May 2026
33 Days from now, our Republic celebrates it’s 250th anniversary.
At the time, people lived under the divine right of Kings. They were subjects - subject to the orders of the monarch. With little say as to how the society around them was shaped.
We know the story of the revolutionary acts sparked by the men who met at the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston, inspired by the Greco-Roman traditions of public government, tired of the oppression of the Crown. The tale of tea in the harbor. The march of the militia at Lexington and Concord. The ride of Paul Revere. These bits of the legend that make up the founding era of our young Republic have been engrained in the minds of most.
Massachusetts, rightfully so in many ways, dominates the conversation our mind when we think of the revolution. However, we with granite in our blood should know better.
19 Months before the tea was in the harbor, the citizens of Weare in April of 1772, when the British Crown attempted to impose frivolous logging regulations to aid in the construction of the Royal Navy, made an appeal to heaven. Forcing the appointed Sheriff and his deputy out of the town.
Months before the shot was heard around the world at Lexington, it was the citizens in Portsmouth who in the winter of 1774, seized Fort William and Mary. Providing armaments used by our own Colonel John Stark at the Battle of Bunker Hill; where nearly all the troops serving him were men of granite.
It was the people of Newmarket in 1768 who took strides way ahead of any other towards a truly public government in electing Wentworth Cheswell as their town constable at the age of twenty-two.
Cheswell was a man of English, and African heritage. He was the first man with African heritage to serve in public office in the United Staes, and would go on to live a life of public service. Riding intelligence for the rebels, as Paul Revere famously did. Serving as the first justice of the peace (judge) with African decent in 1805. Teaching as a schoolmaster in Newmarket. Assisting in founding Newmarkets Social Library, one of the towns first public libraries; collecting, and copying historical documents and artifacts - earning him the recognition as being New Hampshire’s first archaeologist and historian.
On January 5th, 1776, New Hampshire’s fifth provincial Congress, in Exeter passed the first written constitution adopted by an American colony. Six months before the squabbles in Philadelphia produced the national constitution, New Hampshire set the tone with their document protesting loyalty to the Crown. They set up a legislative process, with checks and balances on executive power, regular popular elections of the legislators, and much more which we still enjoy the fruits of today. It was the deliberations in the halls of our State Congress in Exeter which set much of the tone for the public government the entire nation lives with today.
Whether we look at our founding, or our civil war and the struggle to break the chains of chattel slavery, the effort for women’s suffrage, the work towards achieving civil rights equally applied to all, the struggle to recognize the value of a laborer in the industrial world, or any of the many stories from our tumultuous 250 year history; you will will find people making the impossible, possible.
The success these efforts did not come through the words of one person, they came through collaboration in the halls of public government set up by the wisdom of those who broke free from the divine right of the King in 1776.
A government, you can show up to, serve in, make comment to; is by no means a given. In fact, it has been but a blip in the grand scheme of our species’ time on this planet. It is fragile, and must be treated as such. The progress towards achieving the promises illustrated in the ironic, yet eternal words of Jefferson declaring our independence; is not, and has never been linear. The progress we have seen has been the result of people from odd backgrounds, with odd personalities, and a vision of a better future for those to come, who refuse to give up on that vision.
Our Representative government has every capability to function, and still does. In my four years serving in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, my belief in that truth has only grown.
Out of 111 pieces of legislation with my name on them, 23 are now chaptered law. Including legislation providing the State assurance for the constitutional right for freedom of speech on college campuses, a private cause of action for hair discrimination, income reporting requirements for lobbyists, and bills as seemingly simple as licensing processes for associate funeral directors. I have worked hard on legislation to strengthen the state rules on landfills, protect our environment from overuse of pesticides, make the tax system less burdensome on those who can’t afford it, fairly fund our towns’ education systems, and much more that we have yet to make chaptered law.
Though, I cannot in good conscience say that I have done anything in the State House. Nothing, not one thing in that building happens as the result of one individual alone. Every piece of legislation made into law, or repealing existing law - every new line item of the State budget or cut of an existing one, any resolution or other action taken by the legislature - everything, is done as a result of collaboration between members.
The heart of the legislature still beats, but it does so at a concerningly slow pace. It is on the edge of death.
I ran for the legislature for years ago because I believe we can make it beat again.
I believe that people of conscience can make a difference in this world.
We can make our food eatable, our water drinkable, our air breathable. We can give every child the ability to get, not just an education that adds them to the other bricks in the wall, but the best education available to our society at the time. We can have a world where people aren’t priced out of existence. The citizens of this country don’t have to live unable to afford the taxes on their property, or be unable to afford the rent while ownership is unattainable. They shouldn’t have to drive on roads that are falling apart, with contracts to fix them that take years to actualize.
We can’t have a perfect world, anyone who attempts to make you feel otherwise is dangerous, but we can have a world better than this.
There is no doubt in my mind.
That world will come, not through the political campaign of one charlatan or the other, but through the citizenry of a representative government, taking their role as a citizen seriously. Educating themselves on the civic processes which govern their life, and from there, engaging in them. If not running for office, then scrutinizing those who do.
Government, in a representative form, is not a spectators sport. The most important title I hold is not Representative, it is citizen. My eyes, my ears, and my voice have a part in the larger society around us. That power doesn’t come because I was elected, but because I was born in a country that protects my natural right to do so. No matter your age, economic standing, or any other denominating factor of an individual one could think of - your citizenship of this country gives you the constitutionally protected natural rights you’re entitled to by virtue of being born as a human being.
The more we put it off as that which only the wealthy and well connected can do, the more only the wealthy and well connected will do it. The Wizards of Oz, the masters of illusion, want you to believe that the heart of the nation is past the point of saving.
They want you disillusioned and disconnected from your constitutionally protected right to participate.
Our Kings, the barons of industry, and their corpo-nations, make the Kings of old look no better than a pauper. The Pharmaceutical companies, the energy industry, the agriculture conglomerates, and the rest of their merry band of misfits; only listen to the parliament of their shareholders.
Turns out, a free society is no longer in the interests of the shareholders.
They hate the fact we have a constitutional right to participate in the society they attempt to destroy, because they know we could stop them from destroying it.
This is another catalyst moment for our Republic. Will we utilize these incredible leaps in technology for the betterment of all? Will we build a world where people aren’t priced out existence, where one job can support a family, and people feel its possible to have one? Will we shepherd the planet we have, playing our role in the greater symbiosis of this grand world of life in all it’s forms?
Will we be citizens of a Republic, or subjects to the weak, insecure, depraved lords of our world?
I am running to serve another term in New Hampshire’s General Court, because I want to continue to be apart of the orchestra of voices committed to the collaboration of the citizenry that will keep our State, and the idea of citizenship over subjugation, going for another 250 years.
I hope to earn your support over this campaign.
I hope to see you finding ways to participate in the civic life around you.
And I look forward to celebrating these United States’ 300th anniversary with my fellow citizens fifty years from now.
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