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Daniel Webster

Visions for America: 1630 to Today

October 6, 2025
by Peter Feinman
Half full or half empty? (The chair of George Washington in 1787)

If a picture is worth one thousand words, then a good slogan or branding is for winning an election. Political parties are asked what they stand for, why someone should vote for them, what is their vision for the future.

Such branding needs to be short. No one is going to read a 900+ page party platform even if it will be the governing document for the administration. Think short. Something easy to remember but which packs a punch far in excess of its brevity.

In American history some phases and slogans come to mind as having a powerful appeal.

1600s

We are “as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us” (John Winthrop, 1630)

This lay sermon originally delivered regarding the Puritan city of Boston to which Winthrop was sailing, more or less remained in hibernation until Ronald Reagan. Then it became a bold statement of optimism about the destiny of the United States and its role on this planet.

1700s

“it is a rising and not a setting sun” (Ben Franklin, 1787)

At the close of the Constitutional Convention, this quintessential American voiced these words of optimism over what the Founding Fathers had wrought. The chair Washington sat on as he presided over the convention had an emblem of half of a sun. “Half full or half empty” as we still ask about a glass today. Franklin answered in the positive:

“I have often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”

1800s

“Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable,” (Daniel Webster, January 26-27, 1830)

Excerpt from his Second Reply to Senator Hayne (D SC). It was during a time of nullification and the struggle to hold together a country that had recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and its Founding Fathers were dead. It was a defining speech for the second quarter of the 19th century. Although it did not vault him into the White House, it did impress young Mr. Lincoln who did succeed and had a special way with words.

“We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth,” (Abraham Lincoln, December 1, 1862, annual message to Congress).

With, Lincoln, of course there are other memorable phrases which one could choose. Although Lincoln did not refer to the United States as a city on a hill in a passive role that the world is watching. His words were more active as if We the People had been called to a global mission and divine destiny. Despite the carnage all around him and the despair he endured during the Civil War, he remained optimistic about the future of the country.

1900s

In the 20th century, presidents often became better known for the programs that branded their administration.

SQUARE DEAL – Teddy Roosevelt

Roosevelt was no longer president but he hoped to become one again in the upcoming election. After he failed to gain the Republican nomination at the Chicago convention (June 18-22, 1912), he issued this call to action:

“We fight in honorable fashion for the good of mankind; fearless of the future; unheeding of our individual fates; with unflinching hearts and undimmed eyes; we stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.”

As his third party took shape, he delivered his own platform.

“You are taking a bold and a greatly needed step for the service of our beloved country. The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden and privilege-controlled, each a jumble of incongruous elements, and neither daring to speak out wisely and fearlessly what should be said on the vital issues of the day. This new movement is a movement of truth, sincerity, and wisdom, a movement which proposes to put at the service of all our people the collective power of the people, through their Governmental agencies, alike in the Nation and in the several States….

“Now to you men, who, in your turn, have come together to spend and be spent in the endless crusade against wrong, to you who face the future resolute and confident, to you who strive in a spirit of brotherhood for the betterment of our Nation, to you who gird yourselves for this great new fight in the never-ending warfare for the good of humankind, I say in closing what in that speech I said in closing: We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.” (Excerpted from A Confession of Faith, delivered in Chicago, Illinois, August 6, 1912)

NEW DEAL Franklin Delano Roosevelt

FDR responded to his distant cousin’s call in his first inaugural address:

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself” (March 4, 1933)

A fairly bold and optimistic declaration during a depression. But as with Lincoln during the Civil War, Roosevelt during the depression did not dwell in the carnage or proclaim himself a savior.

FAIR DEAL Harry Truman

NEW FRONTIER John Fitzgerald Kennedy

GREAT SOCIETY Lyndon Baines Johnson

IT’S MORNING IN AMERICA Ronald Reagan

For the optimistic President, America was still a city on a hill.

2000s

“American carnage,” Donald Trump, 2017 inaugural

Going where Lincoln did not go during the Civil War and Roosevelt did not go during the depression, Trump for years has wallowed in the carnage and his role in ending it:

‘This American carnage stops right here and stops right now’

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

No “We the People” in sight. No “city on a hill.” No “last best hope of earth.” No “rising sun.”

Perhaps We the People want something better.

I was talking about this the other day with Tim Shriver, the longtime head of Special Olympics, and he remarked to me: “I interact with enough Republicans and Democrats through Special Olympics to know how starved they both are for the country to be pulled back together, so we can do big stuff together again.”

The disunity in the country, Shriver noted, “is literally making people sick and depressed.” Today, he added, “a huge number of Americans have a family member, work colleague or friend whom they are not talking to because of politics.”

It’s just not who we want to be.

“How could it be,” Shriver asked, “that the country that produced an Abraham Lincoln, who, in the middle of a civil war, could utter the words of his second inaugural” — “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds” — “is now a place where the more politically engaged you are today the more you hate your neighbor?”

That’s why, more than anything else now, Shriver argued, “we need leaders and ideas that unite us. A lot of Americans are starving to be part of something larger than ourselves, something that loves us and needs us, like building America together again, solving big problems together again, dreaming big dreams together again.” (Thomas L. Friedman, “It’s Super Wednesday,” March 4, 2020, NYT print)

“People are hungry for a sense of community and unity.” (David Axelrod, “Biden vs. Trump: The General Election Is Here, and Transformed,” September 29, 2020, NYT, print, updated from April 9, 2020 print)

“We need a social vision that is as morally compelling as identity politics but does a better job of describing reality. We need a national narrative that points us to some ideal and gives each of us a noble role in pursuing it. That’s the gigantic cultural task that lies ahead.” (David Brooks, “Why We Got It So Wrong,” Nov. 15, 2024, NYT, print)

What does the Democratic Party stand for?

What is its vision?

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN: END THE CARNAGE

Who will offer We the People an optimistic vision of a divine destiny?

Gladiator versus the American Senate

July 30, 2025
by Peter Feinman
Cicero Denounces Catiline in the Roman Senate by Cesare Maccari (19th century fresco Wikipedia)

Is Rome worth one good man’s life? We believed it once. Make us believe it again. He was a soldier of Rome. Honor him.

Senator Gracchus: Who will help me carry him?

[Gladiators surround Maximus to carry him out of the arena]

“Gladiator” is remembered as an epic story of great heroism. Such movies of male heroics are a vanishing genre. Physical action jumped from the screen in some high paced rock-em-sock-em scenes. Many of them abounded in high energy in the tradition of Spartacus and Braveheart.  Certainly the movies of the super-doers are not practitioners of movies where heroic human males function. Tom Cruise is almost the last of a dying breed of male heroes on the film screen. And he still does his own stunts.

In an easily-overlooked substrata of “Gladiator,” the Roman Senate, also featured in “Spartacus,” is challenged to lead Rome back from imperial rule to the days of the Roman Republic. Historically, nothing like that happened. The die was cast when Augustus became emperor and Rome remained an emperor. Still, this was a movie that used some historically real names but was not telling an historically real story. “Spartacus” was based on a real person but “Gladiator” was not. Still it sang the praises of the Roman Senate rising to the occasion just as we imagine the American Senate would if confronted by a would-be dictator.

Senate has a special ring to it. It sounds more august than being the member of the House, an Assembly, or a Legislature. The stature of the Senate has endured in the centuries since the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire.

Certainly the Founding Fathers of the United States had high respect and great hope for this body. It wasn’t elected by the mob. It was supposed to be a place of one’s betters (just as the Electoral College was). Once the era of the Virginia Presidential Dynasty ceased, the Senate did achieve the heights once anticipated by the Founding Fathers. For roughly over two decades from the 1820s to the 1840s, a trio of giants with presidential ambitions roamed the Senate floor. Daniel Webster of New England, John C. Calhoun of the Confederacy, and Henry Clay of the West were always on the ballot and sometimes becoming Vice President without ever taking that final step.

This year we celebrate the bicentennial of Webster’s address at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1825. Lafayette helped set the cornerstone (and visited Bunker Hill on the bicentennial celebration of his visit). Webster spoke again in 1843 when the monument was completed. These speeches bracketed his stature as an American hero.

The Devil and Daniel Webster DVD cover (Wikipedia)

Webster’s famed endured for another century. “The Devil and Daniel Webster” a short story in 1936 by Stephen Vincent Benet became a play in 1938 and then a movie in 1941. To make a short story even shorter, Webster defends a New England farmer who has sold his soul for earthly rewards. The jury is stacked against Webster with the leading reprobates in American history (as of that time). Nonetheless, Webster prevails.

George Bailey Triumphs in the Senate

While all this was going on, a specifically American Senate movie gained national attention. The move “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (1939), was a fable by Frank Capra about right will triumph even over the corrupt Senate, perhaps an even more evil for than the one Webster faced. In this case the hero is the naïve James Stewart who is appointed to the Senate to fill a vacancy due to a death. He is out of his league. He is ridiculed by the press and exploited by the corrupt senior Senator from his state whom Smith regards as a mentor. To escape the trap, Smith speaks for about 25 hours non-stop in the Senate before passing out. He convinces none of the corrupt Senators of the deal the senior Senator has concocted. Finally comes the most absurd part of the story. The senior Senator is overcome with remorse, flees the Senate chambers, and attempts suicide. He then returns to the Senate chambers, confesses his sins, and demands to be expelled.

The movie is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. It was selected by the Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1989, for its significance. Given the impact of Cory Booker’s 25-hour and 5-minute on the floor of the Senate in 2025, it is hard to imagine anyone taking “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” seriously today.

 

 

Shortly after the fictional Mr. Smith goes to Washington, on June 1, 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) delivered her famous Declaration of Conscience, standing up to Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), who was smearing Democrats as communists. “I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges,” she said. “I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” With Trump’s frequent references to the Democrats as Communists, we see that his mind is still trapped in the 1980s.

Now it’s the President and his minions who are doing exactly what Margaret Smith chastised Republicans about.

There are two heroic images of Senators which have become part of American history since then. In the first. Howard Baker (Republican, TN), leads a delegation to confront President Richard Nixon during the Watergate crisis. The message is clear: time’s up, it’s time to go. Nixon complies and resigns in what become the “Howard Baker Moment.”

John McCain Goes into the Arena and demonstrates the right stuff

The second is when John McCain (Republican, Arizona) gives the thumbs down on July 27, 2017, to the Republican effort to gut Obamacare. Little did he know that seven years later the MAGA assault in the Big Ugly Bill would prevail.

SENATE GOP CONFIRMS TRUMP’S DOJ ‘HATCHET MAN’ FOR LIFETIME JUDGESHIP

MSNBC

Perhaps the most recent display of the degeneracy of the American Senate occurred in the 50-49 ratification of Emil Bove to a lifetime federal judgeship. The approval came despite whistleblower reports raised against him and nearly 1000 former prosecutors plus dozens of state and federal judges opposing his nomination.

During his stint in the Department of Justice he personally fired attorneys involved in the prosecution of the people who sought to overthrow the government on January 6. He forced others to resign and demanded a list of FBI agents to fire for political reasons. He appears to support defying court orders and doing so in derogatory language. It seems as if Trump finally has his Roy Cohn who will do whatever it takes. Speculation is that he is being groomed for a position on the Supreme Court. Unless MAGAs lose control of the Senate, if that’s what Trump wants then that is what will happen.

“Now imagine a second Trump presidency, during which dozens more Aileen Cannons are appointed to the courts—dozens more minimally qualified people who believe their role is to defend the president or avenge his enemies, not to defend the rule of law (Anne Applebaum, “The End of Judicial Independence,” The Atlantic, October 2024).

WE THE PEOPLE

As things stand now, We the People” can’t look to the House or the Senate for leadership in building a better tomorrow. The Senate’s vaunted image as the “the greatest deliberative body on earth” has been destroyed by the relentless assault on its powers by the President of the United States and by the complete capitulation of the MAGAs to the supreme MAGA. The self-pronounced would-be dictator is met by silence. No matter how many times he renders checks and balances as dead the MAGA Senate is silent. No matter how he has politicized the DOJ into his private army of retribution the MAGA Senate is silent. No matter how many American cities he invades with his private army the MAGA Senate is silent. The Senate is not a political body to be respected in real life or in the movies. Its giants are dead.

For an earlier version see Gladiator Senate versus American Senate: We Are on Fifth Avenue Now (January 27, 2020).

Trump versus Lincoln: The Battle Is Engaged

August 3, 2023
by Peter Feinman
The Mount Rushmore President and the Mount Rushmore Wannabee (https://ctmirror.org)

Finally. Finally. Finally. After years of talk about the civil war in the United States, it has now officially arrived. The events about to unfold in the trials of Trump and the 2024 election will determine what kind of America will exist when we celebrate the 250th birthday of the country on July 4, 2026.

Right now there is no way to know which side will prevail in the war. The details of what it means to “win” in this remain also will be a point of contention. Given how often pundits use the term “unprecedented” for the actions of or related to Donald Trump, one may reasonably anticipate the same term will apply to the outcome of the war. But make no mistake about it, we are engaged in a conflict to determine if the United States can long endure of if we have reached our expiration date.

WHERE’S THE MILITARY?

Where is the military in this war? When I first started writing about political action thrillers on January 3, 2021, I had the military in mind. Generally, such thrillers involved the military in some way. Coups or attempted coups automatically bring to mind the military. Think of the current events in Niger or Sudan as examples.

The attempted coup here did consider bringing in the military. One way was the long-known proposal to seize the voting machines in areas (meaning Democratic cities in battleground ground states). That initiative never went anywhere in practice. But the very fact that it could be reasonably considered by the Commander in Chief demonstrates how seriously this unconstitutional action was taken.

The second way is more recently exposed. This would be the application of the Insurrection Act whereby the President of the United States would be authorized to deploy military forces against Americans, specifically Americans who would rioted against the seizure of power by the Loser Incumbent. Again it never happened. And again, people very very close to the Commander in Chief were casually recommending it as a course of action to be taken.

One notices that both recommendations were coming from civilians. Contrary to the traditional political action thriller, the real military was nowhere to be seen in such deliberations. The loyalty of the military was to the Constitution and not to a coup plotter. Presumably the same would be true in 2024 should a similar circumstance would arise which is unlikely given the current President.

WHERE’S THE WAR ROOM?

One of the fixtures of the attempted insurrection was the infamous war room. How many times have you seen the clip of Bannon admonishing us to strap in because the next day is going to be like nothing anyone expected. We need to keep in mind that the original plan was for the President of the United States to crash the Capitol meeting with his possibly armed followers. It was only because the Secret Service declined to draw him there that the intrusion did not occur. Remember the President grabbing the steering wheel and agent in the attempt to make this drive.

The war room planning for this event included among others Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Mark Meadows by phone, and possibly some Congressmen. So far, no of them appear to have been included in the indictment.

My recommendation, which counts for nothing has been that the indictments be divided into parts:

Interference with the state legislators
The fake electors
January 6.

The indictment so far covers the first two but not the third. We know that the unnamed co-defendants will be indicted at some future date. It is still possible that the sedition indictment is an ace up the sleeve waiting for the dust to settle on the existing indictments before being revealed.

THE LAWYER COUP

The attempted coup was perpetuated by lawyers of all people. It was not to occur due to tanks rolling the streets but to supposedly legal actions through the courts and legislatures. At this point we know that all the legal machinations failed. Instead the lawyers who participated in such court proceedings look like legal fools.

Some lawyers decided to take it to next level. In these instances they sought to influence the legislatures in battleground states with direct appearances that crossed the line on what is legal. They sought to weaponize the Department of Justice in clearly illegal ways to intimidate the battleground state legislatures to do what needed to be done to reverse the vote in their states. These efforts failed and these people are now co-defendants. That means they will be charged in the future once the main case against the Boss is underway.

The lawyer coup as opposed to a military coup does show it a strange way that we are a nation of law. Think back to the Brooks Brother brigade in the 2000 presidential election. Now we have lawyers who are the prime actors in the coup whereas once upon a time priests may have been the ones involved in the battle for power at the capitol.

The presence of lawyers at the center of the attempted coup (plus one political consultant) attests the place of lawyers in American culture. Think of the Devil and Daniel Webster where an individual is more than a match against Satan versus the more traditional match between priest and Satan in the The Exorcist. Clarence Darrow in history and fiction in Inherit the Wind looms large in American culture as does Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mocking Bird. Of course these are all lawyers for the defense like Perry Mason and Ben Matlock, not lawyers who sought to perpetrate a crime. Even the Dream Team lawyers who helped O.J. get away with murder did not actually participate in the murder itself.

In this case the lawyers were the prime movers in the assault on America. They had to be restrained by Team Normal in some very contentious meetings. Still the presence of these lawyers at the pinnacle of extra-judicial power telling the moron child what he wanted to hear shows how perilously close we came to there being a successful coup.

WHERE’S LINCOLN?

When the indictments were first announced, I saw and heard Chris Hayes, MSNBC, passionately speak out on behalf of Lincoln. He recited parts of the Gettysburg Address, one of the most sacred texts in American history. He reminded us today that Lincoln knew of the fragility of the American experiment, of how the current generation in his time was being tested to determine if it could long endure just as we are now being tested. In so doing, Hayes raised the stakes (or rather recognized that they had been raised) to the level of an existential threat to the continued existence of the United States.

While Hayes was right in what he said, what he omitted also is important. Hayes was acting if all Americans recognized and accepted the validity of the message Lincoln delivered at Gettysburg. Even in his own time, Lincoln did not represent the views of all Americans. Even in his own time, Lincoln did not represent the view of all northerners. To this very day Lincoln is not a hero in the Confederacy. The Lincoln Memorial is a union memorial where Union people hold great events. Mount Rushmore Lincoln is in the north, Stonewall Jackson is in the Confederacy.

What Hayes omitted was something else Lincoln said about a house divided not being able to stand. We are that house divided. True the multiple trials may cumulatively undermine the passion to put one’s life on the line for Trump, but it does not change the fact that we are a divided country.

WHO LOST GEORGIA?

All the fuss over the votes the Loser implored the Georgia state officials to find obscures the truth of the voting in the state. Republican candidates did win sufficient votes in the down-ballot elections. What happen was over 30,000 people voted for Republican candidates except for the one at the top. These people may be prepared to do the same again in 2024 provided the down-ballot candidates are not also stolen election denying MAGAs. The same polls that show the size of the MAGA base in the Republican Party also show the number of Never Trumpers and pursuables in the Party.

Here are some questions to ask Republicans who are open to moving on.

If Trump is such a fighter, how come he never takes the stand to defend himself?
If the Department of Justice has been weaponized, how come all the people testifying against him are Republicans?
Who would testify on his behalf? Jim Jordan? Scott Perry? Roger Stone? Steve Bannon?

If the civil war is to end peacefully in 2024, it is essential that these Republicans make their voice heard. Back in 1861, people had plenty of time to prepare for what they would if Lincoln became president. Similarly, in 2025, the same would be true if Biden won again.

When the Confederate states seceded upon Lincoln’s inauguration, not every adult in the state had the right to vote. Any state, even Alabama, which rejects a Biden victory if he should win, will discovered a strong Union minority that does accept the result and wants to remain part of the United States. All the bluster “not my President” and secede may come to naught not simply because of the number of Democrats who do not want to secede, but because of the Republicans in the Confederacy for whom secession is a line too far to cross.