Category: History Page 3 of 10

Grumpy opinions about American history

The mythology of the founding fathers often portrays them as a harmonious band of brothers united in noble purpose. The reality was far messier—these brilliant, ambitious men engaged in bitter personal feuds that sometimes threatened the very republic they were creating. In some ways, the American revolution was as much of a battle of egos as it was a war between King and colonists.

The Revolutionary War Years: Hancock, Adams, and Washington’s Critics

The tensions began even before independence was declared. John Hancock and Samuel Adams, both Massachusetts firebrands, developed a rivalry that simmered throughout the Revolution. Adams, the older political strategist, had been the dominant figure in Boston’s resistance movement. When Hancock—wealthy, vain, and eager for glory—was elected president of the Continental Congress in 1775, the austere Adams felt his protégé had grown too big for his britches. Hancock’s request for a leave of absence from the presidency of Congress in 1777 coupled with his desire for an honorific military escort home, struck Adams as a relapse into vanity. Adams even opposed a resolution of thanks for Hancock’s service, signaling open estrangement. Their relationship continued to deteriorate to the point where they barely spoke, with Adams privately mocking Hancock’s pretensions and Hancock using his position to undercut Adams politically.

The choice of Washington as commander sparked its own controversies. John Adams had nominated Washington, partly to unite the colonies by giving Virginia the top military role. Washington’s command was anything but universally admired and as the war dragged on with mixed results many critics emerged.

After the victory at Saratoga in 1777, General Horatio Gates became the focal point of what’s known as the Conway Cabal—a loose conspiracy aimed at having Gates replace Washington as commander-in-chief. General Thomas Conway wrote disparaging letters about Washington’s military abilities. Some members of Congress, including Samuel Adams, Thomas Mifflin, and Richard Henry Lee, questioned whether Washington’s defensive strategy was too cautious and if his battlefield performance was lacking. Gates himself played a duplicitous game, publicly supporting Washington while privately positioning himself as an alternative.

When Washington discovered the intrigue, his response was characteristically measured but firm. Rather than lobbying Congress or forming a counter-faction, Washington leaned heavily on reputation and restraint. He continued to communicate respectfully with Congress, emphasizing the army’s needs rather than defending his own position. Washington did not respond with denunciations or public accusations. Instead, he handled the situation largely behind the scenes. When he learned that Conway had written a critical letter praising Gates, Washington calmly informed him that he was aware of the letter—quoting it verbatim.

The conspiracy collapsed, in part because Washington’s personal reputation with the rank and file and with key political figures proved more resilient than his critics had anticipated. But the episode exposed deep fractures over strategy, leadership, and regional loyalties within the revolutionary coalition.

The Ideological Split: Hamilton vs. Jefferson and Madison

Perhaps the most consequential feud emerged in the 1790s between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, with James Madison eventually siding with Jefferson. This wasn’t just personal animosity—it represented a fundamental disagreement about America’s future.

Hamilton, Washington’s Treasury Secretary, envisioned an industrialized commercial nation with a strong central government, a national bank, and close ties to Britain. Jefferson, the Secretary of State, championed an agrarian republic of small farmers with minimal federal power and friendship with Revolutionary France. Their cabinet meetings became so contentious that Washington had to mediate. Hamilton accused Jefferson of being a dangerous radical who would destroy public credit. Jefferson called Hamilton a monarchist who wanted to recreate British aristocracy in America.

The conflict got personal. Hamilton leaked damaging information about Jefferson to friendly newspapers. Jefferson secretly funded a journalist, James Callender, to attack Hamilton in print. When Hamilton’s extramarital affair with Maria Reynolds became public in 1797, Jefferson’s allies savored every detail. The feud split the nation into the first political parties: Hamilton’s Federalists and Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans. Madison, once Hamilton’s ally in promoting the Constitution, switched sides completely, becoming Jefferson’s closest political partner and Hamilton’s implacable foe.

The Adams-Jefferson Friendship, Rivalry, and Reconciliation

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson experienced one of history’s most remarkable personal relationships. They were close friends during the Revolution, working together in Congress and on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence (though Jefferson did the actual writing). Both served diplomatic posts in Europe and developed deep mutual respect.

But the election of 1796 turned them into rivals. Adams won the presidency with Jefferson finishing second, making Jefferson vice president under the original constitutional system—imagine your closest competitor becoming your deputy. By the 1800 election, they were bitter enemies. The campaign was vicious, with Jefferson’s supporters calling Adams a “hideous hermaphroditical character” and Adams’s allies claiming Jefferson was an atheist who would destroy Christianity.

Jefferson won in 1800, and the two men didn’t speak for over a decade. Their relationship was so bitter that Adams left Washington early in the morning, before Jefferson’s inauguration. What makes their story extraordinary is the reconciliation. In 1812, mutual friends convinced them to resume correspondence. Their letters over the next fourteen years—158 of them—became one of the great intellectual exchanges in American history, discussing philosophy, politics, and their memories of the Revolution. Both men died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, with Adams’s last words reportedly being “Thomas Jefferson survives” (though Jefferson had actually died hours earlier).

Franklin vs. Adams: A Clash of Styles

In Paris, the relationship between Benjamin Franklin and John Adams was a tense blend of grudging professional reliance and deep personal irritation, rooted in radically different diplomatic styles and temperaments. Franklin, already a celebrated figure at Versailles, cultivated French support through charm, sociability, and patient maneuvering in salons and at court, a method that infuriated Adams. He equated such “nuances” with evasiveness and preferred direct argument, formal memorandums, and hard‑edged ultimatums. Sharing lodgings outside Paris only intensified Adams’s resentment as he watched Franklin rise late, receive endless visitors, and seemingly mix pleasure with business, leading Adams to complain that nothing would ever get done unless he did it himself, while Franklin privately judged Adams “always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses.” Their French ally, Foreign Minister Vergennes, reinforced the imbalance by insisting on dealing primarily with Franklin and effectively sidelining Adams in formal diplomacy. This deepened Adams’s sense that Franklin was both overindulged by the French and insufficiently assertive on America’s behalf. Yet despite their mutual loss of respect, the two ultimately cooperated—often uneasily—in the peace negotiations with Britain, and both signatures appear on the 1783 Treaty of Paris, a testament to the way personal feud and shared national purpose coexisted within the American diplomatic mission.

Hamilton and Burr: From Political Rivalry to Fatal Duel

The Hamilton-Burr feud ended in the most dramatic way possible: a duel at Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11, 1804, where Hamilton was mortally wounded and Burr destroyed his own political career.

Their rivalry had been building for years. Both were New York lawyers and politicians, but Hamilton consistently blocked Burr’s ambitions. When Burr ran for governor of New York in 1804, Hamilton campaigned against him with particular venom, calling Burr dangerous and untrustworthy at a dinner party. When Burr read accounts of Hamilton’s remarks in a newspaper, he demanded an apology. Hamilton refused to apologize or deny the comments, leading to the duel challenge.

What made this especially tragic was that Hamilton’s oldest son, Philip, had been killed in a duel three years earlier defending his father’s honor. Hamilton reportedly planned to withhold his fire, but he either intentionally shot into the air or missed. Burr’s shot struck Hamilton in the abdomen, and he died the next day. Burr was charged with murder in both New York and New Jersey and fled to the South. Though he later returned to complete his term as vice president, his political career was finished.

Adams vs. Hamilton: The Federalist Crack-Up

One of the most destructive feuds happened within the same party. John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were both Federalists, but their relationship became poisonous during Adams’s presidency (1797-1801).

Hamilton, though not in government, tried to control Adams’s cabinet from behind the scenes. When Adams pursued peace negotiations with France (the “Quasi-War” with France was raging), Hamilton wanted war. Adams discovered that several of his cabinet members were more loyal to Hamilton than to him and fired them. In the 1800 election, Hamilton wrote a fifty-four-page pamphlet attacking Adams’s character and fitness for office—extraordinary since they were in the same party. The pamphlet was meant for limited circulation among Federalist leaders, but Jefferson’s allies got hold of it and published it widely, devastating both Adams’s re-election chances and Hamilton’s reputation. The feud helped Jefferson win and essentially destroyed the Federalist Party.

Washington and Jefferson: The Unacknowledged Tension

While Washington and Jefferson never had an open feud, their relationship cooled significantly during Washington’s presidency. Jefferson, as Secretary of State, increasingly opposed the administration’s policies, particularly Hamilton’s financial program. When Washington supported the Jay Treaty with Britain in 1795—which Jefferson saw as a betrayal of France and Republican principles—Jefferson became convinced Washington had fallen under Hamilton’s spell.

Jefferson resigned from the cabinet in 1793, partly from policy disagreements but also from discomfort with what he saw as Washington’s monarchical tendencies (the formal receptions and the ceremonial aspects of the presidency). Washington, in turn, came to view Jefferson as disloyal, especially when he learned Jefferson had been secretly funding attacks on the administration in opposition newspapers and had even put a leading critic on the federal payroll. By the time Washington delivered his Farewell Address in 1796, warning against political parties and foreign entanglements, many saw it as a rebuke of Jefferson’s philosophy. They maintained outward courtesy, but their warm relationship never recovered.

Why These Feuds Mattered

These weren’t just personal squabbles—they shaped American democracy in profound ways. The Hamilton-Jefferson rivalry created our two-party system (despite Washington’s warnings). The Adams-Hamilton split showed that parties could fracture from within. The Adams-Jefferson reconciliation demonstrated that political enemies could find common ground after leaving power.

The founding fathers were human, with all the ambition, pride, jealousy, and pettiness that entails. They fought over power, principles, and personal slights. What’s remarkable isn’t that they agreed on everything—they clearly didn’t—but that despite their bitter divisions, they created a system robust enough to survive their feuds. The Constitution itself, with its checks and balances, almost seems designed to accommodate such disagreements, ensuring that no single person or faction could dominate.

SOURCES

National Archives – Founders Online

https://founders.archives.gov

2. Massachusetts Historical Society – Adams-Jefferson Letters

https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-jefferson

3. Founders Online – Hamilton’s Letter Concerning John Adams

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0110

4. Gilder Lehrman Institute – Hamilton and Jefferson

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/alexander-hamilton-and-thomas-jefferson

5. National Park Service – The Conway Cabal

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-conway-cabal.htm

6. American Battlefield Trust – Hamilton-Burr Duel

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/hamilton-burr-duel

7. Mount Vernon – Thomas Jefferson

https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/thomas-jefferson

8. Monticello – Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia

https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia

9. Library of Congress – John Adams Papers

https://www.loc.gov/collections/john-adams-papers

10. Joseph Ellis – “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation”

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/joseph-j-ellis

Illustration generated by author using ChatGPT.

13 Stars, Betsy Ross and the Story of the American Flag

By John Turley

On January 31, 2026

In History

On a steamy June day in 1777, the Continental Congress took a brief break from the monumental task of running a revolution to deal with something that seems surprisingly simple in retrospect: what should the American flag look like? The resolution they passed on June 14th was refreshingly concise, stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

That poetic phrase about a “new constellation” turned out to be both inspiring and maddeningly vague. Congress didn’t specify how the stars should be arranged, how many points they should have, or even whether the flag should start with a red or white stripe at the top. This ambiguity led to one of the interesting aspects of early American flag history—for decades, no two flags looked exactly alike.

The 1777 resolution came out of Congress’s Marine Committee business, and at least some historians caution that it may have been understood initially as a naval ensign, not a fully standardized “national flag for all uses.”

A Constellation of Designs

The lack of official guidance meant that flag makers exercised considerable artistic freedom. Smithsonian researcher Grace Rogers Cooper found at least 17 different examples of 13-star flags dating from 1779 to around 1796, and flag expert Jeff Bridgman has documented 32 different star arrangements from the era. Some makers arranged the stars in neat rows, others formed them into a single large star, and still others created elaborate patterns that spelled out “U.S.” or formed other symbolic shapes. An official star pattern would not be specified until 1912 and versions of the 13-star flag remained in ceremonial use until the mid-1800s.

The most famous arrangement, of course, is the Betsy Ross design with its circle of 13 stars. What many people don’t realize is that experts date the earliest known example of this circular pattern to 1792—in a painting by John Trumbull, not on an actual flag from 1776.

Did the Continental Army Actually Use This Flag?

Here’s where things get interesting and a bit murky. The short answer is: not much, and not right away. The Continental Army had been fighting for over two years before Congress even adopted the Stars and Stripes, and by that point, individual regiments had already developed their own distinctive colors and banners. These regimental flags served practical military purposes—they helped units identify each other in the chaos of battle and gave soldiers something to rally around. Additionally, the Continental Army frequently used the Grand Union Flag (13 stripes with a British Union in the canton), which predates the 13-star design.

What’s more revealing is a series of letters from 1779—two full years after the Flag Resolution—between George Washington and Richard Peters, Secretary of the Board of War. In these letters, Peters is essentially asking Washington what flag he wants the army to use. This correspondence raises an obvious question: if Congress had settled the flag issue in 1777, why was Washington still trying to figure it out in 1779? The evidence suggests that variations of the 13-star flag were primarily used by the Navy in those early years, while the Army continued to use various regimental standards.

Navy Captain John Manley expressed this confusion perfectly when he wrote in 1779 that the United States “had no national colors” and that each ship simply flew whatever flag the captain preferred. Even as late as 1779, the War Board hadn’t settled on a standard design for the Army. When they finally wrote to Washington for his input, they proposed a flag that included a serpent and numbers representing different states—a design that never caught on.

National “stars and stripes” banners did exist during the late war years and appear in some period art and descriptions, but clear, securely dated 13‑star Army battle flags are rare and often disputed.13‑star flags are better documented in early federal service such as maritime and lighthouse use in the 1790s than they are in Continental Army field service before 1783.

The Betsy Ross Question

Now we come to one of America’s most enduring flag legend. The story is familiar to most Americans: in 1776, George Washington, Robert Morris, and George Ross visited Philadelphia upholsterer Betsy Ross and asked her to sew the first American flag. She suggested changing the six-pointed stars to five-pointed ones, demonstrated her one-snip technique for making a perfect five-pointed star, and she then produced the first Stars and Stripes.

It’s a great story. There’s just one problem: historians have found virtually no documentary evidence to support it. The tale didn’t surface publicly until 1870—nearly a century after the supposed event—when Betsy Ross’s grandson, William Canby, presented it in a speech to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Canby relied entirely on family oral history, including affidavits from Ross’s daughter, granddaughter, and other relatives who claimed they had heard Betsy tell the story herself. But Canby himself admitted that his search through official records revealed nothing to corroborate the account.

Historians don’t dispute that Betsy Ross was a real person who did real work. Documentary evidence shows that on May 29, 1777, the Pennsylvania State Navy Board paid her a substantial sum for “making ships colours.” She ran a successful upholstery business and continued making flags for the government for more than 50 years. But as historian Marla Miller puts it, “The flag, like the Revolution it represents, was the work of many hands.” Modern scholars generally view the question not as whether Ross designed the flag—she almost certainly didn’t—but whether she may have been among the many people who produced early flags.

Who Really Designed It?

If not Betsy Ross, then who? The strongest candidate is Francis Hopkinson, the New Jersey delegate to the Continental Congress who also helped design the Great Seal of the United States and early American currency. In 1780, Hopkinson sent Congress a bill requesting payment for his design work, specifically mentioning “the flag of the United States of America.” He likely designed a flag with the stars arranged in rows rather than circles, and his bills for payment submitted to Congress mentioned six-pointed stars rather than the five-pointed ones that became standard.

Unfortunately for Hopkinson, Congress refused to pay him, arguing that he wasn’t the only person on the Navy Committee and therefore shouldn’t receive singular credit or compensation.

The irony is rich: Hopkinson was asking for a quarter cask of wine or £2,700 for designing what would become one of the world’s most recognizable symbols. Congress essentially told him, “Thanks, but we’re not paying.” There’s a lesson about government contracts in there somewhere.

What Survived

Of the hundreds of flags made and carried during the Revolutionary War, only about 30 are known to survive today. These rare artifacts offer fascinating glimpses into how Americans visualized their new nation. The Museum of the American Revolution brought together 17 of these original flags in a 2025 exhibition—the largest gathering of such flags since 1783.

The most significant surviving 13-star flag is probably Washington’s Headquarters Standard, a small blue silk flag measuring about two feet by three feet. It features 13 white, six-pointed stars on a blue field and descended through George Washington’s family with the tradition that it marked the General’s presence on the battlefield throughout the war. Experts consider it the earliest surviving 13-star American flag. Due to light damage, it can only be displayed on special occasions.

Other surviving flags tell different stories. The Brandywine Flag, used at the September 1777 battle of the same name, is one of the earliest stars and stripes—the flag is red, with a red and white American flag image in the canton.

The Dansey Flag, captured from the Delaware militia by a British soldier, was taken to England as a war trophy and remained in his family until 1927. The flag features a green field with 13 alternating red and white stripes in the upper left corner signifying the 13 colonies.

These and other flags weren’t just military equipment—they were powerful symbols that people fought under and, sometimes, died defending.

The Bigger Picture

What makes the story of the 13-star flag so compelling isn’t really about who sewed it or exactly when it first flew. It’s about what the flag represented in an era when the very concept of the United States was still being invented. The June 1777 resolution called for stars forming “a new constellation”—a beautiful metaphor for a new nation finding its place among the powers of the world.

The fact that no two early flags looked exactly alike might seem like a problem from our standardized modern perspective, but it tells us something important about the Revolution itself. Just as the colonies were learning to act as united states while maintaining their individual identities, flag makers across the new nation were interpreting a simple congressional resolution in their own ways, creating variations on a shared theme.

As historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich points out, there was no “first flag” worth arguing over. The American flag evolved organically, shaped by the practical needs of the Navy, the Army, militias, and civilian flag makers who each contributed to its development. Whether Betsy Ross made one of those early flags or not, her story endures because it captures something Americans want to believe about our origins: that ordinary citizens, working in small shops and homes, helped create the symbols of the new republic.

Sources:

History.com: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-14/congress-adopts-the-stars-and-stripes

Flags of the World: https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-1777.html

Wikipedia Flag of the United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States

Museum of the American Revolution: https://www.amrevmuseum.org/

American Battlefield Trust: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/short-history-united-states-flag

US History (Betsy Ross): https://www.ushistory.org/betsy/

Library of Congress “Today in History”: https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-14/

Flag images from Wikimedia Commons

The Strange Tale of Spontaneous Human Combustion

By John Turley

On January 19, 2026

In Commentary, History

Did you ever run into an idea so strange that you can’t quite understand how anyone ever took it seriously? Recently, while reading about historical curiosities in Pseudoscience by Kang and Pederson, I was reminded of one of the most enduring examples: spontaneous human combustion.

The classic image is always the same. Someone enters a room and finds a small pile of ashes where a person once sat. The body is nearly destroyed, yet the chair beneath it is barely scorched and the rest of the room looks strangely untouched. For centuries, this baffling scene was explained by a dramatic idea—that a person could suddenly burst into flames from the inside, without any external fire at all.

It sounds like something lifted straight from a gothic novel, but belief in spontaneous human combustion stretches back to at least the seventeenth century and reached its peak in the Victorian era. To understand why it gained such traction, it helps to look at the social attitudes of the time, the cases that convinced people it was real, and what modern forensic science eventually uncovered.

Much of the early belief rested on moral judgment rather than evidence. In the nineteenth century, spontaneous human combustion was widely accepted as a kind of divine punishment. Many of the alleged victims were described as heavy drinkers, often elderly, overweight, or socially isolated, and women were frequently overrepresented in the reports. To Victorian minds, this pattern felt meaningful. Alcohol was flammable, after all, and it seemed reasonable—at least then—to assume that a body saturated with spirits might somehow ignite. Sensational newspaper reporting amplified the mystery, presenting lurid details while glossing over inconvenient facts.

The idea gained intellectual credibility in 1746 when Paul Rolli, a Fellow of the Royal Society, formally used the term “spontaneous human combustion” while describing the death of Countess Cornelia Zangari Bandi. The involvement of a respected scientific figure gave the concept legitimacy that lingered for generations.

Several cases became canonical. Countess Bandi’s death in 1731 was described as leaving little more than ashes and partially intact legs, still clothed in stockings. In 1966, John Irving Bentley of Pennsylvania was found almost completely burned except for one leg, with his pipe discovered intact nearby. Mary Reeser, known as the “Cinder Woman,” died in Florida in 1951, leaving behind melted fat embedded in the rug near where she had been sitting. As recently as 2010, an Irish coroner ruled that spontaneous human combustion caused the death of Michael Faherty, whose body was found badly burned near a fireplace in a room that showed little fire damage. Over roughly three centuries, about two hundred such cases have been cited worldwide.

Believers proposed explanations that ranged from the scientific-sounding to the overtly theological. Alcoholism was the most popular theory, with some physicians genuinely arguing that chronic drinking made the human body combustible. Earlier medical thinking leaned on imbalances of bodily humors, while later writers speculated about unknown chemical reactions producing internal heat. Religious interpretations framed these deaths as punishment for sin. Even in modern times, a few proponents have suggested that acetone buildup in people with alcoholism, diabetes, or extreme diets could somehow trigger combustion.

The idea was so culturally embedded that Charles Dickens famously killed off the alcoholic character Mr. Krook by spontaneous combustion in Bleak House. When critics objected, Dickens defended the plot choice by citing what he believed were credible historical and medical sources.

The illusion of the supernatural persisted because the circumstances were almost perfectly misleading. Victims were typically alone, elderly, or physically impaired, unable to respond quickly to a smoldering fire. The localized damage looked impossible to the untrained eye. Potential ignition sources were often destroyed in the fire itself. And dramatic storytelling filled in the gaps left by incomplete investigations.

What actually happens in these cases is far less mystical and far more unsettling. Modern forensic science points to an explanation known as the “wick effect.” In this scenario, there is always an external ignition source—often a cigarette, candle, lamp, or fireplace ember. Once clothing catches fire, heat melts the person’s body fat. That liquefied fat soaks into the clothing, which then behaves like a candle wick. The fire burns slowly and steadily, sometimes for hours, consuming much of the body while leaving nearby objects relatively unscathed.

This effect has been demonstrated experimentally. In the 1960s, researchers at Leeds University showed that cloth soaked in human fat could sustain a slow burn for extended periods once ignited. In 1998, forensic scientist John de Haan famously replicated the effect for the BBC by burning a pig carcass wrapped in a blanket. The result closely matched classic spontaneous combustion scenes: severe destruction of the body, with extremities left behind and limited damage to the surrounding room.

The reason these fires don’t usually engulf the entire space is simple physics. Flames rise more easily than they spread sideways, and the heat output of a wick-effect fire is relatively localized. It’s similar to standing near a campfire—you can be close without catching fire yourself.

Investigators Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer examined dozens of historical cases and found that every one involved a plausible ignition source, details that earlier accounts often ignored or downplayed. When these factors are restored to the narrative, the mystery largely disappears.

As science writer Benjamin Radford has pointed out, if spontaneous human combustion were truly spontaneous, we would expect it to occur randomly and frequently, in public places as well as private ones. Instead, it consistently appears in situations involving isolation and an external heat source.

The bottom line is straightforward. There is no credible scientific evidence that humans can burst into flames without an external ignition source. What has been labeled spontaneous human combustion is better understood as a tragic combination of accidental fire and the wick effect. The myth endured because it blended moral judgment, fear, and incomplete science into a compelling story. Today, forensic investigation has replaced superstition with explanation, even if the results remain unsettling.

Spontaneous human combustion survives as a reminder of how easily mystery fills the space where evidence is thin—and how patiently applied science eventually closes that gap.

Sources and Further Reading

Peer-reviewed forensic and medical analyses are available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information, including “So-called Spontaneous Human Combustion” in the Journal of Forensic Sciences (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21392004/) and Koljonen and Kluger’s 2012 review, “Spontaneous human combustion in the light of the 21st century,” published in the Journal of Burn Care & Research (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22269823/).

General scientific and historical overviews can be found in Encyclopædia Britannica’s article “Is Spontaneous Human Combustion Real?” (https://www.britannica.com/story/is-spontaneous-human-combustion-real), Scientific American’s discussion of the wick effect (https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/cocktail-party-physics/burn-baby-burn-understanding-the-wick-effect/), and Live Science’s summary of facts and theories (https://www.livescience.com/42080-spontaneous-human-combustion.html).

Accessible explanatory pieces are also available from HowStuffWorks (https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/unexplained-phenomena/shc.htm), History.com (https://www.history.com/articles/is-spontaneous-human-combustion-real), Mental Floss (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/22236/quick-7-seven-cases-spontaneous-human-combustion), and All That’s Interesting (https://allthatsinteresting.com/spontaneous-human-combustion). Wikipedia’s entries on spontaneous human combustion and the wick effect provide comprehensive background and references at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wick_effect.

What “Woke” Really Means: A Look at a Loaded Word

By John Turley

On January 15, 2026

In Commentary, History, Politics

Why everyone’s fighting over a word nobody agrees on

Okay, so you’ve probably heard “woke” thrown around about a million times, right? It’s in political debates, online arguments, your uncle’s Facebook rants—basically everywhere. And here’s the weird part: depending on who’s saying it, it either means you’re enlightened or you’re insufferable.

So let’s figure out what’s actually going on with this word.

Where It All Started

Here’s something most people don’t know: “woke” wasn’t invented by social media activists or liberal college students. It goes way back to the 1930s in Black communities, and it meant something straightforward—stay alert to racism and injustice.

The earliest solid example comes from blues musician Lead Belly. In his song “Scottsboro Boys” (about nine Black teenagers falsely accused of rape in Alabama in 1931), he told Black Americans to “stay woke”—basically meaning watch your back, because the system isn’t on your side. This wasn’t abstract philosophy; it was survival advice in the Jim Crow South.

The term hung around in Black culture for decades. It got a boost in 2008 when Erykah Badu used “I stay woke” in her song “Master Teacher,” where it meant something like staying self-aware and questioning the status quo.

But the big explosion happened around 2014 during the Ferguson protests after Michael Brown was killed. Black Lives Matter activists started using “stay woke” to talk about police brutality and systemic racism. It spread through Black Twitter, then got picked up by white progressives showing solidarity with social justice movements. By the late 2010s, it had expanded to cover sexism, LGBTQ+ issues, and pretty much any social inequality you can think of.

And that’s when conservatives started using it as an insult.

The Liberal Take: It’s About Giving a Damn

For progressives, “woke” still carries that original vibe of awareness. According to a 2023 Ipsos poll, 56% of Americans (and 78% of Democrats) said “woke” means “to be informed, educated, and aware of social injustices.”

From this angle, being woke just means you’re paying attention to how race, gender, sexuality, and class affect people’s lives—and you think we should try to make things fairer. It’s not about shaming people; it’s about understanding the experiences of others.

Liberals see it as continuing the work of the civil rights movement—expanding who we empathize with and include. That might mean supporting diversity programs, using inclusive language, or rethinking how we teach history. To them, it’s just what thoughtful people do in a diverse society.

Here’s the Progressive Argument in a Nutshell

The term literally started as self-defense. Progressives argue the problems are real. Being “woke” is about recognizing that bias, inequality, and discrimination still exist. The data back some of this up—there are documented disparities in policing, sentencing, healthcare, and economic opportunity across racial lines. From this view, pointing these things out isn’t being oversensitive; it’s just stating facts.

They also point out that conservatives weaponized the term. They took a word from Black communities about awareness and justice and turned it into an all-purpose insult for anything they don’t like about the left. Some activists call this a “racial dog whistle”—a way to attack justice movements without being explicitly racist.

The concept naturally expanded from racial justice to other inequalities—sexism, LGBTQ+ discrimination, other forms of unfairness. Supporters see this as logical: if you care about one group being treated badly, why wouldn’t you care about others?

And here’s their final point: what’s the alternative? When you dismiss “wokeness,” you’re often dismissing the underlying concerns. Denying that racism still affects American life can become just another way to ignore real problems.

Bottom line from the liberal side: being “woke” means you’ve opened your eyes to how society works differently for different people, and you think we can do better.

The Conservative Take: It’s About Going Too Far

Conservatives see it completely differently. To them, “woke” isn’t about awareness—it’s about excess and control.

They see “wokeness” as an ideology that forces moral conformity and punishes anyone who disagrees. What started as social awareness has turned into censorship and moral bullying. When a professor loses their job over an unpopular opinion or comedy shows get edited for “offensive” jokes, conservatives point and say: “See? This is exactly what we’re talking about.” To them, “woke” is just the new version of “politically correct”—except worse. It’s intolerance dressed up as virtue.

Here’s the conservative argument in a nutshell:

Wokeness has moved way beyond awareness into something harmful. They argue it creates a “victimhood culture” where status and that benefits come from claiming you’re oppressed rather than from merit or hard work. Instead of fixing injustice, they say it perpetuates it by elevating people based on identity rather than achievement.

They see it as “an intolerant and moralizing ideology” that threatens free speech. In their view, woke culture only allows viewpoints that align with progressive ideology and “cancels” dissenters or labels them “white supremacists.”

Many conservatives deny that structural racism or widespread discrimination still exists in modern America. They attribute unequal outcomes to factors other than bias. They believe America is fundamentally a great country and reject the idea that there is systematic racism or that capitalism can sometimes be unjust.

They also see real harm in certain progressive positions—like the idea that gender is principally a social construct or that children should self-determine their gender. They view these as threats to traditional values and biological reality.

Ultimately, conservatives argue that wokeness is about gaining power through moral intimidation rather than correcting injustice. In their view, the people rejecting wokeness are the real critical thinkers.

The Heart of the Clash

Here’s what makes this so messy: both sides genuinely believe they’re defending what’s right.

Liberals think “woke” means justice and empathy. Conservatives think it means judgment and control. The exact same thing—a company ad featuring diverse families, a school curriculum change, a social movement—can look like progress to one person and propaganda to another.

One person’s enlightenment is literally another person’s indoctrination.

The Word Nobody Wants Anymore

Here’s the ironic part: almost nobody calls themselves “woke” anymore. Like “politically correct” before it, the word has gotten so loaded that it’s frequently used as an insult—even by people who agree with the underlying ideas. The term has been stretched to cover everything from racial awareness to climate activism to gender identity debates, and the more it’s used, the less anyone knows what it truly means.

Recently though, some progressives have started reclaiming the term—you’re beginning to see “WOKE” on protest signs now.

So, Who’s Right?

Maybe both. Maybe neither.

If “woke” means staying aware of injustice and treating people fairly, that’s good. If it means acting morally superior and shutting down disagreement, that’s not. The truth is probably somewhere in the messy middle.

This whole debate tells us more about America than about the word itself. We’ve always struggled with how to balance freedom with fairness, justice with tolerance. “Woke” is just the latest word we’re using to have that same old argument.

The Bottom Line

Whether you love it or hate it, “woke” isn’t going anywhere soon. It captures our national struggle to figure out what awareness and fairness should look like today.

And honestly? Maybe we’d all be better off spending less time arguing about the word and more time talking about the actual values behind it—what’s fair, what’s free speech, what kind of society do we want?

Being “woke” originally meant recognizing systemic prejudices—racial injustice, discrimination, and social inequities many still experience daily. But the term’s become a cultural flashpoint. Here’s the thing: real progress requires acknowledging both perspectives exist and finding common ground. It’s not about who’s “right”—it’s about building bridges.

If being truly woke means staying alert to injustice while remaining open to dialogue with those who see things differently, seeking solutions that work for everyone, caring for others, being empathetic and charitable, then call me WOKE.

Bull Markets, Bear Markets and the Story Behind Wall Street’s Most Famous Animals

By John Turley

On January 13, 2026

In Commentary, History

If you’ve ever caught a business news segment, you’ve probably heard anchors throwing around terms like “bull market” and “bear market” as if everyone just naturally knows what they mean. But beyond the basic idea that one’s good and one’s bad, the real mechanics of these market conditions—and how they got their animal nicknames—are pretty interesting.

How the Stock Market Works (The Quick Version)

Before we dive into bulls and bears, let’s cover the basics. The stock market is essentially a place where people buy and sell ownership stakes in companies. When you buy a share of stock, you’re purchasing a tiny piece of that company. The price of that share goes up or down based on how many people want to buy it versus how many want to sell it—classic supply and demand.

Companies sell shares to raise money for growth, and investors buy them hoping the company will do well and the stock price will increase. The overall “market” is tracked through indexes like the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial Average, which measure how a group of major companies are performing. When most stocks are rising, we say the market is up; when most are falling, the market is down.

What Bull and Bear Markets Actually Mean

A bull market refers to a period when stock prices are rising, typically defined as a 20% or more increase from recent lows. During bull markets, investors are optimistic, companies are generally doing well, and people are more willing to take risks with their money. Bull markets usually are driven by a strong economy with low inflation and optimistic investors. Think of the economic boom of the late 1990s or the recovery after the 2008 financial crisis—those were classic bull markets where prices kept climbing for years.

A bear market is essentially the opposite: a general decline in the stock market over time, usually defined as a 20% or more price decline over at least a two-month period. During bear markets, investors get nervous, sell off their holdings, and pessimism spreads. When a 10% to 20% decline occurs, it’s classified as a correction, and bear territory always precedes a bear market. The Great Depression, the 2008 financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic’s initial impact all triggered bear markets.

The Colorful History Behind the Terms

Now here’s where things get interesting. These terms didn’t come from some modern marketing genius—they trace back to 18th century London, and the story involves everything from old proverbs to violent animal fights to one of history’s biggest financial scandals.

The “bear” term came first. Etymologists point to an old proverb, warning that it is not wise “to sell the bear’s skin before one has caught the bear”. This saying was about the foolishness of counting on something before you actually have it. By the early 1700s, traders who engaged in short selling (betting that prices would fall) were called “bear-skin jobbers” because they sold a bear’s skin—the shares—before catching the bear. The term eventually got shortened to just “bears.”

The real watershed moment came with the South Sea Bubble of 1720. The South Sea Company was a British joint stock company founded by an act of Parliament in 1711, and in 1720, the company assumed most of the British national debt and convinced investors to give up state annuities for company stock sold at a very high premium. When everything collapsed, share prices dropped dramatically, starting a “bear market,” and the story became the topic of many literary works and went down in history as an infamous metaphor.

As for “bull,” the origins are a bit murkier. The first known instance of the market term “bull” popped up in 1714, shortly after the “bear” term emerged. Most historians think it arose as a natural counterpoint to “bear,” possibly influenced by bull-baiting and bear-baiting, two animal fighting sports popular at the time—though I should note that’s somewhat speculative.

There’s also a popular explanation about how the animals attack: bears swipe downward with their paws while bulls thrust upward with their horns, which nicely mirrors market movements. While that’s a helpful memory device, it’s probably more of a convenient coincidence or a retroactive description than the actual origin. The term “bull” originally meant a speculative purchase in the expectation that stock prices would rise, and was later applied to the person making such purchases.

Why This Still Matters

These metaphors have stuck around for three centuries because they work. They’re visceral and easy to remember—you can picture a charging bull or a hibernating bear without needing an economics degree. They also capture something real about market psychology: the aggressive optimism of bulls pushing prices up versus the defensive pessimism of bears hunkering down.

Understanding these terms helps you follow financial news and, more importantly, recognize when markets are shifting. Knowing you’re in a bull market might make you less surprised by rising prices, while recognizing a bear market can help you avoid panic-selling when things look grim.

The Bull and Bear Markets are among those things I’ve heard for years and never knew their origin. This article is an attempt to explain it to myself.

Sources:

Merriam-Webster Dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/the-origins-of-the-bear-and-bull-in-the-stock-market
Savant Wealth Management: https://savantwealth.com/savant-views-news/article/bulls-and-bears-where-do-those-terms-come-from/
Wikipedia – Market Trend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_trend
CNN Business: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/14/business/bear-bull-meaning-wall-street-stocks
Today I Found Out: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/04/origin-of-the-stock-market-terms-bull-and-bear/

The Sugar Act of 1764: The Tax Cut That Sparked a Revolution

By John Turley

On January 10, 2026

In History, Politics

The Sugar Act of 1764: The Tax Cut That Sparked a Revolution

Imagine a time when people rose up in protest of a tax being lowered. Welcome to the world of the Sugar Act.

The Sugar Act of 1764 stands as one of the most ironic moments in the history of taxation. Here Britain was actually lowering a tax, and yet colonists reacted with a fury that would help spark a revolution. To understanding this paradox, we must understand that this new act represented something far more threatening than any previous attempt by Britain to regulate its American colonies.

The Old System: Benign Neglect

For decades before 1764, Britain had maintained what historians call “salutary neglect” toward its American colonies. The Molasses Act of 1733 had imposed a steep duty of six pence per gallon on foreign molasses imported into the colonies. On paper, this seemed like a significant burden for the rum-distilling industry, which depended heavily on cheap molasses from French and Spanish Caribbean islands. In practice, though, the tax was rarely collected. Colonial merchants either bribed customs officials or simply smuggled the molasses past them. The British government essentially looked the other way, and everyone profited.

This informal arrangement worked because Britain’s primary interest in the colonies was commercial, not fiscal. The Navigation Acts required colonists to ship certain goods only to Britain and to buy manufactured goods from British merchants, which enriched British traders and manufacturers without requiring aggressive tax collection in America. As long as this system funneled wealth toward London, Parliament didn’t care much about collecting relatively small customs duties across the Atlantic.

Everything Changed in 1763

The Seven Years’ War (which Americans call the French and Indian War) changed this comfortable arrangement entirely. Britain won decisively, driving France out of North America and gaining vast new territories. But victory came with a staggering price tag. Britain’s national debt had nearly doubled to £130 million, and annual interest payments alone consumed half the government’s budget. Meanwhile, Britain now needed to maintain 10,000 troops in North America to defend its expanded empire and manage relations with Native American tribes.

Prime Minister George Grenville faced a political problem. British taxpayers, already heavily burdened, were in no mood for additional taxes. The logic seemed obvious: since the colonies had benefited from the war’s outcome and still required military protection, they should help pay for their own defense. Americans, paid far lower taxes than their counterparts in Britain—by some estimates, British residents paid 26 times more per capita in taxes than colonists did.

What the Act Actually Did

The Sugar Act (officially the American Revenue Act of 1764) approached colonial taxation differently than anything before it. First, it cut the duty on foreign molasses from six pence to three pence per gallon—a 50% reduction. Grenville calculated, reasonably, that merchants might actually pay a three-pence duty rather than risk getting caught smuggling, whereas the six-pence duty had been so high it encouraged universal evasion.

But the Act did far more than adjust molasses duties. It added or increased duties on foreign textiles, coffee, indigo, and wine imported into the colonies. colonialtened regulations around the colonial lumber trade and banned the import of foreign rum entirely. Most significantly, the Act included elaborate provisions designed to strictly enforce these duties for the first time.

The enforcement mechanisms represented the real revolution in British policy. Ship captains now had to post bonds before loading cargo and had to maintain detailed written cargo lists. Naval patrols increased dramatically. Smugglers faced having their ships and cargo seized.

Significantly, the burden of proof was shifted to the accused. They were required to prove their innocence, a reversal of traditional British justice. Most controversially, accused smugglers would be tried in vice-admiralty courts, which had no juries and whose judges received a cut of any fines levied.

The Paradox of the Lower Tax

So why did colonists react so angrily to a tax cut? The answer reveals the fundamental shift in the British-American relationship that the Sugar Act represented.

First, the issue wasn’t the tax rate. It was the certainty of collection. A six-pence tax that no one paid was infinitely preferable to a three-pence tax rigorously enforced. New England’s rum distilling industry, which employed thousands of distillery workers and sailors, depended on cheap molasses from the French West Indies. Even at three pence per gallon, the tax significantly increased operating costs. Many merchants calculated they couldn’t remain profitable if they had to pay it.

Second, and more importantly, colonists recognized that the Act’s purpose had changed relationships. Previous trade regulations, even if they involved taxes, were ostensibly about regulating commerce within the empire. The Sugar Act openly stated its purpose was raising revenue—the preamble declared it was “just and necessary that a revenue be raised” in America. This might seem like a technical distinction, but to colonists it mattered enormously. British constitutional theory held that subjects could only be taxed by their own elected representatives. Colonists elected representatives to their own assemblies but sent no representatives to Parliament. Trade regulations fell under Parliament’s legitimate authority to govern imperial commerce, but taxation for revenue was something else entirely.

Third, the enforcement mechanisms offended colonial sensibilities about justice and traditional British rights. The vice-admiralty courts denied jury trials, which colonists viewed as a fundamental right of British subjects. Having to prove your innocence rather than being presumed innocent violated another core principle. Customs officials and judges profiting from convictions created obvious incentives for abuse.

Implementation and Colonial Response

The Act took effect in September 1764, and Grenville paired it with an aggressive enforcement campaign. The Royal Navy assigned 27 ships to patrol American waters. Britain appointed new customs officials and gave them instructions to strictly do their jobs rather than accept bribes. Admiralty courts in Halifax, Nova Scotia became particularly notorious. Colonists had to travel hundreds of miles to defend themselves in a court with no jury and with a judge whose income game from convictions.

Colonists responded immediately. Boston merchants drafted a protest arguing that the act would devastate their trade. They explained that New England’s economy depended on a complex triangular trade: they sold lumber and food to the Caribbean in exchange for molasses, which they distilled into rum, which they sold to Africa for slaves, who were sold to Caribbean plantations for molasses, and the cycle repeated. Taxing molasses would break this chain and impoverish the region.

But the economic arguments quickly evolved into constitutional ones. Lawyer James Otis argued that “taxation without representation is tyranny”—a phrase that would echo through the coming decade. Colonial assemblies began passing resolutions asserting their exclusive right to tax their own constituents. They didn’t deny Parliament’s authority to regulate trade, but they drew a clear line: revenue taxation required representation.

The protests went beyond rhetoric. Colonial merchants organized boycotts of British manufactured goods. Women’s groups pledged to wear homespun cloth rather than buy British textiles. These boycotts caused enough economic pain in Britain that London merchants began lobbying Parliament for relief.

The Road to Revolution

The Sugar Act’s significance extends far beyond its immediate economic impact. It established precedents and patterns that would define the next decade of imperial crisis.

Most fundamentally, it shattered the comfortable arrangement of salutary neglect. Once Britain demonstrated it intended to actively govern and tax the colonies, the relationship could never return to its previous informality. The colonists’ constitutional objections—no taxation without representation, right to jury trials, presumption of innocence—would be repeated with increasing urgency as Parliament passed the Stamp Act (1765), Townshend Acts (1767), and Tea Act (1773).

The Sugar Act also revealed the practical difficulties of governing an empire across 3,000 miles of ocean. The vice-admiralty courts became symbols of distant, unaccountable power. When colonists couldn’t get satisfaction through established legal channels, they increasingly turned to extralegal methods, including committees of correspondence, non-importation agreements, and eventually armed resistance.

Perhaps most importantly, the Sugar Act forced colonists to articulate a political theory that ultimately proved incompatible with continued membership in the British Empire. Once they agreed to the principle that they could only be taxed by their own elected representatives, and that Parliament’s authority over them was limited to trade regulation, the logic led inexorably toward independence. Britain couldn’t accept colonial assemblies as co-equal governing bodies since Parliament claimed supreme authority over all British subjects. The colonists couldn’t accept taxation without representation since they claimed the rights of freeborn Englishmen. These positions couldn’t be reconciled.

The Sugar Act of 1764 represents the point where the British Empire’s century-long success in North America began to unravel. By trying to make the colonies pay a modest share of imperial costs through what seemed like reasonable means, Britain inadvertently set in motion forces that would break the empire apart just twelve years later.

Sources

Mount Vernon Digital Encyclopedia – Sugar Act https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/sugar-act/ Provides overview of the Act’s provisions, economic context, and relationship to British debt from the Seven Years’ War. Includes information on tax burden comparisons between Britain and the colonies.

Britannica – Sugar Act https://www.britannica.com/event/Sugar-Act Covers the specific provisions of the Act, enforcement mechanisms, vice-admiralty courts, and the shift from the Molasses Act of 1733. Useful for technical details of the legislation.

History.com – Sugar Act https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/sugar-act Discusses colonial constitutional objections, the “taxation without representation” argument, and the enforcement provisions including burden of proof reversal and jury trial denial.

American Battlefield Trust – Sugar Act https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/sugar-act Details colonial response including boycotts, James Otis’s arguments, and the triangular trade system that the Act disrupted.

Additional Recommended Sources

Library of Congress – The Sugar Act https://www.loc.gov/collections/continental-congress-and-constitutional-convention-broadsides/articles-and-essays/continental-congress-broadsides/broadsides-related-to-the-sugar-act/ Primary source collection including contemporary colonial broadsides and protests against the Act.

National Archives – The Sugar Act (Primary Source Text) https://founders.archives.gov/about/Sugar-Act The actual text of the American Revenue Act of 1764, useful for verifying specific provisions and language.

Yale Law School – Avalon Project: Resolutions of the Continental Congress (October 19, 1765) https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/resolu65.asp Colonial responses to the Sugar and Stamp Acts, showing how the arguments evolved.

Massachusetts Historical Society – James Otis’s Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (1764) https://www.masshist.org/digitalhistory/revolution/taxation-without-representation Primary source for the “taxation without representation” argument that emerged from Sugar Act opposition.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation – Sugar Act of 1764 https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/sugar-act-1764/ Discusses economic impact on colonial merchants and the rum distilling industry.

Slavery and the Constitutional Convention: The Compromise That Shaped a Nation

By John Turley

On January 7, 2026

In History, Politics

When fifty-five delegates gathered in Philadelphia during the sweltering summer of 1787, they faced a challenge that would haunt American politics for the next eight decades. The question wasn’t whether slavery was morally right—many delegates privately acknowledged its evil—but whether a unified nation could exist with slavery as a part of it. That summer, the institution of slavery nearly killed the Constitution before it was born.

The Battle Lines

The convention revealed a stark divide. On one side stood delegates who spoke forcefully against slavery, though they represented a minority voice. Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania delivered some of the most scathing condemnations, calling slavery a “nefarious institution” and “the curse of heaven on the states where it prevailed.” According to James Madison’s notes, Morris argued passionately that counting enslaved people for representation would mean that someone “who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections & damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind.”

Luther Martin of Maryland, himself a slaveholder, joined Morris in opposition. He declared the slave trade “inconsistent with the principles of the revolution and dishonorable to the American character.”. Even George Mason of Virginia, who owned over 200 enslaved people, denounced slavery at the convention, warning that “every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant” and that it would bring “the judgment of heaven on a country.”

The Southern Coalition

Facing these critics stood delegates from the Deep South—primarily South Carolina and Georgia—who made it abundantly clear that protecting slavery was non-negotiable. The South Carolina delegation was particularly unified and aggressive in defending the institution. All four of their delegates—John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Pierce Butler—owned slaves, and they spoke with one voice.

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney stated bluntly: “South Carolina and Georgia cannot do without slaves.” John Rutledge framed it even more starkly: “The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union.” The message was unmistakable—attempt to restrict slavery, and there would be no Constitution and perhaps no United States.

The Southern states didn’t just defend slavery; they threatened to walk out repeatedly. When debates over the slave trade heated up on August 22, delegates from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia stated they would “never be such fools as to give up” their right to import enslaved Africans. These weren’t idle threats—they were credible enough to force compromise.

The Three-Fifths Compromise

The central flashpoint came over representation in Congress. The new Constitution would base representation on population, but should enslaved people count? Southern states wanted every enslaved person counted fully, which would dramatically increase their congressional power. Northern states argued that enslaved people—who had no rights and couldn’t vote—shouldn’t count at all.

The three-fifths ratio had actually been debated before. Back in 1783, Congress had considered using it to calculate state tax obligations under the Articles of Confederation, though that proposal failed. James Wilson of Pennsylvania resurrected the idea at the Constitutional Convention, suggesting that representation be based on the free population plus three-fifths of “all other persons”—the euphemism they used to avoid writing the word “slave” in the Constitution.

The compromise passed eight states to two. New Jersey and Delaware are generally identified as the states voting against the compromise, New Hampshire is not listed as taking part in the vote. Rhode Island did not send a delegation to the convention and by the time of the vote New York no longer had a functioning delegation.

Though the South ultimately accepted the compromise, it wasn’t what they wanted. Southern delegates had pushed to count enslaved people equally with free persons—but otherwise ignored on all issues of human rights. The three-fifths ratio was a reduction from their demands—a limitation on slave state power, though it still gave them substantial advantage. With about 93% of the nation’s enslaved population concentrated in just five southern states, this compromise increased the South’s congressional delegation by 42%.

James Madison later recognized the compromise’s significance. He wrote after the convention: “It seems now to be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lies not between the large and small but between the northern and southern states. The institution of slavery and its consequences form the line of discrimination.”

Could the Constitution Have Happened Without It?

Here’s where I need to speculate, but I’m fairly confident in this assessment: no, the Constitution would not have been ratified without the three-fifths compromise and related concessions on slavery.

The evidence is overwhelming. South Carolina and Georgia delegates stated explicitly and repeatedly that they would not join any union that restricted slavery. Alexander Hamilton himself later acknowledged that “no union could possibly have been formed” without the three-fifths compromise. Even delegates who despised slavery, like Roger Sherman of Connecticut, argued it was “better to let the Southern States import slaves than to part with them.”

The convention negotiated three major slavery compromises, all linked. Beyond the three-fifths clause, they agreed Congress couldn’t ban the international slave trade until 1808, and they included the Fugitive Slave Clause requiring the return of escaped enslaved people even from free states. These deals were struck together on August 29, 1787, in what Madison’s notes reveal was a package negotiation between northern and southern delegates.

Without these compromises, the convention would likely have collapsed. The alternative wouldn’t have been a better Constitution—it would have been no Constitution at all, potentially leaving the thirteen states as separate nations or weak confederations. Whether that would have been preferable is a profound counterfactual question that historians still debate.

The Impact on Early American Politics

The three-fifths compromise didn’t just affect one document—it shaped American politics for decades. Its effects were immediate and substantial.

The most famous early example came in the presidential election of 1800. Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams in what’s often called the “Revolution of 1800″—the first peaceful transfer of power between opposing political parties. But Jefferson’s victory owed directly to the three-fifths compromise. Virginia’s enslaved population gave the state extra electoral votes that proved decisive. Historian Garry Wills has speculated that without these additional slave-state votes, Jefferson would have lost. Pennsylvania had a free population 10% larger than Virginia’s, yet received 20% fewer electoral votes because Virginia’s numbers were inflated by the compromise.

The impact extended far beyond that single election. Research shows the three-fifths clause changed the outcome of over 55% of legislative votes in the Sixth Congress (1799-1801). (The additional southern representatives—about 18 more than their free population warranted—gave the South what became known as the “Slave Power” in Congress.

This power influenced major legislation throughout the antebellum period. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly relocated Native Americans to open land for plantation agriculture, passed because of margins provided by these extra southern representatives. The Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and numerous other slavery-related measures bore the fingerprints of this constitutional imbalance.

The compromise also affected Supreme Court appointments and federal patronage. Southern-dominated Congresses ensured pro-slavery justices and policies that protected the institution. The sectional tensions it created led directly to later compromises—the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850—each one a temporary bandage on a wound that wouldn’t heal.

By the 1850s, the artificial political power granted to slave states had become intolerable to many northerners. When Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in 1860 without carrying a single southern state, southern political leaders recognized they had lost control of the federal government. Senator Louis Wigfall of Texas complained that non-slaveholding states now controlled Congress and the Electoral College. Ten southern states seceded in large part because they believed the three-fifths compromise no longer protected their interests.

The Bitter Legacy

The framers consciously avoided using the words “slave” or “slavery” in the Constitution, recognizing it would “sully the document.” But the euphemisms fooled no one. They had built slavery into the structure of American government, trading moral principles for political union.

The Civil War finally resolved what the Constitutional Convention had delayed. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, but not until 1868 did the Fourteenth Amendment finally strike the three-fifths clause from the Constitution, requiring that representation be based on counting the “whole number of persons” in each state.

Was it worth it? That’s ultimately a question of values. The Constitution created a stronger national government that eventually abolished slavery, but it took 78 years and a war that killed over 600,000 Americans. As Thurgood Marshall noted on the Constitution’s bicentennial, the framers “consented to a document which laid a foundation for the tragic events which were to follow.”

The convention delegates knew what they were doing. They chose union over justice, pragmatism over principle. Whether that choice was necessary, wise, or moral remains one of the most contested questions in American history.

____________________________________________________

Sources

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/slavery-and-constitution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Martin
https://schistorynewsletter.substack.com/p/7-october-2024
https://www.americanacorner.com/blog/constitutional-convention-slavery
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-august22.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/electoral-colleges-racist-origins
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-constitution-and-slavery
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/constitutionalconvention-august29.htm
https://www.lwv.org/blog/three-fifths-compromise-and-electoral-college
https://www.aaihs.org/a-compact-for-the-good-of-america-slavery-and-the-three-fifths-compromise-part-ii/

Life Below Deck: Enlisted Sailors in America’s Continental Navy

By John Turley

On January 4, 2026

In History

When the Continental Congress established America’s first navy in October 1775, they faced a daunting challenge: how do you build a fleet from scratch when you’re fighting the world’s most powerful naval force? The Continental Navy peaked at around 3,000 men serving on approximately 30 ships, a tiny force compared to Britain’s massive Royal Navy. But who were these sailors who were willing to risk their lives for a fledgling republic?

Where They Came From

The colonial maritime community had extensive seafaring experience, as much of British trade was carried in American vessels, and North Americans made up a significant portion of the Royal Navy’s seamen. Continental Navy sailors came primarily from port cities along the Atlantic coast, particularly New England communities where maritime trades were a way of life. Many had worked as merchant sailors, fishermen, or privateers before joining.

The naval service was notably diverse for its time, including native-born Americans, British deserters, free and enslaved Black sailors, and European immigrants. Unlike the Continental Army, which had periods of banning Black soldiers or sometimes placing them in segregated regiments, the Continental Navy was mostly integrated. At sea, there was less distinction between free and enslaved sailors, and those held in bondage had opportunities to work toward freedom. This maritime tradition of relative equality distinguished naval service from other Revolutionary War experiences.

Getting Into the Service

Recruiting sailors proved to be one of the Continental Navy’s biggest headaches. Navy boards supervised appointing petty officers and enlisting seamen, though these duties were chiefly performed by ship commanders or recruiting agents. The first Marine recruiting station was located at Tun’s Tavern, a bar in Philadelphia.

Enlistment was generally voluntary, though the line between volunteering and impressment—forced service—was sometimes blurred. Recruiting parties would scour port towns seeking able-bodied men, advertising not only pay but also the possibility of capturing British prizes for sale, with proceeds shared among the crew—a powerful incentive.

The problem was competition. Privateering—private ships licensed by congress to seize enemy vessels—was far more attractive to sailors because cruises were shorter and pay could be better. With over 2,000 privateers operating during the war, the Continental Navy struggled constantly to maintain adequate crew sizes. Continental captains often found themselves unable to man their ships due to privateers’ superior inducements.

Landsmen, Seamen, and Petty Officers

At the bottom rung of a Navy crew stood the landsman—a recruit with little or no sea experience. Many were farm boys or tradesmen who had never set foot on a ship. Their days were filled with the hardest labor: hauling ropes, scrubbing decks, and learning basic seamanship.

Above them were ordinary seamen, who had some experience afloat, and the more skilled able seamen who knew their way around sails, rigging, and naval gunnery. These sailors formed the backbone of the Continental Navy. Sailors skilled in managing the ship’s rigging were said to “know the ropes.” Without their knowledge of wind, tide, and timber, ships would have been little more than floating platforms.

The most experienced enlisted men were promoted to petty officers. These weren’t commissioned officers but rather specialists and leaders—boatswain’s mates directing rigging crews, gunner’s mates overseeing cannon fire, and carpenters’ mates keeping the wooden hulls afloat. They were the Navy’s “non-commissioned officers,” long before the U.S. Navy had a formal NCO corps.

Most Continental Navy ships also carried detachments of Continental Marines. These enlisted men were soldiers at sea, tasked with keeping order on deck, manning small arms in combat, and leading boarding parties.

What They Wore

Unlike officers who had prescribed uniforms, enlisted sailors received no standard clothing from the Continental Navy. Due to meager funds and lack of manufacturing capacity, sailors generally provided their own clothing, usually consisting of pantaloons often tied at the knee or knee breeches, a jumper or shirt, neckerchief, short waisted jacket, and low crowned hats. Most sailors went barefoot, and a kerchief was worn either as a sweat band or as a simple collar closure. The short trousers served a practical purpose—they didn’t interfere with climbing the ship’s rigging. This lack of uniforms reflected the Continental Navy’s financial struggles, where everything from ships to ammunition took priority over standardized clothing.

Daily Life at Sea

Shipboard duties for enlisted sailors were grueling and dangerous. Landsmen cleaned the deck, helped raise or lower the anchor, worked in the galley, and assisted other crew members. More experienced sailors handled the complex work of managing sails, operating guns during combat, standing watch, and maintaining the vessel. Specialized roles were filled by experienced hands, and most sailors worked long shifts in harsh conditions, often enduring crowded, wet, and unsanitary quarters below deck.

Living conditions were cramped. Sailors lived in close quarters with limited privacy, shared hammocks on the lower decks, and endured monotonous food rations. Meals were simple, based on salted meat, ship’s biscuit, and whatever could be supplemented from local ports or captured prizes. Leisure was rare, and recreation was often limited to singing, storytelling, or gambling. The work was physically demanding and accidents were common—falling from rigging, being crushed by shifting cargo, or drowning were constant risks.

Discipline and Relations with Officers

Discipline in the Continental Navy was deeply influenced by the British Royal Navy and the “ancient common law of the sea.” The Continental Congress issued articles governing naval discipline, empowering officers to maintain strict order and punish infractions including drunkenness, blasphemy, theft, or disobedience. Punishments included wearing a wooden collar, spending time in irons, receiving pay deductions, confinement on bread and water, or, for serious offenses, flogging.

Flogging was often done with a multi-thonged whip known as the cat o’ nine tails. The most common flogging consisted of between 12 and 24 lashes, though mutineers might receive sentences in the hundreds of lashes—often becoming a death sentence.

Even though officers held absolute authority aboard their vessels, the Continental Navy sometimes suffered from severe discipline problems. Some commanders found it impossible to maintain control over squadrons made up of crews recruited from one area and commanded by officers from another. The relationship between officers and enlisted men reflected the social hierarchies of the time, with a clear divide between the educated officer class and working-class sailors. However, the shared dangers of combat and the sea could create bonds that transcended these divisions.

A Brief but Important Legacy

Enlisted sailors of the Continental Navy came from diverse and often hardscrabble backgrounds, shaped by the hard labor and hazards of maritime life. These men, whose names are mostly lost to history, formed the foundation of America’s first navy and contributed profoundly—through sacrifice and service—to the establishment of American independence.

Of approximately 65 vessels that served in the Continental Navy, only 11 survived the war, and by 1785 Congress had disbanded the Navy and sold the remaining ships. Despite its short existence and limited impact on the war’s outcome, the sailors of the Continental Navy created a foundation for American naval tradition and provided trained seamen who would serve in future conflicts.

Sources:

Personal note: The Grumpy Doc proudly served as an enlisted sailor in the U.S. Navy from 1967 to 1974.

Thomas Jefferson: The Philosopher Who Played Hardball

By John Turley

On January 2, 2026

In History, Politics

Here’s the thing about Thomas Jefferson that doesn’t always make it into the history textbooks: the guy who wrote those soaring words about liberty and limited government? He was also one of early America’s most skilled—and sometimes underhanded—political operators.

It’s surprising when you think about it. Jefferson genuinely believed in transparency, virtue in public life, and keeping government small. He wrote beautifully about these ideals. But when it came to actual politics? He played the game as hard as anyone, often using tactics that directly contradicted what he preached.

Jefferson’s public philosophy was straightforward. He thought America should be a nation of independent farmers—regular people who owned their own land and weren’t dependent on anyone else. He worried constantly about concentrated power, whether in government or in the hands of wealthy financiers or merchants. He believed people should be informed and engaged, and that government worked best when it stayed out of people’s lives.

His Declaration of Independence wasn’t just pretty rhetoric—it laid out a genuinely revolutionary idea: governments only have power because people agree to give it to them, and when governments stop serving the people, those people have the right to change things.

The Reality: How Jefferson Actually Operated

Here’s where it gets interesting. While Jefferson was writing about virtue and transparency, he was simultaneously running what today we’d recognize as opposition research, planting stories in the press, and organizing political operations—sometimes against people he was supposed to be working with.

The Freneau Setup: Paying for Attacks

The most blatant example happened in 1791. Jefferson was serving as Secretary of State under George Washington, which meant he was part of the administration. At the same time, he arranged for a guy named Philip Freneau to get a government job—technically as a translator. The real purpose? To give Freneau money to run a newspaper that would relentlessly attack Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists.

Think about that for a second. Jefferson was using his government position to fund media attacks on his own colleagues. When people called him out on it, he basically said, “Who, me? I have nothing to do with what Freneau publishes.” But the evidence shows Jefferson was actively encouraging and directing these attacks.

John Beckley: The Original Campaign Fixer

Jefferson also worked closely with John Beckley, who was essentially America’s first professional political operative. Beckley coordinated messaging, spread information (and sometimes misinformation) about opponents, and helped build the grassroots organization that would eventually become the Democratic-Republican Party.

This wasn’t a gentlemanly debate about ideas. This was organized political warfare—pamphlets, coordinated newspaper campaigns, and opposition research. Jefferson and Jame Madison quietly funded much of this work while maintaining public images as above-the-fray philosophers. We can’t know exactly what Jefferson said in every private conversation with Beckley, but the circumstantial evidence of coordination is convincing.

The Hamilton Rivalry: Ideological War

Jefferson’s conflict with Hamilton was both philosophical and deeply personal. Hamilton wanted a strong federal government, a national bank, and close ties with Britain. Jefferson saw all of this as a betrayal of the Revolution—a step toward creating the same kind of corrupt, elite-dominated system they’d just fought to escape.

But rather than just making his arguments publicly, Jefferson worked behind the scenes to undermine Hamilton’s policies. He encouraged Madison to lead opposition in Congress. He fed stories to friendly newspapers. He coordinated with Republican representatives to block Federalist initiatives.

The philosophical disagreement was real, but Jefferson’s methods were pure political calculation.

Turning on Washington: The Ultimate Betrayal?

Maybe the most damaging thing Jefferson did was secretly working against George Washington while still serving in his cabinet. By Washington’s second term, Jefferson had convinced himself that Washington was being manipulated by Hamilton and moving the country toward monarchy.

Jefferson stayed in the cabinet, maintaining cordial relations with Washington in person, while privately organizing resistance to administration policies. He encouraged attacks on Washington in the press. He coordinated with opposition leaders. And he did all of this while Washington trusted him as a loyal advisor.

When Washington found out, he was devastated. The betrayal broke their relationship permanently.

The Burr Situation: Using People

Jefferson’s handling of Aaron Burr shows just how pragmatic he could be. Jefferson never really trusted Burr—thought he was too ambitious and unprincipled. But in 1800, when Jefferson needed to win the presidency, Burr was useful for delivering New York’s votes.

After winning, Jefferson kept Burr as vice president but froze him out of any real power. Once Burr’s usefulness ended (especially after he killed Hamilton in that duel), Jefferson completely abandoned him, eventually supporting an unsuccessful prosecution for treason.

Deceiving Congress

Another example of Jefferson’s political manipulation was the Louisiana Purchase. This was a massive land acquisition that doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson knew that under the constitution he had no clear authority to acquire territory for the United States. He was able to secure the purchase by keeping it secret from both congress and his political opponents until after it was finalized. This allowed him to avoid a debate that could have derailed the deal. Does this sound familiar?

So, What Do We Make of This?

Here’s the uncomfortable question: Was Jefferson a hypocrite, or was he just being realistic about how politics actually works? Jefferson’s political manipulation was not always ethical, but it was effective. He was able to use his skills to achieve many of his political goals.

You could argue he was doing what he thought necessary to prevent Hamilton’s vision from taking over—that the ends justified the means. You could also argue that by using underhanded tactics, he corrupted the very democratic processes he claimed to be protecting.

My speculation: I think Jefferson was aware of the contradiction and wrestled with it. His private letters show moments of self-justification and lingering doubt. But ultimately, he kept doing it because he believed his vision for America was too important to lose by playing nice.

The Bottom Line

Thomas Jefferson remains one of our most brilliant political thinkers. But he was also willing to play dirty when he thought the stakes were high enough. That duality—beautiful ideals combined with hardball tactics—might actually make him more relevant today than ever. Because let’s be honest, that tension between principles and pragmatism hasn’t gone away in American politics.

Understanding both sides of Jefferson helps us see that even the founders we most revere weren’t simple heroes. They were complicated people operating in a messy political reality, trying to build something new while fighting over what that something should be.

The evidence for Jefferson’s political maneuvering is extensive and well-established by historians. Some interpretations of his motivations involve educated speculation, but the actions themselves are documented in letters, newspaper archives, and contemporary accounts.

Reference List

Primary Sources

Founders Online – National Archives https://founders.archives.gov/

Digital collection of correspondence and papers from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and James Madison. Essential for Jefferson’s own words and contemporaneous accounts of his political activities.

Library of Congress – Thomas Jefferson Exhibition https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/

Comprehensive digital exhibition covering Jefferson’s life, philosophy, and political career with original documents and interpretive essays.

Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia – Monticello https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/

Scholarly resource maintained by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, covering specific topics including Jefferson’s relationships with Aaron Burr and other political figures.

Secondary Sources – Books

Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

Pulitzer Prize-winning biography that extensively covers the Jefferson-Hamilton rivalry and Jefferson’s behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, including the Freneau affair. Particularly strong on the 1790s conflicts within Washington’s cabinet.

Chernow, Ron. Washington: A Life. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.

Provides Washington’s perspective on Jefferson’s activities within his administration and the betrayal Washington felt when learning of Jefferson’s covert opposition.

Ellis, Joseph J. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.

National Book Award winner that explores Jefferson’s contradictions and complexities, particularly the gap between his philosophical writings and political practices.

Ferling, John. Jefferson and Hamilton: The Rivalry That Forged a Nation. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013.

Detailed examination of the ideological and personal conflict between Jefferson and Hamilton, showing how their struggle shaped early American politics and party formation.

Isenberg, Nancy. Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr. New York: Penguin Books, 2007.

Comprehensive biography of Burr that includes extensive coverage of his complex relationship with Jefferson, from their 1800 alliance through Jefferson’s eventual abandonment of his vice president.

Pasley, Jeffrey L. The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001.

Scholarly examination of how newspapers and partisan press became political weapons in the 1790s, with detailed coverage of Jefferson’s relationship with Philip Freneau and the National Gazette.

Secondary Sources – Journal Articles and Academic Papers

Sharp, James Roger. “The Journalist as Partisan: The National Gazette and the Origins of the First Party System.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 97, no. 4 (1989): 391-420.

Academic analysis of Freneau’s National Gazette and its role in forming political opposition, including Jefferson’s involvement in funding and directing the publication.

Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. “John Beckley: An Early American Party Manager.” The William and Mary Quarterly 13, no. 1 (1956): 40-52.

Scholarly examination of Beckley’s role as America’s first professional political operative and his work organizing Jefferson’s political machine.

Historiographical Note

The interpretation of Jefferson’s political behavior has evolved over time. Earlier biographies (pre-1960s) tended to minimize or excuse his behind-the-scenes maneuvering, while more recent scholarship has been willing to examine the contradictions between his philosophy and practice more critically. The works cited above represent current historical consensus based on documentary evidence, though historians continue to debate Jefferson’s motivations and whether his tactics were justified given the political stakes he perceived.

Why We Make Promises to Ourselves Every January: The History of New Year’s Resolutions

By John Turley

On December 29, 2025

In Commentary, History

New Year’s resolutions—a practice where individuals set goals or make promises to improve their lives in the upcoming year—have a rich and varied history spanning thousands of years. While the concept of self-improvement at the start of a new year feels distinctly modern, its origins are deeply rooted in ancient civilizations and religious traditions that understood the psychological power of fresh starts.

Origins of New Year’s Resolutions

The tradition of making promises at the start of a new year can be traced back over 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. During their 12-day festival called Akitu, held in mid-March to coincide with the spring harvest and planting season, Babylonians made solemn vows to their gods. These promises typically involved practical matters like repaying debts and returning borrowed items, reflecting the agricultural society’s emphasis on community obligations and divine favor. The Babylonians believed that success in fulfilling these promises would curry favor with their deities, ensuring good harvests and prosperity in the year ahead.

The practice evolved significantly when Julius Caesar reformed the Roman calendar in 46 BCE and established January 1 as the official start of the new year. This wasn’t an arbitrary choice—January was named after Janus, the two-faced Roman god of beginnings, endings, doorways, and transitions. The symbolism was perfect: one face looking back at the year past, the other gazing forward to the future. Romans offered sacrifices to Janus and made promises of good conduct for the coming year, combining reflection on past mistakes with optimism about future improvements.

By the Middle Ages, the focus shifted dramatically toward religious observance. In early Christianity, the first day of the year became a time of prayer, spiritual reflection, and making pious resolutions aimed at becoming better Christians. One of the most colorful New Year’s traditions from this era was the “Peacock Vow,” practiced by Christian knights. At the end of the Christmas season, these knights would reaffirm their commitment to knightly virtue while feasting on roast peacock at elaborate New Year’s celebrations. The peacock, a symbol of pride and nobility, served as the centerpiece for vows promising good behavior and chivalric deeds during the coming year.

In the 17th century, Puritans brought particular intensity to the practice of New Year’s resolutions, focusing them squarely on spiritual and moral improvement. Rather than the broad promises of earlier eras, Puritan resolutions were detailed and specific. They committed to avoiding pride and vanity, practicing charity and liberality toward others, refraining from revenge even when wronged, controlling anger in daily interactions, speaking no evil of their neighbors, and living every aspect of their lives aligned with strict religious principles. Beyond these behavioral commitments, they also resolved to study scriptures diligently throughout the year, improve their religious devotion on a weekly basis, and continually renew their dedication to God. These resolutions were taken with utmost seriousness, often recorded in personal journals and reviewed regularly.

In 1740, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, formalized this spiritual approach by creating the Covenant Renewal Service, traditionally held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. These powerful gatherings encouraged participants to reflect deeply on the past year’s failings and successes while making resolutions for spiritual growth in the year ahead. This tradition continues in many Methodist churches today.

Interestingly, the first known use of the specific phrase “New Year’s Resolution” appeared in a Boston newspaper called Walker’s Hibernian Magazine in 1813. The article took a humorous tone, discussing how people broke their New Year’s vows almost as soon as they made them—a wry observation that suggests nothing much has changed over the last 212 years.

The Modern Evolution of New Year’s Resolutions

The secularization of New Year’s resolutions accelerated during the 19th and 20th centuries as Western societies became increasingly diverse and less uniformly religious. Self-improvement and personal growth gradually took precedence over religious vows, though the underlying psychology remained similar. The rise of print media played a crucial role in popularizing the practice beyond religious communities. Newspapers and magazines began publishing advice columns on how to set and achieve goals, turning what had been a primarily spiritual practice into a secular ritual of self-betterment.

The industrial revolution and urbanization also influenced the nature of resolutions. As more people moved to cities and took on wage labor, resolutions began to reflect modern concerns like career advancement, financial stability, and managing the stress of urban life. The self-help movement of the 20th century, spurred by books like Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking,” further embedded the idea that individuals could transform themselves through conscious effort and goal-setting.

By the 21st century, resolutions were firmly established in Western culture as a beloved tradition of hope and renewal, no longer tied to any particular religious framework. The internet age brought new dimensions to the practice, with social media allowing people to publicly declare their resolutions, fitness tracking apps enabling data-driven self-improvement, and online communities providing support and accountability.

Common New Year’s Resolutions

Resolutions tend to reflect both cultural priorities and universal human aspirations. When researchers survey what people resolve to change, recurring themes emerge that tell us something about areas of discontent in contemporary life. Health and fitness consistently dominate the list, with millions of people vowing to lose weight, exercise more regularly, and eat healthier foods. The popularity of these goals reflects our sedentary modern lifestyles, abundant processed foods, and the cultural premium placed on physical appearance and wellness.

Personal development goals are another major category. People promise themselves they will finally learn that new skill they’ve been putting off, read more books instead of scrolling through social media, and manage their time better to reduce stress and increase productivity. These resolutions speak to a desire for intellectual growth and a nagging sense that we’re not living up to our full potential.

Financial goals also rank high on most people’s resolution lists. Many resolve to save more money for the future, pay off debts that have been accumulating, or stick to a budget instead of impulse spending. These financial resolutions often stem from anxiety about economic security and a recognition that small daily choices compound into major financial consequences over time.

Relationship and community-focused resolutions reflect our social nature and the loneliness epidemic affecting many developed nations. People vow to spend more quality time with family and friends rather than staying busy with work and distractions. They plan to volunteer and to give back to their communities in meaningful ways. They hope to strengthen the social bonds that are crucial to happiness and longevity.

Finally, breaking bad habits remains a perennial favorite. Traditional vices like smoking and excessive alcohol consumption still top many lists, but modern resolutions also target newer concerns like limiting screen time and reducing smartphone addiction. These goals acknowledge how difficult it is to maintain healthy habits in an environment designed to encourage overconsumption and instant gratification.

The Success Rate of Resolutions

Despite their enduring popularity, New Year’s resolutions are notoriously difficult to keep. Multiple studies estimate that approximately 80% of resolutions fail by February, often crashing and burning within just a few days of January 1st. The reasons for this high failure rate are both psychological and practical. Many people set overly ambitious goals without considering the realistic constraints of their lives or the sustained effort needed for meaningful change. Others make vague resolutions like “get healthier” without specific action steps or measurable milestones.

Research in behavioral psychology suggests that setting realistic, measurable, and time-bound goals—often called SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound)—can significantly improve success rates. Rather than resolving to “exercise more,” for example, a SMART goal would be “go to the gym for 30 minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.” The specificity provides clear direction, and the measurability allows for tracking progress and celebrating small victories along the way.

However, it’s worth noting that most people approach their New Year’s resolutions more as a fun tradition than with serious anticipation that they will actually keep them. There’s a ritualistic, almost playful quality to the practice—we know the odds are against us, but we participate anyway, embracing the hopeful symbolism of a fresh start even if we suspect we’ll be back to our old habits before Valentine’s Day.

The Significance of Resolutions Today

New Year’s resolutions persist across centuries and cultures because they align with a fundamental human desire for self-improvement and the psychological comfort of fresh starts. The appeal of marking time with calendars and treating January 1st as somehow special—despite being astronomically arbitrary—speaks to our need for narrative structure in our lives. Whether rooted in ancient Babylonian pledges to repay debts, Roman sacrifices to Janus, Christian vows of spiritual renewal, or modern goals to lose ten pounds, resolutions represent an enduring belief in the potential for change.

The tradition reminds us that humans have always struggled with the gap between who we are and who we aspire to be, and that we’ve always believed, however naively, that marking a new beginning on the calendar might help us bridge that gap. Even if our resolutions fail more often than they succeed, the very act of making them reaffirms our agency and our hope that we can become better versions of ourselves with just a bit of conscious effort.

Sources:

History.com provides comprehensive coverage of New Year’s resolution traditions: https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions

Britannica offers detailed information on Janus and Roman New Year traditions: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Janus-Roman-god

The Smithsonian Magazine explores New Year’s countdown traditions and their historical context: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-do-we-count-down-to-the-new-year-180961433/

Anthony Aveni’s “The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays” provides scholarly analysis of New Year’s traditions across cultures.

Kaila Curry’s article “The Ancient History of New Year’s Resolutions” traces the practice from Babylonian times through modern era.

Joshua O’Driscoll’s research on “The Peacock Vows” documents medieval chivalric New Year’s traditions, excerpted in various historical compilations.

Grumpy opinions about everything.

Category: History Page 3 of 10

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The Sugar Act of 1764: The Tax Cut That Sparked a Revolution

Slavery and the Constitutional Convention: The Compromise That Shaped a Nation

Life Below Deck: Enlisted Sailors in America’s Continental Navy

Thomas Jefferson: The Philosopher Who Played Hardball

Why We Make Promises to Ourselves Every January: The History of New Year’s Resolutions