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1. Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., Pistols and Politics: The Dilemma of Democracy in Louisiana’s Florida Parishes, 1810-1899, page 75:
Although each parish received at least one representative to the lower house, the method of apportionment allowing slaves to be counted as part of the population stipulated by the Constitution of 1852 created excessive representation from the plantation parishes.
This reminds me of a game I played in my history class when I was in the eighth grade. The class was divided into groups that existed prior to the Civil War. There were the abolitionists, who favored the abolition of slavery. There were the Southern Rebels, who supported spreading slavery to the territories and defending its existence in the South. Then there were the Southern Realists and the Northern Free-Soilers, who advocated popular sovereignty as the means to determine if new states would be slave or free: essentially, the state's residents would vote on that question.
The Southern Rebels were continually afraid that the North would get dominance in the Congress and use that power to abolish slavery. Historically, that's what led to the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, which delayed the Civil War. There was a desire in the South to maintain a balance between slave and free states, so that the free states wouldn't have the advantage.
Our class debated the Compromise of 1850, and different groups proposed alternatives to it. The Southern Rebels proposed counting the slaves as full persons rather than as three-fifths of a person, which the Constitution stipulated (Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3). (In retrospect, I'm not sure why no one in the class pointed out that you need a Constitutional amendment to change the Constitution.) This would give the Southern states more representatives in the House of Representatives, since the number of an area's representatives is based on its population. Ironically, the abolitionists sided with the Southern Rebels on this, since they believed that counting the slaves as full persons was a step towards acknowledging their humanity, even if the slaves would still lack the right to vote.
2. Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, page 20:
"Smith is not a man. He is an intelligent creature with the genes and ancestry of a man. He's more Martian than a man. Until we came along he had never laid eyes on a human being. He thinks like a Martian, he feels like a Martian. He's been brought up by a race which has nothing in common with us. Why, they don't even have sex. Smith has never laid eyes on a woman---still hasn't if my orders have been carried out. He's a man by ancestry, a Martian by environment..."
Smith is a human being who was raised by Martians, which is probably why he's a "stranger in a strange land". But this quote reminded me of the TV show Dexter, whose pilot I watched yesterday. Dexter is a cop with homicidal tendencies, which go back to his youth, when he killed and buried a dog. His foster dad, a cop, told Dexter to channel his urges into a positive direction, by getting rid of bad guys when he grew up---the evil people who managed to dodge the law.
Dexter is truly a stranger in a strange land. Not only does he have homicidal urges, but he also doesn't understand social interaction among other human beings. He doesn't get sex, nor does he like it. His girlfriend is a lady who was repeatedly raped by her ex-husband, a crack addict, so she doesn't like sex either. That makes her and Dexter a good match! And Dexter remarks that, if he had it inside of himself to care for another person, he would definitely care for his foster sister (also a cop), who is the closest friend he's got.
Even though Dexter is a stranger in a strange land, he's still able to make his way through the world. He can effectively interact with people. He can make people believe that he cares for them. The inner Dexter and the outer Dexter are not entirely the same person, for the outer Dexter is a mask for the twisted, cold Dexter. Still, Dexter tries to do the right thing---or avoid doing the wrong thing.
I wonder how I, as a person with Asperger's, who is not twisted like Dexter yet considers social interaction a challenge, can put on a front that is contrary to my inner nature, allowing me to make my way through the world.
3. For my weekly quiet time today, I studied II Kings 4. The chapter is about Elisha's miracles. Here, I want to focus on his interaction with the Shunammite woman.
Shumen is in Northern Israel, I believe in the tribe of Manasseh. Egyptian sources mention it, so it was probably close to a well-travelled road. Because the prophet Elisha is continually passing her house, she proposes to give this holy man of God a room in which he can stay and relax from his journeys. Elisha wants to repay her, and he mentions to her his connections with the king and the military. According to John Gill, Elisha was offering her husband a prominent place in the king's court or the military. But she replied that she was content among her own people, which probably means that she didn't desire for her husband to get a high position that would require them to move.
Elisha's servant, Gehazi, tells Elisha that the woman does not have a child, and her husband is old. Gehazi must trust in Elisha's ability to channel God's power, for his statement indicates that he believes Elisha can cause the Shunammite woman to conceive and bear a child. Upon hearing Elisha propose this to her, the woman is skeptical that she'll have a baby. But, sure enough, she does.
The child gets heat-stroke and dies, however, and so the woman and her servant ride out to Mount Carmel to see Elisha. When she falls down at Elisha's feet, Gehazi tries to thrust her away, but Elisha stops him and sympathizes with her in her grief. Elisha gives Gehazi his staff and sends him to heal the boy. On his way, Gehazi is to gird up his loins and refrain from greeting people, perhaps so he can get to the child quickly. Elisha loved and honored this woman, so her request was urgent as far as he was concerned! When Gehazi arrives and touches the boy's face with Elisha's staff, the boy is still unconscious. When Elisha comes and places his body over the boy, however, the boy is resurrected.
Why didn't Gehazi's attempt work, whereas Elisha was successful? There are a variety of explanations that people have offered. Here are some of them:
a. This story communicates the Christian truth about salvation. The staff represents the law of Moses, which cannot give life to the spiritually dead, since we're too weak to keep it. Only God through Christ can spiritually revive us. And God the Word united himself with humanity in order to save it, as Elisha united his body with that of the dead child.
b. The problem was Gehazi. Some rabbinic commentators maintain that Gehazi didn't heed Elisha's instruction not to greet people on the way. Instead, Gehazi expressed skepticism to those he encountered that a stick could raise the dead. Consequently, Gehazi received according to his faith, meaning that he got nothing in exchange for his lack of faith!
c. The Jewish commentator Rashi, however, holds that Gehazi did the opposite: he bragged to people along the way that he was about to raise someone from the dead! God and Elisha wanted Gehazi to approach this task with humility, which was why Elisha told Gehazi to focus on his urgent task, rather than opening his big mouth and bragging along the way. Because Gehazi glorified himself rather than God, his attempt at a miracle did not work.
I tend to go with this explanation rather than (b.), for Gehazi believed in the power of God through Elisha. Earlier, he told Elisha that the woman was childless, implying his belief that Elisha could cause her to conceive. So I doubt that Gehazi's problem was a lack of faith. Rather, I think he believed that Elisha had power, but he didn't focus on God.
d. Elisha misdiagnosed the problem. He thought that the child was sick and unconscious, not dead. And so he sent Gehazi with a remedy: to touch the boy's head with a stick, a ritual that Akkadians used for exorcism against disease and fever. But this didn't work because the boy didn't have a disease or a fever: he was dead. And so Elisha used a Mesopotamian ritual for that problem, and he raised the dead boy.
e. Elisha sent Gehazi with the staff of a prophet, indicating Elisha's faith in the prophetic office as a means to raise the dead. But God didn't want Elisha to glorify the prophetic office. God desired for Elisha to glorify God. Only when Elisha abandoned faith in his staff and prayed to God was there progress toward's the child's resurrection.
f. God was teaching Elisha perseverance. When we don't get what we want in prayer, we should keep making our request to God. Similarly, Elisha didn't give up when the staff didn't work, but he entreated the LORD more earnestly.
All of these different ideas contain valuable lessons, in my humble opinion. I like it when my weekly quiet times give me practical spiritual concepts!
