Anthony Trollope Predicts the Demise of DADT

UPDATED: After the repeal of DADT, one passage from Anthony Trollope's Phineas Finn takes on special meaning.

In Phineas Finn, published 150 years ago.

Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable;--and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made."

"It is no loss of time," said Phineas, "to have taken the first great step in making it."

"The first great step was taken long ago," said Mr. Monk,--"taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards."

UPDATE : To correct a misapprehension in the comments below, the measure that Phineas Finn and Mr. Monk are discussing in the quoted passage is a measure to enhance the rights of farmers who rent their land, not the decimalization of the currency.

Posted at 5:02pm