American History, essay, history, Politics

The Consitution: Article One (Part 1)

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by sokorra

The Constitution in its first article goes about the design of our legislature.

Section One: Congress

This section is brief. In fact, It’s probably shorter than the paragraph I’m writing about it. It essentially gives the powers to legislate to ‘Congress’ and explains its design. In the United States, we have a bicameral legislature – meaning we have two governing bodies. In the original Articles of the Confederation, we were unicameral and each state got one vote when it assembled. There was quite a debate about staying that way. However, in the end, it was decided that a bicameral design was best for the new nation.

Section Two: The House Continue reading “The Consitution: Article One (Part 1)” →

American History, essay, Politics

New Series: The Articles of the Constitution

Posted on July 9, 2016February 24, 2017 by sokorra

Since I did a series on the amendments of the constitution, I decided to do a series on the actual articles. The seven sections of our constitution that tell us how our government is set up and the basic rules it is guided by.

This page will be set up as both the introductory Post (as of July 9, 2016) and afterwards as a master-post of all the posts I write about it. This may become more than just seven posts, as each article has sections that might require their own post, or in the case of the 7th, discussion on who actually signed.

I hope you enjoy this series of blog posts.

Introduction:

In 1776 the Continental Congress, a group made up of representatives from various colonies in British North America, got together to write and release a document known as the Declaration of Independence. This was already a year into what would become known as the American Revolution. On November 15, 1777 they adopted the Articles of Confederation to base their new government on. It was not untill March 1, 1781 that it was finally ratified by all 13 of the original states.

However, it was soon found to be problematic as it had too weak of a central government. The Central government relied heavily on the states for finding funds to fund all their responsibilities and also required unanimous votes during key issues, which caused many problems because as with today, hardly ever is America 100% unanimous. As a result, a Constitutional Convention was brought together to work on a new and improved constitution in 1787 with delegates from 12 of the states (Rhode Island stayed home). Two years later on March 4, 1789, the new and improved (and still existing) Constitution of the United States was created.

However the balance of power between the central and state governments remains a heated debate in American Politics. In the years since the creation of the current constitution of the United States, the government has found it necessary to “amend” it 27 times to strengthen or restrict the central governments powers. On occasion it was a necessary need due to social improvement, and other times it was simply to change to suit the needs of a continuously changing people.

It has one of the most well-known opening lines. Here is the Preamble:

We The People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution fo the United States of America.

Continue Reading:

Article One Part Two Part Three

Constitution: Impeachment

Article Two Part Two
Article Three
Article Four
Article Five
Article Six
Article Seven

The Amendment Series

Six | Seven & Eight | Nine & Ten

Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen

Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty

Twenty One | Twenty Two | Twenty Three | Twenty Four | Twenty Five

Twenty Six | Twenty Seven | Unratified

The Constitution Tag (All posts related to the Us Constitution, the Articles of the Confederation and the Amendments to the Constitution)

Sources/Other Reading Material/Further Reading

Articles of Confederation (Library of Congress)

The Constitution of the United States (Archives.Gov)

The Constitution (WhiteHouse.gov)

American History, history

Happy Independance Day

Posted on July 4, 2016July 4, 2016 by sokorra

Today is the American holiday celebrating our declaration of Independence from Great Britain ~~and aliens~~. We celebrate by eating copious amounts of food, singing Bruce Springsteen, and blowing up sparkly gunpowder in the sky.

On an interesting note, it is neither the day we choose to declare independence (that was July 2nd), nor the day we finally won it (that was September 3, 9 years later). Its not even the day the war started. That was earlier, in April of the previous year. The day the treaty following the war was ratified was May 12, 1784.

What does this day actually celebrate? The formal release of the Declaration of Independence, which had been written earlier in the month but had to have some revisions done. On July 4, 1776, we formerly declared that we wanted Independence from Great Britain. (except Delaware forgot to sign so it took till August 2nd for everything to be completed).

After 8 and a half years of fighting, and several months of talking it was formally recognized that the American Colonies, now called the United States, had won their freedom.

Not that it was the end to our growing pains, but thats a subject for another day.

Happy Fourth of July to all my American readers ~~and all alien fighters~~.

American History, history

Gettysburg

Posted on July 3, 2016 by sokorra

This week is a big week in American History. Tomorrow is July 4th, a day to celebrate the release of the Declaration of Independence ~~and beat up aliens~~ , Yesterday was the aniversery of everyone agreeing this was a good idea, and the signing of the Civil Rights Act.

Today’s annivsery is Gettysburg. Its a pretty well known battle of the American Civil War (or War for Southern Independence depending on who you ask). Abraham Lincoln also did a pretty important speech here (the infamous “Four score” speech). And for me, its got the added benefit of being local history (Gettysburg is located in the state of Pennsylvania.).

Gettysburg was a 3 day battle in 1863 between General Robert E. Lee and General George Meade. It wasn’t planned to happen that way (they all thought it would happen in Maryland). Meade had sent some of his men to PA to block off that direction, and Lee had sent some of his men into PA for some supplies. They ended up both in Gettysburg and a battle emergers and Meade and Lee had to move to catch up with the fighting.

Three days later, Lee was not any closer to invading the North, and both sides were pretty equally beat up. A grand total of approxamently 48,000 Americans were casualties of this battle by the time Lee withdrew on July 4th after a day of everyone catching their breath. Not a very good Indpendence Day for the Confederate States. In the end, the Union withstood their position, and the Confederate army left with no progress towards the north and close to 26,000 casuelties all on their own.

The war would continue for two more years, but this was the last major offensive of Robert E. Lee and considered by some historians to be a turning point in the war. Others disagree, but most agree that the Battle is very important in the course of the war.

To learn more:

History.com “This Day in History: Battle of Gettysburg Ends”

CivilWar.org “Gettysburg”

Wikipedia: Battle of Gettysburg

EyeWitnessToHistory.com “Gettysburg”

Yearly Reanactment

American History, Awareness, essay, history, Politics

This Day In History

Posted on July 2, 2016July 2, 2016 by sokorra

When looking at my daily email about events in history on this day, I found out today in 1776, The Second Continential Congress voted to adopt the resolution of Independence from Great Britian.

The resolution was presented by Richard Henry Lee on June 7th, but due to some lingering doubts from some of the colonies, they decided to wait to vote on July 2nd. In the meantime they set a group off the write up a declaration. This group included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and of course Thomas Jefferson. In the end Jefferson was selected to be the primary author (which is why he often gets credit but we don’t often hear about Sherman or Livingston). They managed to present the declaration to Congress on June 28 for review. Not bad, writing a document that will literally change the world in only three weeks.

Since I think most Americans (and probably alot of non-americans) can remember something about Adams Franklin and Jefferson (and not just that two are on our money) I googled the other two.

Roger Sherman is the only man to sign all the starter papers for the US (The Continnental Association (which I just learned about today), The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, and the Consitution. He was greatly involved in the reorganization of the Connneticicut government and worked on developing guidelines for ambassadors, particularly those to Canada. And according to Wikipedia, his Great-great grandson helped create the CIA.

Robert Livingston was the first Secratary of State (then called Secretary of Foriegn Affairs), and later as Ambassador to France. It was then that he helped negociate the Louisana purchase, so a third of the country can thank him for being American and not French. He also developed the first steamboat. He got the honor of swearing George Washington in as President.

On July 1st, Congress, like congress today, choose to debate the issue. Unlike congress now, they unanimously voted for it, with only New York abstaining. John Adams, according to History.com, thought that this would be the day we would celebrate. In the end however, we celebrate the day they actually presented the Declaration to the public, July 4th.

Another key document was also signed today. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law The Civil Rights Act. It was something that John F. Kennedy had fought for and that Lyndon Johnson picked up after Kennedy was killed in 1963. Still, I’m not entirely sure how someone uses 75 pens to sign ‘Lyndon B. Johnson’. Even if he spelled out his middle name and the name of the country.

The Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination against race in employment, education, and in public places such as buses, schools, parks, and pools.

American History, history

Memorial Day

Posted on May 28, 2016May 28, 2016 by sokorra

This weekend is Memorial day weekend. I wanted to stop for a moment and thank all the men and women who have served this country in its armed forces or diplomatic corp who have worked hard to keep our country free and safe. Thank you for all you have done.

graves-1277181_1280

Memorial Day has been celebrated for over a hundred years, developing in the years following the Civil War as a day to pause in remembrance of the men who died during the War. At the time it was called Decoration Day, in reference to the fact that it involved people deocrating the graves of deceased soldiers.

It is not clear where the celebration started (Although Waterloo, NY likes to claim it was them, and others say Charleston, NC) but it soon became something celebrated across the nation. However,the first purposeful celebration of it happened in Columbus, Georgia, where a group of women decided that on the anniversy of the final surrender of the confederate army, April 26, they should make sure to go out and decorate the graves of vetrans with flowers. They mailed letters out to various newspapers across the country, and it became a national, abit southern, effort in 1866.

It soon was reported in Northern Papers after the southern women made a point to also decorate the graves of Union soldiers burried in the south and people began to join in on the activities.

On May 5, 1868 General John Logan, who was national Commander of the Grand Army at the time, declared that May 30th would be dedicated to the decoration of graves of those who died for their country. He choose that day to avoid choosing a date of a battle. However it wasn’t till 1873 that states started to recognize the day (starting with New York) and it was largely only celebrated on Logan’s date by the North. Southern States continued to celebrate on dates of their own choosing.

After WWI, the day went from celebrating simply those who died in the civil war to those Americans who died in any war. In 1971, Congress passed the National Holiday Act and set Memorial Day as a three day weekend, making Memorial Day the last Monday in May as well as making it an offical Federal holiday . Southern States started to observe Memorial Day after WWI, but also kept seperate days to celebrate those who died as Confederate soldiers.

The Story Behind The First Memorial Day

Memorial Day History

History.Com Memorial Day

US Department of Veteran’s Affairs: Memorial Day History

American History, history

Mother’s Day

Posted on May 9, 2016May 9, 2016 by sokorra

Happy belated Mother’s day to all the readers who are mothers.

I was trying to figure out something to write about today other than perhaps my evolving theories around Tony Stark’s mental state (which don’t sound so much as theory as rambles, so I threw that one out) and went to look at “This Day in history.”

On this day in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first national Mother’s Day. So its only been a holiday for 82 years. Some states had such a holiday for a couple of years, but Wilson made it into a national celebration, declaring it mother’s day every second sunday in May.

Another interesting note about the day is that one of the leading supporters of making a National day for people to celebrate their mothers, Anna Jarvis, eventually hated the holiday, feeling it had been removed from the initial idea of individuals using the day to celebrate their mother’s sacrifices into a day celebrating all mothers and commercialism. I’m not sure how different celebrating all mothers is different then everyone celebrating their own mothers, but I do get why she might have felt it had become overly commercialized.

It seems to me that most holidays have lost their meanings in the rush of cards, candy and gifts. Religious holidays like Christmas and Easter have almost completely separate secular ideology. Some holidays like Veteran’s Day and Memorial day have just become picnic occasions and less about honoring our armed forces and their sacrifices.And it does seem like there are new holidays popping up to be an occasion to purchase a gift or a card for someone you care for.

Not that I mind the gifts or cards, but sometimes I think remembering the reason the holiday was put in place would be a good idea too.

American History, essay, history, Politics

The Amendements: The Unratifieds

Posted on May 3, 2016May 2, 2016 by sokorra

There are several amendments that have not passed congress. There are amendments that passed but failed to ratify before their time was up. And there is even one or two that are still floating around timeless from the 1700s.

Since there are several of them, I’m going to put them under a read more due to length.

Continue reading “The Amendements: The Unratifieds” →

American History, essay, history, Politics

The Amendments: Twenty-Seven

Posted on May 2, 2016May 1, 2016 by sokorra

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.

(source)

This amendment is interesting. It is the last amendment passed, yet it was one of the first suggested. It was originally proposed in 1789. That was 227 years ago. It was only ratified in 1992, which was only 24 years ago. James Madison proposed it, yet somehow it took (according to wiki) 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days to ratify. Seven states ratified it by 1792 (almost half the states in the nation at that time). However, the ratification process seemed to lag just behind the increase of states, requiring it to need more and more states.

There are currently only 4 states that have never ratified it. Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, and Pennsylvania. Not that they really need to – its already law.

It was a bit of a controversy when it finally became ratified, as Congress had never dealt with a 200 year old amendement. Some wanted it reviewed for validity. However the Supreme Court held that any amendment not given a ratification deadline can be ratified at any point.

American History, essay, history, Politics, Television shows

The Amendments: Twenty Six

Posted on May 1, 2016May 1, 2016 by sokorra

This is a relatively easy amendment to talk about as it simply is that people, ages 18 years or older, are allowed to vote.

SECTION 1

The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

SECTION 2

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The amendments spend quite a few words on reminding us that we have the right to vote. Previous amendments have added that it doesn’t matter what our race, gender, or ability to pay fees are, we have the right to vote if we are an American Citizen. This Amendment adds that as long as an American citizen is of age (18), they have the right to vote.

This is important, because for many 18 year olds this year, their first opportunity will be to vote. If you are 18 (or new to voting) and wondering how to register and/or vote, here are a few links to help you out:

This website can help answer your questions (including about Absentee Ballots, which may be important if you are going to college away from your polling area and can’t get back to vote on election day).

The link takes you to their page on registering, but it also has many informative pages on voting and elections.

CanIVote.com

This website allows you search and find out if you are registered to vote. I tried it out and it sent me to my state’s services which told me I am registered (although apparently not to the party I thought I was.

The Voting Information Project

This website is put together by a group of organizations including Google, and state governments to help gather information to help voters inform themselves on items they find on their ballots.

You can also google your state and voting information to find out information that specific to your states. Remember that some states (like my own) have Voter ID laws and other such specifications on how you register and/or verify your vote.

The first step to changing the way your government does things is to participate in voting. On average, only 60% of eligible voters actually participate during Presidential elections. Its even less during midterm elections (about 40%) and even less than that when you are in between those two election years. We can’t complain about not being heard when we don’t take advantage of what is already there to hear us.

Please register to vote and take advantage of your right to participate in your government.

And you can always listen to Martin Sheen: