Fun Fact for the Day 3.8.12

Sticking with 18th Century United States, the continental congress of 1775 tried one last desperate attempt at avoiding war by sending what became known as the Olive Branch Petition. The petition, sent to King George III, was a humble plea to the king which tried to explain that the colonists were loyal to him, but felt unjustly governed by the rules of the English parliament. The petition asked the King to draw up a final plan that could avoid war that would give colonists free trade and taxes equivalent to those levied against people in England or no taxes with strict trade regulations. The King however refused to accept the letter and issued a Proclamation of Rebellion that called for Great Britain 'to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion'. We all know how that ended for him.

Fun Fact for the Day 3.7.12

Back in the US Presidential Election of 1796, election strategies were quite different than they are today. Each state nominated a certain number of electors and each of these electors in turn had 2 votes with which to vote for any two candidates for president that they wanted. At the end of voting, the person with the most votes would be president and the person with second most would be vice president.

The Federalists all wanted John Adams as their man along with Thomas Pinckney. To ensure that Adams would have more votes than Pinckney, a few delegates were told to cast their second ballot for some other person with no chance of winning.

However, the opposing Democrat-Republican party knew this. They wanted Thomas Jefferson to be president, but they had fewer delegates than the Federalists which made getting Jefferson elected unlikely. Thus, if they couldn't get their man in, at least they could mess up the Federalists' plan. Alexander Hamilton coerced some of the electors pledged to Thomas Jefferson to cast their second vote for Thomas Pinckney in the hope that Pinckney would end up with more votes than Adams and become the new president. The Federalists got wind of this plan and therefore tried to have some of their delegates switch their second vote to ensure Pinckney would not precede Adams on the final tally.

Unfortunately for the Federalists, the miscounted, and too many delegates switched their vote away from Pinckney, leaving Thomas Jefferson in second place and thus the new vice president with John Adams. It would be the only time that the President and Vice President were from opposing parties, and would actively work against each other to preempt the other's policies.

Fun Fact for the Day 3.6.12

In 1754 Benjamin Franklin proposed what became known as the Albany Plan at a conference of delegates of 7 (of the then 9) colonies of British North America. The plan called for unification of all colonies under the central authority of a governing council and a colonial president to be appointed by HM the King. Approved by the council of delegates, the plan was rejected by the colonies. Benjamin Franklin later reflected that had the plan been accepted and executed, it would have been very likely that the cessation would not have happened when it did, nor perhaps even for another century if at all.

Fun Fact for the Day 3.5.12

The US State of Georgia, chartered in 1732, was chartered with a ban on slavery. The idea was that without slavery, the province would have a strong (white) farm labor force with which to defend and serve as a buffer to the northern colonies if attacked from Spanish Florida. However, the ban was lifted in 1749, and only after a few short years of slaves pouring in, Georgia's labor force was homogenous with the rest of the US South.