PHILADELPHIA REFLECTIONS
The musings of a Philadelphia Physician who has served the community for nearly six decades

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Connecticut Invades Pennsylvania!
The rest of the world fights wars about national grievances, both recent and long past. Meanwhile, Connecticut once waged a serious war with Pennsylvania, and we don't even remember it.

Revolutionary Philadelphia's Patriots
Hotheads in the London Coffee House got stirred up about an inoffensive Tea Act, Scotch-Irish had come here to escape the British Crown, both the local artisan class and the local smuggler class had unexpectedly prospered under non-importation, and the local gentry were offended to be denied seats in Parliament like other Englishmen. But Pennsylvania wavered until the day Ben Franklin stepped off the boat from London with a grievance.

America's Historic Square Mile (pre-1800)
Society Hill: Philadelphia's authentic colonial area, from the Delaware River west to 8th Street the limit of settlement in 1776, but for a while the center of America. The richest, most famous men in America lived within a few blocks of each other. Things happened here.

Academia
Higher education is a source of pride, progress, and aggravation.

Subcultures
A few reflections about the subcultures in and around Philadelphia.

The Scotch-Irish In the Revolution

{Dr. Witherspoon}
Dr. Witherspoon

The most eminent Scotsman in Colonial America was the Reverend Dr. Witherspoon, an eminent Presbyterian minister and President of the College of New Jersey, later Princeton University from England, he made the following exhortation to his colleagues:

{Scottish Pipers}
Scottish Pipers

"To hesitate at this moment is to consent to our own slavery. The noble instrument on your table, which insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in this house. He who will not respond to its accents and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions is unworthy the name of freeman. Whatever I may have of property or reputation is staked on the issue of this contest; and although these gray hairs must descend into the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather that they descend hither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country."

On the humbler level of popular doggerel, was the following:

"And when the days of trial came, Of which we know the story, No Erin son of Scotia's blood Was ever found a Tory. "

It may not be quite true that the Scotch-Irish immigrants started the Revolution, or led it, or did most of the serious fighting. But in Pennsylvania their role was decisive. New England started most of the trouble, the aristocrats of Virginia quickly rose to the challenges of chivalry, but Pennsylvania was not so darned sure about this business. The back-country Germans were perfectly content to farm the richest topsoil they ever heard of, the Quakers were peaceful and prosperous just as they were. It was the Scotch-Irish of the frontier, needing no pretext of Tea Taxes or Stamp Acts to hate the English King, who were ready to take the musket off the wall at the slightest provocation.

It is indeed puzzling in retrospect to wonder what the English Kings were trying to achieve. Having driven the Scots out of their Scottish homeland into Ireland where they would be less bother, they subsequently drove them out of Ireland as well. The short explanation has been offered that James II who was to be driven off the throne for his Catholic leanings, had seen Ireland as a fall-back refuge in case of trouble and wanted it safely Catholic. So in anticipation of what did indeed happen under William and Mary, he wanted the Presbyterians out of there.

There is perhaps some logic to this, but try telling it to a Scot.

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