November 27, 2023 • 59 mins
On this episode of America Stories, Jeff, Luke, and Jack discuss some lesser known signers of the Declaration of Independence and the lives they led. We talk about William Whipple, seemingly no relation to Abraham Whipple, the value of a signature and the fine craftsmanship of the Syng inkstand.
Join us as we dive down the rabbit hole that is the curious case of Button(s) Gwinnett and his famous duel. Also, did someone mention the Declaration of Dependence?
Join us as we dive down the rabbit hole that is the curious case of Button(s) Gwinnett and his famous duel. Also, did someone mention the Declaration of Dependence?
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
What you're gonna do, brother,when Jeff Townsend Media runs wild on you.
America Stories. All right, allright, all right, welcome to
(00:27):
another episode of America Stories. I'mJeff Townsend, Luke and Real Jack,
not to be confused with the fakeJack, are joining me today as we
go on another great America story.And that's what we do here in America
Stories. We share American history storiesand a light, funhearted, yet educational
(00:48):
manner. Sometimes sensual. I don'tknow why I just said that a little
bit. Yeah, sometimes life.It's all life changing though, and we're
gathering here today for this glorious momentto continue our last conversation, which was
about the birds and the bees,right the vers America. Some would say
that the d of I Yeah,we started on that last That sounds like
(01:12):
a drunk driving charge. Yeah,the good old Decoration of Independence. We
started on part one yesterday and youguys had a vision of what we're going
to do on part two today.So last week we basically started out on
just some of the essentials of itand the people that were behind signing it,
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and we even talked about a fewindividuals that are not as well known
involved with it. Today though,we are going to have a conversation about
some of the fallout of it andin regards to how the public was thinking
about it, not only in Americabut also in Britain. Is that correct?
Yes? Correct, both people whoare four and against it and you
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know just how it was seen.Also, we will talk about a couple
more people who signed the declaration thataren't talked about as well. It's just
either just because I found their storieskind of interesting one way more so than
the other. One of them iskind of hilarious before to talk about it.
But yeah, we really got totalk about how the British felt about
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this immediately. The first British officialsthough, to actually see the declaration and
read it themselves with a copy thatthey acquired was two brothers from the British
Army. One William Howe we hadtalked about before. He was a general
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that's now in charge of the Britishforces, and his brother, Lord Howe,
is an admiral of the British LordLord. Yeah, he was a
nobleman. I'd say he was.Yeah, you gotta be a nobleman,
namely the Lord Okay, not theLord. Lord's there's a difference between the
(03:08):
Lord and Lord. So Lord Lordhere in America or they were both of
them were here, I know obviouslyBill William Yeah, they were both at
this point in the process of attackingNew York and we're just about raised hand
Washington his first major loss actually inthe next month or so. But they
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were also intending to get a peaceconference set up, and their hope was
to get a treaty signed and justend the war by the end of or
middle of September. Actually, no, no, no, this isn't actually
a joke. Actually September eleventh wassupposed to be the day of the peace
conference in New York. Never forget. Yeah, it's kind of interesting,
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right he was the day. Uhso their was to have this peace commerce
and then they find out they didsign that declaration and they were just kind
of ticked off. But he said, acquired, explain this to me.
So we didn't send a copy ofthis as a British we didn't. We
didn't factor some this, we didn't, we didn't. We didn't send this
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to birdcareer pigeon. Uh No,they had to go and buy from a
local printer. So local explain thisto me because I'm just a common man
here. Local printers just carried alegislative copy of this. Yeah. Well
it was such a big deal thatevery printer throughout the land was making their
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own copies to distribute, and becausepeople were buying them like hotcakes, so
oh okay. Yeah, so theyknew this was going to sell, so
that people were printing them in everytown, and the how brothers bought one
and I said, forward, youmust see this. Someone did. Yeah.
Uh so I mean there's actually agood chance those exact words were said.
(05:10):
Yeah. Uh. Anyway, sothey were, you know, they
were kind of aggravated. They werelike, this was going to ruin the
peace conference. There was no chanceof there being a peace tree at this
point, even though there probably wasn'tone to begin with. They had an
inflated ego. I figured that they, you know, do a solid beating
no Washington, then they would probablyyou know, sweep up and get everyone
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to agree to the peace commerce.But this sounds like something you would say
to an excerpt. You broke uplike, hey, I was going to
do this. Yeah. I wonderhow true that really is. You know,
we do know that there was prepareddocuments for our peace accord and stuff
that they had there, but wedon't know how well meeting they were in
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the center, they were you know, planning on asking for too much,
knowing they wouldn't give up on it. So they sent a document back home
though to the King and everyone inBritain it would take over a month before
it got there, though. Itwasn't until the end of August before they
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actually got their copy there, ora copy there. The King read it
and his reaction was well, first, he didn't do a public reaction for
a while, but his an immediatereaction was one of almost complete posts denial,
because he felt that the people inAmerica were one hundred percent on his
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side and that these warmongering politicians werefanning flames of a battle that no one
wanted to fight. In fact,his belief was that people were toasting him
and which his health every night inAmerica. He clear he wasn't listening to
what people were actually saying. Hewas just going by what he believed was
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probably the case. A little arrogant, yeah, a little bit actually.
I wonder, you know what,were people kind of correcting him on this,
you know, or people would didhe because you know, like imagine
that it might be kind of difficultto talk to the king like that,
where it's like, you know,people actually don't like you very much.
(07:26):
Over there could be a few peoplewere telling them that it's not as bad
as this, or is not asbad as that's trying to suck too afraid
to tell them or something. Maybe, Yeah, that's what I'm kind of
thinking, because otherwise have Accurtavey sodelusional with everything that happened up to that
point. If there's anything portrayed likehe is in the Patriot, he's a
real asshole, that's true exactly.He was also kind of like it's so
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we're looking for emotionally distant like hehe didn't really process emotions super well from
what I've read other people say atsome points, and so he was just
kind of like just completely oblivious ornot even necessarily oblivious, but denial,
constant denial over how things were.There was a loyalist contingent though, in
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the United States or the colonies thatsigned a Declaration of dependence as a protest.
It was signed by over five hundredpeople in Delaware. Now that seems
like a plot for an episode ofAlways Sunning In Philadelphia. It was a
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plot of always sutnying in Philadelphia whenthey did like a in the past episode
they showed them signing a decoration ofdependence because of it, but it actually
happened. Wow, I did notknow this. So you say five hundred
people in Delaware. Yeah, itwas a variety of people. Some were
politicians, some were soldiers, andsome were farmers. They were really worried.
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They were really worried that this wasgoing to and a lot of their
lives, and they wanted to besure that the Crown knew they weren't on
the side of the revolutionaries. Sothat's why they signed this document. I
don't know if we have a copyof that document pulled up for in our
(09:22):
notes here, but but d Dthe d O D. That's what I
was gonna say, is if wecan, we definitely need get it.
But I did not pick it up. Yeah, time for the keys.
I'm gonna beet myself first. Well, he's looking at the King didn't officially
address the parliament with a thing aboutit until late October. By this point
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they had heard about Washington being beatenin New York and being on the run,
so he kind of coupled it togetherinto one address, talking about how
these pathetic, in his words,warmongers were leading these people to a tobaccle
and that this was going to beterrible for the colonies and he felt he
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said, he felt bad for thecolony, the colonials. He was saying
that a treat him almost like theywere his children, and how he wished
to protect them from these politicians.And but then he went on to say,
yo, because how badly they beatWashington, that assuredly that they'll be
able to bring everyone back into thefold before too long. I bet there
are a lot of people, alot of high prominent politicians too, behind
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that thoughts mindset after that defeat,Yeah, there definitely were. There was
another guy who brought up a or. He was the first one in England
to do like a large response tothis way before even the king did.
Jeremy Benson. He was a philosopherin England, very popular. He was
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being into social reform and stuff likethat, and was like one of the
founders of utilitarianism, which was aboutyou know, finding the best use night
for everyone. But he wrote aboutthis and he was calling it like a
ridiculous notion brought forward by people oflow understanding of how things were to this
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independence should even be wanted, andhe said that no one truly wanted that,
they wanted to be part of theempire. And so this is a
big piece in there in their newspaper. They were like trying to make it
seem like nobody wanted it in theUnited States. So the general public opinion
in Britain because of these articles andlater statements by the king was well,
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the people who are in charge ofthe colonial army are ridiculous. They're leading
these people to their deaths. Noone wants it. So it was more
like partially feeling bad for the colonialsand also feeling a little bit out of
view that this is happening. Sayslike, why would you want to independence
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when no one else there wants it? So that was the general feeling in
England. But it's all completely misled. There are a lot of loyalists,
but the majority of Americans were eitherwanting nothing to do with England or didn't
care one way to So it camedown to uh much easier to push people
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towards revolution because only a few peoplewanted to be desperately wanted to be British
emprior citizens like those five hundred theI just I found the h did you
get the dependent and the transcript thatcould be found on the the website of
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United Empire Loyal Association of Canada.Wow, And it's it's like four paragraphs
as long. It's really not asextend as impressive as I was hoping it
would be. Definitely not written byyou know, Thomas Jefferson. It's kind
of just says like, hey,you know, King, we really like
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the fact that you said, doyou want to free us from war?
And we are not a part ofwhat the schedule. That's really basically what
it says. That's the synopsis.So when you're back in charge, please
don't do anything to us. That'skind of the aph. That's pretty much.
That's pretty much it. They allsigned it. I don't know.
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It kind of like an early formof an Internet petition. I guess to
some degree. One of the thingsthat happened in the colonies though, that
was a big influence on public opinion, was the idea that freedom was the
right of every human in the declaration, so that led a mass free of
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slaves, caused the northern colonies tobegin renouncing slavery almost entirely within the next
year or so, where a lotof them were free in their own slaves,
and it wouldn't be very long beforethey outlawed it in the northern colonies.
The Southern colonies, while maintaining theirslavery at pretty close to the Saint
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Louels, the northern half of theSouthern colonies had a higher freeze slaver rate
than they did. Four went fromme one percent of all African slaves being
freed to nine percent, which isstill not a ton, but it's a
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considerable increase. And this is allattributed to people reading the declaration and then
having changed heart, how they interpretedit, made them change their made him
think about it. Yeah, Andit's a kind of an interesting start to
what will eventually lead to the soulwith all these people making this change because
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of the declaration, and then thereare a few bricks being laid for the
future of the country and some peoplewill realize that's coming now, and it's
really interesting. Looking back, it'slike obvious, but you know, at
this point, the lot of peoplewould still think there's no chance that slavery
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is going to go away, butit's being slowly worked towards and without you,
and you know, any laws beingpassed. People just simply have a
change their heart reading a document,and that's kind of interesting. Chuck.
Yeah, well, well, speakingof that, wasn't there a a one
of the people who signed the documentwho ended up freeing one of his slaves?
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Yes? Actually that was what wasabout really leading to next because he
is one of my too two signers. No one talks about that one to
go over. His name is WilliamWhipple Junior. He's not, as far
as really able to find he's notrelated to Abraham Whipple. Uh pyramaniac extraordinary,
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But how could he not be thesame last name that man? Well,
you know it's you know, it'sobviously possible, but I think it's
one of those things where it's likeme, there's I mean, he was
probably he's probably is related somewhat distantlythough, probably because you know, I
had a girl in elementary school thatclaimed she was related, Like a fellow
student claimed she was related to JohnnyApplesey. Really, who am I to
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challenge it? Yeah? Yeah,what are you gonna do? I mean,
we could just say this guy isfor sure related to Abraham. It's
like, you know, we saywe're related to Kit Carson distantly, and
I almost gonna challenge it, butI'm pretty sure it's true, he said
Carson Daily. Uh, maybe he'slike, why why not her? William
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Wibble Jr. And Abraham Whipple likesit, so they have like these It's
it's interesting that they're both kind ofinvolved here in this revolution because one of
them, uh blows up ships andsends them on fire, and the other
the other one signed the declaration.Maybe okay, remember maybe it had been
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like a budding rivalry of cousins orsomething, you don't, I don't know,
kind of like John and Sam Adams. Yeah, the Whipples meet the
Whipples. So this this Whipple wouldhave definitely fixed the lock. Yeah,
he was a normal lock fixer.So William Whipple. He had a slave
named Prince Whipple. After they hadsigned the declaration, Prince spoke to him
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and he said, you know,you're saying that you're fighting for everyone's liberty,
and I'm still enslaved to you.He said that he didn't really think
about it before then, and itwas honestly, he kind of had said
he he wrote, and so waswriting. He stopped. Think about this.
Now, I have been part ofthis institution of slavery, holding this
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person captive essentially his whole life.And here I am, I wrote,
I signed my name to a documentistthat says life, liberty again, shoot
happiness for you know, it's forall people. So he did free Prince.
But Prince stayed with him. Asyou say, hold on, you
say he did or he didn't?Did he? Are you saying that he
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didn't? I was so, yeah, he free prints. Prince stayed on
as his bodyguard for the rest ofthe war because William Whipple was a general
and uh so he protected him theheat. In fact, in the Washington
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crossing the Delaware meeting, there isa black man with an oar that is
like pushing isolay that is apparently supposedto be Prince Whipple. He was on
board that boat with him, becauseWilliam Whipple was on board that boat Washington
as well. I remember that I'vegot a tattooed on my arm. No,
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I really I don't remember that.Look up that. That's an interesting
fact though, and where is it? Can it be considered a fact?
I mean it's I guess it's technicallyan assumed fact, I guess charitably called.
Uh, it's definitely what people believe. William Whipple was there. Prince
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would have been with him, andthere is a black guy on the boat
in that in that drawing, andso people have drawn the conclusion of that
is Prince being displayed there. You'retripping me out with this prince thing.
I'm not gonna lie. Yeah,it's it's like he's not a prince.
I think the Prince. I'm alsothinking of the Chappelle show skit when Prince
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slam basketball. Yes, I keepthinking that game blouses. He was original,
but later on Prince Whipple would uhmarry another Freeze slave that would live
a full life. I think helived with like seventy years old afterwards.
Uh. The other guy, though, I want to talk about, is
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another signer. His name is ButtonGwinnett Button Button as a button. He
was named after his grandmother Button.This was a common name then. I
don't know it well the generations buttons, but it's weird, but it was
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for a grandmother to him anyway.You know, I've not got a question.
Yeah, a good thing. I'mnot very named after my girl i'd
be named Marie then, yeah,right, I'd be a little button.
Not there's anything wrong with Murray,but yeah, not yet. It's not
Jet. Yeah, it's not Jet. So but is known for a couple
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of things. He is for buttons, I'm sure. I'm sorry, he's
known for a couple of bigger thingsof buttons. Okay, sorry, excuse
me. So one of the thingshe's known for is he has a tremendous
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lack of signatures out there available forpeople to like, you know, on
documents. He's wasn't particularly famous orvery high up before he signed the declaration,
and he died a year later,so his name was only they believe
a total of fifty one documents.So his signature is the most valuable of
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all the signing members of the decorationbecause it's so rare to find. So
there are there. Actually, here'sa little factoid that's not true at all.
He used to just draw a pictureof a button as a signature.
Yet he's got a lot more signaturesout there than you realize. Yeah.
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So, so there are people whogo out about and uh, you know,
get signatures of this founding fathers,in particularly the signers of the decoration,
and it's like a you know,a rich person's game. But buttons
is so expensive that the last onethat's sold sold for one and a half
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million dollars. Just called him,but you're just called him buttons? Sorry?
How much which was his button worth? How much? Did you say?
One and a half million dollars?That's a good button. There's a
hell of a button with the perspective. The most expensive bay Ruth baseball sold
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for three hidred and eighty eight thousanddollars. Wow. A signature of Abraham
Lincoln on a letter defending the EmancipationProclamation went for several or fifty thousand dollars.
But to your point, is signatureso rare that that I mean something?
Yeah? But I think they saidthat there's only ten that are in
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private hands. The rest are allby the museums or libraries of Congress,
stuff like that, So it's anincredibly rare to find. The other thing
Button is known for is being areal bastard. The buttons can be a
bastard. His legacy is a tangledweb booth. Had I put on a
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Besh shirt the other day, Icouldn't get the buttons on that. This
little story I was reading, andI was just like, what the heck
this guy sucked. So he's infamousthough, yeah, kind of infamous for
being kind of an ass and stupidas the old button to button after this.
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So Button was when he was firstcoming up as a politician. Didn't
make it very far, mostly becausehe was kind of inept. But he
became really popular when he signed theDeclaration because he was elected as a representative
to be in Congress. And afterhe signed it, he was like,
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okay, now we'll become a generalin the army. But general buttons.
His attention was to get same fromyou know, we needed a random fight
or two out of Georgia and uhand to go forward with that and have
a larger and more powerful political career. Well, he was beaten out to
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be the general by a guy thatwas kind of his constant rival. His
name is Lachlan. His name wasZipper, so much more convenient than a
button. Never pass. That wouldbe great, that would be so great.
Uh. No, his name wasLachlan Macintosh. He was a pretty
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decent in general for all respects.And during the Revolutionary War and so he
came up and you know, hebecame more popular, but Button had political
clouts still from sign a declaration,and he got re elected, and he
was able to also get all ofhis guys elected in the Georgia political circles.
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And after he had all all thesepeople on his side, he decided
to declare that Lochlan's brother was atraitor to the revolution and had him in
prison for life. He had totallyfabricated this, and as a Lachlan hater,
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was really furious. So he alsoordered Lochlan, because he was technically
his superior, to attack Florida wherethe British were, knowing that this was
technically a suicide mission. Lachlan survived, but it was a tremendous loss for
the Georgia military. And when hegot back, Lachlan made it abundantly clear
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that he believed Button was a monster, you know they call him a snake,
and was telling everyone how terrible hewas. So Button decided he was
going to publicly challenge him to aduel, figuring in Lochlan with a buzz
off and leave him alone. Lachlantook him up by it and killed him,
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though yeah, it was a duel. Washington became greatly concerned that buttons
underlings were going to murder Lachlan,so he brought him up north out of
Georgia, and Lachlan served with distinctionat Valley Forge with him. And so
that is the end of the Buttongwent. He is a painted ass like
(27:26):
the top button on the dress shirt. Yeah. Wow. So he challenged
this guy to a duel and helost. Yeah, and then that guy
was almost murdered. Did his brotherever get free of enslaved or I mean
I imprisoned? No, So Imean, I mean he's a bad Button,
so he never it was never rescinded, so he was just in prisoned.
(27:51):
It's yeah, really terrible. Uhyou know, Button had it coming.
It's seems like the power of signingthe DA the d of IA it
did it. It's a wonder thatUh yeah, I would say it's a
wonder that it just didn't have toanybody else. But at the same time,
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it could just be the Button wasjust an asshole. It seems like
this is a thing that still happensthat minus the duel, like and people
like get a little bit of powerand in politics and they really let it
get to power and and and kindof like fame and this kind of they
started believing it, believe in theirown story. So do you think what
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Button challenging this duel? He thoughthe wouldn't accept that what he did.
He's like, oh, ship,yeah, he did not believe that he
was accepting that. He would justyou know, leave him be and then
you know he would also look shamedin public eye and then luckily likely Button,
what's going to try to become general? What did Washington? What do
(28:55):
you think Washington said, Well,Button's gone, we lost, but I
bet he did. He's just like, well, there he goes Button.
Oh well this says nothing to dowith Button. But I do have some
kind of sort of interesting I wantto talk about also before we move on
to questions or anything else that anyonehas. They inkstand they used to sign
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the declaration. They still have thatinkstand today. It was and they actually
it was made by a master whowas friends with Ben Franklin. His name
was Philip Singh and he was partof a sort of secret society that Ben
Franklin had. It had two differentnames. One is it was it was
(29:42):
called the Junto or the one thatI think is a little bit stranger than
is the weather incrit Society. It'slike a swingers group or no, it
was like a men's self help society, So kind of like a swinger script
but a little bit that is interesting. Yeah, So like you would just
(30:06):
get to know guys that went throughthings and then you would help each other
and also you had exchange business secretsand stuff like a romance. It was
a bromance. Yeah. I actuallythink that at some point in the future
we'll want to kind of revisit thevarious secret societies of America when we're talking
(30:29):
about that would be one of them, for sure. What do you think
Button's Secret Society would be? Hopefullyit's one to learn to not channel people
to the duel. I actually,if we really think about it, most
people half of the people who areinvolved with the duels probably regret regret being
in part of the duel. Yeah, if they if they live to regret.
(30:52):
I guess. Wow, this issuch a I didn't expect it to
go there. It was a wildride. First. It started out was
just an innocent person being named afterthe grandmother. No one could tell that
story was gonna go. Yeah,you really took us on an emotional roller
coaster. There, Luke. Iknew that he was going to be an
(31:15):
interesting read. When I saw hisname and the list of signings, I
was like, there's no way aperson named Button Gwinnett doesn't have a story
that's worth telling. So you werelike, read about this, you're legitimately
excited. Oh I was. Yeah. Yeah. When I read that,
I was like, oh man,I hate this guy, but this is
a good story. You're like slalate up at night and you're bead with
(31:37):
a book, like a little smalllight on reading this, just getting excited
pretty much. Yeah, Benjamin Button, Benjamin Button, that is crazy.
Yeah, well, I mean there'sa pretty high risk of alved with challenging
somebody to a duel, y'ah,especially a general like you know, he
(31:57):
he has used the weapon. That'sthat's what I was gonna say. So
what made mister mister Button, Yeah, this is true. What made mister
Button think that he could just golead an art like lead a militia group.
So it was kind of like thething for people of wealth to do
(32:21):
was just to get a a general'swhat they call assignment, and you would
then try to get a simple battleor like a system or senior general like
someone like Washington, and try tojust get glory by being there. And
(32:45):
they assumed, you know, thatthe tape won't actually be the ones being
killed, because the British don't killofficers, especially high up officers, right,
And so it was just going tobe like, well, at worst
I'll lose, and some guys belowmay will die and then I'm just gonna
go out of my life. Makehimself look good. Yeah, I actually
(33:06):
do have a nurse. William WhippleJr. So he was, like I
said, he was also a generaland he was a little more renowned,
better general than uh some of theother like like Caesar Rodney was also a
general, but he wasn't as good. Well, there was a battle that
(33:28):
happened later in the war there holdup and it's like a house that they
were just there for the night,and it was it was like a public
house, like a bar. Almostthey were supposed to be getting The British
(33:49):
surrendered the next day. But theBritish did one last attack on them and
they fired annon a mile away andit hits through the house, smashes through
a horse, nearly hit William WhippleJunior. And but it hits it's like,
uh, his staff aid next tohim and blows his leg off.
(34:15):
But he was really calse killed andso he was understandably upset right on the
button. Yeah, that could havebeen butt he f died. That's crazy.
Can you imagine he said he wassleeping, They were were drinking.
They weren't asleep yet they're just chillingand drinking in a fucking cannon ball.
(34:38):
Yeah, can'tbell busts the door?Ghosts. I mean that's he went through
the horse and then through the doorand then through that guy's leg from a
mile away. Yeah, is thathow far they actually traveled? I don't
seems normal. I seem it mustbe like a mass of gun that magic
(35:00):
the magic cannon. Also nobody alsohave been like up high or something.
Depends on what the elevation and craplike that goes. Or it may have
just been in the yard, butwe don't really know. Yeah, that
was at least any better they weredrunk anything. We don't know if it
(35:22):
was a cannon even. Oh yeah, that's still crazy. Regardless that that'd
be a weird thing to be sittingaround just and that have and see you.
Wow, So those are a coupleof the signing members of this whole
thing that people really don't talk aboutvery often, and I thought that was
interesting, listen learn about them.Oh h the I forgot to mention that
(35:44):
the average person in the United Statesthat wasn't a loyalist was very happy about
the revolution of the Declaration show ofIndependence because they saw it as well.
Some of the people who are wealthysaw it as well, we can now
have our own markets. We willhave to be beholden to the British Empire.
(36:07):
And the people who were you know, normal means, they were like,
well, this is cool, greatbecause now we'll be our own country,
won't be the second class system isbasically across the ocean from the main
country. They also sent a copyof the declaration to France to attempt to
(36:30):
begin the process of getting them onour side, and they also sent a
copy to the King of Spain.Jack. I think it's at the time
of the episode where we get askedquestions, yes, it is actually wanted
to talk about the ink stand.Yeah, yeah, the sting inkstand.
(36:50):
So you're talking like what is saidthen? Yeah, it's kind of like
it's like a whole set, right, It's like a tray. It has
us some things I guess would holdthe quills, and then there's ink,
but it seems there's another piece there. There's there's there's three pieces on this
like flatter almost, and I'm curiousof what each part of it is like,
(37:20):
So there was there was it's amelting pot for sealing wax. I
see. Okay, Yeah, solike when you take like a signet ring
or something like that you press itinto the wax that that holds the wax
that they would melt. Yeah,because it's it's a pretty like born eight
looking thing. And honestly, Idon't even know like how something like this
(37:40):
would be possibly made at the time. I guess there would probably molds they
poured some parts into. But yeah, it's a it's it's pretty interesting looking
and uh yeah, I'm just kindof curious what all those parts were,
so I guess. So I guessthere's some This is at least one of
them probably holds that the ink andthen the quill, and then there's the
(38:01):
there's also another piece there. Idon't know it's in that picture, but
it's called a pounce pot, andit was a material or over the parchment
to seal it to keep the antiflaking off or the velm from drying out.
You know, I'm not I'm notgonna lie. I'm not too interested
(38:23):
in the ink. I really can'tget off this button thing. I'm just
gonna be completely honest. What doeshe look like? Do we have a
picture of this guy? Can thisguy? Do you have that? Dick?
I don't even know his last name. I just remember his first name,
Gwinnett spelled g w I n ne T. Yeah, we got
this. This is a button I'veever seen one. Yeah, is he
(38:49):
flipping off something? What is that? Yeah, it's his index finger he's
holding like a piece of parchment there. She has like a alien looking finger
in that pa does And again,what is up with the hands in the
coat? With all these pictures,am I and I only count three fingers
on that hand and the thumb it'ssomething doesn't look great. It's just like
(39:16):
an AI generated and the hands onceagain in the jacket. Yeah, I
was actually kind of curious a littlebit about you know now that we're talking,
now that we're talking about button duelto the death, his uh,
his ours nemesis. When it comesto requesting a duel, especially, like
(39:38):
I assume, you know, presumablythey're they're all let's say the duels of
the death. Is there any likeuh taking it back? You know,
I take it back? We're likethey agree and you're like oh yeah,
Like like how do you just havethat at work? Like, let me
get out the legislative paperwork, letme get out the admin paperwork here,
(40:00):
Like what what steps in one musttake? First of all when they want
to take a duel? Then ifthey have a change of hearts, what
can they do to pressure? AndI do believe I have heard of a
few duels being like rescinded after youknow, like after you challenge someone to
a duel and they agree, itcan be rescinded if both sides agree forever
(40:25):
or reading before. So hold on, hold on, it's so is this
like a so you almost sound likea contract is signed? When when when
two are going to duel? Well, it kind of is a like a
legal thing because if you're in aduel, you can't be charged with murder.
So yeah, but like what okay, but like what what defines duel?
(40:51):
Like like is there some commitment maderight? Like I'm I want to
duel you, how can that bedistinguished differently from murder, Like it's had
to be a public witnesses. Therehas to be some process here. I
believe it had something to do withwhether or not it can be proven that
someone was besmirching your name in someway, or you could say they were.
(41:15):
And so I got a couple ofpeople to duel on YouTube, then
on the other podcast. I guessit was a little more accepted that you
didn't do that, ever, andif you did, I guess someone could
challenge you to a duel. Nowyou don't have to accept, and you
could just say no, and thenthey'll talk about how you're a coward or
(41:37):
whatever. These guys aren't like inthe same room. How does one know
that one truly accept it? Iyou know, uh, they usually will
do it in writing. So likeyou you challenge a person in the like
a newspaper or something like that,and then I button Glendall Glindall challenge however
(41:59):
that the other individual Macintosh computer toany does the the accept question mark.
You know what's crazy though, isI I had to look into this a
little bit more, but I justI just looked up and I was like,
what is the league out. Iguess there, I guess I guess
(42:20):
there was. They is signed documentsand there were witnesses to it before the
the actual duel takes place. Andapparently, and again I only looked at
one source. So but apparently,and uh it's still yeah, you can't
fight to the death, but thereare as comes out of the fucking duel.
(42:46):
Well, I guess someone, butyou can in in in Texas and
in Washington, you can still doa what's not like mutual combat? Uh
resolution, that's okay, where youagree to the outcome of something if you
fight each other, it's not attemptedmurder if it's below the knee. I
(43:06):
mean, this is what you're tryingto tell me. This doesn't doesn't it
doesn't result in serious bodily harm withguns. It's just like a wrestling duel.
But it's more like a yeah,it's like some sort of like you
know, you agree to some sortof contract and you're like, you know,
you won't be charged with assault ifyou agree to it a advance.
(43:28):
It's it sounds like a spiker societythat Benjamin Franklin direct. Anyone take my
advice on that. But so you'retelling me right now, there's a way
that I challenge somebody to the duelbut yet not cause bodily harm on them.
And it's okay in Washington and Texas. Yeah, okay, okay,
(43:52):
anyways, this I got to researchthis more doing the point. You know,
I'm just so intrigued about how oneignitiates a duel. Yeah, it's
it's an interesting thought and weird.I think, what's his name, but
(44:16):
uh, the the author with thewhite crazy hair, Mark Twain, Mark
Twain. Yeah, Mark Twain waschallenged to a duel once and I think
he got out of it. No, No, the other guy got out
of it by being like sticks thatday or something like that, and so
(44:39):
they just call it off. Imean, I was challenged a duel too,
in the Walmart parking lot, butit just didn't seem like it was
legally possible. Now that I knowthis, it's interesting. Anything's on the
table. Can you get this fuckingguy's picture off the screen? I am
so sick to see it. He'sis it a terrible big forgot finger is
(45:04):
creeping me out? Why is thisfinger like that? As it dislocated,
you don't know, it kind ofbends ups. But was button ever in
any other sort of duel that weknow about. No, chances are you're
not in too many duels, right, Like how many Like there's a you're
old at ice? Yeah, Iwonder how many? Like what the record
(45:24):
for never a duel someone's been?Man, that's because you gotta know that,
y'all gotta know that a likelyhood ofbeing undefeated forever is can't be too
high. I mean, dueling inAmerican politics is that there's just there's so
(45:45):
many cases of it. I wouldleast there's at least two. Right,
So hold on, explain to methe rules of a duel here. It's
like a one shot thing, right, So how does a duel work?
Exactly? If you walk me through. It dependens on the rules used and
the time period. Sound like BillClinton? Yeah, because what the word
is is what do you so?Like in France, a lot of times
(46:10):
you would have pistols and a saberand uh, if you missed the pistol
bullet and didn't kill them, youcould then go kill with the saber or
attempt to because they might try tokill you two and so like a lot
of the US tools though, orlike one pistol shot and it was our
and then it would sometimes ended likea stalemate when no one died or both
(46:32):
died. What happens if no onedies? Do you reload or you just
got to? Like you, Iagree upon and signed baberwork for upon the
third outcome Lloyd, we all livedhappily ever after, and neither one of
us died. Everything's settled now.I feel like, in my opinion,
(46:52):
if it comes down to the andI can't believe we're still talking about this,
We're like fifty five minutes on therecording right now. It's an interesting
topic. It's just I just can'timagine that you don't go into it thinking
that someone's gonna die, Like there'sa good chance someone's gonna die. I
don't know kind of dueling you're talkingabout in Texas, you know, cause
(47:15):
bodily harm or whatever, but thereseems to be a good chance someone's gonna
die when you do a duel?Is it nosa common for people to live?
I mean I guess so, okay, So a duel do you start
off with your backs to each other, then you pull out of pistols fast
you can't shoot each other, andyou turn around like, well, what
what is that. That's what I'mpicturing in my head. I mean,
(47:37):
that's what I pictured too. Ibelieve that it was at twelve paces.
They walked back. They're back toback. They walked twelve paces apart,
and they turned and then fired.So whoever walk faster has got an advantage.
Uh No, they're counted off.So it's whoever turns around and aims
faster as the advantage. So there'susually a third party mediator who counts off
(48:00):
the paces and then they say,like, turn, he took eleven steps,
not twelve. Yeah, I meanyou would be in trouble if you
broke a contract. Click that probablyget shot. Yeah, what happens if
you cheat during a duel. Butyou know, I actually do think that
there are cases of where did sheand I think they were charged with murder?
(48:20):
So yeah, it's like a seeI have like a lawyer. He
you know, he thought he tooktwelve steps. Oh yeah, I mean
that's a good point. I meanwe have to look up. But if
there's a case like that, Iwould have a hard time counting twelve steps
so accurately. If I knew therewas a very high chance I was gonna
get shot in the next thirty second. Yeah, yeah, I would have
to be like, well, youknow, just one or two steps slipped
(48:45):
my mind. There had to belike a very in the law, like
if you're within two steps of we'regoing too far into this guy head.
I was looking up most duels andso like that's a little bit of a
rabbit hole. And also it's likedo you count everyone's duals or whatever?
But me Allen from the Green MountainBoys, he he would tell us he
(49:07):
had the miss duels. It wasa samurai in Japan named mea Masasi.
He has he killed sixty people onduels. It's a dual legend. Yeah,
he was. But if you lookup list of duals in the United
States that that Wikipedia article, thevery first one that's mentioned is Button Gwynet
(49:28):
is the probably the worst failure one, you know. Obviously, Andrew Jackson
was kind of renowned for being aduellist dualist I love it, yeah,
and then dualism. He practiced dualism, both of them. Jackson was the
(49:50):
first person to well became the onlyUS president that murdered a man a duel
to be elected. It's number hekilled, oh man duel, so it
wasn't murder. You gotta be careful, Luke. Yeah, incriminating somebody that's
legally not able to be incriminated Agood point. This is so fascinating.
(50:10):
I could talk about these duels allnight. In fact, sin as we
get off here, I'm going tohave to research more. Yeah, we're
honestly, I've seen it, andI remember my dad watching these westerns and
stuff back at the day really boringonce. But if I would have known
what I know now, maybe theywouldn't be so boring. You were like,
let's see this guy's contract on thisduel. Yeah, I want to
(50:31):
be like a lawyer that represented duelcases, like they practice the law of
dueling. That would be awesome.Wow. I don't really have anything else
to say. I just make itoff this dueling subject. This is the
greatest thing ever. I still thinkthis is a really slippery slope, uh
strategy here. I'm not understanding thelegality of this. I got to look
(50:53):
into it more. I'm not alawyer, though. Yeah, it seems
like something that'd be really hard tocharge somebody criminally with. Yeah, I
don't know it does, and Idon't know it's it is an interesting topic
in and of itself, that thetrue doing in the United States be a
cool episode. There's a big debateon that. Now you're going to tell
(51:15):
me that the may or may notwar pants. I bet button didn't.
He sounds like a guy a littlebutton out there. That's what the story
didn't tell. He's actually got shotin the button if you know what I
mean, Well die He did getshot in the upper thigh and uh he
oh yeah, I forgot to mentionit took him three days to die,
(51:35):
but he died painfully. To mentionthat he didn't just he suffered. My
god, you forgot to mention.Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah,
he got a painful death after itbeing an asshole. He didn't just
die. But but I was miseryearly. He wasn't like an instant that
now, so what is like Ican't stop You just got to stop me
soon when one one shoe somebody andlike afterwards you just walk away or like
(52:02):
you just check on the person,like I don't know. There would be
third parties there that were like doctorspronounced people dead if they had to,
or this way mister Jackson or whoever'sin the duel, like I don't.
So, like do you think theymarked the ground and everything like it was
like they did mark a starting violentline what you were supposed to back up
to or get ready for it,then then you walk away from it.
(52:24):
I wonder if how many incidents arejust accidental shootings of witnesses of a duel.
That's a good question, like what'sgoing on? Then can you be
charged if you shot somebody that wasn'tin the duel? I bet like if
your bullet went wide and hit someone, Yeah, they went through the local
market and hit somebody behind the counter, went crashed into a public house and
(52:49):
killing a horse and hit someone inthe leg. Will say that that was
the buttons bullet that went that wasthe mile high cannon. Well, so
like as like you were saying,what do you like say you walk away
leave right? Well what do youdo? Ashwartz? Like That's what I'm
saying, Like, what I justkilled a guy? Who ahole, like
just kills him. You had tosign like finished signing paperwork? Probably yeah,
(53:13):
yeah, yeah, I guess youprobably would. He was signing you
just killed a man, And they'relike, sir, and you just signed
here, here's your autograph. JorJohn Hancock. Yeah, they were using
that back then. Already here's yourbutton going on this song? Do you
so? Do you know if hepassed down and he buttons or anything to
his family or like, no,it's just doing pistols. I got one
(53:37):
more button thing. I got onemore button thing. He was like,
it was such an interesting story,and so I mentioned it to you in
a message on Facebook. But heso. Isaac Asimov, who wrote I
Robot in like four hundred other books, wrote a short story called button Button
(53:59):
that I didn't make that up.It's actually you didn't write a story called
button but I. I gotta instantlycheck this the button, button button.
But I'm sorry to wonder if you'rejust making things up every week now there's
no so the story of buttons inthe Twilight Zone episode button Button Zone episode,
(54:25):
that would be crazy. I wantto watch that. It's a Twilight
Zone episode button Button. Let's seewhat that is. It's the second segment
in the twentieth episode of the firstseason in nineteen eighty five. Huh,
A same short story forms basis ofthe Okay, so, apparently there's a
two thousand and ninth thing called theBox that came from this. I guess
I don't know. That might bebecause anything we're talking about it was a
(54:50):
different one. Yeah, Button Buttonby Isaac has them off. It doesn't
have any just happens to have thesame exact name though. That's kind of
interesting. There's a lot of buttonButton story. How did you spell Isaac's
last name as I m O VOkay, I see it now, yep,
I see it now. You're notlying. Yeah. So the plot
(55:12):
of Button Button is this guy comesup with the ability to go back in
time to get items from the past, and he needs money to fund it,
and so they come up with theidea to heist a signature from Button
Gwennet to sell in the present time. But the problem being is once they
(55:38):
bring it to the future, thepeople who check it secrets of forgery say
well, this is only a yearold, so it can't possibly be real,
So they don't get any money.I spoiled a book from nineteen fifty.
But wow, we got to getout of this episode. We're never
going to start. It can bealongest episode you've had it because of a
(56:00):
fucking button jack. Your last yourlast chance here? Okay, Well,
if you want to follow us onsocial media. You can follow us on
Twitter at America story Pod, whichis completely pointless because we do not tweet
it, yes, but it isthere. We also have our Gmail where
(56:22):
you can email us and ask questionsor yeah, America Stories Pod at gmail
dot com and you can you canfind our episodes also on our website,
which is americastories dot Us. Alsogood old contact for him there as well.
This is I believe the thirteenth episode. So yeah, like like Jack
(56:44):
saying, go to americastories dot usand check out did you say dot com?
Do that? I think he saiddone that well, hopefully is right
because I'm gonna tell you the correctone that he did say wrong. It's
America Stories US. Yes, theUS stands for United States anyways, there
(57:06):
where I'm saying too rest of that, we don't know what was said,
but americastories dot Us has all theepisodes and sometimes Jack put's additional information online,
not very often, but when hedoes, it's always full of hidden
gems and stuff and maybe eventually he'llget along to share an old button with
you on the website. So yeah, if you enjoyed our conversation today,
(57:27):
make sure you check out the previousepisodes like I said, Wow, what
a doozy today, Luke, yougot to start considering these rabbit holes you're
you're you're sending us down. Itwas too much to not do like we
had to do it. I stillcan't get out of Everybody called him buttons,
then buttons, buttons, he isa dumbass. Anyway, until next
(57:49):
week. I always say next week, and it's never right because it's actually
a biweekly podcast. So I willsay until until next episode, keep being
you, keep being great, anddon't beat buttons. You got to kind
(58:10):
of face everybody knows ut around therefor the wearnoos going at your heir and
you like your finding the road andyou do that's wrong. People got a
thankful the danger of us find itinside. The best of us take care
what they want, like sod tothem. Some of us. Do you
(58:34):
do the best we we can.Some of us do the best we we
can. Something. Jeff Townsend mediasees you good night, and the question
(59:09):
is do I stay here? Willyou be back? Are you gonna come
back? Will you be back?Are you coming back
What you're gonna do, brother,when Jeff Townsend Media runs wild on you.
America Stories. All right, allright, all right, welcome to
(00:27):
another episode of America Stories. I'mJeff Townsend, Luke and Real Jack,
not to be confused with the fakeJack, are joining me today as we
go on another great America story.And that's what we do here in America
Stories. We share American history storiesand a light, funhearted, yet educational
(00:48):
manner. Sometimes sensual. I don'tknow why I just said that a little
bit. Yeah, sometimes life.It's all life changing though, and we're
gathering here today for this glorious momentto continue our last conversation, which was
about the birds and the bees,right the vers America. Some would say
that the d of I Yeah,we started on that last That sounds like
(01:12):
a drunk driving charge. Yeah,the good old Decoration of Independence. We
started on part one yesterday and youguys had a vision of what we're going
to do on part two today.So last week we basically started out on
just some of the essentials of itand the people that were behind signing it,
(01:33):
and we even talked about a fewindividuals that are not as well known
involved with it. Today though,we are going to have a conversation about
some of the fallout of it andin regards to how the public was thinking
about it, not only in Americabut also in Britain. Is that correct?
Yes? Correct, both people whoare four and against it and you
(01:57):
know just how it was seen.Also, we will talk about a couple
more people who signed the declaration thataren't talked about as well. It's just
either just because I found their storieskind of interesting one way more so than
the other. One of them iskind of hilarious before to talk about it.
But yeah, we really got totalk about how the British felt about
(02:23):
this immediately. The first British officialsthough, to actually see the declaration and
read it themselves with a copy thatthey acquired was two brothers from the British
Army. One William Howe we hadtalked about before. He was a general
(02:46):
that's now in charge of the Britishforces, and his brother, Lord Howe,
is an admiral of the British LordLord. Yeah, he was a
nobleman. I'd say he was.Yeah, you gotta be a nobleman,
namely the Lord Okay, not theLord. Lord's there's a difference between the
(03:08):
Lord and Lord. So Lord Lordhere in America or they were both of
them were here, I know obviouslyBill William Yeah, they were both at
this point in the process of attackingNew York and we're just about raised hand
Washington his first major loss actually inthe next month or so. But they
(03:34):
were also intending to get a peaceconference set up, and their hope was
to get a treaty signed and justend the war by the end of or
middle of September. Actually, no, no, no, this isn't actually
a joke. Actually September eleventh wassupposed to be the day of the peace
conference in New York. Never forget. Yeah, it's kind of interesting,
(03:59):
right he was the day. Uhso their was to have this peace commerce
and then they find out they didsign that declaration and they were just kind
of ticked off. But he said, acquired, explain this to me.
So we didn't send a copy ofthis as a British we didn't. We
didn't factor some this, we didn't, we didn't. We didn't send this
(04:21):
to birdcareer pigeon. Uh No,they had to go and buy from a
local printer. So local explain thisto me because I'm just a common man
here. Local printers just carried alegislative copy of this. Yeah. Well
it was such a big deal thatevery printer throughout the land was making their
(04:42):
own copies to distribute, and becausepeople were buying them like hotcakes, so
oh okay. Yeah, so theyknew this was going to sell, so
that people were printing them in everytown, and the how brothers bought one
and I said, forward, youmust see this. Someone did. Yeah.
Uh so I mean there's actually agood chance those exact words were said.
(05:10):
Yeah. Uh. Anyway, sothey were, you know, they
were kind of aggravated. They werelike, this was going to ruin the
peace conference. There was no chanceof there being a peace tree at this
point, even though there probably wasn'tone to begin with. They had an
inflated ego. I figured that they, you know, do a solid beating
no Washington, then they would probablyyou know, sweep up and get everyone
(05:34):
to agree to the peace commerce.But this sounds like something you would say
to an excerpt. You broke uplike, hey, I was going to
do this. Yeah. I wonderhow true that really is. You know,
we do know that there was prepareddocuments for our peace accord and stuff
that they had there, but wedon't know how well meeting they were in
(05:55):
the center, they were you know, planning on asking for too much,
knowing they wouldn't give up on it. So they sent a document back home
though to the King and everyone inBritain it would take over a month before
it got there, though. Itwasn't until the end of August before they
(06:16):
actually got their copy there, ora copy there. The King read it
and his reaction was well, first, he didn't do a public reaction for
a while, but his an immediatereaction was one of almost complete posts denial,
because he felt that the people inAmerica were one hundred percent on his
(06:40):
side and that these warmongering politicians werefanning flames of a battle that no one
wanted to fight. In fact,his belief was that people were toasting him
and which his health every night inAmerica. He clear he wasn't listening to
what people were actually saying. Hewas just going by what he believed was
(07:04):
probably the case. A little arrogant, yeah, a little bit actually.
I wonder, you know what,were people kind of correcting him on this,
you know, or people would didhe because you know, like imagine
that it might be kind of difficultto talk to the king like that,
where it's like, you know,people actually don't like you very much.
(07:26):
Over there could be a few peoplewere telling them that it's not as bad
as this, or is not asbad as that's trying to suck too afraid
to tell them or something. Maybe, Yeah, that's what I'm kind of
thinking, because otherwise have Accurtavey sodelusional with everything that happened up to that
point. If there's anything portrayed likehe is in the Patriot, he's a
real asshole, that's true exactly.He was also kind of like it's so
(07:53):
we're looking for emotionally distant like hehe didn't really process emotions super well from
what I've read other people say atsome points, and so he was just
kind of like just completely oblivious ornot even necessarily oblivious, but denial,
constant denial over how things were.There was a loyalist contingent though, in
(08:16):
the United States or the colonies thatsigned a Declaration of dependence as a protest.
It was signed by over five hundredpeople in Delaware. Now that seems
like a plot for an episode ofAlways Sunning In Philadelphia. It was a
(08:37):
plot of always sutnying in Philadelphia whenthey did like a in the past episode
they showed them signing a decoration ofdependence because of it, but it actually
happened. Wow, I did notknow this. So you say five hundred
people in Delaware. Yeah, itwas a variety of people. Some were
politicians, some were soldiers, andsome were farmers. They were really worried.
(09:01):
They were really worried that this wasgoing to and a lot of their
lives, and they wanted to besure that the Crown knew they weren't on
the side of the revolutionaries. Sothat's why they signed this document. I
don't know if we have a copyof that document pulled up for in our
(09:22):
notes here, but but d Dthe d O D. That's what I
was gonna say, is if wecan, we definitely need get it.
But I did not pick it up. Yeah, time for the keys.
I'm gonna beet myself first. Well, he's looking at the King didn't officially
address the parliament with a thing aboutit until late October. By this point
(09:48):
they had heard about Washington being beatenin New York and being on the run,
so he kind of coupled it togetherinto one address, talking about how
these pathetic, in his words,warmongers were leading these people to a tobaccle
and that this was going to beterrible for the colonies and he felt he
(10:11):
said, he felt bad for thecolony, the colonials. He was saying
that a treat him almost like theywere his children, and how he wished
to protect them from these politicians.And but then he went on to say,
yo, because how badly they beatWashington, that assuredly that they'll be
able to bring everyone back into thefold before too long. I bet there
are a lot of people, alot of high prominent politicians too, behind
(10:37):
that thoughts mindset after that defeat,Yeah, there definitely were. There was
another guy who brought up a or. He was the first one in England
to do like a large response tothis way before even the king did.
Jeremy Benson. He was a philosopherin England, very popular. He was
(11:00):
being into social reform and stuff likethat, and was like one of the
founders of utilitarianism, which was aboutyou know, finding the best use night
for everyone. But he wrote aboutthis and he was calling it like a
ridiculous notion brought forward by people oflow understanding of how things were to this
(11:26):
independence should even be wanted, andhe said that no one truly wanted that,
they wanted to be part of theempire. And so this is a
big piece in there in their newspaper. They were like trying to make it
seem like nobody wanted it in theUnited States. So the general public opinion
in Britain because of these articles andlater statements by the king was well,
(11:52):
the people who are in charge ofthe colonial army are ridiculous. They're leading
these people to their deaths. Noone wants it. So it was more
like partially feeling bad for the colonialsand also feeling a little bit out of
view that this is happening. Sayslike, why would you want to independence
(12:13):
when no one else there wants it? So that was the general feeling in
England. But it's all completely misled. There are a lot of loyalists,
but the majority of Americans were eitherwanting nothing to do with England or didn't
care one way to So it camedown to uh much easier to push people
(12:37):
towards revolution because only a few peoplewanted to be desperately wanted to be British
emprior citizens like those five hundred theI just I found the h did you
get the dependent and the transcript thatcould be found on the the website of
(12:58):
United Empire Loyal Association of Canada.Wow, And it's it's like four paragraphs
as long. It's really not asextend as impressive as I was hoping it
would be. Definitely not written byyou know, Thomas Jefferson. It's kind
of just says like, hey,you know, King, we really like
(13:20):
the fact that you said, doyou want to free us from war?
And we are not a part ofwhat the schedule. That's really basically what
it says. That's the synopsis.So when you're back in charge, please
don't do anything to us. That'skind of the aph. That's pretty much.
That's pretty much it. They allsigned it. I don't know.
(13:41):
It kind of like an early formof an Internet petition. I guess to
some degree. One of the thingsthat happened in the colonies though, that
was a big influence on public opinion, was the idea that freedom was the
right of every human in the declaration, so that led a mass free of
(14:01):
slaves, caused the northern colonies tobegin renouncing slavery almost entirely within the next
year or so, where a lotof them were free in their own slaves,
and it wouldn't be very long beforethey outlawed it in the northern colonies.
The Southern colonies, while maintaining theirslavery at pretty close to the Saint
(14:26):
Louels, the northern half of theSouthern colonies had a higher freeze slaver rate
than they did. Four went fromme one percent of all African slaves being
freed to nine percent, which isstill not a ton, but it's a
(14:48):
considerable increase. And this is allattributed to people reading the declaration and then
having changed heart, how they interpretedit, made them change their made him
think about it. Yeah, Andit's a kind of an interesting start to
what will eventually lead to the soulwith all these people making this change because
(15:11):
of the declaration, and then thereare a few bricks being laid for the
future of the country and some peoplewill realize that's coming now, and it's
really interesting. Looking back, it'slike obvious, but you know, at
this point, the lot of peoplewould still think there's no chance that slavery
(15:31):
is going to go away, butit's being slowly worked towards and without you,
and you know, any laws beingpassed. People just simply have a
change their heart reading a document,and that's kind of interesting. Chuck.
Yeah, well, well, speakingof that, wasn't there a a one
of the people who signed the documentwho ended up freeing one of his slaves?
(15:54):
Yes? Actually that was what wasabout really leading to next because he
is one of my too two signers. No one talks about that one to
go over. His name is WilliamWhipple Junior. He's not, as far
as really able to find he's notrelated to Abraham Whipple. Uh pyramaniac extraordinary,
(16:19):
But how could he not be thesame last name that man? Well,
you know it's you know, it'sobviously possible, but I think it's
one of those things where it's likeme, there's I mean, he was
probably he's probably is related somewhat distantlythough, probably because you know, I
had a girl in elementary school thatclaimed she was related, Like a fellow
student claimed she was related to JohnnyApplesey. Really, who am I to
(16:42):
challenge it? Yeah? Yeah,what are you gonna do? I mean,
we could just say this guy isfor sure related to Abraham. It's
like, you know, we saywe're related to Kit Carson distantly, and
I almost gonna challenge it, butI'm pretty sure it's true, he said
Carson Daily. Uh, maybe he'slike, why why not her? William
(17:12):
Wibble Jr. And Abraham Whipple likesit, so they have like these It's
it's interesting that they're both kind ofinvolved here in this revolution because one of
them, uh blows up ships andsends them on fire, and the other
the other one signed the declaration.Maybe okay, remember maybe it had been
(17:37):
like a budding rivalry of cousins orsomething, you don't, I don't know,
kind of like John and Sam Adams. Yeah, the Whipples meet the
Whipples. So this this Whipple wouldhave definitely fixed the lock. Yeah,
he was a normal lock fixer.So William Whipple. He had a slave
named Prince Whipple. After they hadsigned the declaration, Prince spoke to him
(18:00):
and he said, you know,you're saying that you're fighting for everyone's liberty,
and I'm still enslaved to you.He said that he didn't really think
about it before then, and itwas honestly, he kind of had said
he he wrote, and so waswriting. He stopped. Think about this.
Now, I have been part ofthis institution of slavery, holding this
(18:22):
person captive essentially his whole life.And here I am, I wrote,
I signed my name to a documentistthat says life, liberty again, shoot
happiness for you know, it's forall people. So he did free Prince.
But Prince stayed with him. Asyou say, hold on, you
say he did or he didn't?Did he? Are you saying that he
(18:45):
didn't? I was so, yeah, he free prints. Prince stayed on
as his bodyguard for the rest ofthe war because William Whipple was a general
and uh so he protected him theheat. In fact, in the Washington
(19:07):
crossing the Delaware meeting, there isa black man with an oar that is
like pushing isolay that is apparently supposedto be Prince Whipple. He was on
board that boat with him, becauseWilliam Whipple was on board that boat Washington
as well. I remember that I'vegot a tattooed on my arm. No,
(19:27):
I really I don't remember that.Look up that. That's an interesting
fact though, and where is it? Can it be considered a fact?
I mean it's I guess it's technicallyan assumed fact, I guess charitably called.
Uh, it's definitely what people believe. William Whipple was there. Prince
(19:48):
would have been with him, andthere is a black guy on the boat
in that in that drawing, andso people have drawn the conclusion of that
is Prince being displayed there. You'retripping me out with this prince thing.
I'm not gonna lie. Yeah,it's it's like he's not a prince.
I think the Prince. I'm alsothinking of the Chappelle show skit when Prince
(20:11):
slam basketball. Yes, I keepthinking that game blouses. He was original,
but later on Prince Whipple would uhmarry another Freeze slave that would live
a full life. I think helived with like seventy years old afterwards.
Uh. The other guy, though, I want to talk about, is
(20:34):
another signer. His name is ButtonGwinnett Button Button as a button. He
was named after his grandmother Button.This was a common name then. I
don't know it well the generations buttons, but it's weird, but it was
(21:00):
for a grandmother to him anyway.You know, I've not got a question.
Yeah, a good thing. I'mnot very named after my girl i'd
be named Marie then, yeah,right, I'd be a little button.
Not there's anything wrong with Murray,but yeah, not yet. It's not
Jet. Yeah, it's not Jet. So but is known for a couple
(21:22):
of things. He is for buttons, I'm sure. I'm sorry, he's
known for a couple of bigger thingsof buttons. Okay, sorry, excuse
me. So one of the thingshe's known for is he has a tremendous
(21:42):
lack of signatures out there available forpeople to like, you know, on
documents. He's wasn't particularly famous orvery high up before he signed the declaration,
and he died a year later,so his name was only they believe
a total of fifty one documents.So his signature is the most valuable of
(22:07):
all the signing members of the decorationbecause it's so rare to find. So
there are there. Actually, here'sa little factoid that's not true at all.
He used to just draw a pictureof a button as a signature.
Yet he's got a lot more signaturesout there than you realize. Yeah.
(22:27):
So, so there are people whogo out about and uh, you know,
get signatures of this founding fathers,in particularly the signers of the decoration,
and it's like a you know,a rich person's game. But buttons
is so expensive that the last onethat's sold sold for one and a half
(22:49):
million dollars. Just called him,but you're just called him buttons? Sorry?
How much which was his button worth? How much? Did you say?
One and a half million dollars?That's a good button. There's a
hell of a button with the perspective. The most expensive bay Ruth baseball sold
(23:14):
for three hidred and eighty eight thousanddollars. Wow. A signature of Abraham
Lincoln on a letter defending the EmancipationProclamation went for several or fifty thousand dollars.
But to your point, is signatureso rare that that I mean something?
Yeah? But I think they saidthat there's only ten that are in
(23:34):
private hands. The rest are allby the museums or libraries of Congress,
stuff like that, So it's anincredibly rare to find. The other thing
Button is known for is being areal bastard. The buttons can be a
bastard. His legacy is a tangledweb booth. Had I put on a
(23:57):
Besh shirt the other day, Icouldn't get the buttons on that. This
little story I was reading, andI was just like, what the heck
this guy sucked. So he's infamousthough, yeah, kind of infamous for
being kind of an ass and stupidas the old button to button after this.
(24:23):
So Button was when he was firstcoming up as a politician. Didn't
make it very far, mostly becausehe was kind of inept. But he
became really popular when he signed theDeclaration because he was elected as a representative
to be in Congress. And afterhe signed it, he was like,
(24:45):
okay, now we'll become a generalin the army. But general buttons.
His attention was to get same fromyou know, we needed a random fight
or two out of Georgia and uhand to go forward with that and have
a larger and more powerful political career. Well, he was beaten out to
(25:10):
be the general by a guy thatwas kind of his constant rival. His
name is Lachlan. His name wasZipper, so much more convenient than a
button. Never pass. That wouldbe great, that would be so great.
Uh. No, his name wasLachlan Macintosh. He was a pretty
(25:34):
decent in general for all respects.And during the Revolutionary War and so he
came up and you know, hebecame more popular, but Button had political
clouts still from sign a declaration,and he got re elected, and he
was able to also get all ofhis guys elected in the Georgia political circles.
(25:57):
And after he had all all thesepeople on his side, he decided
to declare that Lochlan's brother was atraitor to the revolution and had him in
prison for life. He had totallyfabricated this, and as a Lachlan hater,
(26:17):
was really furious. So he alsoordered Lochlan, because he was technically
his superior, to attack Florida wherethe British were, knowing that this was
technically a suicide mission. Lachlan survived, but it was a tremendous loss for
the Georgia military. And when hegot back, Lachlan made it abundantly clear
(26:41):
that he believed Button was a monster, you know they call him a snake,
and was telling everyone how terrible hewas. So Button decided he was
going to publicly challenge him to aduel, figuring in Lochlan with a buzz
off and leave him alone. Lachlantook him up by it and killed him,
(27:02):
though yeah, it was a duel. Washington became greatly concerned that buttons
underlings were going to murder Lachlan,so he brought him up north out of
Georgia, and Lachlan served with distinctionat Valley Forge with him. And so
that is the end of the Buttongwent. He is a painted ass like
(27:26):
the top button on the dress shirt. Yeah. Wow. So he challenged
this guy to a duel and helost. Yeah, and then that guy
was almost murdered. Did his brotherever get free of enslaved or I mean
I imprisoned? No, So Imean, I mean he's a bad Button,
so he never it was never rescinded, so he was just in prisoned.
(27:51):
It's yeah, really terrible. Uhyou know, Button had it coming.
It's seems like the power of signingthe DA the d of IA it
did it. It's a wonder thatUh yeah, I would say it's a
wonder that it just didn't have toanybody else. But at the same time,
(28:12):
it could just be the Button wasjust an asshole. It seems like
this is a thing that still happensthat minus the duel, like and people
like get a little bit of powerand in politics and they really let it
get to power and and and kindof like fame and this kind of they
started believing it, believe in theirown story. So do you think what
(28:34):
Button challenging this duel? He thoughthe wouldn't accept that what he did.
He's like, oh, ship,yeah, he did not believe that he
was accepting that. He would justyou know, leave him be and then
you know he would also look shamedin public eye and then luckily likely Button,
what's going to try to become general? What did Washington? What do
(28:55):
you think Washington said, Well,Button's gone, we lost, but I
bet he did. He's just like, well, there he goes Button.
Oh well this says nothing to dowith Button. But I do have some
kind of sort of interesting I wantto talk about also before we move on
to questions or anything else that anyonehas. They inkstand they used to sign
(29:19):
the declaration. They still have thatinkstand today. It was and they actually
it was made by a master whowas friends with Ben Franklin. His name
was Philip Singh and he was partof a sort of secret society that Ben
Franklin had. It had two differentnames. One is it was it was
(29:42):
called the Junto or the one thatI think is a little bit stranger than
is the weather incrit Society. It'slike a swingers group or no, it
was like a men's self help society, So kind of like a swinger script
but a little bit that is interesting. Yeah, So like you would just
(30:06):
get to know guys that went throughthings and then you would help each other
and also you had exchange business secretsand stuff like a romance. It was
a bromance. Yeah. I actuallythink that at some point in the future
we'll want to kind of revisit thevarious secret societies of America when we're talking
(30:29):
about that would be one of them, for sure. What do you think
Button's Secret Society would be? Hopefullyit's one to learn to not channel people
to the duel. I actually,if we really think about it, most
people half of the people who areinvolved with the duels probably regret regret being
in part of the duel. Yeah, if they if they live to regret.
(30:52):
I guess. Wow, this issuch a I didn't expect it to
go there. It was a wildride. First. It started out was
just an innocent person being named afterthe grandmother. No one could tell that
story was gonna go. Yeah,you really took us on an emotional roller
coaster. There, Luke. Iknew that he was going to be an
(31:15):
interesting read. When I saw hisname and the list of signings, I
was like, there's no way aperson named Button Gwinnett doesn't have a story
that's worth telling. So you werelike, read about this, you're legitimately
excited. Oh I was. Yeah. Yeah. When I read that,
I was like, oh man,I hate this guy, but this is
a good story. You're like slalate up at night and you're bead with
(31:37):
a book, like a little smalllight on reading this, just getting excited
pretty much. Yeah, Benjamin Button, Benjamin Button, that is crazy.
Yeah, well, I mean there'sa pretty high risk of alved with challenging
somebody to a duel, y'ah,especially a general like you know, he
(31:57):
he has used the weapon. That'sthat's what I was gonna say. So
what made mister mister Button, Yeah, this is true. What made mister
Button think that he could just golead an art like lead a militia group.
So it was kind of like thething for people of wealth to do
(32:21):
was just to get a a general'swhat they call assignment, and you would
then try to get a simple battleor like a system or senior general like
someone like Washington, and try tojust get glory by being there. And
(32:45):
they assumed, you know, thatthe tape won't actually be the ones being
killed, because the British don't killofficers, especially high up officers, right,
And so it was just going tobe like, well, at worst
I'll lose, and some guys belowmay will die and then I'm just gonna
go out of my life. Makehimself look good. Yeah, I actually
(33:06):
do have a nurse. William WhippleJr. So he was, like I
said, he was also a generaland he was a little more renowned,
better general than uh some of theother like like Caesar Rodney was also a
general, but he wasn't as good. Well, there was a battle that
(33:28):
happened later in the war there holdup and it's like a house that they
were just there for the night,and it was it was like a public
house, like a bar. Almostthey were supposed to be getting The British
(33:49):
surrendered the next day. But theBritish did one last attack on them and
they fired annon a mile away andit hits through the house, smashes through
a horse, nearly hit William WhippleJunior. And but it hits it's like,
uh, his staff aid next tohim and blows his leg off.
(34:15):
But he was really calse killed andso he was understandably upset right on the
button. Yeah, that could havebeen butt he f died. That's crazy.
Can you imagine he said he wassleeping, They were were drinking.
They weren't asleep yet they're just chillingand drinking in a fucking cannon ball.
(34:38):
Yeah, can'tbell busts the door?Ghosts. I mean that's he went through
the horse and then through the doorand then through that guy's leg from a
mile away. Yeah, is thathow far they actually traveled? I don't
seems normal. I seem it mustbe like a mass of gun that magic
(35:00):
the magic cannon. Also nobody alsohave been like up high or something.
Depends on what the elevation and craplike that goes. Or it may have
just been in the yard, butwe don't really know. Yeah, that
was at least any better they weredrunk anything. We don't know if it
(35:22):
was a cannon even. Oh yeah, that's still crazy. Regardless that that'd
be a weird thing to be sittingaround just and that have and see you.
Wow, So those are a coupleof the signing members of this whole
thing that people really don't talk aboutvery often, and I thought that was
interesting, listen learn about them.Oh h the I forgot to mention that
(35:44):
the average person in the United Statesthat wasn't a loyalist was very happy about
the revolution of the Declaration show ofIndependence because they saw it as well.
Some of the people who are wealthysaw it as well, we can now
have our own markets. We willhave to be beholden to the British Empire.
(36:07):
And the people who were you know, normal means, they were like,
well, this is cool, greatbecause now we'll be our own country,
won't be the second class system isbasically across the ocean from the main
country. They also sent a copyof the declaration to France to attempt to
(36:30):
begin the process of getting them onour side, and they also sent a
copy to the King of Spain.Jack. I think it's at the time
of the episode where we get askedquestions, yes, it is actually wanted
to talk about the ink stand.Yeah, yeah, the sting inkstand.
(36:50):
So you're talking like what is saidthen? Yeah, it's kind of like
it's like a whole set, right, It's like a tray. It has
us some things I guess would holdthe quills, and then there's ink,
but it seems there's another piece there. There's there's there's three pieces on this
like flatter almost, and I'm curiousof what each part of it is like,
(37:20):
So there was there was it's amelting pot for sealing wax. I
see. Okay, Yeah, solike when you take like a signet ring
or something like that you press itinto the wax that that holds the wax
that they would melt. Yeah,because it's it's a pretty like born eight
looking thing. And honestly, Idon't even know like how something like this
(37:40):
would be possibly made at the time. I guess there would probably molds they
poured some parts into. But yeah, it's a it's it's pretty interesting looking
and uh yeah, I'm just kindof curious what all those parts were,
so I guess. So I guessthere's some This is at least one of
them probably holds that the ink andthen the quill, and then there's the
(38:01):
there's also another piece there. Idon't know it's in that picture, but
it's called a pounce pot, andit was a material or over the parchment
to seal it to keep the antiflaking off or the velm from drying out.
You know, I'm not I'm notgonna lie. I'm not too interested
(38:23):
in the ink. I really can'tget off this button thing. I'm just
gonna be completely honest. What doeshe look like? Do we have a
picture of this guy? Can thisguy? Do you have that? Dick?
I don't even know his last name. I just remember his first name,
Gwinnett spelled g w I n ne T. Yeah, we got
this. This is a button I'veever seen one. Yeah, is he
(38:49):
flipping off something? What is that? Yeah, it's his index finger he's
holding like a piece of parchment there. She has like a alien looking finger
in that pa does And again,what is up with the hands in the
coat? With all these pictures,am I and I only count three fingers
on that hand and the thumb it'ssomething doesn't look great. It's just like
(39:16):
an AI generated and the hands onceagain in the jacket. Yeah, I
was actually kind of curious a littlebit about you know now that we're talking,
now that we're talking about button duelto the death, his uh,
his ours nemesis. When it comesto requesting a duel, especially, like
(39:38):
I assume, you know, presumablythey're they're all let's say the duels of
the death. Is there any likeuh taking it back? You know,
I take it back? We're likethey agree and you're like oh yeah,
Like like how do you just havethat at work? Like, let me
get out the legislative paperwork, letme get out the admin paperwork here,
(40:00):
Like what what steps in one musttake? First of all when they want
to take a duel? Then ifthey have a change of hearts, what
can they do to pressure? AndI do believe I have heard of a
few duels being like rescinded after youknow, like after you challenge someone to
a duel and they agree, itcan be rescinded if both sides agree forever
(40:25):
or reading before. So hold on, hold on, it's so is this
like a so you almost sound likea contract is signed? When when when
two are going to duel? Well, it kind of is a like a
legal thing because if you're in aduel, you can't be charged with murder.
So yeah, but like what okay, but like what what defines duel?
(40:51):
Like like is there some commitment maderight? Like I'm I want to
duel you, how can that bedistinguished differently from murder, Like it's had
to be a public witnesses. Therehas to be some process here. I
believe it had something to do withwhether or not it can be proven that
someone was besmirching your name in someway, or you could say they were.
(41:15):
And so I got a couple ofpeople to duel on YouTube, then
on the other podcast. I guessit was a little more accepted that you
didn't do that, ever, andif you did, I guess someone could
challenge you to a duel. Nowyou don't have to accept, and you
could just say no, and thenthey'll talk about how you're a coward or
(41:37):
whatever. These guys aren't like inthe same room. How does one know
that one truly accept it? Iyou know, uh, they usually will
do it in writing. So likeyou you challenge a person in the like
a newspaper or something like that,and then I button Glendall Glindall challenge however
(41:59):
that the other individual Macintosh computer toany does the the accept question mark.
You know what's crazy though, isI I had to look into this a
little bit more, but I justI just looked up and I was like,
what is the league out. Iguess there, I guess I guess
(42:20):
there was. They is signed documentsand there were witnesses to it before the
the actual duel takes place. Andapparently, and again I only looked at
one source. So but apparently,and uh it's still yeah, you can't
fight to the death, but thereare as comes out of the fucking duel.
(42:46):
Well, I guess someone, butyou can in in in Texas and
in Washington, you can still doa what's not like mutual combat? Uh
resolution, that's okay, where youagree to the outcome of something if you
fight each other, it's not attemptedmurder if it's below the knee. I
(43:06):
mean, this is what you're tryingto tell me. This doesn't doesn't it
doesn't result in serious bodily harm withguns. It's just like a wrestling duel.
But it's more like a yeah,it's like some sort of like you
know, you agree to some sortof contract and you're like, you know,
you won't be charged with assault ifyou agree to it a advance.
(43:28):
It's it sounds like a spiker societythat Benjamin Franklin direct. Anyone take my
advice on that. But so you'retelling me right now, there's a way
that I challenge somebody to the duelbut yet not cause bodily harm on them.
And it's okay in Washington and Texas. Yeah, okay, okay,
(43:52):
anyways, this I got to researchthis more doing the point. You know,
I'm just so intrigued about how oneignitiates a duel. Yeah, it's
it's an interesting thought and weird.I think, what's his name, but
(44:16):
uh, the the author with thewhite crazy hair, Mark Twain, Mark
Twain. Yeah, Mark Twain waschallenged to a duel once and I think
he got out of it. No, No, the other guy got out
of it by being like sticks thatday or something like that, and so
(44:39):
they just call it off. Imean, I was challenged a duel too,
in the Walmart parking lot, butit just didn't seem like it was
legally possible. Now that I knowthis, it's interesting. Anything's on the
table. Can you get this fuckingguy's picture off the screen? I am
so sick to see it. He'sis it a terrible big forgot finger is
(45:04):
creeping me out? Why is thisfinger like that? As it dislocated,
you don't know, it kind ofbends ups. But was button ever in
any other sort of duel that weknow about. No, chances are you're
not in too many duels, right, Like how many Like there's a you're
old at ice? Yeah, Iwonder how many? Like what the record
(45:24):
for never a duel someone's been?Man, that's because you gotta know that,
y'all gotta know that a likelyhood ofbeing undefeated forever is can't be too
high. I mean, dueling inAmerican politics is that there's just there's so
(45:45):
many cases of it. I wouldleast there's at least two. Right,
So hold on, explain to methe rules of a duel here. It's
like a one shot thing, right, So how does a duel work?
Exactly? If you walk me through. It dependens on the rules used and
the time period. Sound like BillClinton? Yeah, because what the word
is is what do you so?Like in France, a lot of times
(46:10):
you would have pistols and a saberand uh, if you missed the pistol
bullet and didn't kill them, youcould then go kill with the saber or
attempt to because they might try tokill you two and so like a lot
of the US tools though, orlike one pistol shot and it was our
and then it would sometimes ended likea stalemate when no one died or both
(46:32):
died. What happens if no onedies? Do you reload or you just
got to? Like you, Iagree upon and signed baberwork for upon the
third outcome Lloyd, we all livedhappily ever after, and neither one of
us died. Everything's settled now.I feel like, in my opinion,
(46:52):
if it comes down to the andI can't believe we're still talking about this,
We're like fifty five minutes on therecording right now. It's an interesting
topic. It's just I just can'timagine that you don't go into it thinking
that someone's gonna die, Like there'sa good chance someone's gonna die. I
don't know kind of dueling you're talkingabout in Texas, you know, cause
(47:15):
bodily harm or whatever, but thereseems to be a good chance someone's gonna
die when you do a duel?Is it nosa common for people to live?
I mean I guess so, okay, So a duel do you start
off with your backs to each other, then you pull out of pistols fast
you can't shoot each other, andyou turn around like, well, what
what is that. That's what I'mpicturing in my head. I mean,
(47:37):
that's what I pictured too. Ibelieve that it was at twelve paces.
They walked back. They're back toback. They walked twelve paces apart,
and they turned and then fired.So whoever walk faster has got an advantage.
Uh No, they're counted off.So it's whoever turns around and aims
faster as the advantage. So there'susually a third party mediator who counts off
(48:00):
the paces and then they say,like, turn, he took eleven steps,
not twelve. Yeah, I meanyou would be in trouble if you
broke a contract. Click that probablyget shot. Yeah, what happens if
you cheat during a duel. Butyou know, I actually do think that
there are cases of where did sheand I think they were charged with murder?
(48:20):
So yeah, it's like a seeI have like a lawyer. He
you know, he thought he tooktwelve steps. Oh yeah, I mean
that's a good point. I meanwe have to look up. But if
there's a case like that, Iwould have a hard time counting twelve steps
so accurately. If I knew therewas a very high chance I was gonna
get shot in the next thirty second. Yeah, yeah, I would have
to be like, well, youknow, just one or two steps slipped
(48:45):
my mind. There had to belike a very in the law, like
if you're within two steps of we'regoing too far into this guy head.
I was looking up most duels andso like that's a little bit of a
rabbit hole. And also it's likedo you count everyone's duals or whatever?
But me Allen from the Green MountainBoys, he he would tell us he
(49:07):
had the miss duels. It wasa samurai in Japan named mea Masasi.
He has he killed sixty people onduels. It's a dual legend. Yeah,
he was. But if you lookup list of duals in the United
States that that Wikipedia article, thevery first one that's mentioned is Button Gwynet
(49:28):
is the probably the worst failure one, you know. Obviously, Andrew Jackson
was kind of renowned for being aduellist dualist I love it, yeah,
and then dualism. He practiced dualism, both of them. Jackson was the
(49:50):
first person to well became the onlyUS president that murdered a man a duel
to be elected. It's number hekilled, oh man duel, so it
wasn't murder. You gotta be careful, Luke. Yeah, incriminating somebody that's
legally not able to be incriminated Agood point. This is so fascinating.
(50:10):
I could talk about these duels allnight. In fact, sin as we
get off here, I'm going tohave to research more. Yeah, we're
honestly, I've seen it, andI remember my dad watching these westerns and
stuff back at the day really boringonce. But if I would have known
what I know now, maybe theywouldn't be so boring. You were like,
let's see this guy's contract on thisduel. Yeah, I want to
(50:31):
be like a lawyer that represented duelcases, like they practice the law of
dueling. That would be awesome.Wow. I don't really have anything else
to say. I just make itoff this dueling subject. This is the
greatest thing ever. I still thinkthis is a really slippery slope, uh
strategy here. I'm not understanding thelegality of this. I got to look
(50:53):
into it more. I'm not alawyer, though. Yeah, it seems
like something that'd be really hard tocharge somebody criminally with. Yeah, I
don't know it does, and Idon't know it's it is an interesting topic
in and of itself, that thetrue doing in the United States be a
cool episode. There's a big debateon that. Now you're going to tell
(51:15):
me that the may or may notwar pants. I bet button didn't.
He sounds like a guy a littlebutton out there. That's what the story
didn't tell. He's actually got shotin the button if you know what I
mean, Well die He did getshot in the upper thigh and uh he
oh yeah, I forgot to mentionit took him three days to die,
(51:35):
but he died painfully. To mentionthat he didn't just he suffered. My
god, you forgot to mention.Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah,
he got a painful death after itbeing an asshole. He didn't just
die. But but I was miseryearly. He wasn't like an instant that
now, so what is like Ican't stop You just got to stop me
soon when one one shoe somebody andlike afterwards you just walk away or like
(52:02):
you just check on the person,like I don't know. There would be
third parties there that were like doctorspronounced people dead if they had to,
or this way mister Jackson or whoever'sin the duel, like I don't.
So, like do you think theymarked the ground and everything like it was
like they did mark a starting violentline what you were supposed to back up
to or get ready for it,then then you walk away from it.
(52:24):
I wonder if how many incidents arejust accidental shootings of witnesses of a duel.
That's a good question, like what'sgoing on? Then can you be
charged if you shot somebody that wasn'tin the duel? I bet like if
your bullet went wide and hit someone, Yeah, they went through the local
market and hit somebody behind the counter, went crashed into a public house and
(52:49):
killing a horse and hit someone inthe leg. Will say that that was
the buttons bullet that went that wasthe mile high cannon. Well, so
like as like you were saying,what do you like say you walk away
leave right? Well what do youdo? Ashwartz? Like That's what I'm
saying, Like, what I justkilled a guy? Who ahole, like
just kills him. You had tosign like finished signing paperwork? Probably yeah,
(53:13):
yeah, yeah, I guess youprobably would. He was signing you
just killed a man, And they'relike, sir, and you just signed
here, here's your autograph. JorJohn Hancock. Yeah, they were using
that back then. Already here's yourbutton going on this song? Do you
so? Do you know if hepassed down and he buttons or anything to
his family or like, no,it's just doing pistols. I got one
(53:37):
more button thing. I got onemore button thing. He was like,
it was such an interesting story,and so I mentioned it to you in
a message on Facebook. But heso. Isaac Asimov, who wrote I
Robot in like four hundred other books, wrote a short story called button Button
(53:59):
that I didn't make that up.It's actually you didn't write a story called
button but I. I gotta instantlycheck this the button, button button.
But I'm sorry to wonder if you'rejust making things up every week now there's
no so the story of buttons inthe Twilight Zone episode button Button Zone episode,
(54:25):
that would be crazy. I wantto watch that. It's a Twilight
Zone episode button Button. Let's seewhat that is. It's the second segment
in the twentieth episode of the firstseason in nineteen eighty five. Huh,
A same short story forms basis ofthe Okay, so, apparently there's a
two thousand and ninth thing called theBox that came from this. I guess
I don't know. That might bebecause anything we're talking about it was a
(54:50):
different one. Yeah, Button Buttonby Isaac has them off. It doesn't
have any just happens to have thesame exact name though. That's kind of
interesting. There's a lot of buttonButton story. How did you spell Isaac's
last name as I m O VOkay, I see it now, yep,
I see it now. You're notlying. Yeah. So the plot
(55:12):
of Button Button is this guy comesup with the ability to go back in
time to get items from the past, and he needs money to fund it,
and so they come up with theidea to heist a signature from Button
Gwennet to sell in the present time. But the problem being is once they
(55:38):
bring it to the future, thepeople who check it secrets of forgery say
well, this is only a yearold, so it can't possibly be real,
So they don't get any money.I spoiled a book from nineteen fifty.
But wow, we got to getout of this episode. We're never
going to start. It can bealongest episode you've had it because of a
(56:00):
fucking button jack. Your last yourlast chance here? Okay, Well,
if you want to follow us onsocial media. You can follow us on
Twitter at America story Pod, whichis completely pointless because we do not tweet
it, yes, but it isthere. We also have our Gmail where
(56:22):
you can email us and ask questionsor yeah, America Stories Pod at gmail
dot com and you can you canfind our episodes also on our website,
which is americastories dot Us. Alsogood old contact for him there as well.
This is I believe the thirteenth episode. So yeah, like like Jack
(56:44):
saying, go to americastories dot usand check out did you say dot com?
Do that? I think he saiddone that well, hopefully is right
because I'm gonna tell you the correctone that he did say wrong. It's
America Stories US. Yes, theUS stands for United States anyways, there
(57:06):
where I'm saying too rest of that, we don't know what was said,
but americastories dot Us has all theepisodes and sometimes Jack put's additional information online,
not very often, but when hedoes, it's always full of hidden
gems and stuff and maybe eventually he'llget along to share an old button with
you on the website. So yeah, if you enjoyed our conversation today,
(57:27):
make sure you check out the previousepisodes like I said, Wow, what
a doozy today, Luke, yougot to start considering these rabbit holes you're
you're you're sending us down. Itwas too much to not do like we
had to do it. I stillcan't get out of Everybody called him buttons,
then buttons, buttons, he isa dumbass. Anyway, until next
(57:49):
week. I always say next week, and it's never right because it's actually
a biweekly podcast. So I willsay until until next episode, keep being
you, keep being great, anddon't beat buttons. You got to kind
(58:10):
of face everybody knows ut around therefor the wearnoos going at your heir and
you like your finding the road andyou do that's wrong. People got a
thankful the danger of us find itinside. The best of us take care
what they want, like sod tothem. Some of us. Do you
(58:34):
do the best we we can.Some of us do the best we we
can. Something. Jeff Townsend mediasees you good night, and the question
(59:09):
is do I stay here? Willyou be back? Are you gonna come
back? Will you be back?Are you coming back
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