Week Eight Assignments will be posted on Wednesday, 7 November.,

As you've found out in reading the Bill of Rights, it's a privilege to vote and participate in the formation of one's government,  but it's a time consuming process.  I am just getting in from my polling place, and I will be a day late posting the Week Eight assignments.

I did, however, want to get you started with one of the reading assignments for the week, namely, Tom Jefferson's First Inaugural Address.  As with so much early American Literature, it has a lot to teach us about how the United States is supposed to work, and this short speech speaks to how we put divisive campaigns behind us and get back to the business of building a free society together.  In particular, pay attention to the following passage.  A link to the whole speech follows the passage:

"During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions

." [Highlight is mine.]

Jefferson presented this speech after one of the most divisive campaigns in US history.  

It was the election that would result in Adams and Jefferson not speaking for a decade and in the elected VP--Burr--fighting a dual with Alexander Hamilton, the leader of the opposition. Adams, against whom both Burr and Jefferson ran, refused to attend Jefferson's inaugural; but, remember, Adam's had been Jefferson's mentor.  It was Adam's who nominated Jefferson to the Committee of Five to draft the Declaration of Independence. 1800, much more so that the election of 2012, was divisive, and the lesson Jefferson reminded everyone of during his inaugural remains essential to the health of the nation today.  After voting, it's the job of each citizen to "unite with one heart and one mind."  He reminds us that those with differing opinions differ.  This is one of the prices to be paid for a free society and free speech, but--ultimately--we return to harmony and the business of running the republic.  

Here's the link to the rest of the speech:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YczcGZV7JxanZ9sJV6p4MNKui-8Pydk-2UvzZkigzQA/edit

Steve