Caffeinated Politics

With July 4^th thoughts still abounding….

George Washington reached out to John Rutledge, the South Carolinian, for a second time to be on the Supreme Court. The first time, the man who had signed the Constitution immediately resigned because he thought he should be the chief justice.  Later, Washington places Rutledge on the Court as a six-month recess appointment.  But around the same time, Rutledge sent a letter to Washington resigning from the court due to his poor health.  What he neglected to mention was that the day before he sent the letter, he had tried to kill himself by walking off the end of a wharf into Charleston Harbor. He was dragged from the water after an enslaved child saw him struggling and got help. 

When I read this to James today, he thought it a strange irony that the city would have placed Rutledge Street close to a body of water.

Parents in Madison have a built-in history lesson every time they take the kids out for a bike ride. Those Declaration of Independence and Constitution signer street names—Pinckney, Hamilton, Wilson, Franklin—etc. etc. aren’t just decorative; they’re also invitations. Stop at a corner, pull out a cellphone, and let curious kids ask the questions they naturally ask: Who was this person? Why does their name matter? It’s the kind of low-pressure learning that sneaks in between pedal strokes, perfect for inquisitive young minds and parents who want to nurture a love of reading and history without turning summer into a classroom. A street sign becomes a breadcrumb, and suddenly the ride is a scavenger hunt for the people who shaped the country.

And the Founders give you plenty of irresistible material. Kids perk up when they hear that Benjamin Franklin once ran away from home at seventeen and later invented bifocals because he was tired of switching glasses. Alexander Hamilton grew up poor in the Caribbean and wrote his way into a new life with prose so sharply that it impressed everyone. William Paterson is one of those Founders who rewards curiosity, as he started college at fourteen—proof that the Founders weren’t all powdered wigs and stern portraits; some were precocious teenagers with big ambitions. You might even turn newfound curiosity into book ideas at the local libraries on your bike outings.