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John Smith, courtesy of ohiohistorycentral.org, nice to meet you.
One of Ohio’s first senators, how ambiguous of a name is John Smith? I’m sure that was not his birth name and there is virtually nothing about his life from 1735 to the 1790s when he moved to the newly formed great river port city of Cincinnati as a church man. He joined the Northwest Territorial Legislature, helping campaign for Ohio’s admission to Union, and went to Washington as one of the first senators in 1803.
John Smith was also the first US Senator to be indicted for treason. Can you imagine the scandal today? A US Senator indicted for treason, would it matter if he were guilty or innocent? He wouldn’t be a senator any longer and in a couple hundred years, he would be long forgotten. The difference between today and 1803 is the amount of documentation that would be generated by such a scandal. If a US Senator were indicted for treason today, in 2013, all the news files, articles, photographs, court proceedings, etc., etc., would be stored digitally on a computer somewhere and easily accessible.
Did you know this about John Smith, Ohio’s first senator? He was indicted for treason because he was friends with the Aaron Burr. Do you know who he is? He was the man who shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The former Secretary of the Treasury offended the Vice President so much, they had a duel. Hamilton lost and died. So much has changed in only 210 years, can you see Joe Biden and Timothy Geithner going 10 paces, then turning and firing hand guns at one another? It actually happened. Aaron Burr was tried and acquitted of treason for allegedly wanting to form a new country separate from the United States in areas controlled by Spain. My sources, well, here’s another website , and I’m curious my future relationship with ohiocentralhistory.org and ohiohistory.org. There’s a reason I didn’t make this site www.hancockcountyjournal.com, although I own that domain name too, I made it hancockcountyjournal.org.
Here’s to hoping you became just a little more Learned.