Recipes for Order
On life, liberty, and the storage of cherries
This is an installment of “Sestercenntenial Moments,” marking the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and its memory in our national life. For more on the background of the series, see here.
July 8, 1774 found George Washington at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Washington had been a prominent figure in Virginia politics ever since he served in the French and Indian War in the mid-1750s—and even more so since his marriage to Martha Custis in 1759, which made him one of the richest men in America (much of that wealth coming from the people her family had enslaved). He was collaborating with George Mason and other prominent Virginians on a document to be issued later that month known as the Fairfax Resolves. They are usefully summarized in online collection of Washington papers at the Library of Congress:
The Fairfax Resolves clearly stated the American claims to equal rights under the British constitution: representation in Parliament, control over taxation, control over military forces within their borders, control over judicial powers, control over commercial actions. Moreover, the Fairfax Resolves called for an inter-colonial association to enforce their claims to these rights and to protest British violations of these fundamental rights. The Fairfax Resolves contained the implied threat of further actions to enforce American rights and independence. Washington and Mason boldly called for a "general Congress, for the preservation of our Lives Liberties and Fortunes."
There are a number of ways to interpret the Fairfax Resolves, but their underlying premise rests on the assertion of the rule of law: that the colonists have rights protected by a political process, and when those rights are violated, they are entitled to take steps to bring the government into compliance. From this perspective, the colonists were not rebelling, but rather calling the British Empire to honor its heritage.
Two hundred years later, on July 8, 1974, lawyers for President Richard Nixon appeared before the Supreme Court. They argued that Nixon was not required, as the government demanded, that Nixon turn over secret White House recordings he had made during his presidency. Later that month the Court rejected Nixon’s claim of executive privilege and ordered him to turn over the tapes. Once he did, investigators heard a key stretch of tape from June 23, 1972, which showed Nixon, running for re-election, was aware of the illegal break-in of Democratic party headquarters and sanctioned a cover-up. This so-called “smoking gun” was the tipping point in the Watergate scandal that would ultimately drive Nixon from office the following month.
On July 8, 2024, a series of cases against former president Donald Trump, who has been indicted for allegedly trying to steal votes, illegally store documents, and lead an insurrection in the presidential election of 2020, remain on hold. Last week, a majority of the Supreme Court, which a half-century ago decisively weighed in to check executive power, decided that the real danger to the republic comes from too little, not too much, executive power. (Unlike the celerity with which the judicial branch acted in 1974, the process 50 years later has been much slower.) These cases will likely never come to trial, especially if Trump wins re-election.
On the night of July 8, 1974, the CBS television network aired its fifth Bicentennial Minute, this one starring Jean Stapleton, the actor who unforgettably portrayed the character of Edith Bunker in the hit sitcom All in the Family. (See my book on the subject.) Stapleton discussed Martha Custis Washington’s secret for storing cherries. Amid legal crises, the life of republics and empires goes on.
And that’s the way it seems.