The U. S. Gets Born (12)

On September 17, 1787 The Founding Fathers adopted the Constitution, an Orphan born in Philadelphia. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had a stern disagreement over who would be Daddy.

G. Morris (first name always written as G. as nobody then or now could spell it) said he was the Father, as he had actually written the words with his pen, a $0.98 cent Bic, which doubled as a lighter.

Wise old Ben Franklin was in charge of settling disputes. He made a speech about the rising or setting sun picture that was on George Washington’s chair (also his screen saver).

Ben said the Orphan Constitution would survive. (Or something like that: the original video has been lost.) Just to be on the safe side Children and Family Services were called (Ben had just invented the cell phone).

Although the Orphan was now adopted, he had to be approved by the Original Thirteen Colonies who were now states under The Articles of Confederation, Part 17, line 46, Row 6B, except for Massachusetts, which thought it was a commonwealth.

Massachusetts was so confused that it passed The Somewhat Gay Marriage Law, which provided for couples that were not necessarily gay, but were at least moderately cheerful, to be eligible for call waiting and high speed Internet access.

Things became so muddled that James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay (The McGuire Sisters of Journalism) wrote a series of pamphlets to explain the new Constitution, which had citizens shaking their heads and exclaiming: “What the heck are these guys trying to say?”

Sample sentence: “The executive branch will be co-equal with the legislative branch which will be overruled by the Supreme Court unless they are not wearing their robes in which case they will declare themselves obscene”.

The Founders went back to their laptops and wrote still more of the Famous Federalist Papers though the People begged for mercy.

Madison finally made an overseas call for help to Thomas Jefferson, who along with John Adams (the original Adams, not one of his 37 descendents also named John) conveniently managed to be in Paris, France during the controversy. Jefferson said: (this is a direct quote from the original phone log):

“Madison, who gave you my number? Why do you think I crossed the Atlantic if not to get away from your pesky questions? How are you ever going to succeed me as President if you can’t handle a crisis on your own?”

Sensing that his mentor was having a bad day, Madison said Jefferson was cutting out on him.

Jefferson gave phone to John Adams who yelled (to be sure they could hear him in America):

“What’s this nonsense about Massachusetts? What are “gay couples”? Aren’t all happily married couples “gay”? I’ve only been gone two years, and already the Country along with our Mother Tongue is going to hell in a hand basket.”

Jefferson took the phone back to tell Madison to add Bill of Rights to the new Constitution.

Madison said: “What bill? The overseas phone call?” Jefferson gave up, and told Madison to expect a fax with the details.

So the Orphan Constitution had a rough time of it for about two years, which was compounded by much bickering over expense accounts that seemed to indicate heavy drinking by the people’s representatives.

This dust up came about as one busybody delegate had snitched on his brethren. Geo. Washington termed him an old blue nose and gave him a stout cursing; he heartily wished the little you-know-what was in the army so he could have had him flogged.

But after two years of wrangling the Constitution was passed and the new country was poised to live happily ever. There was, however, a little hitch when Geo. Washington was to be sworn as the first President. He arrived at the District of Columbia, but was ten years early as the White House had not yet been built.

“Accursed Yahoo Search!” thundered the General.

He then took an Amtrak special to New York only to be told that the new government had makeshift quarters at the Philadelphia Holiday Inn. “By God! This is worse than a floating crap game!” (This is not exactly what he said, but this is a family blog.)

Washington was so put out by this mix-up that he had his advance man strung up by his heels and made him answer questions from The Press. Washington was a fun guy.

And so the Constitution was no longer an orphan. The original document can be read online with nice exhibits of, for example, G. Morris’s Bic Pen, which doubled as a lighter.

Remember: you are reading this on the Internet-- it has to be true. I’ve lost my original link, but if you Google “G. Morris Bic Pen”, I think you might be surprised.

By the way, I’ll be offline the rest of the weekend.