The original Bloggers

Queen Felicia visiting with Mr. Jefferson in Williamsburg.

As always, we think we 'moderns' are innovators.
In actuality, our founding fathers were the original 'bloggers'.
Benjamin Franklin is most famous for 'discovering' electricity, the Franklin Stove, inventing the lightning rod and Bi-Focal glasses, founding the first Fire Department and our postal service, etc.
But, his first claim to fame was as a printer and publisher.
Ever hear of "Poor Richards Almanac"?
Ben wrote under the pseudonym Poor Richard.
Witty sayings, homilies, advice "A stitch in time, saves nine", criticisms, and whatever may have crossed his mind on a given day were put to paper.
The medium of their day was the newspaper, and private correspondence.
The educated person of that time more than likely could both read and write classical Greek, Latin, and in some cases Hebrew.
And I struggle to coherently communicate in the Kings English!
Public debate after the Revolution often became quite heated.
Many of our noteworthy founders chose to use pen names or nom-de-plume in published debate.
This allowed them to be more candid and open, and it also gave them opportunity to be snarky and vicious with their opponents or enemies, without fear of retaliation.
Thomas Jefferson and President Washington were unusual in that they never availed themselves of this practice.
Jefferson stated in a private letter "I have never written anything without affixing my own name to it" He sometimes signed private letters "T.J.", but that was done as a familiarity, not an attempt to hide his identity.
Many of the best examples of 18th century blogs can be found in the Debate on the Constitution. We still don't know the actual identities of many contributors.
'Cato', 'Brutus', and 'Marc Antony' are still a mystery.
"A Citizen of America", in later years "Giles Hickory" is known to have been penned by Noah Webster. That's right, the dictionary guy!
'Publius' was known to be Alexander Hamiliton, but it was also briefly used by James Madison.
'Cincinnatus' was thought to be Arthur Lee, one of R.E. Lee's ancestors.
And there were others.
One thing I was reminded of, in going back and reading some of these important documents.
Compared to our Forefathers, I am a total idiot!
The person in our current Congress that could be considered our greatest intellect would not compare favorably to any of our founders.
Jefferson's personal diary had notes in Greek, Latin, engineering drawings, scientific and theological observations, and insightful comments on the affairs of the day.
On a good day, I can remember my own zip code.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Blog Jury, I rest my case!