Ellen McGrath Smith: Erasures
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To a Candid World
Election Day, 2018
Dependent on his Will alone,
the political bands are totally dissolved:
light and transient causes,
convulsions within,
domestic insurrection;
Cruelty and Perfidy’s God fatiguing us
into compliance, he has erected
places unusual, uncomfortable,
and distant, obstructing
migrations hither
with swarms of Officers
to harrass people; endeavored
to prevent native justice and magnanimity,
to eat out their substance,
abolishing the forms.
The legislative powers
are more disposed to suffer
a long train of abuses and usurpations
than oppose with firmness his invasions.
A Tyrant, unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
—
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Brights
The people desire a free state. No soldier
shall abuse arms. A well-regulated militia
shall make no law prohibiting the free
exercise of the press; two-thirds of the people
shall not be confronted with infamous crime
by powers not designated. For the people
to be secure and with just compensation,
the United States Constitution shall not be
construed to deny or disparage rights
retained by the people, shall be valid to all.
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After Tracy K. Smith and the Founding Fathers
Ellen McGrath Smith is the author of Nobody’s Jackknife. She lives in Pittsburgh.
Copyright 2018 Ellen McGrath Smith
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