Monthly Archives: May 2026

05.19.26
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THE GREATEST SENTENCE EVER WRITTEN

Walter Isaacson is not known for single sentences or even paragraphs for that matter. He is also not known for a book of only sixty=seven pages, including the complete Declaration of Independence. The books title, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, is an important personal insight into the meaning and application of the declaration’s historic words.

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their cretor with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These self-evident truths laid down by the founders (not Jefferson alone) became the foundation that bound together a diverse group of pilgrims and immigrants into one nation.

I had the privilege of meeting and listening to Walter Isaacson at a lecture held at the Athenaeum in Boston discuss where America is today in comparison to this lofty composition of two hundred and fifty years ago.

Isaacson makes clear thatof these truths, all men are created equal was not self-evident. Of the fifty six signers of the declaration, forty one owned slaves and all thirteen colonies permitted slavery. All Men excluded all women and at that time what remained of the coastal Native Americans.

What Isaacson described on that Sunday afternoon was a document that was conceived by the founders as aspirational but admittedly not for practical application at that time. But like the eminent founder Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson believes that the hope of the document was to bind disparate interests together for the common good. He writes, Their goal on contentious issues was not to triumph, but to find the right balance. Isaacson adds, An art that has been lost today.

And so how has this Greatest Sentence Ever Written, this aspirational document evolved? Sadly the hope of binding the nation together has not materialized in the twenty first century. Isaacson sights gross income inequality, the lack of opportunity for all, the bifurcation of the media into opposing political camps, advanced technology that was supposed to connect us has in fact added to the nation’s divisiveness.He raises serious questions of exactly what America will look like going forward. Can the nation find common ground?

Fittingly, Isaacson one again draws upon Franklin, Compromisers may not make great heros, Franklin liked to say, but they do make great democracies.

Isaacson adds, That’s the ideal of common ground and the American Dream that our founders fought for 250 years ago. And that’s what we must continue to fight for today so that we can preserve, for ourselves and our posterity, the rights and aspirations that we all share, including to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Am important read, especially during this 250th anniversary year.

05.15.26
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THIS VAST ENTERPRISE/LEWIS AND CLARK REVISITED/ CRAIG FEHRMAN

It is difficult task to author a living history of events that took place in 1804. It is obvious that there is no-one who was present to interview. That is the challenge faced by author and historian Craig Fehrman in his new book THIS VAST ENTERPRISE, A New History of Lewis and Clark. Thus the book which attempts to fill in the blanks of past research on this enterprise uses much oral history, sometimes based on interviews with the recollections and traditions of living Native Americans, passed on to them through the fog generations.

Fehrman narrates a compelling story of Thomas Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery bringing new insight into those other than Meriwether Lewis and William Clark themselves. We learn about York an African American slave owned by William Clark initially brought along to serve Clark’s personal needs. York’s impact on the success of the great adventure was legion. John Ordway a working class soldier on many occasions saved the day through his heroics.The story of Sacajawea with a new born on her back is told in great depth with deep insight into the Blackfoot culture. This part of the narrative is superior in its insight of her character.

This is of course a story of Manifest Destiny . However, the Thomas Jefferson philosophy adds a new dimension which he called ” our right of preemption.”” When an imperial nation came across ” new” land it could claim the territory through rituals of discovery-planting flags-making maps and through occupation.” Little did the Blackfoot, Sioux, Mandam, Nez Perce and others understand the meaning of “preemption.” By the end of the century their decendents would know.

This is a tale of courage, suspense and mystery and speculation upon the unknown circumstances of heros and villians. The mission to find a water communication to the Pacific Ocean was a failure only because Lewis and Clark with the help of Sacagawea and Blackfoot Tribe’s horses proved that after the Missouri River ended, the final leg was an arduous and treacherous mountain journey to the Columbia River.

The book is great storytelling and I think necessarily wanders between non-fiction and a historical novel. An important read for those who wish to immerse themselves in this important part of American History. It also gives further insight into Jefferson’s thinking of America’s future as an agricultural enterprise supported by slavery from sea to sea. Ironically, part of the expeditions lasting legacy may be the children that both Lewis and Clark fathered whose ancestors now live to tell the tale.