THROUGH
MOUNTAIN MISTS
Early Settlers of
Their
Descendants...Their Stories...Their Achievements
Lifting the
Mists of History on Their Way of Life
By: Ethelene Dyer Jones
May--An Important Month in
U.S. History
The
“Merry Month of May” for 2010 is soon to end. We
will celebrate its last day and an
important national holiday, Memorial Day, on Monday, May 31. It is a time to honor our patriotic dead and
to recall the sacrifices they made for our freedoms.
“Lest we forget,” let us take time to
consider the price paid for liberty.
Such beauty as we enjoy can sometimes
take our minds from more serious matters.
Spring is here with great profusion of growing, blossoming
landscapes. But it was also thought by
old timers that May was a difficult month, one that required attention
to
practices of good health to get through the month.
Two sayings characterized the month: For
those already ill with some critical disease,
the prediction was, “Ah, he (or she) will never get up May-hill.” Another had a brighter aspect:
“If he can climb May-hill, he’ll do.” Well,
we “climbed May hill” again this year,
and I hope we are another year wiser as well as having reached another
milestone in years accrued. Let us
consider some blessing we too often take for granted.
In a review of American history, we
see that a new, struggling America following winning of the
Revolutionary War
set the second Monday in May as a time
to have delegates from the thirteen independent states (no longer
colonies
under the King of England) meet in Philadelphia
in 1787, “for the sole and express purpose of revising the
Articles of
Confederation.”
The Convention was convened on
Many of the arguments, proposals,
objections, revisions and adoptions are a matter of record, and can be
accessed
if anyone is an avid student of how our Constitution came about. However, that group of fifty-five delegates
from twelve states represented the citizens, and was truly a
“think-tank” for
It was to the wise, elderly Benjamin
Franklin, that final success of the Convention is due.
He rose, and reading from a prepared speech
which has been preserved for later generations to read, he stated: “Mr. President, I confess that there are
several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve,
but I am
not sure that I shall never approve them…The older I grow, the more apt
I am to
doubt my own judgment and to pay more attention to the judgment of
others…I
think a general government necessary for us…what may be a blessing to
the
people if well-administered…On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing
a wish
that every member of the Convention, who may still have objections to
it,
would, with me, on this occasion, doubt a little of his own
infallibility, and
make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument.” Benjamin Franklin then introduced the motion
to have the delegates sign the document.
And to that document, thirty-nine men
set their signatures, enough to give the newly formed United States of
America
a document, which, though amended numerous times throughout its more
than
two-century history, still stands as a beacon to democratic governments
world-wide. One of the major
responsibilities of the president of the
[Ethelene Dyer
Jones is a retired educator,
freelance writer, poet, and historian. She may be reached at
e-mail [email protected];
phone 478-453-8751; or mail 1708 Cedarwood Road, Milledgeville, GA
31061-2411.]
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