THE BOOK OF DAMN
YANKEES
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE BOOK OF MANIFEST DESTINY
The Liberty Bell gets cracked
Chapter 12
After the war, the Yanks tried rule by Articles of Confederation,
2Meaning rule by argumentative cliques of mPuritans, nplantation owners, and obusinessmen,
3Which didn’t work very well,
4pSince none of them could ever agree on anything,
5qExcept that they had a huge war debt,
6rAnd still didn’t want to pay any taxes.
7So they decided to have a constitutional congress in sPhiladelphia to find a new form of government,
8Capable of paying off the war debt,
9tWithout taxes.
10uIt turned out that there wasn’t any form of government that could do what was necessary,
11vSo the constitutional congressmen argued for a long time,
12wAnd finally adopted a constitution based on the very noblest principles of human morality,
13xIn particular, the principle that nobody can be trusted,
14Ever,
15yNot executives,
16zNot legislators,
17aaAnd not even judges.
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Chapter 12 / 154