Prof. Boerner's Explorations

by Gerald Boerner

  

We are continuing our series of postings that will examine the likely nominees for the Supreme Court vacancy that will result from the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens in June. Today we examine the second possible male candidate for the nomination, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. We will be interested to see whether the expediency of getting the nominee confirmed will overshadow the selection of the most prepared, most experienced, and most appropriate person for that position..  GLB

    

“It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.”
— Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“The price of justice is eternal publicity..”
— Arnold Bennett

“Justice is the infrastructure of proprietorship..”
— Kemal Ataturk

“In the rush for justice it is important not to lose sight of principles the country holds dear.”
— Kofi Annan

“When there is time to think about cricket, I think but when there is time to be with family, I try to do justice to that aspect of my life as well.”
— Sachin Tendulkar

“But if you’re asking my opinion, I would argue that a social justice approach should be central to medicine and utilized to be central to public health. This could be very simple: the well should take care of the sick.”
— Paul Farmer

“I retired from public Business from a thorough Conviction that it was not in my Power to do any Good, and very much disgusted with Measures, which appeared to me inconsistent with common Policy and Justice..”
— George Mason

“The values by which we are to survive are not rules for just and unjust conduct, but are those deeper illuminations in whose light justice and injustice, good and evil, means and ends are seen in fearful sharpness of outline.”
— Jacob Bronowski

  

Supreme Court Candidates: Deval Patrick

President Barack Obama has made one appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, that of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Associate Justice David H. Souter. Sotomayor was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 6, 2009. He will additionally have the opportunity to fill the vacancy created by John Paul Stevens, who has announced his intention to retire at the end of the court’s term in June 2010. Speculation has also focused on the potential retirement of 77-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Court demographics

Demographic considerations have played into the appointment of Supreme Court justices since the institution was established. Starting in the twentieth century, these concerns shifted from geographic representation to issues of gender and ethnicity.

Prior to the 2008 presidential election, many court watchers suggested that the next president would be under significant pressure to appoint another woman or ethnic minority to the court. The case for naming more women was particularly widespread given the recent retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor and the rapidly changing demographics of the legal community, with women now accounting for about a fifth of all law partners and law school deans, a quarter of the federal bench, and nearly half of all law school graduates. Shortly before the election, for example, NPR reported, "Most observers of the Supreme Court agree about one thing: The next nominee is likely to be a woman". Furthermore, after Obama’s presidential election victory, Hispanic legal interests groups such as the Hispanic National Bar Association began urging Obama to nominate a Hispanic justice.

Given the relative youth of the most recent Republican appointments, it was also noted that Democrats had, "a strong incentive to pick younger justices this time around". Age proved to be an important consideration for Obama, who was "looking for a justice who will be an intellectual force on the court for many years to come". As a result, Obama did not seriously consider candidates such as Jose Cabranes, Amalya Kearse, Diana Gribbon Motz, David Tatel, and Laurence Tribe, all of whom he respected but were older than 65 when Obama was looking to replace David Souter.

Introducing Deval Patrick

Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is the 71st Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A member of the Democratic Party, Patrick served as United States Assistant Attorney General under President Bill Clinton. He is the first person of African descent to hold the office of Massachusetts governor.

Patrick was born on the South Side of Chicago, where his family resided in a two-bedroom apartment in Robert Taylor Homes housing projects. In 1959, his father Laurdine "Pat" Patrick, a member of jazz musician Sun Ra’s band, left his wife Mae (née Wintersmith), Deval, and their daughter, Rhonda (who is one year Deval’s senior) in order to play music in New York City and because he had fathered a daughter by another woman. Deval reportedly had a strained relationship with his father, who opposed his choice of high school, but they eventually reconciled. Patrick was raised by his mother, Mae, who traces her roots to American slaves in the American South, in the state of Kentucky.

While Patrick was in middle school, one of his teachers referred him to A Better Chance, a national non-profit organization for identifying, recruiting and developing leaders among academically gifted students of African American descent, which enabled him to attend Milton Academy. Patrick graduated from Milton Academy in 1974 and from Harvard College (with a concentration in English and American literature) in 1978. He then spent a year working with the United Nations in Africa. In 1979, Patrick returned to the United States and enrolled at Harvard Law School. While in law school, Patrick was elected president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, where he first worked defending poor families in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

He and his wife, Diane Patrick, née Bemus (b. 1951), a lawyer specializing in labor and employment law, married in 1984. They have lived in Milton, Massachusetts since 1989 and have two daughters, Sarah and Katherine. In July 2008, Katherine publicly announced that she is a lesbian, and mentioned that her father did not know this while fighting against an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution. In a joint interview Patrick expressed support for his daughter and said he was proud of her.

Career

Clinton Administration

In 1994, Clinton nominated Patrick Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, subsequently confirmed by the United States Senate. As the head of the Civil Rights Division, Patrick worked on issues including racial profiling, police misconduct, fair lending enforcement, human trafficking, prosecution of hate crime, abortion clinic violence and discrimination based on gender and disability. He led what was (before the September 11, 2001 attacks) the largest federal criminal investigation in history as co-chair of the Task Force investigating the arsons of synagogues and Black churches in the South in the mid 1990′s. He had a key role as an adviser to post-apartheid South Africa during this time and helped draft that country’s civil rights laws.

His tenure was not without controversy. Federal affirmative action policy was under judicial and political review, and Patrick was thrust into Clinton’s policy defense. Patrick also enforced federal laws concerning treatment of incarcerated criminals, to the extent that one warden called him a "zealot." He has also been criticized for his role in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals case Piscataway v. Taxman, wherein, due to budget constraints, a white woman named Sharon Taxman was laid off rather than a black woman of allegedly "identical" qualifications, because the school wanted diversity on its teaching staff. Taxman sued and prevailed in US District Court, but Patrick encouraged the Justice Department, which had supported Taxman in the Bush administration, to withdraw from the case. Taxman was subsequently rehired and eventually settled her suit.

Business Career

In 1997, Patrick returned to Boston to join the firm Day, Berry & Howard, and was appointed by the federal district court to serve as Chairman of Texaco’s Equality and Fairness Task Force to oversee implementation of the terms of a race discrimination settlement at Texaco. Working with employees at all levels, Patrick and his Task Force examined and reformed Texaco’s complex corporate employment culture, and created a model for fostering an equitable workplace.^[10] After serving for nearly two years, he was appointed Vice President and General Counsel for the company in New York City, leading the company’s global legal affairs. From 2000 to 2004, Patrick worked as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary of the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta. He resigned in 2004, ending nearly 6 years of weekly commuting between Massachusetts and jobs out of state.

Some gay rights activists have criticized him for his tenure on the United Airlines (UAL) board. During this time, the company fought a San Francisco ordinance requiring companies to offer domestic partnership benefits. Patrick contended that for a global company to comply with local employment ordinances in San Francisco would have set an unhelpful precedent. Patrick successfully encouraged UAL to offer such benefits to all employees, making it the first airline to do so.

In 2004, he was appointed to the board of directors of the firm that controls Ameriquest, the mortgage company infamous for predatory lending scandals. Ameriquest subsequently agreed to a $325 million dollar settlement regarding their predatory lending practices in 49 states. Deval Patrick resigned from the board on July 2, 2006.

Administration as Governor of Massachusetts

Firsts

On November 7, 2006, Patrick was elected to be the first African American governor of Massachusetts, the third black governor in United States history. He is one of two current African American governors, along with David Paterson of New York, the first time in U.S. history two black governors serve concurrently. He took office on January 4, 2007.

In August 2007 Patrick announced that he was appointing former Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police chief Joseph C. Carter to the position of The Adjutant General (TAG) of the Massachusetts National Guard making him the first African American TAG in the 370-year history of the state’s Guard.

In December 2009, Patrick announced he was promoting Deputy Superintendent Marian J. McGovern to Colonel in the Massachusetts State Police. The promotion makes McGovern the first female leader of that police organization in its 144-year history.

Transition

Before taking office, Patrick named a transition team headed by lawyer Michael Angelini, bank executive Ronald Homer, and Weld administration economic affairs secretary Gloria Cordes Larson. In his first meetings with the legislative leadership, he proposed his first action would be to hire 1000 new police officers and to expand full-day kindergarten statewide. He has since scaled back his original proposal and will hire only 250 officers. As part of the transition, Patrick created a series of working groups who held public meetings to advise him on various policy areas. The groups included a few names prominent in the election: Harvard Pilgrim CEO Charles D. Baker, Jr. on Budget & Finance, a Weld administration finance advisor who had been considered a potential GOP candidate for governor; Center of Women and Enterprise founder and candidate in the Lieutenant Governor’s primary Andrea Silbert on Economic Development; and gubernatorial primary candidate Chris Gabrieli on PreK-12 Education.

Appointment of Interim Senator

On September 24, 2009, Patrick appointed Paul G. Kirk as the interim US senator in the wake of Ted Kennedy’s death.

Controversies

During the 2006 Gubernatorial Election Patrick faced criticism^[26] for writing letters to the parole board describing correspondence from Benjamin LaGuer, a man convicted of a brutal eight-hour rape, as "thoughtful, insightful, eloquent, [and] humane".^[27] Patrick, who supported the release of LaGuer, contributed $5,000 towards the DNA testing which backfired by further linking LaGuer to the crime.^[28]

Before taking office, Patrick faced criticism for urging legislators to ignore the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s finding that the legislature was constitutionally bound to take a second vote on whether or not to allow a citizen initiated referendum to define marriage as an institution between one man and one woman. The Massachusetts General Court ignored his call and voted not to place the measure on the ballot.

In the early months of Patrick’s administration, a series of decisions the governor later conceded as missteps brought substantial unfavorable press. These included spending almost $11,000 on drapery for the governor’s state house suite, changing the state’s customary car lease from a Ford Crown Victoria to a Cadillac, and hiring a staff assistant (who had previously helped chair his election campaign) for the Commonwealth’s first lady at an annual salary of almost $75,000. Emerging from a weekend of working on the state’s budget and calling for cuts in services to taxpayers, Patrick responded in a February 20, 2007 press conference that "I realize I cannot in good conscience ask the agencies to make those choices without being willing to make them myself" Patrick subsequently reimbursed the Commonwealth for the cost of the drapery and furniture purchased for the state house, and the additional monthly difference in his car lease First Lady Diane Patrick’s staff assistant, Amy Gorin, resigned.

Later in the same month Patrick again came under fire, this time for contacting Citigroup Executive Committee chair, and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin on behalf of the financially beleaguered mortgage company Ameriquest, a subsidiary of ACC Capital Holdings of which Patrick is a former board member. Both Citigroup and ACC Capital Holdings have substantial holdings in Massachusetts. Patrick attempted to deflect criticism claiming he was calling not as governor but as a private citizen. Later Patrick backed down, stating "I appreciate that I should not have made the call. I regret the mistake."

In December 2008, Patrick faced criticism from Massachusetts Republicans for the hiring of attorney and real estate consultant Dana Harrell to the newly created position of state Director of Real Estate Services. Harrell is a neighbor of Deval Patrick in Milton, and he and his wife have contributed to the governor’s election campaign and to the Democratic State Committee. The appointment to the $120,000-per-year position came at a time when the state faced a $1.4 billion revenue shortfall which may cause Patrick to layoff 1,000 state workers and cut state aid to towns and cities.

Patrick came to the defense of Presidential candidate Barack Obama during the Democratic primary when it was reported that a few key phrases from one of Obama’s stump speech were very similar to words used during Patrick’s own 2006 Massachusetts Gubernatorial run. The charges of plagiarism were largely dismissed after Patrick explained that he had encouraged Obama to use the same quotes.

Political Views

Education

Throughout his term in office, Patrick has made achieving “world-class public education” a main priority of his administration. After campaigning against charter schools, Patrick now supports a doubling of the number of charter schools in Massachusetts. In his first year in office, Patrick proposed making Community College free to all Massachusetts high school graduates.

Same-Sex Marriage

Patrick favored the legalizing of same-sex marriage because of the fundamental principle that "citizens come before their government as equals". He worked with the state legislature to prevent a ballot measure eliminating same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, which reaffirmed the state’s first-in-the-nation same-sex marriage allowance.

Death Penalty

Patrick opposes the death penalty, saying that "the death penalty does not work. It hasn’t worked in actually deterring crime, and it won’t work for Massachusetts." This position had put him at odds with ex-Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, who wanted to "reinstate the death penalty for felons convicted of killing a law enforcement officer, judge, prosecutor or corrections officer".

Energy Policy

Patrick was an early supporter of the Cape Wind energy project, at a time when prominent Massachusetts politicians from Mitt Romney to Ted Kennedy were working against it. His leadership on this issue was a key turning point in the early stage of the campaign, and tapped into the then-unknown widespread support held by over 70 percent of the state.

Health Care

On health care reform, Patrick has called the new health insurance mandate an important first step that needs to be "implemented brilliantly", although far from the last word. He has said that the state needs to have a debate about moving towards single-payer health care.

Life Sciences

Patrick is a proponent of stem cell research and was critical of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for vetoing a stem cell bill. He proposes creating a bonding bill similar to California’s recent path, and using it to invest in stem cell research at the University of Massachusetts, creating a simultaneous boost to the commonwealth’s institutions of public higher education.

Illegal Immigration

Patrick has called immigration a federal issue and has supported the McCain-Kennedy plan to tighten border control and create "pathway[s] to citizenship" for immigrants who have established lives in America. On the state level, he supports increased enforcement of employment laws to crack down on employers taking advantage of illegal immigrants, while opposing discrimination on the basis of immigration status for providing state services, including such things as public housing, in-state tuition for public universities, and drivers’ licenses. Recently, he has acknowledged it may be impossible to go forward on drivers’ licenses due to recent federal legislation.

Casino Gambling

Patrick submitted a bill that would allow the construction and operation of three resort-style casinos in the state. He argued that these casinos would generate $2 billion for the state economy and add $400 million in annual casino revenue and $200 million in fees per license to the state coffers as well as add $50 million to $80 million in sales, meal, and hotel taxes. He also touted that the casinos would create 30,000 construction jobs and 20,000 permanent jobs.

Patrick proposed that the revenue generated would be spent to beef up local law enforcement, create a state gambling regulatory agency, repair roads and bridges ($200 million), gambling addiction treatment ($50 million) and the remainder would go towards property tax relief.

Patrick’s plan faced strong opposition from Salvatore DiMasi, the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. DiMasi questioned the governor’s projections of new jobs, revenues to be generated and was an opposed to what he referred to as a casino culture saying: "Do we want to usher in a casino culture– with rampant bankruptcies, crime and social ills– or do we want to create a better Massachusetts for all sectors of the society?"

On March 20, 2008 the Massachusetts House of Representatives rejected Patrick’s casino bill by a vote of 108 to 46. Despite the overwhelming vote, questions were raised by critics of DiMasi as to the tactics he used to win. These included allegations that he promised a subsequent vote on a bill that would allow slot machines at the state’s four racetracks and the pre-vote promotions of six lawmakers who had been thought to support the bill, but either abstained or voted against the bill. DiMasi denied that any promise had been made on the race track bill and denied that the promotions were connected to the casino bill vote.

Patrick’s conduct was also criticized and his commitment to the bill questioned when it was revealed that he was not in the state on the day the bill was voted on in the legislature. As the bill was being voted down, Patrick was in New York City finalizing a $1.35 million dollar deal with Broadway Books, an imprint of Random House, to publish his autobiography.

On January 2, 2009, Patrick joined the governors of four other states in urging the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 state governments to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.

            

References:

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Deval Patrick… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deval_Patrick

Wikipedia: Barak Obama Supreme Court Candidates…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_Supreme_Court_candidates

Other Web Sites:

Brainy Quote: Justice Quotes…
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/justice.html

by Gerald Boerner

  

Most of us remember the poem of Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride which would warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the Red Coats were coming to Lexington and Concord to arrest them. The sexton at the Old North Church was to place “One lantern in the steeple would signal the army’s choice of the land route, while two lanterns would signal the route ‘by water’ across the Charles River.” Revere road through the countryside to alert the Sons of Liberty to ready themselves to defend their weapons and leaders from the British. And then there was the “shot heard around the world” as we shall see tomorrow.  GLB

    

“I have never been afraid of making patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.”
— Robert Walpole

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.”
— Bertrand Russell

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
— Thomas Jefferson

“The tree of liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
— Lyn Nofziger

“No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”
— Barbara Erhrenreich

“I do think that we are facing a crisis in our democracy. As true patriots, each and every one of us has to speak up, speak out, and change those in charge. Our democracy depends upon it.”
— Robert Greenwald

“If the Founding Fathers and other patriots who fought during the Revolutionary War could see the United States today, I believe they would be proud of the path that the thirteen colonies, now fifty strong states, have taken since then.”
— John Linder

“You know, if some of these folks have been living back to that April night in 1775 when Paul Revere came riding through, saying the British are coming, the British are coming… If Howard Dean was living back then he would have yelled out the window, ‘Shut up I’m trying to get some sleep in here.”
— Zell Miller

Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride

Paul Revere (1735 – 1818) was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution.

He was celebrated after his death for his role as a messenger in the battles of Lexington and Concord, and Revere’s name and his “midnight ride” are well-known in the United States as a patriotic symbol. In his lifetime, Revere was a prosperous and prominent Boston craftsman, who helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military.

Revere later served as an officer in the Penobscot Expedition, one of the most disastrous campaigns of the American Revolutionary War, a role for which he was later exonerated. After the war, he was early to recognize the potential for large-scale manufacturing of metal.

Revere was likely born in very late December, 1734, in Boston’s North End, the son of a French Huguenot father and a Boston mother. Revere had numerous siblings with whom he appears to have been not particularly close. Revere’s father, born Apollos Rivoire, came to Boston at the age of 13 and was apprenticed to a silversmith. By the time he married Deborah Hichborn, a member of a long-standing Boston family that owned a small shipping wharf, Rivoire had anglicized his name to Paul Revere. Apollos (now Paul) passed his silver trade to his son Paul. Upon Apollos’ death in 1754, Paul was too young by law to officially be the master of the family silver shop; Deborah probably assumed control of the business, while Paul and one of his younger brothers did the silver work.

Revere fought briefly in the Seven Years War (French and Indian War), serving as a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment that attempted to take the French fort at Crown Point, in present day New York. Upon leaving the army, Revere returned to Boston and assumed control of the silver shop in his own name. He was a silversmith, and also a prominent Freemason.

Revere’s silver work quickly gained attention in Boston; at the same time, he was befriending numerous political agitators, including most closely Dr. Joseph Warren. During the 1760s, Revere produced a number of political engravings and advertised as a dentist, and became increasingly involved in the actions of the Sons of Liberty. In 1770, he purchased, with his wife Sarah Orne, the house in North Square which is now open to the public. One of his most famous engravings was done in the wake of the Boston Massacre in March of 1770. It is not known whether Revere was present during the Massacre, though his detailed map of the bodies, meant to be used in the trial of the British soldiers held responsible, suggests that he had first-hand knowledge. Sarah died in 1773, leaving behind six children, and Revere married Rachel Walker, with whom he would have five more surviving children.

“The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in
King Street Boston on March 5th,
1770″ by Paul Walker (1735–1818), engraving by Paul Revere,
hand-colored, 1770.

After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, at which Revere was also possibly present, Revere began work as a messenger for the Boston Committee of Public Safety, often riding messages to New York and Philadelphia about the political unrest in the city. In 1774, Britain closed the port of Boston and began to quarter soldiers in great numbers all around Boston. Around this time Revere contributed engravings to the patriot monthly Royal American Magazine. Also at this time, his silver business was much less lucrative, and was largely in the hands of his son, Paul Revere, Jr. As 1775 began, revolution was in the air and Revere was more involved with the Sons of Liberty than ever.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

The role for which he is most remembered today was as a night-time messenger on horseback just before the battles of Lexington and Concord. His famous “Midnight Ride” occurred on the night of April 18/April 19, 1775, when he and William Dawes were instructed by Dr. Joseph Warren to ride from Boston to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the movements of the British Army, which was beginning a march from Boston to Lexington, ostensibly to arrest Hancock and Adams and seize the weapons stores in Concord.

The British army (the King’s “regulars”) had been stationed in Boston since the ports were closed in the wake of the Boston Tea Party, and was under constant surveillance by Revere and other patriots as word began to spread that they were planning a move. On the night of April 18, 1775, the army began its move across the Charles River toward Lexington, and the Sons of Liberty immediately went into action. At about 11 pm, Revere was sent by Dr. Warren across the Charles River to Charlestown, on the opposite shore, where he could begin a ride to Lexington, while Dawes was sent the long way around, via the Boston Neck and the land route to Lexington.

In the days before April 18, Revere had instructed Robert Newman, the sexton of the Old North Church, to send a signal by lantern to alert colonists in Charlestown as to the movements of the troops when the information became known. One lantern in the steeple would signal the army’s choice of the land route, while two lanterns would signal the route “by water” across the Charles River. This was done to get the message through to Charlestown in the event that both Revere and Dawes were captured. Newman and Captain John Pulling momentarily held two lanterns in the Old North Church as Revere himself set out on his ride, to indicate that the British soldiers were in fact crossing the Charles River that night. Revere rode a horse lent to him by John Larkin, Deacon of the Old North Church.

Paul Revere’s ride.

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route – many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army’s advancement. Revere did not shout the famous phrase later attributed to him (“The British are coming!”), largely because the mission depended on secrecy and the countryside was filled with British army patrols; also, most colonial residents at the time considered themselves British as they were all legally British subjects.

Revere’s warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere’s own descriptions, was “The Regulars are coming out.” Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving about a half hour later. Samuel Adams and John Hancock were spending the night at the Hancock-Clarke House in Lexington, and they spent a great deal of time discussing plans of action upon receiving the news. Revere and Dawes, meanwhile, decided to ride on toward Concord, where the militia’s arsenal was hidden. They were joined by Samuel Prescott, a doctor who happened to be in Lexington “returning from a lady friend’s house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m.”

Revere, Dawes, and Prescott were detained by British troops in Lincoln at a roadblock on the way to Concord. Prescott jumped his horse over a wall and escaped into the woods; Dawes also escaped, though soon after he fell off his horse and did not complete the ride. Revere was detained and questioned and then escorted at gunpoint by three British officers back toward Lexington. As morning broke and they neared Lexington Meeting-house, shots were heard. The British officers became alarmed, confiscated Revere’s horse, and rode toward the Meeting-house. Revere was horseless and walked through a cemetery and pastures until he came to Rev. Clarke’s house where Hancock and Adams were staying. As the battle on Lexington Green continued, Revere helped John Hancock and his family escape from Lexington with their possessions, including a trunk of Hancock’s papers.

Paul Revere was profiled in this King Features comic strip
(September 27, 1936).

The warning delivered by the three riders successfully allowed the militia to repel the British troops in Concord, who were harried by guerrilla fire along the road back to Boston. Prescott knew the countryside well even in the dark, and arrived at Concord in time to warn the people there. An interactive map showing the routes taken by Revere, Dawes, and Prescott is available at the Paul Revere House website.

Revere’s role was not particularly noted during his life. In 1861, over 40 years after his death, the ride became the subject of “Paul Revere’s Ride”, a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem has become one of the best known in American history and was memorized by generations of schoolchildren. Its famous opening lines are:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year

Today, parts of the ride are posted with signs marked “Revere’s Ride.” The full ride used Main Street in Charlestown, Broadway and Main Street in Somerville, Main Street and High Street in Medford, to Arlington center, and Massachusetts Avenue the rest of the way (an old alignment through Arlington Heights is called “Paul Revere Road”).

Myths and legends of the Midnight Ride

Paul Revere’s house in Boston.

In his poem, Longfellow took many liberties with the events of the evening, most especially giving sole credit to Revere for the collective achievements of the three riders (as well as the other riders whose names do not survive to history). Longfellow also depicts the lantern signal in the Old North Church as meant for Revere and not from him, as was actually the case. Other inaccuracies include claiming that Revere rode triumphantly into Concord instead of Lexington, and a general lengthening of the time frame of the night’s events. For a long time, though, historians of the American Revolution as well as textbook writers relied almost entirely on Longfellow’s poem as historical evidence, creating substantial misconceptions in the minds of the American people.

In re-examining the episode, some historians in the 20th century have attempted to demythologize Paul Revere almost to the point of marginalization. While it is true that Revere was not the only rider that night, that does not refute the fact that Revere was riding and successfully completed the first phase of his mission to warn Adams and Hancock. Other historians have since stressed his importance, including David Hackett Fischer in his 1995 book Paul Revere’s Ride, an important scholarly study of Revere’s role in the opening of the Revolution.

Popular myths and urban legends have persisted, though, concerning Revere’s ride, mainly due to the tendency in the past to take Longfellow’s poem as truth. Other riders such as Israel Bissell and Sybil Ludington are often suggested as having completed much more impressive rides than Revere’s; however, the circumstances behind the others’ rides were entirely different (Bissell was a news-carrier riding from Boston to Philadelphia with news of the battle at Lexington; Revere had made similar rides with the news in the years preceding the war. The only evidence for Ludington’s ride is an oral tradition.) Longfellow’s poem was never designed to be history and there are few serious historians today who would maintain that Revere was anything like the lone-wolf rider portrayed in the poem.

War years

Revere’s political involvement arose through his connections with members of local organizations and his business patrons. As a member of the Masonic Lodge of St. Andrew, he was friendly with activists like James Otis and Dr. Joseph Warren. In the year before the Revolution, Revere gathered intelligence information by “watching the Movements of British Soldiers”, as he wrote in an account of his ride. He was a courier for the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, riding express to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He also spread the word of the Boston Tea Party to New York and Philadelphia, and rode to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to warn of an imminent landing of British troops.

At 10 pm on the night of April 18, 1775, Revere received instructions from Dr. Joseph Warren to ride to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the British approach. The war erupted and Revere went on to serve as lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts State Train of Artillery and commander of Castle Island in Boston Harbor.

This Paul Revere Statue in North End,
Boston was made by Cyrus Dallin and
unveiled on September 22, 1940

At the beginning of the war, when Boston was occupied by the British army and most supporters of independence were evacuated, Revere and his family lived across the river in Watertown. In 1775, Revere was sent by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress to Philadelphia to study the working of the only powder mill in the colonies. Upon his arrival in Philadelphia he met with Robert Morris and John Dickinson who provided him with the following letter to present to Oswald Eve:

Sir Philada. Novr. 21st 1775 I am requested by some Honorable Members of the Congress to recommend the bearer hereof Mr. Paul Revere to you. He is just arrived from New England where it is discovered they can manufacture a good deal of Salt Petre in Consequence of which they desire to Erect a Powder Mill & Mr. Revere has been pitched upon to gain instruction & Knowledge in this branch. A Powder Mill in New England cannot in the least degree affect your Manufacture nor be of any disadvantage to you. Therefore these Gentn & myself hope You will Chearfully & from Public Spirited Motives give Mr. Revere such information as will inable him to Conduct the bussiness on his return home. I shall be glad of any opportunity to approve myself. Sir Your very Obed Servt. Robt Morris P.S. Mr. Revere will desire to see the Construction of your Mill & I hope you will gratify him in that point. Sir, I heartily join with Mr. Morris in his Request; and am with great Respect, Your very hble Servt.
— John Dickinson

Mr. Eve complied with the letter completely and allowed Revere to pass through the building to obtain sufficient information, which enabled him to set up a powder mill at Canton.

Upon returning to Boston in 1776, Revere was commissioned a Major of infantry in the Massachusetts militia in April of that year. In November he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of artillery, and was stationed at Castle William, defending Boston harbor, finally receiving command of this fort. He served in an expedition to Rhode Island in 1778, and in the following year participated in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition. Revere and his troops saw little action at this post, but they did participate in minor expeditions to Newport, Rhode Island and Worcester. Revere’s rather undistinguished military career ended with the failed Penobscot expedition. After his return he was accused of having disobeyed the orders of one of his commanding officers, and dismissed from the militia. Revere returned to his businesses at that time, but was later cleared of the charges by a court martial.

Revere’s friend and compatriot Dr. Joseph Warren was killed during the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. As soldiers killed in battle were often buried in mass graves without ceremony, Warren’s grave was unmarked. On March 17, 1776, after the British army left Boston, Warren’s brothers and a few friends went to the battlefield and found a grave containing two bodies. After being buried for ten months, Warren’s face was unrecognizable, but Revere was able to identify Warren’s body, because he had placed a false tooth in Warren’s mouth and recognized the wire he used for fastening it. Warren was given a proper funeral and reburied in a marked grave.

References

Other Events on this Day:

• In 1775…
  Paul Revere makes his famous ride from Boston to Lexington.
• In 1861…
  As the Civil War approaches, Colonel Robert E. Lee is offered command of the Union armies, an offer he turns down.
• In 1906…
  The Great San Francisco Earthquake rocks the Bay Area, setting off fires and ultimately destroyed most of the city and killing 3,000 people.
• In 1942…
  Sixteen B-25s led by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle take off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and bomb Tokyo.
• In 1978…
  The U.S. Senate votes to turn the Panama Canal over to Panama by the year 2000.
• In 1983…
  A suicide bombing by the terrorist group Hezbollah kills 63 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.

Dates and events based on:

William J. Bennett and John Cribb, (2008) The American Patriot’s Almanac Daily Readings on America. (Kindle Edition)

Background information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Paul Revere… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere#The_Midnight_Ride_of_Paul_Revere

Wikipedia: Paul Revere… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere#The_Midnight_Ride_of_Paul_Revere

Brainy Quote: Patriots Quotes… 
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/patriots.html