1787 Constitutional Convention

A little blasphemous note on the Constitutional convention.

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After his controversial speech [calling for something very like an elective monarch], Hamilton lapsed into temporary silence as the large and small states squared off in a tense deadlock. It seemed that the divided convention might collapse.

When Franklin suggested on June 28 that each session start with a prayer for heavenly help, Hamilton countered that this might foster a public impression that “embarrassments and dissensions within the convention had suggested this measure.” According to legend, Hamilton also rebutted Franklin with the jest that the convention didn’t need “foreign aid.”

The Lord did not seem much in evidence at this point in the convention. One story, perhaps apocryphal, claims that when Hamilton was asked why the framers omitted the word God from the Constitution, he replied, “We forgot.” One is tempted to reply that Alexander Hamilton never forgot anything important.

-- Ron Chernow, “Alexander Hamilton”

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Hamlet (3,4) Gertrude and Hamlet Begin

Hamlet enters the room, and he begins calmly and solicitously enough:

Now, mother, what's the matter?

Gertrude, however, immediately begins with a sharp, reproving tone, as though she were talking to a small, misbehaving child:

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

As Rosenberg notes:

This is the only time Gertrude tries to make Hamlet accept Claudius as a father - and she could hardly have timed it worse, as his bristling must tell her. She seems almost to be asking for a fight.

Hamlet, in turn, rhetorically minces with her, as though he were talking to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, playing annoyingly with his words and the meaning of things.

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Daily Fun

When I die, I hope this is where I go.

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