Hey blogheads. I thought in honor of President’s Day, we should take a break from all the comedy and take a look at the framing of our country. Here’s a letter from a series of correspondance between Wendall Phillips and Roberts Morris, a signer of both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. This letter was receive by Mr. Morris several days before the final version of the Constitution was drafted and I think it shows a lot how the common man had no effect on its creation.

-pscott

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The Esteemed Robert Morris
Continental Congress
Philadelphia, PA

September the Seventh in our year of the Lord, Seventeen-Seventy-Seven

Dear Mr. Morris,

How are you, Sir? I hope this letter finds you well.

I wanted to commend you on a fine job with the Articles of Confederation. Certainly, as critics say, it could benefit from a bit of sprucing up, but for a first attempt, you did a dandy job.

As long as we’re on the subject, perhaps I could offer my own advice. I certainly do not expect you to have much use for it yourself, considering you are an established statesman and I am simply a lowly butterfly collector. In fact, I find myself overwhelmed with humility just writing to you and cannot possibly force upon you my opinions unsolicited.

But, as long as I have put quill to paper, I may as well write down my ideas for my own use, then throw out this letter so as to save you from a philistine’s estimation.

While the Articles of Confederation truly are dandy and well, I fear they ignore one of the great issues of our United States. Like a giant net wielded by a mustached man in a pith helmet, it sweeps over our land of the free, making it a land of tyranny. And that problem is the gall of the state and national government to repeatedly dismiss my attempts to marry a butterfly simply because she is not a human. Is it selfish of me to find my personal marital problems so big that they plague my whole country? Of course not. For if they deny me my marriage, how long will it be before another young, handsome, 65-year-old entomologist unsuccessfully tries to join with Nature’s most beautiful creature?

Does the Declaration of Independence (another well-crafted document - Touché Morris!) not say all men and butterflies are created equal? No, it does not. But it should. We are certainly created differently, but one cannot deny how even we come out when compared. Butterflies can fly, humans can feel emotions. Butterflies can create a natural poison defense on their wings, humans can do math. Certainly, humans come across as better at first, but again, butterflies can FLY! That’s crazy!

Look around you Mr. Morris! Look at yourself and your peers! When you receive a butterfly kiss from your emotionally distant significant other, do you not get aroused by the thought that a butterfly could be flapping its wings against your cheek? I think we both know the answer to that.

Let us envision a future where butterflies and humans live together in harmony! Black children and caterpillars, Jews and chrysalises, Protestants and Monarch Butterflies! What are you hiding from Mr. Morris? Live in harmony with our equals. (And I am not talking about moths. They are gross and hairy.) But butterflies! This future is attainable! We simply need to cocoon ourselves in societal reform and emerge a beautiful, voluptuous winged society. When a butterfly flaps its wings in Prussia, a lighting storm emerges in the Louisiana Territories. Let us all flap our wings here in America, and create a global lighting storm of butterfly marriages in the future. I have butterflies in my stomach at the thought of this future, my friends. And that’s not because I hiccupped while trying to smooch my butterfly life partner. Thank you, and good night.

P.S. You should also consider taxes. They are invaluable.

-Wendell Philips, January 25^th, 2008

Lepidoptera Collection Ordinaire