"Put down party spirit; stop the corruption of party elections; legislate not for the next election, but for the next century."
A call for consensus from a frustrated lawmaker on the eve
of the expected government shutdown? Or from some columnist, blogger or talking
head?
Nope. That was Francis Scott Key's "remedy" for
the political viciousness of his era -- from a letter dated Nov. 27, 1813.
The author
of "The Star-Spangled Banner" wrote this during the divisive War
of 1812. The letter was addressed to Key's quirky friend John
Randolph, then a former (and future) congressman from Virginia. Randolph
was ousted from his seat in the House of Representatives the year before, after
he bucked his party's leadership by opposing the war. Randolph's Dec. 15 reply
to Key made it clear that the idea of politics without partisanship was as
likely in 1813 as it has proved to be in the 200 years since.
"You will put down party spirit when you put down
whisky-drinking," Randolph wrote back.
Randolph was later reelected to his House seat and briefly
served in the Senate -- where, by the way, he's credited with helping invent
the filibuster. He was known for his witty and scathing oratory. More than
Key's plea to legislate "for the next century," Randolph's quips
about the politics of their time seem to describe the workings of today's
Congress. "We all know our duty better than we discharge it," he once
said.
But one Randolph line seems appropriate for this blog -- especially today, with the cable news networks' on-screen clocks counting down the minutes and
seconds until the fiscal year officially ends:
"Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions."
UPDATE: Oct. 1, 2 a.m. ET: Now that the government has
officially been closed for two hours another appropriate John Randolph line
about governing comes to mind:
"That most delicious of all privileges -- spending other people’s money."
And while we're on the subject of governing (versus
politics):
Personal experience has left me with little patience for the
"lazy government worker" stereotype. Intractable incompetence is
hardly the public sector's exclusive domain -- tonight's events
notwithstanding.
I was just looking back at some of my old clips from the
government shutdowns back in 1995, when I was still covering science for the
Raleigh News & Observer in North Carolina. What I most remembered from that
time was the many non-essential government scientists at EPA and the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences who ignored official furloughs and
went to work anyway to tend their experiments. "I don't care if we're
essential or not," one senior scientist told fellow reporter Joe Neff and
me. "I like the work." I just Googled that scientist; his official
page on the NIEHS website lists him as "retired/special volunteer." I
guess he still likes the work.
(Nerdy notes on sources: I first saw the Key quote that starts this post in a passage from Steve Vogel's very good new book about the British innovation of 1814, Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks that Saved the Nation. Vogel is a former Washington Post colleague. The full exchange with Randolph is more thoroughly documented in the second volume of Hugh A. Gakland's The Life of John Randolph of Roanoke. Randolph's most famous quotes are best documented in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations, edited by Suzy Platt, which attributes them to the second volume of William Cabell Bruce's John Randolph of Roanoke, 1773-1833. I wish all quote sites
