Damn, y'all
In which John C. Calhoun visits The Capitol Grille
South Carolina’s John Calhoun, the vice president to two different presidents belonging to two different parties, was a leading proponent of slavery and is credited as one of the fathers of the concept of minority states rights. Calhoun was first John Quincy Adams’ vice president, and then Andrew Jackson’s when the latter defeated the former. His relationship with Jackson soured because of the Nullification Crisis, in which Calhoun supported South Carolina’s position that because they didn’t support federal tariffs and claimed they were null and void, and the Petticoat affair, in which Calhoun’s wife led a mean girls revolt against the wife of the Secretary of War, leading to the resignation of almost Jackson’s entire cabinet. Calhoun debuts in The Experiment to comment on his recent visit from beyond the grave to our times.
GOOD DAY, my fellow Confederates! It is I, your intellectual leader and most luminous champion, a one Mr. John Caldwell Calhoun.
Through a wormhole created by my good Jewish friend, Albert Einstein, I have escaped from Hell, and have the great pleasure to gaze upon the lands our mysterious Creator has bequeathed to the many generations that have followed since my untimely demise.
No, I don’t know why I have been in Hell these many years. I did everything right during my living time on this speck of dust in the universe (which is quite big, I’ve come to find out!). I owned slaves, as any man of means should. I married a First Cousin and occasionally spared her the hand. I set the stage for the Confederacy, which I assume you all have established in good order and with haste.
No, Hell is actually not that bad. There is a lot of fire, sure, and the skin is like kindling to its raging breath, scorched from the bone each day, only to be re-attached for tomorrow’s blaze. But mostly we are just forced to watch episodes of a show called Will & Grace.
Yes, my Jewish friend Albert was there with me. Something about establishing the scientific basis for “nuclear” muskets or some such chicanery has our Creator up in arms. He certainly woke snakes with that one!
[several days pass]
Now that my eyes have adjusted again to the beating rays of this living world’s sun, I have had time to explore the local area around my old home in the nation’s capital. I have been sleeping and emptying my chamber pot in the one place I feel comfortable, as we have it in Hell just as we do here in the living world, The Capital Grille.
While I feast upon such treasures as fallen croutons from passing waitstaff, I have been able to eavesdrop and consume the occasional newsman’s pamphlet, which, you will not believe, sometimes features work from Lady Reporters! This whole world seems to be off its chump, I must say.
I also have come to believe that this land is not the Confederacy I imagined, but a version of Northern-influenced poppycock for the last 160 years. Whereas this may be the case, I have not lost heart, for it appears this land and its people are coming back around! Perhaps in our great President Trump’s fourth term, we may finally have our Confederacy after all.
I will say, some of what has been afoot seems excessive. I had not previously heard tell of any fool believing the Earth was flat in my time, and yet, you have them now?
I also fell off my milk crate and struck my head upon the table above me in The Capital Grille when I heard this one, but it appears you have people who will not allow their children the protection of a vaccine when offered. I believe the man speaking this to be engaged in some fibble-fabble, but the thought alone of such a choice is stunning.
And I must have heard this one in error, but do you really have that many dimwitted finnegans who deny the coverage of a mask during a pandemic? Ah, what I would have given for something that could have stopped the tuberculosis that snuffed the life out on ol’ John Caldwell Calhoun.
[several days pass]
Whereas, upon reflection and in comparison with this world and my old Ikea bunkbed that constitutes my chambers in Hell, I must announce: I hate it here.
All I desired was a racist nation where our riches rose as we oppressed our underclass pissants, but ya’ll have taken this too far.
This George Floyd situation has really riddled my rabbit, as they say. I am now willing to make an admittance that I may have owned several too many people. In fact, perhaps owning another human being is kind of fucked up, when you think about it.
And the accumulation of extreme wealth in the hands of only a few, well, it’s sickening enough to make you lose all craving for the small bite menu at The Capital Grille.
Wherefore, all this to say, your boy is outie 5000. If it’s a choice between Hell and what you all have let this place become, I gladly choose Hell. Besides, I hear we’re about to start on the Will & Grace reboot.
While these are the words of John C. Calhoun, they were transcribed by Mike Connolly. Mike spends a lot of time sitting in cars, or other places, such as chairs or benches. He can be found on Twitter @MD_Connolly.
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