Chapter 9

Grant got the downtimers situated in his office, with Isaac joining them just as everyone else was settled.

“I knew this meeting was coming, but I saw some expressions on some of your faces a few minutes ago that I believe need to be addressed. To expand your understanding of our uptime culture I feel that a quick overview of the past two hundred plus years is very important to our future. As an introduction, I want to begin with the words of one of the greatest leaders England has ever known. His name was Winston Churchill and his quote was, ‘He who fails to learn from history, is doomed to repeat it.’ In our case, we’ve the opportunity to learn from our own history and keep it from happening the first time.”

Sabrina asked, “So, if we change things now, then the history that you know will also change?”

“Based upon what we were told by those who sent us here, that’s it exactly. It’s like being able to relive your youth knowing what you know now, with the opportunity to keep many of your errors and mistakes from ever happening.”

“That requires a man a lot smarter than I,” proclaimed Gabe.

“Really?” Sabrina asked. “Would you have chased after Mary Louise for two years if you had realized how much better a wife Suzanne would be? What about that rattlesnake in the sanitary, or falling out of that tree into the river? If you lived it again, would you do things different?”

“Sure.”

“Then what Grant is saying is not that much different. The key is that these are the events of a nation, and not just those of one person.”

“Actually,” Grant added, “We’re also dealing with the entire world because this country becomes the strongest country in that world, and what we do affects the rest.”

“The strongest country in the world!” Thomas said softly. “That’s almost beyond imagination.”

Grant answered, “In the next few minutes, I think you’ll find your imagination stretched beyond belief.”

Grant turned on the monitor for his computer and hit a key to wake it up. He pulled up Google World and focused on the United States. He then narrowed that down to cover the thirteen colonies.

“What is that you’re working with,” asked Thomas.

“It’s called a computer and it’s able to do a lot of things to help us. What I have focused on the screen is a highly detailed map that’s currently focused on the area of the thirteen colonies.”

Grant used his finger to point, while he said, “It starts south of us in Georgia, then north through the Carolinas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and on up to Massachusetts.” Then Grant again used his finger to highlight the western boundaries based on actual settlements.”

“Is that Blue on the right the ocean?” asked Francis.

“Yes, with the lighter blue being the shallower water inshore and becoming darker as the water becomes deeper.”

“This is fascinating. What are those bumps in the deeper water?”

“They’re underwater mountains. If they were a few hundred feet taller, or the ocean was shallower, they would be islands. In fact, at one time, they probably were islands.”

Grant next shifted the map to cover the rest of the forty-eight mainland states. He again used his finger to help identify the boundaries.

“When we were transported here this was the bulk of the United States. There are two additional states that don’t show on the map, making a total of fifty.”

“Wow! That’s a huge area. How long does it take to travel from one side to the other?”

“Our military has an aircraft that can make the trip in less than two hours. An ordinary person can fly on public transportation in six to seven hours, or can drive it in a personal vehicle, something like a horseless carriage, in less than six days, and that’s stopping for meals and sleep.”

“You weren’t kidding about stretching our imagination,” exclaimed Francis. “What about the two other states?”

“One is called Hawaii and is an island chain in the middle of the Pacific and the other is named Alaska, and it’s up in the northwest corner of the continent, with a section of Canada in between. It’s a large piece of land that’s not very populated due to the weather. It’s a very cold place.”

“If that’s true, why would we want it,” asked Francis, “and what about Canada? Is that still British and why would we allow the redcoats to live so close to our border?”

“Good questions. The primary reason we own Alaska was a stupid political philosophy developed by one of our future presidents. It was called Manifest Destiny and it claimed that it was God’s plan for this country to stretch from sea to sea. When Russia offered to sell the land to us to keep it out of British hands we purchased it for two cents an acre. Of course, its area was almost twice the size of the current Thirteen Colonies, and since then we’ve found that what was thought to be a waste of money is a land rich with natural resources, including gold. As for Canada, it’s now an independent country, though it’s still loosely tied to Britain. A Britain that in less than fifty years will become our biggest ally and that relationship continued through the day we were transported to this time.”

“So after we win, we become friends?” asked Isaac.

“Not exactly, because the first time they didn’t have much respect for us and considered us disobedient cousins that just needed a strong hand to bring us back into line. There was a second war in 1812, but in the end it’s their ass that gets whipped, and we’ve not had problems with them since then. I want to so devastate them this time around that their haughty provincial attitude is driven from their heads.”

“You commented strongly in calling Manifest Destiny stupid,” observed Francis. “Can I ask why?”

“Yes, but first let me read you something from our future,” and read:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Then said, “These are part of the words that Thomas Jefferson, helped by Thomas Lynch, penned in 1776. The document was called The Declaration of Independence and it was presented to the King of England as a formal declaration of our desire to be a free nation, separated from all of the powers and rules governing Britain.”

“That gives me chills,” proclaimed Gabe.

“Me to,” said Sabrina’s father, “and you say I help Jefferson write these words?”

Grant answered, “Thomas, I don’t know what parts you wrote, but your name is mentioned in the many books on the subject.”

“As for the chills you felt, those words have given most of us chills at one time or another. The problem is that words don’t always mean the same thing to different people or the people of different times. For a long time that phrase ‘all men’ represented only white males. Women were considered possessions and had only a few more rights than black slaves and the Indians had even less.”

“That’s not too different than it is today,” stated Sabrina.

“I know, and that’s part of what has to be changed.”

“In what way?” asked Francis.

“Eventually, in every way. Today, there are close to two million people in these colonies, including black slaves and Indians living in areas generally controlled by the Colonists. In my time there are over three hundred million people in this country, and it’s the diversity of race, sex, country of origin and a freedom to rise above poverty that has made this a great Nation. It’s actually known as the ‘great melting pot’ for its blending of peoples from around the world, but there have been many times that pot has needlessly boiled over.”

“I understand the idea,” remarked Francis, “but I don’t see the practical aspect.”

“Francis, slavery is embedded in South Carolina culture. Could you imagine it ending suddenly and violently?”

“It would devastate us,” he answered with a look of shock, “And I only own a few slaves.”

“Well, in a hundred years from now the North and South will fight a war over slavery, and in the end the slaves will be freed, most of the plantations of the South will be burned and more than a million troops from the North and South will have died. In addition, almost as many will have lost an arm or a leg.