Birthday boy George Washington and his Annapolis swan song get their fife-and-drum-corps due tonight at a ceremony in the State House rotunda.
At a special joint session of the General Assembly, state officials will unveil the handwritten resignation speech that Washington delivered Dec. 23, 1783, to the Continental Congress, then sitting in the five-year-old Annapolis State House.
Maryland recently spent $750,000 ? with private donors supplying the other half of the purchase price ? to acquire the letter that state archivist Edward Papenfuse called “one of the most fundamental documents in American history.”
The big deal about the speech Washington penned in a nearby inn is it reaffirmed civilian control over the military, as well as his rejection of attempts to get him to reign as a monarch.
Those attending tonight?s event will get a reproduction of the two-sided copy, and they also can view one side of the original in its case, as can State House visitors for the rest of this week.
Wordy charter
In the Senate debate this week on early voting, Democrats resisted adding various limitations to the constitutional amendment voters must approve, saying the legislature would fill in the details later.
“Our constitution is not vague anywhere else,” complained Senate Republican leader David Brinkley, Frederick-Carroll.
Indeed, the Maryland Constitution is cluttered with incredible detail, running on for 40,000 words, five times the length of the U.S. Constitution with amendments.
The provisions relating only to Baltimore City in the Maryland Constitution, at 7,300 words, are almost as long as our current national charter.
The Founding Fathers knew how to keep it short and sweet. Washington?s resignation speech is 342 words, a little shorter than a standard Examiner article.
Franchot outings
As a dozen senators and delegates gathered for a news conference on their letter opposing the troop buildup in Iraq, one commented that it seemed like Peter Franchot should be there.
Franchot was long a champion of the kind of liberal causes the letter represented.
He?s only five minutes away, a reporter quipped.
Less than five minutes, a senator laughed.
Franchot was no shrinking violet last week:
» Lashing out at video poker games in Baltimore City on Monday morning
» Talking to the Maryland Jewish Alliance on Monday night
» Embracing green buildings at the Board of Public Works on Wednesday
» Showing up at a press conference on safe-burning cigarettes Thursday
Franchot wants the cigarettes to put themselves out after you?ve paid the taxes on them.
Saluting Sondheim
When the Senate adjourned Thursday in honor of the late Walter Sondheim, it was the first word for many of us that the great Baltimore City civic leader had passed away at 98.
Sondheim headed the Open Meetings Law Compliance Board. In his humility and civic-mindedness, he took on the thankless task of enforcing a toothless law in the face of recalcitrant public officials, who always have good reasons for meeting behind closed doors.
When the board got started, he met with several editors who had worked on the legislation strengthening the open meetings law and setting up the board.
I recall little of the substance of that long-ago discussion, other than Sondheim listened well, cared about our concerns and took this minor post seriously.
Sondheim was happy to do good when no one was watching, and happy to try to make sure public officials were doing good, bad or indifferent with everyone watching.
Len Lazarick is the state house bureau chief of The Examiner, he can be reached at [email protected]
