Political principle
Feb. 26th, 2015 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rscThe current and recent behavior of the Republicans in Congress reminds me of an exchange retailed in one of Samuel Hopkins Adams's Grandfather Stories. A little background first: The book is a collection of autobiographical stories, written in the 1940s and '50s and retelling (in what I guess to be a somewhat fictionalized form) stories that Adams and his cousins were told in their 1880s childhood by his paternal grandfather, Myron Adams. Many of them feature the Erie Canal in some way, as the Adams family was apparently involved in its construction in the 1820s.
The story "A Deal in Gems" is part of that particular history, and it includes a description of a lively debate, held in a smithy in Palmyra, on the prospects and desirability of the completion of the canal. One of the characters depicted is a lawyer named Ephraim Upcraft, an implacable opponent of the canal. Herewith the relevant excerpt (the reference to "Clinton" is, of course, to Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the principal champion of the canal; I have been unable to determine what a "mudchunker" is, but it's clearly not a compliment):
"You're exalted in the head," Lawyer Upcraft snapped. "It'll never reach here. I'll stop it myself. I'll take it up to the Supreme Court."
"What's your grief on the canal, Mr. Upcraft?" the wigmaker asked.
"Anything that the scoundrelly Clinton is for, I am against."
"There's political principle for you!" Daniel Heyl gibed. "No more gumption than a mudchunker under a colic-root."
The story "A Deal in Gems" is part of that particular history, and it includes a description of a lively debate, held in a smithy in Palmyra, on the prospects and desirability of the completion of the canal. One of the characters depicted is a lawyer named Ephraim Upcraft, an implacable opponent of the canal. Herewith the relevant excerpt (the reference to "Clinton" is, of course, to Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the principal champion of the canal; I have been unable to determine what a "mudchunker" is, but it's clearly not a compliment):
"You're exalted in the head," Lawyer Upcraft snapped. "It'll never reach here. I'll stop it myself. I'll take it up to the Supreme Court."
"What's your grief on the canal, Mr. Upcraft?" the wigmaker asked.
"Anything that the scoundrelly Clinton is for, I am against."
"There's political principle for you!" Daniel Heyl gibed. "No more gumption than a mudchunker under a colic-root."
