May none but honest and wise men [and women] ever rule under this roof

During his first night in a damp and unfinished White House, Pres. John Adams wrote to his wife:

“Before I end my letter, I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

While many good and not so good men have inhabited that building, never in the history of this republic the man in the White House was more different to what Adams hoped and prayed for than during the last four years. We enter now the critical final 24 hours of the most poisonous tenure by any guest in that people’s house. Nepotism, dishonesty, fatuity, and racism all combined to erode and damage the institutions of the longest functioning democracy and bring it to the edge of collapse. Peace officers had to risk their lives to keep democracy from dying at the hands of an insurrection flying as a flag the name of a personality cult president. Officer Brian D. Sicknick did die protecting the United States’ republican form of government in the most literal way possible. His blood honors the marble floors of the Capitol.

As these dangerous final 24 hours pass, I am sure we will see one last series of rancorous acts, corrupt pardons, and executive poison pills being left as legacy at the top of the…