be a film: “the tea party as seen through the eyes of a tea crate.”
Historic Tours of America catered mostly to older Americans, “aging Baby Boomers,” its company profile said. It sold celebration. For that generation, the struggle for civil rights, the tragedy of Vietnam, and the betrayals of Watergate made patriotism a sorrow. Heritage tourism provided a balm.
On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the health care bill, in a vote that fell along partisan lines. All but 34 Democrats voted for it, and all 178 Republicans voted against it. On Monday, eleven state attorneys general announced a plan to challenge the law as a violation of state sovereignty. Across the country, there followed scattered threats of violence against legislators who had voted in favor of the bill and against the president who signed it into law on Tuesday, by which time there had already been talk of nullification.
The next night, I met Austin Hess and Kat Malone at the Warren Tavern in Charlestown. The tavern, built in 1784, was named after Dr. Joseph Warren, who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and was just a cobbled street away from Monument Square, where a granite obelisk commemorated the patriots who died alongside him. We sat near the bar, beneath a dark ceiling of massive oak timbers. Tin lanterns hung from the wall. Hess took off his tricornered hat and set it down on the table between us. Malone was quiet. Hess was frustrated. “I have recently started a committee to elect thecorpse of Calvin Coolidge,” he said, “because anyone’s better than Obama.” He was dismayed by the vote, but he was also, as always, courteous and equable. “It’s the law of the land now, so, it’s up to us to blunt its impact and overturn it if we can.” The vote, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s maneuvering around a potential filibuster made possible by Brown’s election to the Senate, had deepened Hess’s conviction about the aptness of his analogy. “One of the things people like to say about us is that they like to think that we don’t know what we’re talking about, that we don’t know whatthe tea party was about. But to the people who say we have taxation with representation, I would just say that they should look to the bill that just passed. We sent Scott Brown to Washington to kill this bill, but the people in Washington did everything they could to thwart the will of the people, and especially the people of Massachusetts. How is my voice being represented?”
In 1774, in response to the dumping of the tea, Parliament passed what colonists called the Intolerable Acts: the Boston Port Act closed the port; the Massachusetts Government Act greatly constrained the activities of town meetings. Hutchinson was removed as governor; General Thomas Gage, commander of the British forces in America, was appointed in his place. (The legislature had actually voted to impeach Hutchinson earlier, following the publication of the Hutchinson letters leaked by Franklin.) A secret society of men, including Revere, Hancock, Warren, and the Adamses, met at the Green Dragon “for the purpose of watching the British soldiers,” as Revere wrote. 46 Hutchinson sailed for England in May; Copley followed him shortly afterward. “Mr. Copley may be looked upon as the Greatest Painter we have ever yet had in America,” an admirer wrote, just months beforeCopley set sail. (Copley never returned. He died in 1815 and is buried in London.) 47
The port was closed on the first of June; the only ships to arrive in Boston were those carrying still more British soldiers. In August, John and Samuel Adams set off, by carriage, for Philadelphia, for the first meeting of the Continental Congress. “The distinction between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more,” Patrick Henry declared in Philadelphia. “I am not a Virginian, but an American.” 48
Not long after, a man named Thomas Pain washed up
Historic Tours of America catered mostly to older Americans, “aging Baby Boomers,” its company profile said. It sold celebration. For that generation, the struggle for civil rights, the tragedy of Vietnam, and the betrayals of Watergate made patriotism a sorrow. Heritage tourism provided a balm.
On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the health care bill, in a vote that fell along partisan lines. All but 34 Democrats voted for it, and all 178 Republicans voted against it. On Monday, eleven state attorneys general announced a plan to challenge the law as a violation of state sovereignty. Across the country, there followed scattered threats of violence against legislators who had voted in favor of the bill and against the president who signed it into law on Tuesday, by which time there had already been talk of nullification.
The next night, I met Austin Hess and Kat Malone at the Warren Tavern in Charlestown. The tavern, built in 1784, was named after Dr. Joseph Warren, who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and was just a cobbled street away from Monument Square, where a granite obelisk commemorated the patriots who died alongside him. We sat near the bar, beneath a dark ceiling of massive oak timbers. Tin lanterns hung from the wall. Hess took off his tricornered hat and set it down on the table between us. Malone was quiet. Hess was frustrated. “I have recently started a committee to elect thecorpse of Calvin Coolidge,” he said, “because anyone’s better than Obama.” He was dismayed by the vote, but he was also, as always, courteous and equable. “It’s the law of the land now, so, it’s up to us to blunt its impact and overturn it if we can.” The vote, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s maneuvering around a potential filibuster made possible by Brown’s election to the Senate, had deepened Hess’s conviction about the aptness of his analogy. “One of the things people like to say about us is that they like to think that we don’t know what we’re talking about, that we don’t know whatthe tea party was about. But to the people who say we have taxation with representation, I would just say that they should look to the bill that just passed. We sent Scott Brown to Washington to kill this bill, but the people in Washington did everything they could to thwart the will of the people, and especially the people of Massachusetts. How is my voice being represented?”
In 1774, in response to the dumping of the tea, Parliament passed what colonists called the Intolerable Acts: the Boston Port Act closed the port; the Massachusetts Government Act greatly constrained the activities of town meetings. Hutchinson was removed as governor; General Thomas Gage, commander of the British forces in America, was appointed in his place. (The legislature had actually voted to impeach Hutchinson earlier, following the publication of the Hutchinson letters leaked by Franklin.) A secret society of men, including Revere, Hancock, Warren, and the Adamses, met at the Green Dragon “for the purpose of watching the British soldiers,” as Revere wrote. 46 Hutchinson sailed for England in May; Copley followed him shortly afterward. “Mr. Copley may be looked upon as the Greatest Painter we have ever yet had in America,” an admirer wrote, just months beforeCopley set sail. (Copley never returned. He died in 1815 and is buried in London.) 47
The port was closed on the first of June; the only ships to arrive in Boston were those carrying still more British soldiers. In August, John and Samuel Adams set off, by carriage, for Philadelphia, for the first meeting of the Continental Congress. “The distinction between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more,” Patrick Henry declared in Philadelphia. “I am not a Virginian, but an American.” 48
Not long after, a man named Thomas Pain washed up
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