July 8, 2017
Dear Mr. Jefferson,
I write knowing that you have passed through great periods of solitude in your life, and may know well my sufferings. My shoulders have been made broader these days from power cleans and thus can withstand the heavy weight of shame that rests now upon our nation. But I am afraid I cannot endure alone the image of a beached governor, bloated from cheesed fries and a malignant form of arrogance while I still bear the pain of heartache.
I have not seen my Dolley in too long. She arrived on my portico one afternoon, three months before, fashioned in harem culottes, with oriental drawings on her delicate hands and an odd device spinning incessantly upon her finger. There was an unfamiliar desperation in the language of her affections later that evening, as if she were suffering from a burden of conscience. What sin may she have committed to bring her to me that day as if for absolution? She left the following morning, as quickly as she came, sobbing that I had always “mansplained” her rights to her, when she was most in want now, she said, of maternity leave legislation and active listening.
Does not your experience with the fairer sex today suggest a greater unsettled confusion among the masses? If large numbers of the population are now liberated but still carrying the broken chains of their subjugation, will this not leave us with social discord in a Union most in want of unity?
It leaves me at present with bare cupboards, the deep quiet of my massive homestead and 2,650 acres lying fallow. I have only my CrossFit group, sessions I attend as devotedly as I once attended Presbyterian service. I am active too in an online support forum for those suffering from heel spurs. But are ties such as these the only ties that now bind? Are we not as well a national community, with ties to our constitution and the rights therein, a destiny to be shaped and made greater?
Perhaps rancor towards our tweeting leader, and thus towards the evil in our own hearts, shall be the tie that henceforth binds us towards a greater destiny. Unfortunately, I do not foresee it until a more melancholy crisis takes place, a greater tragedy of body or spirit, both of which are justly feared.
For now, I have taken instead to milder forms of subversion. We might have once, you and I, inspired righteous insurrection through eloquence. But I fear such argument today would be muted from the din of ignorance. So I have tweeted a few quotes from Mr. Locke and posted a few articles today on Rousseau’s articulation of the Social Compact. Perhaps Dolley will see them and come back to me, pleased by my efforts. I have also altered pastor Fawcett’s fine hymn and slipped copies in the hymnals of the King’s Chapel Presbyterian Church on Patrick Henry Road in Doswell. Please offer your revisions to my version if you are inclined to do so:
The Tie that Binds
O Blest be the tie that binds
our hearts in a call so clarion
to a fellowship of kindred minds,
not to the short-fingered vulgarian
Before our Founding Father’s throne
We pour our ardent desires;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims, are one,
To something greater we aspire.
We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear,
And for each other should always flow
A sympathizing tear.
If our political pathways part,
we may suffer great dispute;
yet, one in spirit and one in heart,
we shall not resist nor refute,
That this Lyin’ King shall renew
our courage in such a way,
that we shall know again what once we knew,
and in the future will be a day,
When trolls and tweets we will ignore,
and kindness will reign and ever flow.
Because we yearn for truth, for something more,
and we fight like hell to make it so.
I am dear Sir, your affection friend,
James Madison
p.s. You might as well discover solar farming to be of value upon your plantation. It is said to reduce both environmental and human degradation.
