My family has a group chat. It is called “Dunn Family (Official),” and it was started in 2019 by my nephew Trevor to coordinate a single Thanksgiving. It has not stopped since. It has 14 members and, as of this writing, 61,207 messages, roughly 40,000 of which are a small yellow thumb.
I have been asked by several members of the group, and by the group as a whole, in a poll, to “engage more.” I have decided to do so, in the tradition of the Founders.
People forget that the Founders had a group chat. In 1772, before there was a nation to speak of, the patriots of Boston formed a Committee of Correspondence, with 21 members, to exchange letters with the other towns, and soon there were committees across the colonies, all writing to one another about the matters of the day. That was a group chat. It had more members than ours. It was better run. Nobody in it ever replied to a statement of colonial grievances with a small yellow thumb. They replied with a letter, signed, at length, with a reasoned argument and a closing salutation.
So my first principle was clear. The thumb is out. When the group says something, I will answer as a Founder would, in full.
Here, however, the history gets in the way, as history so often does. A letter from Boston to the countryside took days. A letter from Massachusetts to Virginia took weeks. By the time a Committee received a reply to its question, the question had often been overtaken by events, and the Committee had moved on to a new question, which would itself be answered weeks later, after it had been overtaken. This was not a defect of the system. This was the system. The Founders were never once caught up on the group chat, and they founded a country.
I spent an evening with this, and I want to be honest: it is not where I expected to arrive. But it is where the Founders arrived, by horse, eventually.
The tradition, then, is not merely to reply in full. It is to reply late. A reply that arrives on time has not been thought about. A reply that arrives by pony three weeks later has been thought about by a pony.
I do not own a horse. I have, however, engaged Kaitlyn, 14, who lives two streets over and owns a pony named Biscuit. For $6 a letter, Kaitlyn and Biscuit carry my replies across town to my nephew Trevor’s house, where Kaitlyn reads them aloud at the front door, and Trevor, at my request, types them into the group chat word for word, including the salutation.
The results have been everything the Founders could have wanted.
On Aug. 28, my sister-in-law asked the group, “Who’s bringing ice to Labor Day?” I composed a reply that evening, sealed it with wax, and dispatched it by pony on the 30th. It was read aloud at Trevor’s door on Sept. 19, by which time Labor Day had passed, the cooler had been emptied, and the group had moved on to a discussion of someone’s new air fryer. It read, in part: “Sirs and Madams, I shall bring ice.” The letter contained ice. Kaitlyn reports that it had become water somewhere around the high school. I consider the delivery a success. The Founders’ letters also arrived changed by the journey.
I have been removed from the group three times since Labor Day. Each time, I am re-added by my nephew, who says that “it’s not the same” without me, and each time I write to thank him, by pony, and by the time the letter arrives, I have been removed again. I believe this is what the Founders meant by a more perfect union. It is never finished. It is only ever on its way.
Next week: what the Founders would have said about ranch dressing, and why they would be right.