Tuesday, March 17, 1824. Irish in Savannah and Old Glory

Savannah, Georgia held its first St. Patrick's Day parade on this day in 1824.

We don't tend to think of the Irish immigrating to the American South, but there were some, although the story is complicated by the conflation of the Irish with the Scots Irish, the latter group actually being a Scottish Protestant population imported by the United Kingdom with the intent to create a sort of Protestant wall in Ulster.  The actual Irish were a massively unpopular "race" in the United States at this point in time.

The original Old Glory.

The name "Old Glory" was applied to the U.S. flag for the first time, with that coming from Cpt. William Driver, a commercial captain who received it from his mother and local women of Salem, Massachusetts.  The name was applied to the individual flag.

Driver was an interesting character and had originally gone to sea at age 13 as a cabin boy.  On an 1831 expedition to the South Pacific, his ship was the only one out of six that survived the trip, and his ship escorted 65 descendants of the Bounty survivors back to Pitcairn Island.  He retired from sailing in 1837 and became a salesman. During the Civil War, he remained loyal to the Union while living in Nashville.

It remained in his family's possession until 1922, when it was donated to the Smithsonian.

The Anglo Dutch Treaty was entered into resolving issues that had arisen due to a prior treaty in 1814.

Last prior:

Thursday, March 11, 1824. Bureau of Indian Affairs formed.

The probable end of the filibuster

Be prepared for a lot of ill-advised historically inaccurate hoohah about the Filibuster.

The filibuster, as we all know, is a "time honored" U.S. Senate tradition that meant, at one time, that debate could go on endlessly.  I.e., a bill could be talked to death.

Nobody really likes talking endlessly to nobody, so the real filibuster wasn't possible until the Senate changed its rules to allow endless talking in 1806, but even then it wasn't used until 1837, and rarely used at all up until. . . the 1970s.

Yes, the 1970s.

So it's a feature of our modern Congressional dysfunction.

The Senate, not much liking the actual act of having to stand there and talk, has a rule that it requires 60% of the Senate to vote to move most bills forward and close the debate.

But they can modify their rules by a simple majority vote.

They should. There's no Constitutional requirement that every measure receive 60% of the vote.  Up until the Obama Administration, most things that could get 50% could get 60%, but since that time things are so polarized that nothing happens.

That's setting us up for coup round two.

And it's antidemocratic. The filibuster should go.

And yes, that will mean that a government with a thin, thin, majority, can pass legislation.  And probably will.

And that will mean that a minority that's barely a minority will probably almost certainly pick up seats in the off year election.

So be it.

Our government isn't functioning . . . at all.  It needs to.