Episode 20180108 - Madison's Plea

Hello ladies and gentlemen.

This is David Grizzly Smith. You probably guessed that, of course.

I normally wouldn't do what I'm going to do tonight. This is rather unusual for Grizzly's Growls -- though Grizzly's Growls doesn't have a strict format, and besides it's mine, I can do what I want.

As you know, I've been getting a few episodes ahead in my recording of the Federalist Papers. Tonight I recorded Federalist #14, the whole of which you'll hear when it drops on February 1st. Every time I've recorded a book, it seems, there's that one part I have to record two or three times. It gets me right in the heart, and I break down a bit trying to get the words out. So I do it over till I can finish it intelligibly, more or less.

This time, so far at least, it was Federalist #14. It purports to have been written by James Madison, and I can believe that, it seems the most heartfelt essays came from Madison. Some sources'd say Hamilton really wrote them. I'd go with Madison, even so.

The first part of the essay is along the workmanlike likes of those just prior. And then I got to the last part. And I could hear in the words the voice of a warrior for American independence, and American innovation, at a time when Kings and Queens were the order of the day for much of the world. And at a time when some in this country were arguing for dividing us up into fragments, rather than preserving the Union which made the American revolution possible.

Seems to me there are those forces and those voices today who likewise would like to divide us. And we need words that express those fundamental values and that fundamental unity in which almost all of us believe. We are quarreling amongst ourselves, as families do sometimes. And there are certainly those who'd like to encourage those quarrels, to weaken us and strengthen their own grasp on their wealth and power over us.

I think James Madison said it well, so I'm going to let him say h