Senator Warren of Massachusetts

Alternative history. An excerpt from the novel Parallel Lives by Richard Seltzer

The story, which begins in an assisted-living facility in New Hampshire, leads to 18th century Boston and London, where there may be unfinished business that residents, through mirror selves, must take care of. As Abe, Mercy. and their friends come under the influence of forces they don't understand, they adopt antique attire, get drunk on two-hundred-year-old wine, and become experts in the lives of their other selves.

In their alter egos, Mercy is Mercy Otis Warren, playwright and historian from Massachusetts at the time of the American Revolution; and Abe is Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, the general who at Saratoga lost the battle that led to England losing the war and who then became one of the most popular playwrights on the London stage.

After dreams of what their other selves did and could have done, Mercy and Abe discover a tunnel in the basement that leads to other places and other times, where they could accidentally or deliberately change the course of history.

Chapter 33

“This must be contagious,” said Cat. “I too, had an historical dream, nearly as wild and improbable as yours, Johnny. Over the last couple weeks, I’ve read all three volumes of Mercy’s history and all eight volumes of Macaulay’s. The reading was easy and fast as if I was already familiar with those books.

“Catherine Macaulay, my other self according to Jemmie, the first British woman historian, corresponded with Mercy Warren for many years, and visited America after the Revolution, from 1784 to 1785. She spent a month with Mercy, then went to New York, Philadelphia, and Virginia to meet and interview major figures in the Revolution for a projected history, which she never got around to writing, due to illness. Mercy was also writing a history of the Revolution, but she was slow about it, interrupted by family crises, and didn’t publish it until 1805, after John Marshall’s Life of George Washington had appeared and been recognized as the standard work on the subject.

“In my dream, I, Catherine Macaulay, rather than return to England, stayed in America, encouraged Mercy to write her history and helped her with it. It was published in 1786, instead of 1805, long before Marshall’s book. Because of the timing, Mercy’s book got wide-spread recognition.

“Then, thanks to my prompting and with the help of members of the Massachusetts Legislature who knew and respected both Mercy and her husband, Mercy was named to the Constitutional Convention. I went to Philadelphia with her. There she fought hard but unsuccessfully to give women the right to vote. She couldn’t even win a compromise to let women have half a vote.

“Instead, in both history and in my dream, the Constitution granted to the states the power to set voting requirements. In Massachusetts, you had to be a man over the age of 21 and have been a resident for a year preceding, with an annual income of 3 pounds or with an estate of worth 60 pounds.

“There was never anything in the Constitution to prevent women from running for office and serving in Congress or even as President. The writers of the Constitution never imagined such an eventuality, so they didn’t explicitly prohibit it. The text specifying the qualifications for office used the word ‘person’, not “man.” (‘No Person except a natural born Citizen… shall be eligible to the Office of President…’)

“In my dream, Mercy was aware of that loophole and therefore didn’t bring up that issue for debate. She was then selected by the Massachusetts state legislature as the one of the first two senators from Massachusetts. She would never have been elected by the populace at large, but she had many friends in the legislature.

“She was reelected to the Senate repeatedly, and Jefferson selected her as his running mate in 1804, to balance the ticket North/South, (instead of George Clinton of New York, who was his choice historically).

“Then in 1808 she was elected President, the first woman president. She was re-elected in 1812, and died in October 1814, to be succeeded by her vice president, James Madison. Always a foe of England, during her tenure in office, she built up the Army and the Navy and the defenses around Washington DC, in anticipation of a British invasion. So when the British attacked in August 1814, they were repulsed, and the White House and Capitol were never burnt.”

The novel Parallel Lives is available at Amazon