THE INSURRECTION WILL BE BRANDED

    A mere four days after slack-jawed, swag waving Trump supporters barking "USA! USA!" were ushered into the Capitol by police who thought they were on their side, the event captured by mostly citizen journalists, will be presented on CNN as "The Trump Insurrection." As the 25th Amendment and a second impeachment looms, Trump is said to be (between rants) concerned with his "legacy." I'd say there is nothing to worry about there. Donald J. Trump's spot in history is secured.  The only other time in history the Capitol was breached was 1814. This event was captured in a slim (19 pages) volume written by Paul B. Jennings, a man who was there, in A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison. Said to be the first memoir to come out of the White House, Jennings' story sets the record straight as to what  exactly happened at the White House, not the Capitol, as the Brits closed in. It's not CNN, but the history is accurately captured by the President's slave Paul Jennings.

    Paul Jennings' father was said to be a white English trader, Benjamin Jennings. His mother was one of President James Madison's slaves, "the granddaughter of an Indian." My mother's father was Raymond Jennings, a white railroad man. The Jennings, like the Osterhouts, owned slaves. I don't know if Benjamin or Paul is any relation. Published in 1865, Jennings' "Reminiscences" also notes that Daniel Webster "paid $120 for the freedom of Paul Jennings; he agrees to work out the same at $8 per month...", March 18, 1847. Paul had to work off the price of his freedom.

James and Dolly Madison moved into the White House with their slaves in 1809. They had over 100 African Americans in bondage at the time. 

From Paul Jennings' book: 

"After the war [1812] had been going on for a couple of years, the people of Washington began to be alarmed for the safety of their city, as the British held Chesapeake Bay with a powerful fleet and army. Everything seemed to be left to General Armstrong, then Secretary of war, who ridiculed the idea that there was any danger. But in August 1814, the enemy had got so near, there could be no doubt of their intentions. Great alarm existed, and some feeble preparations for defence were made....A large part of his men were tall, strapping negroes, mixed with white sailors and marines. Mr. Madison reviewed them just before the fight, and asked Com. Barney if his "negroes would not run on the approach of the British?" "No sir," said Barney, "they don't know how to run; they will die by their guns first." They fought till a large part of them were killed or wounded and taken prisoner....Even that very morning General Armstrong assured Mrs. Madison there was no danger. " 

   At 3pm on the afternoon of August 14, 1814 Paul Jennings had just set the dinner table for Dolly Madison, when a rider galloped up to the White House and cried out "Clear out, Clear out! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat. "I will here mention," Jennings wrote, "that although the British were expected every minute, they did not arrive for some hours; in the mean time, a rabble taking advantage of the confusion, ran all over the White House, and stole lots of silver and whatever they could lay their hands on. " And in one last instance of setting the record straight, Paul Jennings adds this, "It has often been stated in print that when Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House, she cut out from the frame the large portrait of Washington [by Gilbert Stewart]...and carried it off. This is totally false. She had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every moment. John Suse (a Frenchman, then doorkeeper, and still living) and Magraw, the President's gardener, took it down and sent it off on a wagon, with some large silver urns...When the British did arrive, they ate up the very dinner, and drank the wines, &c., that I had prepared for the President's party."

    Plenty of memoirs have come out of the Trump White House in his four year reign. Only since Wed. have we seen any display of regret from his enablers and sycophants as the rats jump the sinking ship. Babies being ripped from parents' arms, walls erected across fragile desert, crackpot conspiracy theories, hundreds of thousands of people dying from Covid, an attack on all democratic institutions.....the list goes on. None of these things had any effect on Trump's Republican brown nosers. Only the real fear of bodily injury they felt as the Capitol was breached by unmasked, armed, racist Trumpies, woke these greedy, power craved, politicians up. A little late. As the Capitol Police held the door for the exiting marauders, making no arrests, you have to wonder how deep this all goes.  This beast will not go back into the bottle willingly. Prepare for the worst. The insurrection will be trademarked- a Trump Family Production. 1814 was nothing compared to this despicable attack from within.