The recent stalemate among the House republicans over their choice of speaker and the current threats of Speaker McCarthy to refuse to raise the ceiling on the national debt so that the nation can pay its bills brought to mind this delightful observation from a while back:
"A few years ago * * * the Republican party dared to refuse the appropriations for support of government - the most daring act ever ventured in a land that holds Bunker Hill and Brandywine. They dared to persevere some twenty or thirty days. It seems a trifle; but it is a very significant straw. Then for weeks when Banks was elected, and a year ago, again, the whole government was checked till the Republicans put their Speaker in the chair."
Does that bring to mind Newt Gingrich shutting down the government, or Lauren Boebert holding up the organization of the House in January? The author of the quoted words was Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), the famous orator and abolitionist. They're from a speech that he gave in Boston on February 17, 1861. The four omitted words represented by the three asterisks give the joke away: they are "while Pierce was President."