I told you I did tell you about elder eldridge jury is just
just for the fun of it let's just take up a break from the hysteria over the
news in the
for the moment and go back in time Elbridge Gerry
was an American revolutionary he
he he was a big supporter of thomas jefferson in writing the
the declaration independence East Side is one of the signers the Declaration of
Independence
he showed up with Janene
supported arse you know our site as a waiter in the Revolutionary War
obviously he
showed up for the Constitutional Convention
in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 however he refused to sign
the Constitution when the Constitution was written there in philadelphia
because it did not have a bill of rights attached to it nonetheless it you know I
did get a majority signings and and
and it one of two a two-year process for the states ratify a ratification process
the state's
the toured the state's accepted it by 1789 and
and boom we had a country in George Washington was president and Eldridge
Jerry became
a member of congress ands
you know was representing representing Congress from from the state
massachusetts
as I recall I'm I'm doing all this from memory I
probably should have printed out some notes here but I just I'll I tell his
story because the
you know gerrymandering is so in the news everybody thinks lol tertiary
gerrymandering yeah right
he he then became
the vice president of the united states and the James Madison administration
the fifth president Madison in our presence washington adams
Jefferson Madison use the fifth vice president though there have been two
vice presidents
under one of the president's I think it was washington I could be wrong
arm but in any case he was our he was the vice president in the
in the Madison administration and he ultimately in 1812
became the governor i've Massachusetts
and during that time Massachusetts passed the first law that gave their
legislature
the ability to Redrock congressional districts
based on their own opinion
rather than on some kinda formula and their opinion be in politics and and
elders jury interestingly enough we had always been a part of political parties
he was with jefferson
in in and we have a book about coming out about this by the way
dancers and wrote the the the original book forty years ago it's called the
the American Revolution 1800 and if you google
hartman and revolution not don't believe you plug it into the search engine over
to Amazon or Barnes and Noble
presumably at polls and some the independent booksellers
it should pop up it's available for pre-order now it will be out in
November I think but
this book the dances in roden I added a opening and ending chapter 28 and
and helped and go through and edit the whole rest the book over the last two
years we've been working on this thing
these guys absolutely did not believe in faction they they
they did not believe and and and and the political parties the faction could
cause
sorry I Jerry Mandarino
be no creen congressional districts would like salamanders has been kinda
blamed on Eldridge jury because he
signed that legislation he did so very reluctantly he opposed it
but back in those days
politicians figured okay if something if a majority the politicians representing
a majority the people decide that they want something
ban it's my obligation to go along with that
and things actually got done and elders Jerry sign in legislation Massachusetts
that provided for what we can refer to today as gerrymandering
even though he opposed it
is an example of that that in the founding era and in the
two or three generations that follow the founding era arguably right up to the
presidency a
James Paul Kantner and 18 forties as I recall
and his starting war with Mexico
and annexing part mexico which Abraham Lincoln
as a state legislator Illinois was furious about
mexican-american war I mean
Lincoln just thought this was an abomination
but up until basically the POC administration
maybe the Jackson administration's hard to say exactly when we started shifting
from being a very
a nonpartisan country
some some would put that shift at at you know during the jefferson administration
some would even say it was before that federal is an anti federalist Ernie
Adams administration
many hours during that era that they would have looked at what
john bainer is doing right now refusing to bring to the floor for a vote
legislation that has passed the Senate
comprehensive immigration reform line extension of long-term unemployment
benefits
it would the founders would consider what john bainer is doing to be treason
it would have been unthinkable
so any I just want to share that with the elders Jerry a
bit pretty cool guy actually go back in
and you read the history of this guy and what he did in
you know one of our whatever more significant founders
got a bad rap you know we talk gerrymandering a
you know he's the was not a fan of it