Breakfast Club and Primary Day!

breakfast club

the east bay's running newsletter 

Photo: SRA

Good afternoon!

While I was working on my doctorate, I had the good fortune to spend several years immersing myself in the past.  As I specialized in early modern English history, one moment stands out in my mind as a particularly appropriate anecdote for today. 

During the English Civil War—an internecine conflict between the Parliament and the Crown—a group of parliamentary soldiers gathered in the town of Putney to debate what English society should look like if they proved victorious over the forces of monarchy. 

During the "Putney Debates," the conservative generals and other grandees lambasted the idea of universal manhood suffrage.  But a minor colonel, Thomas Rainsborough, stood and rebuked the generals: "I think that the poorest He that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest He; and therefore truly, sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to pu…