Born on November 30, 1835
From the American Thinker…
They sure don’t make American icons like they used to.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, the man who “came in with Halley’s Comet,” was born on this day (November 30) back in 1835. Better known by his pen name Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens was the great American icon of his time.
For many Americans, the name Mark Twain generates a certain rush of warm feelings. We picture a distinctive looking man seated with a smoking pipe (or cigar) in hand, wavy hair, thick mustache, and a white suit. We fondly recall his Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Becky Thatcher characters as though they were real. We still laugh at Mr. Twain’s many witticisms.
Mark Twain was an American icon because, without the help of a speechwriter, a teleprompter, a pair of fake Greek columns, and a larger than life broadcast screen, he could move an audience with his spontaneous oratory.
Mark Twain was an American icon because, without using a ghostwriter, he could write from his own head and heart and wondrously translate the American experience onto paper.
Mark Twain was an American icon because his travels abroad never turned out to be apology tours.
Drawing the distinction between those in the world who do “things because they have been done before,” Mark Twain explained that, “An American is a person who does things because they haven’t been done before.” Mark Twain believed in American exceptionalism. In fact, he reveled in it. Mr. Twain thought America was best and the last thing on our minds should be emulating Europeans.
They sure don’t make American icons like they used to.
Exactly how and where Mark Twain would fit in today is hard to say. I believe he would have embraced a multicultural America but would have condemned our out of control political correctness, finding it dangerous, repressive, and a hindrance to creativity. Besides being a famous humorist, novelist, and short story writer, Mr. Twain might have made one heck of a radio talk show host.
Mark Twain was never short on opinion. If he were alive today, I wonder what his opinion of Congress and our president would be, or what he might say about our American dream slipping away. Personally, I would love to know how he would address those who claim that American conservatism is dead.
Perhaps Mr. Twain would smile, take a puff from one of his 5-cent cigars, and tell them, “Rumors of the death of American conservatism have been greatly exaggerated.”
I came across this and thought it was definitely good enough to share.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
White poinsettias with Luke 2:11 scripture.
Washington, DC—October 3, 1863
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving weekend! I know I have a lot to be thankful for.
This crane pulled in to Charlotte last week… it’s main job will be to take down the crane that’s beside the Duke Energy Tower.
The new tower in Charlotte, North Carolina. Crane finally came down this week!
The historic Latta Plantation this autumn. Circa 1800. Old cotton plantation.
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