Presidents of the United States under the Constitution

 

01. George Washington          May 1, 1789 – Mar 4, 1787

02. John Adams                      Mar 4, 1787 – Mar 4, 1801

03. Thomas Jefferson             Mar 4, 1801 – Mar 4, 1809

04. James Madison                  Mar 4, 1809 – Mar 4, 1817

05. James Monroe                   Mar 4, 1817 – Mar 4, 1825

06. John Quincy Adams         Mar 4, 1825 – Mar 4, 1829

07. Andrew Jackson              Mar 4, 1829 – Mar 4, 1837

08. Martin Van Buren             Mar 4, 1837 – Mar 4, 1841

09. William Henry Harrison    Mar 4, 1841 – Apr 4, 1841

10. John Tyler                         Apr 4, 1841 – Mar 4, 1845

11. James K. Polk                   Mar 4, 1845 – Mar 4, 1849

12. Zachary Taylor                  Mar 4, 1849 – Jul 9, 1850

13. Millard Fillmore                Jul 9, 1850 – Mar 4, 1853

14. Franklin Pierce                  Mar 4, 1853 – Mar 4, 1857

15. James Buchanan                Mar 4, 1857 – Mar 4, 1861

16. Abraham Lincoln              Mar 4, 1861 – Apr 15, 1865

17. Andrew Johnson               Apr 15, 1865 – Mar 4, 1869

18. Ulysses S. Grant               Mar 4, 1869 – Mar 4, 1877

19. Rutherford B. Hayes        Mar 4, 1877 – Mar 4, 1881

20. James Garfield                  Mar 4, 1881 – Sep 18, 1881

21. Chester A. Arthur             Sep 18, 1881 – Mar 4, 1885

22. Grover Cleveland              Mar 4, 1885 – Mar 4, 1889

23. Benjamin Harrison            Mar 4, 1889 – Mar 4, 1893

24. Grover Cleveland              Mar 4, 1893 – Mar 4, 1897

25. William McKinleyMar 4, 1897 – Sep 14, 1901

26. Theodore Roosevelt          Sep 14, 1901 – Mar 4, 1909

27. William Howard Taft        Mar 4, 1909 – Mar 4, 1913

28. Woodrow Wilson             Mar 4, 1913 – Mar 4, 1921

29. Warren G. Harding           Mar 4, 1921 – Aug 2, 1923

30. Calvin Coolidge                Aug 2, 1923 – Mar 4, 1929

31. Herbert Hoover                 Mar 4, 1929 – Mar 4, 1933

32. Franklin D. Roosevelt       Mar 4, 1933 – Apr 12, 1945

33. Harry S. Truman              Apr 12, 1945 – Jan 20, 1953

34. Dwight D. Eisenhower     Jan 20, 1959 – Jan 20, 1961

35. John F. Kennedy               Jan 20, 1961 – Nov 22, 1963

36. Lyndon B. Johnson           Nov 22, 1962 – Jan 20, 1969

37. Richard M. Nixon             Jan 20, 1969 – Aug 9, 1974

38. Gerald R. Ford                  Aug 9, 1974 – Jan 20, 1977

39. James Carter                      Jan 20, 1977 – Jan 20l 1981

40. Ronald Reagan                 Jan 20, 1981 – Jan 20l 1989

41. George H. W. Bush          Jan 20, 1989 – Jan 20l 1993

42. William J. Clinton             Jan 20, 1993 – Jan 20l 2001

43. George W. Bush              Jan 20, 2001 – Jan 20l 1009

44. Barack Obama                  Jan 20, 2009 –

Presidents of Congress.

Peyton Randolph        Sep 5, 1774 – Oct 21, 1774      May 10, 1775 – May 23, 1775

Henry Middleton        Oct 22, 1774 – May 10. 1775

John Hancock            May 24, 1775 – Oct 30, 1777

Henry Laurens            Oct 31, 1777 – Dec 9, 1778

John Jay                      Dec 10, 1778 – Sep 27, 1779

Samuel Huntington       Sep 18, 1779 – Jul 9, 1781

Thomas McKean         Jul 10, 1781 – Nov 4, 1782

Presidents of the United States Under the Articles of Confederation.

John Hanson              Nov 5, 1781 – Nov 3, 1782

Elias Boudinot            Nov 4, 1782 – Nov 2, 1783   

Thomas Mifflin           Nov 3, 1783 – Oct 31, 1784

Richard Henry Lee     Nov 30, 1784 – Nov, 22, 1785

John Hancock            Nov 23, 1785 – Jun 1786

Nathaniel Gorham       Jun, 1786 – Nov 13, 1786

Arthur St. Clair           Feb 2, 1787 – Oct 29, 1787

Cyrus Griffin             Jan 28, 1788 – Apr 30, 1789

Well done is better than well said.

            Ben Franklin

Politicians like to make promises, and then reality sets in and they must follow the party line, make compromises. This is the normal order of business. Unfortunately some politicians use this time testes plan to hoodwink the votes. The change their story from town to town, from audience to audience and all the while have a plan all of their own which has little or nothing to do with what they promise. This was the concept behind Hitler’s “Big Lie”. When he spoke to an international audience he always spoke of peace, but his actions were of War.

This twisting of messages to please an audience is the modus operandi of the current administration. They say and promise anything to get their way, and then deliver disaster. Well done is freedom. Well done is allowing the excellence of each individual to shine. Well done is not trying to micromanage other peoples lives.

During the run-up to the Civil War a theory justifying slavery was proposed by Democrat Senator James Henry Hammond in 1858. What he proposed has become known as the “Mudsill Theory”. For those of us who have not liven in a log cabin with a dirt floor a mud sill is the part of a structure placed directly on the ground upon which the building is build. The Mudsill Theory says that there is a class and always will a class of people which are destined to support the upper classes. These lower class people exist to perform the menial tasks necessary for a comfortable life style. The upper classes in fact were doing the lower classes a favor, by making their lives meaningful and supplying the basic necessities of life. He used the example of how slaves (at least the well treated ones) got housing, food, and medical treatment, and contrasted it to the children in England who at two were sent to work in the mines because the could crawl through the small tunnels.

This same philosophy is the basis of socialist thought. --   “There has never been a free people, a civilized nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the social fabric.’ E. V. Debs from his Opening Speech Delivered as Candidate of the Socialist Party for the President at Indianapolis, Ind., September 1, 1904. This line of thinking can only lead to an increase in slavery. The minute you consider an honest laborer a lower class citizen, or a slave you have opened up the door to real slavery. You have placed an onus on the upper class to accept the lower class as an obligation, because the lower classes cannot truly be self sufficient. This is the fallacy of the master slave mentality regardless of the perspective. I ignores the truth that as Lincoln, a staunch opponent of the Mudsill Theory said “All men are created equal”.

Equality vs. Master/Slave -- Master/Slave is easy everyone knows where they stand and exceptionalism is left in the dust. The slave has no hope of greatness he/she is born a mudsill and is destined to always be a mudsill. The master is taken care of and false into a torpor of luxury and seldom if ever recovers. Equality is difficult, everything is uncertain, one day you may me master of all and the next the garbage boy may be your boss. Exceptioinalisn thrives in this environment. Every day is a challenge and as the old saying goes, that, that does not kill you makes you stronger.

Many people have proposed the idea that the underclass (and there and nearly as many definitions of underclass and there are members) must be propped up because they cannot be expected to survive on their own. This is rubbish. There are people who genuinely need help, but there are not classes of people who need help. Government can not tell the difference and in order to guarantee equal results treats the con-artist, the average, and the ailing alike.

Don’t speak with nice sounding words, and deliver a master/slave relationship where the Master provides sustenance, medical treatment, housing, furniture, recreation, . . . mot because of a genuine need on the part of the recipient but because they belong to some class or other, old age, broken legs, skin color, national origin, language, gender, sexual orientation, etc. This type of grouping is discriminatory, demeaning and will eventually lead general weakening.   Equality is not an outcome; it is an inherent quality of humanity. King or scullery maid, both have the opportunity for greatness, or failure. Being poor is not an indication of ability anymore than being rich.

Our obligation is not to be a master but a teacher, If we truly want greatness we must be willing to help anyone who can benefit from our knowledge and experience. Be a mentor, a confidant, a teacher. Make your goal to help everyone you meet to become better at what they do, and to help everyone become better, more competent, and better prepared to improve the lot of everyone that they interact with than could ever hope to be.

Ben Franklin,

• Because of his statesmanship The United States found allies and was able to become a nation
• Was the leading physicist of his day
• Invented the lightning rod, bifocals, an improved stove, a flexible catheter . . .
• Published many articles, books, newspapers, and pamphlets that inspired the American people to become great
• Said -- Well done is better than well said.

 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

National Religious Freedom Day commemorates the Virginia General Assembly's adoption of Thomas Jefferson's landmark Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on January 16, 1786.

Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

           

Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporal rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that, therefore, the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to the offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right; that it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

And though we well know this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no powers equal to our own and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law, yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.

The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom is used as the basis for the court created separation of church and state. This was authored by Jefferson, and this supposedly gives it Constitutional authority. The following list of Signers notably lacks Jefferson’s signature. In reading the above it is obvious that the crime is of restricting the free practice of religion is the thrust of the Statute, therefore any law or action which seeks to diminish religious expression either publically or privately is tyrannical. In other words just be someone’s religious beliefs or practices offend your sensibilities you have not right to prohibit their practice.

This is the meaning of Freedom of religion and Separation of Church and State. 

      Signers

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth.

In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

G. Washington-Presidt. and deputy from Virginia

New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman

Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King

Connecticut: Wm: Saml. Johnson, Roger Sherman

New York: Alexander Hamilton

New Jersey: Wil: Livingston, David Brearly, Wm. Paterson, Jona: Dayton

Pennsylvania: B. Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robt. Morris, Geo. Clymer, Thos. FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouv Morris

Delaware: Geo: Read, Gunning Bedford jun, John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jaco: Broom

Maryland: James McHenry, Dan of St Thos. Jenifer, Danl Carroll

Virginia: John Blair--, James Madison Jr.

North Carolina: Wm. Blount, Richd. Dobbs Spaight, Hu Williamson

South Carolina: J. Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler

Georgia: William Few, Abr Baldwin

 

Our inner city schools in this country are a disaster. If any other profession, or company performed as poorly the people in charge would either be out of business or in jail and possibly both. The stock market during the crash performed better than our schools, Chrysler and GM both performed dramatically better. Lest it be thought that Federal government takeover will solve the problem, just think back a few years, to before the Cleveland city schools went under Federal tutelage and were well ahead of the national average, now we can’t even meet 5 of 30 state minimums. This is worse than sad. 

What has this to do with crime? Students from our inner city schools, students from first class private schools, and students from our rural and suburban schools tell me that the education they receive is a joke. There are highlights, good teachers, and interesting programs, but what they are being taught is basically irrelevant. Just look at the facts in 2004, a person without a degree earned about 20k a year, with a HS diploma, about 28k a year, with a Bachelors, about 51k, and an advanced degree about 78k. The difference between 19k and 28k is how many food stamps you get a month. 51k, starting out with a bachelors (you must be kidding – possibly with an unusual major, otherwise 51k takes a few years) The average student is well aware of this. In the inner city students in general feel that the returns on education are too small, why beat yourself over the head learning a bunch of crap that you will never use. It is far more profitable to operate on the shady side of the law where and education does not affect your earning potential. 

What can be done? Very simply make education valuable. Teach students how to achieve prosperity. Teach the market, teach meaningful skills. (Something more than shop, and cooking) Skills like network engineering, Pre-med, Business startup and management, Nursing, in generals skills for today’s world. If an inner city student sees that there is a 50 to 100k profession at the end of 12 years than crime will go down, because they have a future. If we want to reduce crime, keep people off welfare and improve the overall standard of living in our cities, and all of America we must rethink the entire educational system. Shakespeare will not put food on the table, or a new Lincoln in the garage. Understanding how money works, and advanced skills tailored to the aptitudes of our youth will. Just remember poor children are just as bright, or brighter than their suburban counterparts. They just realize that the effort they put into education will usually lead nowhere, and what they get in k-12 is only good for a paper trail, and does not represent and real skills.