hail, Columbia! happy land

their sweetness unmingled, their manners refined, / and virtue's bright image instampt on the mind

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Drink hard cider (log cabin optional).

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Experience emotions so intense that they can only be described as either “interesting” or “pungent.” 

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Join a Mechanics’ Lecturing Society to learn acquire valuable new knowledge, like physiology or the rudiments of technical drawing. 

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Do not enjoy Christmas; do not observe Christmas; do not contemplate Christmas.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Enjoy three days' rest on Christmas.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Travel to a county where nobody knows you so you can convince a preacher to perform your marriage service without parental permission.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Picknick [sic], bearing johnnycakes and wearing sunglasses.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Decorate your (private) pew with cushions, foot-warmers, rugs, and the paint of your choice.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Eagerly read the “blind items” in the newspaper that recount humorous or pathetic stories without naming the individuals involved--or perhaps they’re literary fiction after all?

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Have your arbitrary birthday questioned by officers associated with the poll tax, elections, pensions, or militia service, and receive a new arbitrary birthday assigned on the basis of your appearance.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Arbitrarily choose a birthdate for the purposes of the poll tax, elections, pensions, or militia service.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Alternatively, know when your birthday is, but be unable to prove it legally due to informal or destroyed records.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Alternatively, have no clue when your own birthday is.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Provide your godchildren with moral, improving, beautifully bound, and suitably expensive “gift books” for their birthdays.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Use newspaper accounts to track the terrifying geographical spread of the dread disease, cholera.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Eagerly gather on the banks to watch a floundering riverboat caught on a snag.

[antebellum-us-suggestions]

Covertly read Aristotle’s Masterpiece to satisfy your curiosity regarding slightly aberrant sex (and theology, and monsters).