Tag: politics

Looking for the Logos of Life X: a Friend in Need

Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity. By Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods. Random House,304 pages (2020)

I read the Kindle edition, which seemed to be complete, and had links that made looking at the many references easy.

I used to teach a course in the general education curriculum at my institution called Animal and Human. We read and discussed the work of Jane Goodall (Through a Window, 1990) and Franz de Waal (Good Natured, 1996) among others, trying to understand the connections between ourselves and our closest relatives, the primates, including chimpanzees and bonobos.I found these readings compelling because of the questions they raise about the nature of our cognitive and emotional lives and how our peculiar combination of traits could be produced by Darwinian evolution.

This book provides a popular summary of much research on the same questions since the mid 1990s and brings in some studies, which while not so recent, contribute to understanding the recent results. I’m neither a primatologist nor an animal behaviorist nor a cognitive biologist, so much of this was new to me.

The first part of the book deals with the author’s view on how we humans became the highly intelligent beings that we are, living in large, technologically advanced societies. Put briefly, they believe that around 80,000 years ago, Homo sapiens began to undergo an evolutionary change they call “self domestication.” Slowly at first, but then rapidly after about 50,000 years ago, humans became more friendly, which enabled them to live together in larger groups, which in turn promoted technological and other cultural advances. This led in the end to modern humans supplanting all the other lineages of the Genus Homo, so now the only traces of these peoples are found in the DNA from occasional intercrossing (see my post on Ancient DNA).

The key behavioral change was the acquisition of the ability to be friendly to strangers. If we live in large groups, say, more than a few hundred individuals, we will not be able to become closely familiar with everyone. We will continually be encountering people we don’t know. Most animals that exhibit complex social behavior show a strong aversion to strangers. Chimpanzees, for instance, are very hostile to any chimpanzee they don’t recognize as a member of their group. When groups become large enough, they tend to split, as Jane Goodall describes in Through a Window. The group at Gombe she was studying broke up at one point. Shockingly, the males of one group began systematically hunting down and attacking members of the other group, until none remained. Likewise males were observed to attack stranger females and kill their infants.

Humans, say the authors, somehow were in a position where it became more advantageous in terms of reproductive fitness to welcome outsiders into the group and to coalesce into larger bands. Why this happened cannot be easily determined, but bonobos may provide a clue. Hare and Woods think that they, too, may have undergone self domestication. This explains why levels of aggression are much lower among bonobos than chimpanzees. The key, they think, was that resources in their habitat are much more stable and productive than in habitats occupied by chimpanzees. This led to less competition and more cohesion among females, who could then control the aggressive tendencies of males. Females no longer gave clear signs of when they were on oestrus, making it harder for males to be sure who was fertile. This further reduced the benefit of dominating both females and other males. More freedom to move among groups, greater sharing of resources and other advantages followed.

Hare and Woods think dogs also self domesticated in the presence of large hunter gatherer bands in the late paleolithic. By being friendlier and less fearful or aggressive towards humans, they were able to exploit the waste dumps that were a feature of camps. Closer relations gradually developed, and at some point, humans began to do some selecting of dogs they found useful.

Friendliness alone was not the only change: it turns out that the physiological underpinnings of friendliness are in the brain and especially the modifying effects of oxytocin, serotonin and testosterone. These are developmentally regulated by genes that are expressed in the neural crest in very early embryos. These cells differentiate and migrate to different parts of the developing individual and affect not only behavior, but also skull shape, snout length, coat and eye color, the curl of the tail and so on. The authors claim that this selection on friendliness they posit brought along all the changes we see in dogs versus their wolf ancestors. Similar changes are seen in bonobos and humans as well.

To support this thesis, they recount the work of Russian geneticists and breeders, who in a few generations, produced domesticated foxes, with many of the traits of domestic dogs, by selecting for friendliness alone. It seems almost unbelievable that merely choosing the foxes most willing to approach humans, would have so many distinct effects. Since, however, the number allowed to breed each generation is a tiny fraction of the whole population, the selection factor is extremely powerful. Furthermore, as noted above, the genes that affect willingness to approach strangers also have impacts on many parts of the organism.

The second part of the book turns to the dark side: being friendly to members of your group means being unfriendly to members of other groups. Oxytocin makes mother bears feel good when they see their cubs, but according to the authors, it makes them that much madder when they perceive a threat

Dogs bark at strangers; humans are suspicious of anyone who doesn’t appear to “belong.” It is easy to create situations where something can be used to identify someone as from a particular category that is seen as a threat. Skin color, language, dress, religious signs and symbols are only too familiar examples. Demagogues use this all the time to divide groups and unite them against one another. If you can get your followers afraid enough and angry enough at some group of “enemies,” they won’t notice what you are doing to them.

So how do we guard against such proclivities becoming fatal to our peace and tranquillity? Hare and Woods think that most efforts to eliminate existing fears and prejudices are as likely to backfire as to work. In other words, you can’t talk people out of these perceptions, and efforts to stigmatize them may only create distrust and resentment. As a possible way to approach the problem, they cite the example of the people from diverse backgrounds who helped Jews during the Nazi occupation: the single factor uniting them was some experience of a close, friendly relationship with a Jew at some time during their early life. Apparently this immunized them against the vilification served up by Hitler and his followers. Can we find ways to achieve the same sort of immunization in our contemporary global society? 

I think it would be difficult, given how valuable dividing people into categories is to politicians and marketers. It’s also hard to remedy historic wrongs without identifying the groups that have suffered them. Whatever self domestication achieved in the human species, it didn’t eradicate our impulse towards dominance and hierarchy entirely. We still have a need to feel superior to someone, even if it’s only Yankees fans. In a society where exploiting political, social and economic loyalties leads to wealth and power, it is very hard to get those with the most of both to kick the habit. Those less fortunate console themselves by feeling superior to those they fear and despise. As the old joke says: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

History of my Times

Grand Expectations: the United States, 1945-1974. The Oxford History of the United States. By James T. Patterson. Narrated by Robert Fass. Audible Edition. Originally published by Oxford University Press 1996.

Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore. The Oxford History of the United States. By James T. Patterson. Narrated by Robert Fass. Audible Edition. Originally published by Oxford University Press 2005.

I’m a baby boomer. These two books encompass the period from just before I was born to the beginning of the Bush II era at the start of the new millennium. For the most part what I learned about from these books was not unfamiliar persons and events. At least from the early fifties on I was aware of the cultural trends and the major political events happening around me. Presidential elections, fears of “the bomb” and the Cuban Missile Crisis, rock ‘n’ roll, the Civil Rights Movement, the Great Society, Vietnam, hippies, Earth Day, Watergate, and more were the stuff of my growing up. My adult life was shaped by the environmental movement, and I experienced the hopes and disappointments of the Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton years. I was interviewed by Al Gore for a placement as a science fellow in his congressional office, and I saw him chairing hearings on the conduct of Reagan’s appointees to the EPA, where I has previously worked for a summer as a fellow.

Many aspects of this period are covered thoroughly and well in these two books: the postwar recovery and economic boom, the Cold War and red scare, the struggles over civil rights, the war on poverty, Vietnam, the environmental movement, Watergate and the numerous scandals that followed, mostly also called “…gate.” What I missed in these books that I felt was present in some of the earlier volumes of the Oxford history was the perspective that time gives. Events seem too fresh to me to assess their significance.

I personally feel that Nixon’s “Southern Strategy,” of courting conservative white voters in the Democrat-dominated South by subtle appeals to racial prejudice was one of the most important shifts, perhaps inevitable, given the history of the region, but still much to be regretted. Even more important, I think was Ronald Reagan’s ability to hold the loyalty of conservative whites, while simultaneously attacking the tax structure, labor rights and Federal programs that promoted and protected their economic well being. A mixture of anti-communism, dog whistle racism,  anti-tax, anti-welfare talk, and feel good rhetoric about American exceptionalism counted for more than economic realities.

I know the Democratic Party failed again and again to protect many working Americans’ economic gains, especially under Clinton, who paid lip service to labor and the environment, but who never seemed to get around to doing anything concrete. All along the way, the changes being wrought in Federal programs and an increasingly pro-business Judiciary insured that inequality would rise rapidly after its near miraculous decline in the postwar years (see my post on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century). Coming generations were not going to enjoy the continuing economic growth that had lifted so many people into the middle class and led to those “grand expectations,” from 1945 until the 1970s. Those hard realities fueled the growing, unfocused anger and fear that gives the final volume its title.

Fear, anger and the aging of the Baby Boom generation helped conservative candidates. There has been a sharp turn to the right in Congress, and Republicans have gained control in many state capitals. These gains have been cemented in place by increasingly sophisticated gerrymandering of state and federal election districts and systematic voter suppression, and coupled with the inherently unrepresentative character of the Senate and the Electoral College, have allowed absolute minorities of the electorate to control government at many levels since the 1980s.

I doubt whether the sequel to these volumes will be published in my lifetime, although it will have been another thirty-five years in 2035. Patterson does say a good bit at the end about the threat of terrorism directed at the United States. Still, very few people in January 2001 foresaw the impact of 9-11 or the global conflicts that it led us into. Nobody then, I think, foresaw the great recession of 2008, the rise of Donald Trump and the extremist right and our failure to deal with the clear danger of climate change. Nobody expected we’d be devastated by a pandemic in 2020.  The hope that blossomed when the United States elected its first black President proved evanescent. When the next installment of the Oxford History of the United States comes out, if I’m here to read it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to bear it.

Revolutionary Hopes

The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763 -1789. The Oxford History of the United States. By Robert Middlekauff, narrated by Robert Fass. Audible Books. Originally published by Oxford University Press. 1962, 2005 second ed.

Image: The Spirit of ’76 by Archibald MacNeal Willard (source Wikimedia commons)

This volume in the Oxford History of the United States covers the beginnings of the conflict between the American colonies and Great Britain, following the end of the French and Indian Wars, up to the ratification of the Constitution and the beginning of the new government in 1789. The conflicts between Whigs and Torys or Loyalists and Rebels, the Revolutionary War and the struggles over the new government highlight the hopes of Americans for a new beginning.

The men and women caught up in pursuit of the Glorious Cause at first viewed themselves as simply demanding the rights that the people of England were guaranteed and that were supposed to be defended by Parliament. The early political splits largely fell along the lines between those who benefited from English policies towards the colonies and those that did not. If the taxes imposed by Parliament did not impact them too severely, many viewed it as reasonable to pay the cost of administration and defense. Some objected that while the taxes were justified, as subjects of the English Crown, they had the right to decide how those taxes would be applied. However, some began to believe that they would be better off under a government of their own choosing. It is especially interesting to learn that many of these fault lines among the politically engaged citizens long predated the conflict with the mother country. ”All politics is local,” as the saying goes. Each colony with its unique history and different mix of classes, ethnicities and faiths, as well as different economic bases, divided differently. The deeper the original divisions, the more contentious the struggle in most cases. Massachusetts was especially violent, with mob actions directed against the public authorities and those who sided with them, much of it incited and even led by their political opponents. After reading this account, it is a lot easier to understand why soldiers had to be dispatched to Boston to keep order and protect property.

Once the conflict erupted into violence at Lexington and Concord, the choice became more stark: many began to feel that it was victory or death. Still, hope for reconciliation persisted. The most remarkable aspect of the early phases of the war to me was the ability of the separate colonies to organize themselves into an effectively united body, largely through the Continental Congress. The early sessions achieved remarkable things, given that prior to this, the colonies had had little or no formal relationships. In school, I mostly learned about the military campaigns and the Declaration of Independence, but what made these possible was the ability of a representative body to agree on a plan of action, find men to put it into action and to come together to take the fateful step of breaking away from England. Throughout our history, the United States have been fortunate in having effective representative government in times of crisis, like the Civil War and the Great Depression.

The general narrative of the war, the peace and the difficulty of establishing a solid foundation for the future are amply described, and I enjoyed all of it. Likewise the account of the making of the Constitution in 1787 and the successful struggle to have it ratified. These are too well described and also treated in much greater detail in a plethora of other books, that I think I’ll not try top summarize. The book upholds the high standards of the series.

Politics and War

Wrestling With His Angel: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. II, 1849-1856 by Sidney Blumenthal, 2017. Kindle edition.

All the Powers of Earth: The Political Life of Abraham Lincoln Vol. III, 1856-1860 by Sidney Blumenthal, 2019. Audible edition. 

Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America by Fergus M. Bordewich, Knopf, 2020.

Image: Lincoln Inauguration 1861 (source Wikipedia)

The first two books listed continue the story started in A Self Made Man, which closed with the end of Lincoln’s one term in Congress. They show the development of his political thinking during the tumultuous years described in The Impending Crisis. Lincoln played little direct part in doings on the national scene, but he never withdrew from politics, remaining an active supporter of the Whig Party until its final demise in the mid 1850s. By then his opposition to the expansion of slavery and his desire that it should eventually end because it was incompatible with the basic principles of democracy, were firm. He had seen the overthrow of moderate Whigs in Kentucky, including Henry Clay and several close relations of his wife, Mary Todd, by a conspiracy of slave dealers and others. He had a growing sense that there was no limit to the greed and ambition of the “slave power,” as it came to be called. He expressed opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, but he bowed out of the 1856 race for Senator from Illinois in order to ensure the election of an anti slavery Democrat. 

Lincoln had always opposed the Democrats in Illinois. The challenge he faced was to deal with the three way struggle between the old Whigs, the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic Know Nothings and the nascent Republican Party. The Know Nothings mattered greatly in Illinois, because Chicago had become a huge city, with a large population of German immigrants. Lincoln saw that a party that could capture their support had the best chance of dominating Illinois politics. He joined in formally establishing the Illinois Republican Party and tried to assure that it did not take anti immigrant positions, while still bringing some former Know Nothings to its side.

In 1856 he was mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate but was passed over. He began to attract wide attention with reports of his debates with Stephen Douglas in the Senate race of 1858 and his famous speech at New York’s Cooper Union in 1860. Thanks to strong political organizing in Illinois and his growing reputation as a moderate but firm anti slavery man, he was able to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1860.

Interlaced with this central narrative is the story of the increasing rancor between north and south and the unraveling of attempts to establish a lasting compromise, as I already described in my post on The Impending Crisis. Here though, there is a much more specific focus on the rise and fall of Stephen Douglas, who was Lincoln’s persistent opponent. Douglas, who saw himself as a pragmatist and a great compromiser like Henry Clay, was as ambitious as Lincoln. He thought he could work with the powerful southerners like Senator Jefferson Davis, heir to John C. Calhoun, to forge an alliance that would propel him to the presidency. He thought his concept of popular sovereignty and his success in forcing through the Kansas-Nebraska Act would assure their support. By then however, the southern Democrats had become determined to expand slavery far beyond the limits northerners could live with. The aristocratic ally minded southerners rejected Douglas, whom they regarded as vulgar as the nominee in 1860. Instead, they chose their own candidate and left Douglas with only northern Democrats to face Lincoln and the Republicans. Defeated, in the end he remained loyal to the Union, but his alcoholism was out of control and he died in 1862.

I picked up Bordewich’s book on Congress in the Civil War partly as a complement to the Lincoln story, partly because I served a year as a Congressional Science Fellow in the House of Representatives during Ronald Reagan’s first term and partly because I saw the movie Lincoln and wanted to know about the real lives and characters of the men depicted in it, like Thaddeus Stevens (memorably played by Tommy Lee Jones)

This is a fascinating account. After the election of Lincoln and Republican majorities in both houses, southern members left as their states seceded. Northern members of the Democratic Party remained. Some were staunchly unionist “war Democrats,” but others favored peace with the succeeded states, even at the cost of splitting the country. These “copperheads” bedeviled the Republicans throughout the Civil War. Bordewich describes vividly the battles that took place within the US Congress to save the Union and then to legally abolish slavery. Many members were accomplished orators, so much of the struggle was verbal, trying to rally colleagues and win public support. But sometimes the struggles turned to violence, though not as terrible as the caning of Senator Charles Sumner by a South Carolina Representative in the 1850s.

Given the enormous problem of winning a civil war that few had expected before 1861, with the unending demands for men and supplies, one might expect congressmen and senators had little time for other things. Members of Congress had no offices or staffs in those days (The Representative’s office I was in in 1982-83 had seven permanent staff, offices in the home district and separate staff for the committees and subcommittees. There were six huge Congressional office buildings, besides the Capitol and the two large buildings that housed the Library of Congress). Nevertheless, members were constantly besieged by men seeking government jobs, contracts, etc. Most got little sleep while in session, particularly in the hectic days before adjournment, except at their desks or on couches in the respective chambers. Many drank heavily, like Douglas.

Despite this, by 1862, the Republican Congress, freed of the obstructionist southerners, had already passed a backlog of bills that would revolutionize the country and the role of the federal government: the Homestead Act, the Pacific Railroad, the Morrill Land grant colleges act and the Department of Agriculture. Together these would lead to the development of the prairies, the spread of science based farming and greatly expand higher education and would tie the west coast more tightly to the rest of the nation. They also, through their efforts to finance the war, put the system of currency and banking on a new national footing. (To get a sense of what happened after, see my post on The Republic for Which it Stands)

The financial aspects were managed by Thaddeus Stevens on the House side and Pitt Fessenden of Maine in the Senate, together with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase and opportunistic financiers like Jay Cooke. There was never a question that there was enough gold and silver in the ground in the western states and territories to eventually restore hard money, but in the immediate emergency, the problem was to have enough cash to pay the costs of the war. Gold and silver coin, the only legal tender, were tightly hoarded as war came, and federal tax revenue, largely from tariffs, was never going to be enough. At first, paper notes redeemable in gold and silver on demand were issued to pay soldiers and contractors, but hundreds of millions more in currency were needed. The first legal tender notes that were not backed by gold or silver were issued in 1862, the “greenbacks.” 

Then Congress passed legislation to establish federally chartered banks that could issue “National Currency,” backed by bonds the banks bought from the Treasury and deposited there. These replaced, eventually, the vast amounts of private bank notes, usually not accepted beyond a local area (and sometimes not at all) with notes that were valid all over the country. Still the price of gold, driven by speculators, fluctuated in relation to the paper notes, especially with the varying fortunes of the war. It took tremendous skill and good fortune on the battlefield to keep the country financially afloat. One smart move was to make the greenbacks not legal tender for tariff duties. This insured a flow of gold and silver to the treasury and kept the redeemable notes in circulation. 

To maintain the flow of funds to the government, a host of new taxes had to be enacted covering a wide range of commodities, legal documents and transactions as well as incomes. These were, naturally, unpopular, and contributed to the Republicans losses to Democrats in 1862. The military draft also fueled popular rage. With the growing impetus behind freeing slaves in the occupied succeeded states and enlisting blacks, including escaped slaves from the south, there was a backlash in the north – not only the well known draft riots in New York, but also violent resistance throughout the Midwest, where racist sentiment was strong. I was astonished by the amount of murder (including many federal marshals) and destruction, some of it abetted by opposition politicians as well as out Confederate sympathizers and agents, especially in states like Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. It makes today’s brawls between white supremacists and anti-fa look quite tame, and let’s hope it stays that way. Those were bad old days. 

Lincoln had early on suspended habaeus corpus to enable the military to deal with civil resistance and desertion. Congress eventually passed legislation legalizing this,  but not without strong misgivings. The growth of the surveillance and enforcement powers of the Federal government is one of the equivocal legacies of the crisis.

After Republican losses in the 1862 elections, there was real fear at all levels, up to Lincoln himself, that the “Copperhead” Democrats would win in 1864. The main reasons it didn’t happen seem to have been the improving fortunes of the war and a growing recognition that the free blacks that joined the Union forces, far from being cowardly, lazy, stupid, etc. were as courageous and disciplined as any other men under arms.

For this to have happened took the Herculean efforts of Congress at overseeing the conduct of the war. This fell to Senator Ben Wade, Chair of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, supported by both capable Republicans and some solidly pro war Democrats. Meticulously examining and documenting the successes and glaring failures of the army and its leaders, like George McClellan, was exhausting but invaluable, both to the government and the public. Few recognize how important the oversight functions of Congress are, despite the fact that such investigations invariably have a political tinge, as I saw many times during my year as a House staffer.

The final part of the story covers the struggle to pass the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery through the lame duck Congress in 1864 and the development of a policy on dealing with the defeated south and the freed slaves. In those years the newly elected Congress did not begin meeting until more than a year after the vote. This left many “lame ducks,” defeated members who had nothing to gain from loyalty to their party and often desperately needing help to get on with their lives. Thus, enough Democrats and previously reluctant Republicans could be convinced to support abolition by suitable offers of government jobs, etc. Though the amendment passed, as depicted in the movie Lincoln, the assassination of the president and the inability of the Radical Republicans to overcome northern apathy and southern resistance eventually led to the failure of Reconstruction and the imposition of Jim Crow. As my father, a lifelong North Carolinian and a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement, repeatedly told me, the slaves were set free only to be put into bondage again. Much of this, I talked about in my post on The Republic for which it Stands, covering Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Another book on that topic, which I might post something about, is Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, by Davis Zucchino. This details the only coup d’etat in U.S. history, the 1898 overthrow of the biracially elected government of Wilmington N.C. by white supremacists. 

I’m looking forward now to Blumenthal’s account of Lincoln’s presidency. Even his staunchest Republican supporters in Congress frequently took a dim view of his ability and resolution. I want to know how things looked from the White House.

Trials by Want and Fire

Freedom from Fear: American People in Depression and War, 1932-1945 by David M. Kennedy.  Oxford History of the United States. Oxford University Press. 1999.

I listened to the Audible edition.
Illustrations: Migrant mother by Dorothea Lange; US soldiers on the Baatan “death march.”

This volume begins in the midst of the crisis that arose from the political and economic issues left unsettled after World War One. The international scope of the forces that led to the Great Depression were clear, but almost impossible for the big economic powers to resolve. The gold standard hamstrung efforts to recover. Herbert Hoover, Republican President from 1929-1933, was a progressive by any standard, but fiscal conservatism doomed his efforts to stop the economic meltdown.

 The depth of the Great Depression was far beyond anything in my lifetime. The patience of America’s poor and miserable farmers and unemployed workers was one of the most surprising aspects. Inadequacy of local relief or private charity was obvious to anyone who compared the amount of lost wages to the funds available for relief. Franklin D. Roosevelt came into a nation fearful and on the verge of collapse; in his famous “hundred days,”  he managed to push through the critical reforms needed to save the banking system.  Roosevelt, however, spurned international efforts to shore up global economy, refusing to lend American financial resources to countries in default on WWI debts. The continuation of the Depression in Europe probably contributed to the rise of Fascism.

The New Deal, as it took shape during the first few years of his presidency, was more about key social reforms – unemployment insurance, old age security, disability and the right to unionize than about getting economy going again. Roosevelt did not like deficit spending. The men (like Harry Hopkins and Harold Ickes) and women (like Eleanor Roosevelt and Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member) who drove the effort were an amazing and diverse group of brilliant, quirky human beings. FDR’s hope for  a lasting progressive coalition was dashed, because the Democrats were stuck with extremely conservative southerners as a big part of the party’s base. After a series of unfavorable rulings, Roosevelt tried to push through changes to the US Supreme Court, which was a big mistake. This, with increasing labor unrest and opposition from the southern “barons,” led to electoral defeats for “New Dealers.” No New Deal legislation passed after 1938, although Congress left the crucial social reforms in place.

Meanwhile in Europe, Africa and East Asia, war was already underway. Isolationist sentiment was so strong in America, however, that Roosevelt, who was becoming aware of the danger, could do little to prepare the United States or help the democracies resist fascism. Gradually, Congress allowed him to support England, especially the vital Atlantic convoys.

Americans favored China in its war with Japan, but did very little except apply mild economic pressure. Oil export controls against Japan were enforced more strongly than Roosevelt intended in summer of 1941, but he couldn’t back down once a virtual embargo had been imposed. Kennedy speculates that if Roosevelt had paid more attention to developments in the Pacific, the Japanese might have settled for modest concessions on China and an end to the embargo. Maybe a truly horrendous war, marked by vicious racial hate and massive civilian casulaties could have been avoided  altogether. What would the consequences have been? Germany might have been defeated sooner and a better settlement achieved in Europe than the east-west partition and Cold War? Perhaps the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have given a demonstration of the power of nuclear weapons. Would that have made it easier or harder to prevent their spread?

It was lucky Germany and Italy chose to declare war on the U.S. right after Pearl Harbor, because Congress and the people might have been unwilling to declare war first, preferring the undeclared stalemate in the Atlantic and being full of lust to avenge the US on Japan. Roosevelt and Churchill soon agreed on a strategy of defeating Germany first, while holding Japan at bay. American military preparations went slowly, but the miraculously lucky defeat of Japan’s fleet in the Battle of Midway slowed their momentum and bought the time needed for American industry to begin pouring out war material. In Europe Roosevelt was caught in the struggle between Churchill, who was leery of a direct assault on northwest Europe, and Stalin, who demanded a second front to take the pressure off the Red Army. Two years of campaigning in North Africa and Italy, which Kennedy implies was of little value, preceded the Normandy landings.

In the chapter on the home front, he talks about the ways the war affected groups like Japanese Americans – they were unjustly interned, but that experience broke the grip of traditional ways and allowed succeeding generations to become successful in mainstream society. Roosevelt’s need to have the support of the powerful southern committee chairmen in Congress kept home from doing much for African Americans. Under pressure from A. Philip Randolph and the NAACP, he did produce the first anti-discrimination program since Reconstruction. This allowed many to get jobs outside the South and off the farm as well as beginning to open up the military. Far fewer women actually participated in the defense workforce than the image of Rosie the riveter suggests, and most willingly left after the war. Still, I wonder, didn’t many come to feel life as housewives was a bit dull, especially once the challenges of motherhood began to wear?

Another aspect of the home front was just how good most Americans had it, compared to the Depression and to so many millions in Europe, Asia and Africa. Although Roosevelt and the New Dealers were afraid the economy would slip back again once the war ended, in fact, just the opposite happened. The huge burst of productivity that underlay the enormous output of war material made between 1940 and 1945 just kept going, as postwar consumer bought cars, houses and new products made possible directly or indirectly by scientific and technological advances fueled by war. The GI Bill’s huge investment in education fueled still more productivity growth and upward mobility.

Kennedy concludes by pointing out that the boom years after 1945 represented an astonishing turnaround for a nation that just twelve years earlier many believed was headed for long term stagnation and even decline. This is an excellent historical overview of that critical period. There are many more interesting aspects, including much discussion of the way Hoover and Roosevelt supported in-depth studies of the state of the American people and the way the various artists’ and writers’ projects gave Americans new views of their country and themselves.

Tunnel into Hell

Under the Wire: Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment by Paul Conroy. Weinstein Books. 2013.

Image: Flickr 8210896317

I listened to the Audible edition.

Marie Colvin, war correspondent for the Sunday Times of London, was killed on February 22, 2012, in Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, Syria. The Syrian Army had laid siege to the area after its residents resisted the Assad regime’s violent suppression of initially peaceful dissent. Colvin and the author of this account, photographer Paul Conroy, had been sent in on assignment to get the story on the impact on the civilian population.

To reach Baba Amr, the two had to enter Syria illegally from Lebanon, cross territory patrolled by the Syrian army and sneak into the besieged town through a storm drain several kilometers long, used by the rebel forces for resupply and to evacuate wounded fighters and civilians. The trip by car or pickup truck over rough roads or no roads at all, often under fire, as well as the foul, claustrophobic tunnel was the stuff of nightmares.

Once in, they found themselves at the “media center” where a few other journalists and a staff of activists for the resistance put out a stream of reports and YouTube videos to try to focus attention on the brutal assault by the government forces, especially the many civilian casualties. They reported from the makeshift hospital, which tried, with little equipment and few drugs, to treat the often horrifically wounded victims. After filing their first story, they were advised to get out before the army made its final assault. Having retraced the arduous route in, they were dismayed to learn that no assault had taken place.

Marie Colvin was determined to go back and Paul Conroy reluctantly agreed. When they returned to the media center in Baba Amr, the bombardment was even worse. Colvin filed another report and then gave live interviews to several broadcast outlets, including CNN. These, which were undoubtedly monitored by Syrian intelligence, probably had something to do with the next day’s tragedy.

On the 22nd, Colvin, Conroy and four French and Spanish journalists were about to leave for the hospital when Conroy, an artillery spotter in his days in the British army, became alarmed. He realized that the shells were falling in a pattern that meant the gunners were zeroing in on the media canter. Confusion followed as some fled the building, while others stayed put. It mattered little: multiple shells scored direct hits. Colvin and Remi Ochlik, the French photographer, died instantly. Conroy, the French reporter, Edith Bouvier, and the Syrian translator, Wa’el were all seriously wounded.

The survivors spent a further week trapped in the city under constant barrage, receiving minimal medical treatment. Conroy was evacuated through the tunnel, which had been blasted shut but was reopened. To escape he had to drag himself, with a horribly torn leg and other serious wounds, through a muddy passage barely wide enough for his body. The Syrian resistance managed to get him to comparative safety in Lebanon. Even there  agents of the Assad regime were looking for him. The British embassy arranged for his evacuation to London, where he spent a year in hospital. All the other journalists and the translator also eventually escaped and recovered.

As an account of Marie Colvin’s last assignment, this is a gripping read. It was the final gamble in decades of risk taking, from Chechnya to Sri Lanka to Lybia, for the sake of getting the story from places where governments were doing dirty work and trying to prevent the rest of the world from learning about it. In East Timor, she went beyond just reporting. Her refusal to leave the refugees whose plight she was covering probably saved fifteen hundred lives. In at least one case it was clear that government forces deliberately tried to kill her, despite knowing she was a journalist. In that incident in Sri Lanka, she lost an eye. She is deservedly a legend in a profession of many heroes.

What bothers me about this book is that it not only pictures the brutality of the Assad regime and the murder of innocent civilians, but it also makes the Syrian resistance fighters, particularly the Free Syrian Army into heroes. In a sense that is true: lightly armed forces defending their territory against a brutal aggressor. What Conroy doesn’t remind us of, however, is how the Syrian civil war began. Assad was faced with a peaceful uprising and, predictably, I would say, chose to use force to put it down. In response members of the army, police and security services defected and formed armed resistance groups, including FSA. Opposition to Assad was highly fractured, however, and there was never much chance of a unified opposition. The subsequent history of the conflict, in which the siege of Homs was an early episode, is one of calamity for Syria and its people.

My question is why resort to armed resistance? Was there an alternative? We see this again and again across the world, and the consequences are never anything but misery for most of the people caught up in the conflict. Marie Colvin’s dispatches could have just as easily come from Gaza, during one of the so-called “defensive” attacks by the Israeli army (which their generals refer to as “mowing the lawn,” according to The Guardian, 7 January 2019). They could come from the Saudi war in Yemen, to cite another current conflict.

Reports like those of Colvin and Conroy too often offer us easily identifiable villains. Someone in the book expressed the hope to see Assad and his government in the dock at the International Criminal Court. That at least would be justice, but graphic accounts of war crimes make us hope to see the villain blasted to bits or executed like Muammer Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein. So long as those in power know this is how we feel, they will do everything to avoid having to give up. The one instance I can think of where a brutal regime gave way to a fairly stable democracy is South Africa, where somehow the white leadership was convinced that it was safe to yield to black majority rule.

What do the people of the Middle East have to do to become convinced that they can settle political, social and economic and break down barriers, without the other side trying to destroy them? The problem is that the United States, Russia and China continue to rely mainly on threats of violence and take sides in these regional conflicts. The solution has to begin with the most powerful players.

As I quoted in an earlier post about militarization of environmental conflict:

[militarized approaches to conflict lead to] “antagonistic interactions, of the kind that now plague the Middle East and parts of Africa. Small countries are led to play the game because of the fear, too often realized, that stronger powers, and especially, superpowers, will simply impose their will by threat or violence (Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.) It also encourages destructive insurgencies, leading ultimately to collapse of states (Somalia, Libya, Syria, Lebanon) …Without structures of genuine equity, supported by collective guarantees and a system of settling disputes that doesn’t rely primarily on crippling sanctions, threats and force, we will not see much progress towards protecting our earth’s life-support systems.”

and I would add the protecting lives of vulnerable human beings.

 

Before the Storm

The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861(Oxford History of the United States) new editionby David M. Potter, 2011

I listened to the Audible Edition. Image : Library of Congress.

This volume of the Oxford History of the United States traces the events that led up to the American Civil War. It begins with the election of a new President in 1848, amidst the conflict over the issue of slavery in the territory acquired in the Mexican War. After an epic legislative struggle, the Compromise of 1850 allowed among other things, the admission of new free states, but gave to the slave interest the Fugitive Slave Act

At this stage in the intensifying struggle over possible extension of slavery, there were three answers proposed. One was to recognize that the Constitution protected the rights of slaveholders in US territories, a view favored by many southerners. The second solution was enactment of something like the Wilmot Proviso (which had been proposed in the run-up to the Mexican War) forbidding slavery in the new territories, accepting that it was up to Congress to regulate slavery in the territories, which was the view of abolitionists. The last was “popular sovereignty” – meaning the voters in each territory were free to decide whether slavery was legal. This was put forward by those eager for compromise.

The Compromise was made possible after Millard Fillmore replaced Zachary Taylor, who died in office. Stephen Douglas successfully pushed the separate parts of the deal through Congress at the behest of Henry Clay.  After the debates 1850, the great old compromiser Clay, along with John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the most recognized pro and anti slavery leaders, passed from the scene, but the debate over slavery was not settled. New leaders, like Douglas, William Seward and Jefferson Davis, to name a few, continued to contest the issues. The publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1852, resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act in the North and filibustering by a number of prominent southerners, aimed at annexing Cuba and other territory as slave states, deepened tensions in what was becoming a more definitively sectional conflict.

Douglas, whose great ambition was to secure the construction of a Pacific Railroad benefitting his home state, Illinois, was the force behind the Kansas/Nebraska Act of 1854. Douglas found himself caught in trap: to get needed support for his proposals he was forced to offer inducements to slave state Congressmen. The deal reached, which created separate Kansas and Nebraska territories, where slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty, amounted to abandonment of Missouri Compromise of 1820.

The fight over slavery in the territories was more symbolic than real. Slavery had little role to play in the west beyond Texas, and very few slaves were held in Kansas. The point seems to have been to establish that Congress could not regulate slavery there and to try to maintain some sort of balance in the Senate between slave and free state votes, since the rapid demographic increase of the North seemed certain to give the free states control of the House. The result, however, was “Bleeding Kansas,” a conflict marked by fraud and violence as abolitionists and pro slavery men alike supplied men and guns  to try to win the contest. Popular sovereignty degenerated into near anarchy.

The elections of 1852 and 1856 marked the death of the Whig Party and the brief rise of Know Nothings (aka American Party). Potter makes clear that the important change was the replacement by 1860 of the parties that had crossed sectional (North/South) boundaries, namely the old Democrats and the Whigs, with parties that were essentially sectional in their outlook. Northern Democrats lost most of their representation in Congress by the late 1850s, as first the Know Nothings, the Free Soil Party and then the Republicans defeated them. The northerners, including especially Douglas, continued to influence presidential politics, because the states had representation at Democratic Party conventions.

The next blow to compromise came with the decision in the case of Dread Scott. Potter depicts Chief Justice Roger Taney as not the monster I imagined. A Maryland Catholic who had freed his own slaves, Taney hoped to settle the slavery issue. He and his fellow justices chose to decide Scott’s case on a broad basis, rather than the narrow one available to them. Potter draws a fascinating parallel to Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. Both cases were decided on broad Constitutional grounds, and both decisions provoked fierce resistance and support. Potter is careful to say that while Brown was the right decision, Dred Scott was wrong. Among other things, it denied that any African, slave or free could be considered a citizen of the United States and also ruled the Missouri compromise was unconstitutional. Potter shows clearly the flaws in the arguments and the unfortunate consequences. I also learned from this account that Dred Scott and his family were freed in 1857, but that he died a year and a half later.

After Dred Scott, the South was on the losing end of a number of fights, including the admission of Kansas. President Buchanan recommended admission based on a pro slavery Constitution. The whole process by which it had been adopted appeared to northerners to have been tainted by fraud, however, and with support of northern Democrats, Republicans in the House rejected it.

John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, despite the swift federal response and Brown’s execution, fed southern outrage and fears of slave insurrection provoked by northern abolitionists. The South  then lost the fight over the speakership of the House in 1859/60. Many saw this as a harbinger of future legislative defeats.

The presidential election of 1860 amounted to two separate contests in north and south. The Democrats had split at Charleston in April 1860 and failed to reunite at Baltimore in June. Lincoln the Republican faced Douglas the northern Democrat, while John C. Breckinridge the southern Democrat was opposed by John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party. There was a clear threat by many southerners to secede if the Republicans won. Douglas’s heroic efforts to save the union after Lincoln’s election became a sure thing were an aspect of this election that I had not known about. He shifted his campaign to the South, telling his hearers that Lincoln was not a danger to them, but few were convinced.

According to Potter, sectionalization was clearly in ascendancy by 1860. It was driven to some degree by cultural and economic differences, but slavery was the ultimate issue. Slavery had led the South to develop a system of white supremacy, which in a vicious circle, justified continued enslavement. This system discouraged universal education and promoted social hierarchy. Even today in parts of the South some aspects of this culture remain with us, I think. Southern desire to be respected by the North, coupled with a feeling that instead they were looked down on, deepened their resentment. This also is a divisive factor in our politics today. Potter, however, reminds us that at the same time, culturally, North and South were more similar in 1860 than before or after. Americans were still mostly farmers, egalitarian, independent and Protestant. They shared a reverence for the revolution and the founding fathers. The Confederacy adopted the United States Constitution as its provisional constitution.

What finally drove the South to succeed was the evident loss of power once the Whig and Democratic parties ceased to function as engines of national unity. Republicans were essentially entirely northern. Lincoln did not campaign in the South and wasn’t even on the ballot in the lower South. In southerners’ view, Lincoln’s acceptance of states’ right to regulate slavery was overshadowed by his belief that slavery, as a moral wrong, was on the way to ultimate extinction. This power shift, which was manifested in the Republican takeover of Congress in 1860, was driven by the demographic growth of the free states.

Why secede? Several southerners pointed out that slavery was safer in the union that out. If they split, there could be no more return of fugitives from the north. There would remain a continued danger of insurrection (a huge fear in the South, probably unwarranted) There would be loss of commercial relations and of the western territories as possible new slave states. There was a near certainty of strife and probable defeat. On the other hand, even though if southerners in Congress could block anti slavery legislation, the Lincoln administration might use its appointment powers, especially  for postmasters, to undermine the southern power structure, controlled by the big planters. Incendiary ideas might be spread, leading to slave uprisings.

Lincoln’s election was followed almost immediately by action in South Carolina. There were many who favored waiting until the rest of the southern states were prepared to act in concert, but as things developed, South Carolina acted alone. The rest of the lower south states followed, and by February had formed the Confederacy. What remained to be seen was whether the upper South and border slave states would follow. Buchanan, the lame duck president, tried to find a way, through Congressional action to placate the South and even bring back the states that had seceded. A range of concessions was offered, but nothing that could gain assent from the new Republican Congress. Buchanan, a known supporter of slavery, had insufficient influence over the staunchly anti slavery majority. Lincoln, meanwhile, kept quiet throughout most of the time between his election and inauguration, offering neither reassurance to the wavering southern states nor a clear indication of how he would respond to secession. His intentions and character were so little understood, even among Republicans, that William Seward, Lincoln’s choice for Secretary of State, imagined that he would be a sort of prime minister to the inexperienced President. Think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

During this time, the potential flashpoints for war were becoming apparent: two forts, Sumter in South Carolina and Pierce in Florida, were held by small garrisons of US soldiers. The seceded states demanded that they be handed over. Instead, the federal government made plans to hold and resupply, if not reinforce, them. The local forces of the states prepared to seize both, and by the time Lincoln took office, it was too late to reverse the course of events. Lincoln tried to diffuse the crisis in his inaugural address, acknowledging the controversy that had occupied the past decade. He reaffirmed his commitment to leave slavery in the states alone, along with his belief in the inviolability of the Union. He stated that the federal government would not take aggressive action. Despite his conciliatory position, in little over a week, Fort Sumter had been forced to surrender. The Civil War had begun.

The Impending Crisis is an excellent account of the deep complexities, political and cultural that led up to the bloody disaster, which as we all learned, gave birth to a new and freer country. Unlike the earlier and later volumes in this series, The Impending Crisis does not cover the economic or social developments during the 1850s. While these must pale before the momentous events leading up to the Civil War, I would still like to have a sense of how the country changed in those years. What, for instance, was the impact of California gold on the economy? Perhaps there are other sources that describe how progress in industry and communications, etc. formed the basis for the North’s success and the South’s ultimate failure in the conflict.

American Awakening

What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe. Oxford History of the United States. Oxford 2007

Image: Camp Meeting by A. Rider and H. Bridport, circa 1829

I listened to the Audible edition. This volume in the Oxford History of the United States, subtitled “The Transformation of America,” describes the momentous changes that occurred between the end of the War of 1812 and the US victory in the Mexican War in 1848.

Howe, like the other authors in the series, covers a wide range of topics. The transformative changes occurred in many areas, from economics to religion. Among the most significant was the Second Great Awakening, the protestant religious revival that swept the country, especially after 1820. Howe emphasizes its millenarianism: the expectation of the end of the world as described in Revelation, according to some, but to others not the end but the complete transformation to a peaceful and just world, governed according to Protestant, democratic principles. The Great Awakening stimulated numerous communal experiments, most of which did not last very long, but which left their marks on both culture and geography.  A development which particularly struck me was the rise of Mormonism. Howe depicts Joseph Smith with much more sympathy and respect than Sidney Blumenthal in A Self-Made Man, where he is described essentially as a charlatan and sexual predator. Howe calls the Book of Mormon an American epic, praising its literary qualities (I may have to check that for myself – my previous look into it left me feeling it was a parody of the King James Old Testament)

A second transformation was in political parties, which began to take on modern form. This started as early as around 1800, but with the decline of the Federalists after the War of 1812, James Monroe and others hoped that parties would wither away and usher in an Era of Good Feeling, and indeed, the period is sometimes called that. But it was not in fact nearly so copacetic. The split between Jeffersonian democratic republicans and their opponents, especially in New England, took shape in stronger organizations that formed around supporters of John Quincy Adams, heir to the Federalists, and Andrew Jackson, popular hero of the war of 1812. The Adams vs Jackson struggle occupied much of Adams’s presidency, and led to the failure of much of his agenda.

In fact, the first modern national political convention was not organized by either the Democrats or Whigs, as the parties came to be called, but by the splinter Anti-Masonic Party in 1831. Freemasonry, which many of the founders had belonged to, came to be seen as both anti-Christian and elitist, and the party enjoyed modest success among more democratic elements for a short while in the 1830s.

Jackson’s election in 1828 was driven by populist sentiments throughout the country, including distrust of political and financial elites and federal government power. Jackson himself was no great believer in democratic process, however. He used his power in ways that often undermined the rule of law. His successor, Martin Van Buren rode the wave of his popularity as well as employing his own immense political skills, but his presidency foundered on the rock of economic crisis, caused in large part by Jackson’s financial policies.

Hard times from 1837 to the early 1840s led to the success of the Whigs in putting William Henry Harrison, into office, whereupon he died and was succeeded by John Tyler. Harrison’s supporters had outmaneuvered Henry Clay’s to win him the nomination. Tyler, although chosen as vice president to mollify his friend, Clay, did not support many of the Whig party’s policy preferences, and his presidency had little success.

The election of 1844 was a turning point in US history, according to Howe. A dark horse candidate was selected – James K Polk. He narrowly defeated the Whig Henry Clay. Had the close election gone the other way, Howe thinks Clay might have prevented the Civil War. Instead “Little Hickory,” as Polk was known, went on to achieve his major goals: settling the Oregon question with Great Britain, annexing California and New Mexico as well as Texas from the Nueces River to the Rio Grande, lowering the tariff and creating a system of sub-treasuries. In terms of his own program, Howe thinks Polk was our most successful president.

These party and personal struggles revolved mostly around three or four big issues: banking, the tariff, internal improvements and expansion of territory and slavery. Jackson his supporters distrusted banking, especially the Bank of the United States. They wanted hard money, gold and silver, but there was a chronic shortage of these until California gold began to flow after 1850, so paper money was the only real option. Once he vetoed the renewal of the Bank’s charter, Jackson had to rely on private banks to hold and lend federal funds, without the close oversight that the Bank of the United States had provided. Since much of the lending supported the trade in cotton, a worldwide drop in prices triggered panic and the Hard Times that began after Jackson left office.

The debates over the tariff and internal improvements reflected the mostly sectional interests of manufacturing and commerce versus plantation agriculture. By the time Polk succeeded in lowering the tariff, it had ceased to be the divisive issue that almost tore the nation apart during the Nullification Crisis. Debates about internal improvements were more about who should pay than the old disagreement between Hamilton and Jefferson about a commercial versus an agrarian economy. National planning and financing, which Adams had hoped for and that Clay supported, were rejected. Jackson, who felt improvements were a state or private responsibility, vetoed several major proposals, but he allowed others and continued to support the work of the corps of Engineers, begun under Adams.

The expansion and slavery issue was the one that persisted beyond the period of this history and led to the Civil War. It began with the Indian removal crisis. This came to a head under Jackson, who condoned Georgia’s refusal to abide by treaties that allowed the Native Americans to remain in the southeast, while ceding much of their land. White racism was undoubtedly as much a factor as economic interest and helps account for Jackson’s failure to insure that the Creeks and other tribes had adequate provisions for their forced march to Indian Territory. There was nevertheless considerable support for the Native Americans among whites, including the US Supreme Court, whose decisions Jackson ignored. The moral outrage of his opponents became a source of partisan animosity.

Indian removal permitted the spread of cotton into the vast territory of Alabama and Mississippi, creating a renewed demand for slaves, reversing a trend that had begun in the eighteenth century and cementing the southern opposition to any form of emancipation. Texas, which split from Mexico in 1836, became the focal point of southern ambition to expand into new lands suitable for cotton and slavery. Whether to annex Texas thus became a point of contention between north and south. There was support from expansionist northern Democrats, despite their distaste for slavery, enough to help get Polk elected in 1844. Once Texas was added to the union, imperialism focused on Oregon, northern Mexico, especially New Mexico, and California.

The Mexican war was Polk’s ambition, strongly opposed by Whigs and memorably by Thoreau in his “On the duty of civil disobedience.” By deftly acceding to sharing Oregon with Britain, Polk insured that his imperial ambitions could move forward without interference from the greatest imperial power of the time, and he soon devised a pretext for war. It was his fortune and misfortune to have as capable military leaders, two Whig generals, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. They overcame both the geography of Mexico and the stubborn resistance of its people. Mexico was left in such a helpless position militarily and financially, that it had no choice but to cede a vast chunk or its territory to the conquering United States.

Despite his success, Polk chose not to run in 1848, and as he had feared, one of his generals, Zachary Taylor was nominated by the Whigs and won.

The power of the United States was on display in the war, but it stemmed from the peaceful development of revolutionary means of transportation and communication. The building of canals, turnpikes and the railroads made it possible to have strong connections between producers and consumers of agricultural products and manufactured goods despite the distance. Likewise, the development of newspapers, the postal system and, in the 1840s, the telegraph, linked markets, facilitated political organization and brought citizens closer to one another. In this way, doubts that an extensive territory could be governed democratically began to fade. Manufacturing was especially facilitated and the economy began to grow more rapidly. An influx of immigrants both aided development of an urban working class but also deepened social divisions. This was even more rapid after 1848 and the failed revolutions in Europe. The Know Nothing Party would develop in response, and nativism has continued to shape our politics down to the present, with Trump’s Muslim ban and border wall. Then the religious suspicion was directed against Catholicism, now the target is Islam. The ethnic prejudice was against the Irish, now Hispanics.

Howe ends by pointing to a development that had little impact at the time, but which marked the beginning of one of America’s great contribution to human freedom. The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention marked the beginning of more than a century and a half (so far) of advocacy for equal rights for women. Beginning with the words,

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed,”

the convention’s declaration echoed Jefferson, identifying the cause as a continuation of the struggle that began in 1776. While almost nothing tangible resulted at the time, or indeed until much later, aside from important ongoing legal reforms, the idea of completing the work of liberation became a touchstone for causes, most notably abolition of slavery, but also temperance, education reform and more that reflected the millenarian hopes engendered by the Second Great Awakening. In Howe’s view then, the religious revival that began the period gave at the end a vision of a future that reasserted America’s role as a beacon of liberty. It might also be thought of a guide through the darkness that followed as sectional divisions hardened and civil war became essentially unavoidable.

Infant Nation

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, by Gordon S. Wood. Oxford History of the United States. Oxford University Press.

Image: George Washington statue by Horatio Greenough in the National Museum of American History

This volume in the Oxford History of the United States covers the period from the ratification of the Federal Constitution to the end of the War of 1812. Like The Republic for Which It Stands, which I wrote about awhile ago, this is another broad-based account of a crucial period in the development of our nation. The themes are the emergence of a strong central government, the early development of political parties and sectional divisions, the rapid growth of population, and above all, the struggle over the meaning of liberty in a post colonial society.

The major players, of course, are Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, Marshall and Franklin. Wood, however, makes sure to feature the lesser actors, especially the anti-elitists, who formed the core of the early Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans, in opposition to the aristocratic tendencies of so many of the founders.  The democratic, egalitarian tendencies of the state legislatures were a major concern for the leaders of the new federal government, who found their volatile politics threatening to stable government. There were very different views among even these federalists as to how far the Constitution permitted the Federal government to regulate the laws and policies of individual states.

At the same time these issues were before Americans, in Europe the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars presented difficult challenges in foreign policy. American elites, much like the British elites, were appalled and frightened by the Jacobins and the Reign of Terror. Anti-elitists found the fall of the Ancien Regime inspiring and even adopted the symbols and style of the revolutionary French. The slave revolt in Haiti, likewise stoked fears of uprisings in the slave states, of which there were still many in the north as well as the south.

All these problems led many to doubt whether the new republic could survive without strong measures to keep social order. The Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by the Federalists under John Adams’s administration, were a manifestation of these fears. They deepened the divisions between the Federalists and the emerging Republicans. There was also a split over the financial practices of Alexander Hamilton, who favored legislation to facilitate commerce and banking. Jefferson hated the man and his policies, fearing that they promoted elitism, bordering on aristocracy, and threatened his vision of a nation dominated by independent farmers. The Federalists in turn saw Jefferson as a dangerous Jacobin. Ironically, Jefferson himself was one of the most aristocratic of the founders.

One of the themes that I found most interesting and which was new to me was the challenge faced in establishing the rule of law in the new republic. A key question was what role English Common Law, the complex collection of precedents developed by English judges, would play at both the state and federal level. Many Americans perceived this law as favoring the government, property holders and lawyers over ordinary citizens. In several state legislatures efforts began to develop a comprehensive set of statutes to replace the common law, so that judges would be bound by clear requirements and not by arcane principles known only to themselves. Meanwhile, the federal courts had to be established, and a struggle ensued over what the Congress’s power to impeach judges meant, in particular, whether the notion that they held office on good behavior meant that they could be removed if Congress judged their decisions were wrong. Several attempts were made to remove early judges for such reasons, before the question was settled more or less in favor of judicial independence. In particular the appointment of John Marshall as Chief Justice by the outgoing President, John Adams, a staunch Federalist, gave the Supreme Court an able champion and a great consensus builder. Since he served until 1835, his influence firmly established the judiciary as a coequal branch of government. Among other key decisions, the protection of the rights of contract and of corporations reinforced property rights at a time when popular sentiment was against the large land speculators who were flocking to the western territories. His decisions also established the principle that the federal courts could overturn state and federal laws that conflicted with the Constitution. Wood does an excellent job of explaining these developments.

During this period, slavery was gradually disappearing in the northern states, and even many southerners, notably Jefferson, expressed the view that it ought to eventually end altogether. Unfortunately, this period was only a sort of interlude before the conflict burst forth and became the most divisive issue in the country. The combination of increased cotton production and rapid westward expansion changed the growing slave population in states like Virginia from a potential liability into an asset. More and more men, women and children were sold and shipped west to work the new lands, especially after the war of 1812.

The developing republic also saw the emergence of religious, social and economic patterns that were clearly distinct from both the colonial past and monarchical Europe. Wood devotes several chapters to describing these changes and the men and women who influenced them.

Wood ends his account with the conclusion of the War of 1812, from which the young republic was lucky to escape with no more than the destruction of its barely started capital city. The poor leadership and organization of the army led to several debacles. Only significant victories by naval forces, not at sea, but on the lakes bordering Canada, stopped British invasions. The American victory at New Orleans, after the war had already been settled by treaty, was turned into a major triumph, both for the future President, Andrew Jackson, and for the United States. Wood describes the deepening confidence and sense of standing as a nation among nations that followed. What had begun as a frail experiment in republican government was now secure, confident and aware of its future potential.

Looking for the Logos of Lucre III: a new gospel of wealth?

Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas. Knopf, 2018.

A timely book, especially in light of the recent announcement by Jeff Bezos of Amazon that he plans to raise wages for his lowest paid workers. It is a modern critique of the modern version of the Gospel of Wealth, enunciated by Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate, in the 1890s. He argued that the rich could best disperse their large fortunes by philanthropy. In his case this included endowing Carnegie Libraries in many cities, along with Carnegie Hall, museums, universities, etc.

Today, we see many high tech and hedge fund billionaires and others among the super rich proposing to tackle poverty, disease, oppression and the like through philanthropic foundations. Giridharadas focuses his book on the people who operate this world of large scale largesse, many of whom come from the financial firms that enable the accumulation of these vast fortunes to begin with. People like Bill Clinton and his Clinton Global Initiative, the president of the Ford Foundation and a young woman from an elite university starting her career with a financial firm that emphasizes “doing well by doing good.” They form what Giridharadas calls “MarketWorld,” an elite network of global activities, ranging from Davos World Economic Forumto TED talks that bring the rich and powerful together with “Thought Leaders.” Together these people push market friendly solutions to global challenges, “win-win” solutions that are intended to substitute for political action.

Giridharadas questions the motivations of these people and in interviews that make up much of the book, shows that many of them have their own doubts. The big question is the same one asked of Carnegie: given that you made your fortune through ruthless business practices, holding wages at near starvation levels, and so on, why not give it back to the people you took advantage of? What good is a library to a man who has to work fourteen hours a day, six days a week to feed his family? Thus as one editorial asked Jeff Bezos: if you want to fight problems like poverty, why not start by paying Amazon workers a living wage? Maybe he got the message.

The problem is, it’s mostly about power. As Thomas Hobbes says in Levithan, Chapter XI, “I put for a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.” Wealth is power, and the desire to have the exercise of that power must be nearly irresistible. Carnegie was sure he knew better than his workers what would improve their lives. Likewise, the modern philanthropists of MarketWorld believe that they can do better than governments solving national or global problems. Given our present political situation, they may appear to be right. But consider: the present weakness, indecisiveness and corruption of government is in large part a product of the success of the wealthy in weakening government by starving it of revenue and shifting policy in favor of finance and the rich. They accomplished this by pouring some of their wealth in campaign coffers and lobbying. Reduced social welfare, crumbling infrastructure, unequal and costly education, stagnant minimum wage – all brought about at the behest of the rich and their tax cutting political friends in office. Along with the weakening of organized labor, it’s no wonder there are lots of social problems for MarketWorlders to propose win-win solutions for.

The privatization of education is a dream of the market types, and they are using their influence in government to make it come true. Because young people will be better off, or because it is a gigantic stream of revenue they can capture? What will this do to the democratic idea of public education, the transmission of not just basic skills but of a core of common values deemed essential to good citizenship in a republic? And what about the larger loss of democratic control of the policies and practices that affect our lives? Should plutocrats and their Thought Leader minions decide what the choices will be? Are solutions that are not marketable to be excluded? Look at the problems of delivering goods like healthcare in a for profit environment. Giridharadasand the people he talks to are clearly made uneasy by these questions.

Giridharadas has interesting thoughts on the people we used to call Public Intellectuals versus contemporary Thought Leaders: Public intellectuals, he says tended to focus on those who created the problems they discussed, the looked at issue from a political viewpoint and they often defined problems without speculating on solutions. Many could be described as gadflies or a kind of public conscience. They were generally found in academia, the public press or publishing.

Thought Leaders, Giridharadassays, don’t look at perpetrators, they see problems as personal, arising from individual shortcomings or disabilities, not as a result of public policies. They are expected to have a very big idea and to focus on “actionable solutions,” meaning those that can be incorporated in a business plan. They offer their proposals at TED talks, elite conferences or on the high paid speaker circuit. Their appeal is not to the socially and politically aware public, but to the elite, to whom they offer plans of action that they promise will have large effects and generate profit for the bottom line.

While I still think there are public intellectuals around, I agree that their influence, such as it was, has been overshadowed by these new thinkers, who serve MarketWorld. Political leaders now gravitate in the same direction, and the neglect of the concerns of those who live their lives in the everyday world has led us to the increasingly bitter political situation we find ourselves in.

People want leaders who are accountable to them, even if they don’t always do a good job of holding them to account. Elites who stand above politics, which they can influence with their money and the revolving door jobs they control, have failed to grasp this this. Philanthropy is fine, but when my concerns, interests and dignity are being taken away and I begin to feel more and more powerless, I am not going to feel happier for it. It’s time to reassert the basic notion that we are all in this together. It isn’t “your money,” when it took all of us working to make your success possible. And if your success is founded on decades of change in favor of the fortunate few, it’s even worse that you alone get to decide how to use it. As Giridharadas puts it at the end, “Where do we go from here?…somewhere other than where we have been going, led by people other than the people who have been leading us.”