Tampa Chapter
Sons of the American Revolution
February 2018
Contents
Meeting
announcements
American
Revolution History note
Supplemental Certificates
Veterans Service Opportunity
Program
Schedule
Color Guard Opportunities
Misc.
reminders and information
February
Meeting
The next meeting of the
Tampa Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, will held on Saturday, February
17 at the Golden Corral in Temple Terrace.
As always, members will start gathering at 11:30, the formal meeting
will start at 12:00 with a break for lunch.
Please remember to pay on your way in and keep your receipt for the
waitress. This month J. Michael Francis
will speak on Colonial Florida. The street address for the Golden Corral is: 11801
N 56th St. Tampa, FL 33617
(813) 899-1833
January
Meeting
The January meeting was the
Tampa Chapter Annual Officer Installation Banquet. Regional Vice President Charles Butler was on
hand to make a presentation on the status of the FLSSAR Strategic Planning
process and to officiate at the Officer Installation. The following Compatriots were installed to
serve the Tampa Chapter during 2018:
President -- John Goolsby
Vice President -- David Bryant
Recording Secretary -- Jim Handly
Membership Secretary -- Jason Krajnyak
Treasurer – Paul Ergler
Chancellor – Charles Klug
Chaplain -- John Sessums
Historian -- Bob Yarnell
Registrar/Genealogist – Brett Thomas
Sergeant-at-Arms – Dick Young
Executive Committee Members at Large (2) -- Terry Doan and Jack
Bolen
American Revolution Notes:
This month we begin a five-part series on the ratification of the Constitution. First will be a brief intro and the first states to ratify. In March we’ll look at the ratification fight in Massachusetts followed by the Carolina’s in April and Virginia in May. We’ll conclude the series in Sept.
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Independence Hall – Philadelphia
The state ratification debates are often over-looked and sometimes considered just a formality or foregone conclusion. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Constitution got its real meaning during the ratification conventions of the several states. If we are to understand the Constitution we must understand not what emerged from the convention in Philadelphia, but what the states ratified.
Throughout the ratification process the opponents of the new constitution forced its defenders to explain it and answer their concerns. The members of the state conventions approved the Constitution based on those answers and assurances. Thus, according to James Madison, “the meaning of the Constitution is to be sought not in the opinions or intentions of the body which planned and proposed it, but in the conventions where it received all the authority which it possesses.” He later added, “if the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the states be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a faithful exercise of its powers.”
The question of what powers had been given to the new government became the central theme of the ratification process.[i] Throughout the ratification conventions, the Federalist defended the new constitution by repeatedly declaring that only a few clearly defined powers had been given to the new government. In the Virginia ratifying convention Madison declared that the new Constitution dealt mostly with “external objects (which) are but few”. James Wilson, one of the leading centralizers and nationalists declared in his famous State Yard Speech that “everything which is not given, is restricted”. Charles Pinckney, a leading federalist in South Carolina, stated during the South Carolina debates that the states “certainly reserve to themselves every power and right not mentioned in the Constitution.” John Hancock a leader in the Massachusetts ratification fight declared the “all powers not expressly delegated to Congress are reserved to the several states to be by them exercised”. And finally, Madison, in Virginia’s debates stated, “everything not granted is reserved.”[ii]
The first states to ratify, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Georgia, did so with very little debate. They all had good and pressing reasons to ratify quickly. Pennsylvania hoped the stability would help control their quarrelsome western residents and that ratification would bring with it commercial advantages to Philadelphia. Likewise, Georgia looked forward to the commercial advantages it would bring and that it might help Savannah compete with Charleston for trade with the Caribbean. Additionally, being beset by Cherokees to the northwest, Creeks to the West and Spanish power to the south, Georgia needed the added protection the new government would hopefully bring.
Of all the participants at the Philadelphia convention, perhaps none did a better job for their states’ interests than John Dickinson of Delaware and James Patterson of New Jersey. They, and their states, realized they would never get a better deal. Their overriding accomplishment was making the Senate the more powerful of the two houses of Congress and then getting equality in the Senate for the small states. This is illustrated by a scene in the movie A More Perfect Union, that shows Dickinson, with clasped hands, saying “we’ve done it”[iii] after the convention passed the Great Compromise.
So, the ratification process had begun. Four relatively quick and easy victories for the Federalist. Victories would not be so easy in the next round of ratification conventions. Next month, Massachusetts.
[1] The lack of a bill of rights also concerned the anti-federalist. We’ll deal with that issue in part five next Sept.
[1] In Federalist 45 Madison makes the same point
[1] ‘it’ referring to equality in the senate. A More Perfect Union is a movie about the Philadelphia Convention as seen through the eyes of Madison
Bibliography
Bowen, Catherine: Miracle
in Philadelphia
Bradford, M. E. A
Worthy Company: Brief Lives of the Framers of the Constitution
Original
Intentions: On the Making and Ratification of the Constitution
Kirk, Russell: Roots of the American Order
McDonald, Forrest: Novus Ordo Seclorum: Intellectual Origins of the U S Constitution
Requiem:
Variations on Eighteenth Century Themes
St. John, Jeffrey: A
Child of Fortune
Supplemental Certificates
Four Supplemental Certificates
have been delivered to the Tampa Chapter for presentation to its members. Those four Compatriots whose Supplemental
Patriot Ancestor has been approved are:
John
William Glass
Matthew
Curtis Glass
Wesley
Minton Morris
William
Bebout Swain
Veterans Service Opportunity
As the direct lineal descendants of the first veterans of the United States of America, one of our SAR goals is to “honor, respect, and support veterans, especially those confined to residential and hospital facilities provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.” Attached to my e-mail is a copy of the February invitation from the MOAA to a dinner with injured soldiers/veterans and their families this Thursday, Feb. 15 at James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa. The following was copied from their website at https://operationhelpinghandtampa.com Look for and click on “view all events”. Their next monthly dinner is four weeks after that on Thursday, March 15.
It is
important to mention that our main purpose in having our monthly dinners is to
let the patients and their families know that we recognize, honor, support, and
thank them for their sacrifices and for what they have done for us.
|
Since
2004, Operation Helping Hand has extended all necessary efforts to assist and
support over 1,000 military wounded/injured being treated at the James
A. Haley VA Hospital, and many of their visiting families. |
|
We have
expanded our mission to include assistance and support to all poly trauma
patients, both those presently in the VA Hospital and those "out
patients" that are residing outside of the Hospital and still undergoing
Hospital treatments, whether they are still on active duty OR are discharged
or retired. As long as they have served OIF or OEF (meaning they have
served in Iraq or Afghanistan), Operation Helping Hand will help them in any
way possible. |
Program schedule for Spring of 2018
February 17 J.
Michael Francis: Colonial Florida
March 17 Dr. Roger Smith:
Florida during the Revolution
April 21 JROTC Recognition
May 19 TBD
All meetings will be at the
Golden Corral in Temple Terrace
Color Guard Opportunities
There
are four National Event Color Guard opportunities in the next few months within
the State of Florida
March 10 Last
Naval Battle Merritt Island
April 7 Battle
of Thomas Creek Jacksonville
May 18-19 FLSSAR
Annual Meeting* Kissimmee
May 28 Memorial
Day** Various
There are two Honor Flights scheduled for the
Spring, April 24, and June 5. I am sure
the Tampa Chapter Color Guard will meet at least one of those flights on its
return to Clearwater on those evenings.
Watch this space for more details.
*- The Spring BOM/Annual Meeting
qualifies as a National Event because the SAR President General will be present and will participate in
the Meeting.
** - Any Memorial Day event involving
the SAR Color Guard is considered a National Event. The Withlacoochee Chapter Color Guard always participates
in a Memorial Day Ceremony in Floral City
Miscellaneous Reminders
Chapter Website—remember
you can find information about the chapter and programs on the chapter
website. http://www.tampasar.org/
One of the duties of the
Chapter Chaplain is to send cards to our members that are sick. Another is to
send a sympathy card to the family of a member who has passed away. If you know
of anyone that should be the recipient of these cards please mention it to
Chaplain Sessums or one of the other officers at our next meeting.
Chapter officers and committee chairman are encouraged to send any pertinent information they wish included in the newsletter to the editor.