books were written by two men who were in the center of the events.

The first book is an autobiography, The Adventures of Buffalo Bill by Col. William F. Cody, published in 1904. Bill Cody was a teenaged rider for the Pony Express and told personal accounts of some of his rides. This book also imparted that Alexander Majors initiated the Pony Express and was Buffalo Bill’s boss.

The second book is Seventy Years on the Frontier, the autobiography of Alexander Majors, published in 1893. Majors shares from his unique viewpoint the changes he saw and contributed to in his lifetime. I had never really thought about the business and political sides of setting up the Pony Express and found these very interesting.

Without Distributed Proofreaders I never would have discovered either of these books. I am so pleased to have an opportunity to work on these accounts, written by the people involved, in the time period these events occurred. How much more interesting would my elementary school report have been had I had access to these books!

From The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (told in the third person):

When the time came for him to be ready for the first trip the boy was outside of his station with his pony ready, looking across the prairie for the rider who was to bring the mail pouches from the next station. Close upon time the man appeared. Drawing up to the station he jumped off, threw the bag to Cody, who in turn leaped into his saddle with it and started on his fifteen miles. He reached his first station on time, dismounted, and mounted a fresh pony which was standing ready, and started on the second relay. And so with the third, until he finished his thirty-five miles and threw the bag to the next man, who was waiting. And within an hour he was ready again for the rider coming from the direction of San Francisco. As soon as he had the mail he mounted a fresh pony and rode back over the same thirty-five miles.

Thus the boy did seventy miles every day for three months.

From Seventy Years on the Frontier:

Among the most noted and daring riders of the Pony Express was Hon. William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, whose reputation is now established the world over. While engaged in the express service, his route lay between Red Buttes and Three Crossings, a distance of 116 miles. It was a most dangerous, long, and lonely trail, . . . An average of fifteen miles an hour had to be made, including changes of horses, detours for safety, and time for meals. Once, upon reaching Three Crossings, he found that the rider on the next division, who had a route of seventy-six miles, had been killed during the night before, and he was called on to make the extra trip until another rider could be employed. This was a request the compliance with which would involve the most taxing labors and an endurance few persons are capable of; nevertheless, young Cody was promptly on hand for the additional journey, and reached Rocky Ridge, the limit of the second route, on time. This round trip of 384 miles was made without a stop, except for meals and to change horses, and every station on the route was entered on time. This is one of the longest and best ridden pony express journeys ever made.

Again from Seventy Years on the Frontier:

The quickest time that had ever been made with any message between San Francisco and New York, over the Butterfield line, which was the southern route, was twenty-one days. Our Pony Express shortened the time to ten days, which was our schedule time, without a single failure, being a difference of eleven days. . . .
Two important events transpired during the term of the Pony’s existence; one was the carrying of President Buchanan’s last message to Congress, in December, 1860, from the Missouri River to Sacramento, a distance of two thousand miles, in eight days and some hours. The other was the carrying of President Lincoln’s inaugural address of March 4, 1861, over the same route in seven days and, I think, seventeen hours, being the quickest time, taking the distance into consideration, on record in this or any other country, as far as I know.

These books are not just about the short-lived Pony Express, but cover many aspects of both men’s lives, times and observations. This level of detail, history and sense of excitement was not in the reference books I had access to. I am thrilled to be able to help preserve books like these.

Seventy Years on the Frontier is still in progress at Distributed Proofreaders. A link to the book will be added once it has been posted at Project Gutenberg. Edit February 26, 2013: Seventy Years on the Frontier has now been posted to Project Gutenberg.

5 Comments | Book Review, Project Gutenberg | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by WebRover

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