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Burying the Hatchet: Return Day in Sussex County, Delaware
| Article
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20548 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
3,063 Words |
| Author
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Michael Mills
Michael Mills is chairman of the communications department at
Delaware Technical and Community College in Georgetown,
Delaware. |
Busy as they are with the political backstabbing that seems to constitute the core of America's current election system, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and members of various small political parties are gearing up for the final days of the 1992 campaign season. With voters going to the polls November 3, politicians and their eager-to-please staffers are hurriedly sending out stories reflecting not what their candidates can do but what the other candidates cannot.
Unfortunately, the political fighting will not stop when the polls close and signal an end to the campaign. The two-sided bickering--or multisided in these day of third and fourth parties--will continue, picking up again on November 4 and running without hesitation like a popular Broadway play until the next campaign season rolls around. Republicans will criticize Democrats, who in turn will criticize Republicans. All the while, Independents and others will criticize everyone.
Throughout it all, the American public is left in utter confusion, not knowing whom or what to believe.
Such is the condition of this nation and the states it comprises.
In Sussex County, Delaware, however, residents and lawmakers break from the traditional system that seemingly dictates on national and state levels which politicians of different parties cannot (or should not) socialize with one another. All the political grudges are discarded in tradition-laden Sussex, where residents of the mostly rural country--which boasts no true urban center where people can gather--celebrate an election-year custom that became firmly entrenched back in the mid-1800s. Called Return Day, the nearly 160-year-old custom brings politicians of all parties--winners and losers--and their supporters to the centrally located county seat of Georgetown for a day filled with fund and political reconciliation. It is a time to say, "OK, the election is over. Now let's patch up our differences, have a good time, and move on with running the state to help improve life for the people of Delaware."
Sussex County is the only place in the United States believed to still celebrate the event, which once was commonplace in colonial America.
A Rich History
Return Day has roots dating back to the late 1790s and early 1800s, when Sussex
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