Nathaniel Macon and The Way Things Should Be
Nathaniel Macon, whose 250th birthday is December 16, 2008, is an important Founding Father almost unknown these days. Comparing Macon with the politicians of today gives us a benchmark as to how dreadfully far America has degenerated from the principles on which it was founded.
In his time Macon was widely admired by Americans as the perfect model of a republican statesman. By republican I mean republican with a small r. I definitely do not mean the Republican Party, which, from its very beginning, when it stole the name from better people, right up to this minute, has stood for the exact opposite of what Nathaniel Macon meant by republican government.
When North Carolina had occasion in the early 20th century to pick two figures to represent us in the Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, we chose Zeb Vance and Charles Aycock. At the time it was natural to honour Vance who had seen us through the horrible war of conquest waged against us, and Aycock, who removed the last vestiges of Reconstruction. That's understandable, although it overlooked Macon, who might easily qualify as the greatest Tar Heel of all.
Macon was born in 1758 on a plantation in Warren County, where he lived his entire life. He was a student at what is now Princeton when the War of Independence broke out in 1775. He left school and joined the New Jersey militia on active service, and then went home and joined the North Carolina troops. He was offered but refused a commission and he refused also the bounty that was paid for enlisting. He served in the Southern campaigns until he was elected to the General Assembly near the end of the war while he was still in his 20s. In the next few years he was offered a place in the North Carolina delegation to the Continental Congress which he declined. It is noteworthy that his brother John voted against ratification of the new U.S. Constitution in both conventions of the sovereign people of North Carolina to consider that question; and that our State did not ratify until the first ten amendments, especially the Ninth and Tenth, were in place to limit the federal government.
As soon as the U.S. government went into operation, Hamilton and his Yankee friends, claiming that they were acting in behalf of "good government," began to turn the government into a centralised power and a money-making machine for themselves by banks, tariffs, government bonds, and other paper swindles that would be paid for out of the pockets of the farmers, who produced the tangible wealth of the country. To oppose this Macon accepted election to the U.S. House of Representatives for the Second Congress. He served in the House 24 years and the Senate 13 years—representing North Carolina in congress from 1791 to 1828, from the age of 33 to the age of 70 when he retired voluntarily. He was Speaker for six years, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in both the House and Senate, and finally President Pro Tem of the Senate. He received numerous overtures to be a candidate for Vice-President and was twice offered appointments to the Cabinet, all of which he turned down. During all this time he never neglected his duties as justice of the peace and militia officer in Warren County. His last public service was to preside over the North Carolina constitutional convention of 1835, and he died two years later. The city of Macon, Georgia, Randolph-Macon College, and counties in AL, TN, and IL as well as NC were named for him.
During all this time Macon was admired because he never changed from the principles with which he began. What were these principles? The federal government should be tightly bound by the Constitution. It should not tax the people and spend money any more than was absolutely necessary for the things it was entitled to do, nor go into debt, which was just a way to make the taxpayers pay interest to the rich. Eternal vigilance was the price of liberty. Power was always stealing from the many to the few. Office-holders were to be watched closely and kept as directly responsible to the citizens as possible. A few words from Macon in Congress often stopped bills that proposed supposedly attractive measures. It might be nice to pay for everybody to go to college, or to build a fancy temple for the Supreme Court, or to issue bonds for rich people to invest in, or overturn a dictator 5,000 miles away. But the politicians had no right to take away the citizens' earnings for whatever they thought was good. The Constitution told them what they could do.
History showed that the stronger and more centralised a government became the less free were the people. And the richer the government and its politicians and beneficiaries became, the poorer were the people. That was what had always happened, but America, with governments created by the people, had a chance to avoid the bad tendencies of government of the past. As time went on, Macon realised more and more that preserving true republican principles was a losing cause, but in the company of John Randolph and John Taylor he never wavered even when most of his fellow Jeffersonians were willing to yield some ground.
The offices Macon held are not the important thing. Today politicians scramble to get into office so they can have honour and importance as well as make money and flatter their vanity. But Macon, like Washington and Jefferson, was not important and respected because he was elected to office. He was elected to office because he was important and respected. He never campaigned for an office. He never attended a party caucus. He never promised anyone patronage to support him. Macon was elected over and over and revered because of what he was.
John Randolph of Roanoke, literally on his death bed referred to Macon as the wisest man he ever knew. Thomas Jefferson called him "the last of the Romans," and he meant that as a high compliment—that Macon was the model of a selfless patriot and a principled republican. In fact, Macon was more Jeffersonian than Jefferson himself.
The American Founders much admired the heroes of republican Rome—which is why George Washington has a statue in a toga—Roman heroes like Cincinnatus, who was plowing his fields when they came to him and said the republic was in peril. He left, took command of the army, defeated the enemy, and then returned to continue plowing his fields. He sought nothing for himself, only to serve his country and maintain its principles. This was the kind of republican hero that Macon represented to Americans. He valued the respect of his countrymen but had no ambition for profit or glory for himself. It was men ambitious for glory and profit who had subverted freedom throughout history.
A negative opinion of Macon was expressed by President John Quincy Adams in his secret diary. He excoriated Macon for being responsible for defeating many of Adams's schemes for a stronger and more meddlesome federal government. Adams, in the typical Yankee way, thought Macon opposed him only because he was not as smart as Adams himself. This even was written in secret at the same time Adams was trying to persuade Macon to be his Vice President.
Good Americans of the Founding and for several generations thereafter praised the idea of "republican simplicity." A free government of the people did not need the fancy costumes and ceremonies of European courts. This is why Jefferson walked to his inauguration in a plain suit, delivered his state of the Union message in writing rather than preaching to the assembled congressmen like a monarch on a throne, and made his White House social events as informal as possible.
Here is something else important to note about early American history. Genuine Southern aristocrats like Jefferson and Macon believed in government responsible to the people. The Northerners, who had no claim to aristocracy, wanted to use the government to aggrandize themselves. President John Adams rode around in a coach with white horses and insisted on being addressed as "Your Excellency." When Macon was living at ease among his 70 slaves, John Adams was fortifying his house in fear that American mobs might attack him like they were doing in France. Of course, Macon, like all the other Jeffersonians, knew without doubt that Northern attacks on slavery were malicious, counter-productive, and driven by lust for power rather than benevolence.
Here is another interesting fact about the North and the South that never gets into the history books. The history of the Revolution is written as if those who were fighting it were striving to achieve a strong central government for Americans. This is a lie promoted during the 19th century. It was true of some Revolutionary soldiers like Hamilton and Marshall. But it was not true of John Taylor, James Monroe, and St. George Tucker of Virginia, Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens of South Carolina, or James Jackson of Georgia. These and many others had fought the Revolution to get out from under a government that was levying taxes and sending troops and bureaucrats to restrict the liberty and prey on the property of Americans. That did not want to establish a government that had too much power and was too remote from the people. even if it was an American government. And, while New Englanders who had served three inactive months in the militia lined up to claim federal pensions for Revolutionary War service, the Southerners refused to accept money taxed from the people for doing their duty.
Government had to be kept as close to the people as possible. North Carolina in the beginning elected the General Assembly anew each year, and the General Assembly chose the governor for a one-year term. Macon opposed the change to longer terms in the constitutional revision of 1835. You can imagine what he thought about U.S. Senators serving six years and federal judges serving for life. These were no longer responsible to the people. Officials had to be known to the people and reviewed frequently to make sure they were behaving and not exceeding their powers. Politics should not be a profession. Politicians should make their own living just like everyone else. They were just citizens performing temporarily a service who would soon return to private life and live under the laws they had made.
Macon owned much land and many slaves and was a national hero. Yet he lived very simply in a rather remote location—so remote that I confess I once spent half a day driving around Warren County with three different sets of directions and never found it. He attended the Baptist Church accompanied by his slaves. He was buried very unostentatiously. As far as I can find only one portrait was ever painted of him, the one that was customarily made of Speakers of the House.
Nathaniel Macon summed up his philosophy in advice to a young Tar Heel: "Remember, you belong to a meek state and a just people, who want nothing but to enjoy the fruits of their labour honestly and lay out the profits in their own way."
By the end of his life Macon had realised that the cause of republicanism was lost at the federal level, and also that the North was determined to exploit and rule the South. South Carolina tried in 1832 to use "nullification," state interposition, to force the federal government back within the limits of the Constitution. After he read Andrew Jackson's proclamation against South Carolina, Macon told friends that it was too late for nullification. The Constitution was dead. The only recourse was secession—there was nothing left but for the South to get out from under the "Union" and govern itself.
Thirty years later, in the spring of 1861, the North Carolina convention met to ratify secession unanimously. Nathaniel Macon's son-in-law, Weldon N. Edwards, was in the president's chair.
Nathaniel Macon left us a invaluable legacy from which we can learn much about the way things should be.
Entries(RSS)
S.L. Toddard @ 149
As I pointed out in an earlier post here, I believe that slavery was a wicked institution, and so did many loyal Confederates. But just because an evil exists it doesn't mean that you are obliged to turn the world upside-down to root it out. That is why I am just as troubled by extreme anti-abortionists as I am by abolitionists.
You know very well that I never said that slavery was "a noble, virtuous institution." Quite the reverse. What is at issue here is the motivation of those who were willing to send hundreds of thousands of their fellow-countrymen to their deaths just to satisfy their peculiarly New Englandish sense of moral rectitude. Yes, that IS insanity, Mr. Toddard. And if you don't think so, maybe you should see a psychiatrist yourself.
Mr. Toddard,
Its been a long day and you have stood for endurance even when you couldn't stand for something more. Get some rest and we can argue some more after first light in the morning. Some of your requests should be granted in fairness such as names of some of the fruitcakes you seem to be defending and that is only fair. ( Although earlier you said you were defending no abolitionists in particular.) But some of us still work for a living and the hour is late so build a fire and settle in for a while, there is no retreat or quit in anybody that posts over here. We can give it hell again tomorrow. Cheers
If I might somewhat interrupt this thread with a very recent anti-Southern call to arms by Mr. Michael Lind:
"Dec. 18, 2008 | It is just as well that Barack Obama is emulating Abraham Lincoln by traveling to his inauguration in Washington by train. As the regional politics of the automobile bailout controversy demonstrate, the Civil War continues. If the major U.S. automobile companies go under, it will be partly because timely federal aid for them was blocked by members of Congress like Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, whose states have created their own counter-Detroit in the form of Japanese, Korean, and German transplant factories. The South will have risen by bringing down the North. Jefferson Davis will have had his revenge."
Read the rest of the story through the link infra.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/12/18/third_reconstruction/
Not only is the historical Mr. Macon under attack, but so are we his heirs, today!
Good Mr. Roberts @152.
I actually had already linked to the salon article @144. But it appears now LRC also found the same article. Of course, this may all open a can of worms with the more protectionist folks here at Chronicles.
"It is just as well that Barack Obama is emulating Abraham Lincoln by traveling to his inauguration in Washington by train"
I wonder if he will also emulate Lincoln by killing those who won't pay his pet tax.
To Mr. Salemi @150 (Prof Wilson or Dr. Fleming please feel free to respond also):
Why was American slavery a "wicked institution"? One could argue, eg, that it created the conditions whereby a sinful slaveowner could commit multiple wicked offenses in forcing himself upon a slave girl. But otherwise, was it really that awful?
My mother has told me a story (confirmed by her mother, the daughter-in-law) of her paternal grandmother, who lived to an extraordinary age. She was born before the War Between the States, on an ancestral plantation in Louisiana, of which her father (who was actually a French immigrant intellectual married into an old-stock Catholic family) had by that time become the head. To the end of her very long life, my great-grandmother vividly recalled, with that wonderful mnemonic acuity often associated with the memories of middle-childhood, her father after the war telling their somewhat large coterie of Negro slaves that they were free. The slaves' apparent reaction was to set up wailing and "carrying on like something out of the Bible". They literally pleaded, some on bended knee, with my great-great-grandfather NOT to send them away (I guess they were afraid they would be ordered off the land, to set out for God knows where with nothing but their clothes). As the story goes, they continued to live out their lives in pretty much the same situation and occupation as under slavery, I believe into the twentieth century.
The point, if it's not obvious, is that any institution that, when radically overturned, would produce that kind of reaction can hardly be classified as "wicked", at least if compared to most other slave regimes in history, let alone the cruel totalitarian tyrannies of modern times, whether Communist, Nazi, or Fascist, or the just plain tribal butcheries sprinkled throughout the modern Third World, nowhere more so than in "oppressed Africa". Communist slaves died trying to reach freedom in the West; countless millions (or more) outside of the West have been tortured, ritually slaughtered, even cannibalized under abhorrent forms of (mis)rule, from Assyrian and Aztec up to Idi Amin and Milton Obote and "Emperor" Bokassa. THERE was wickedness.
Indeed, some 15 years ago, if memory serves, the brilliant Austro-libertarian Hans-Hermann Hoppe published a little piece in CHRONICLES comparing, via dispassionate social science, the regimes of American Negro slavery and Eastern European Communist slavery, in terms of the negative effects of each upon their slave-subjects. After examining comparative data on life expectancies and fertility, Hoppe concluded that communism was more onerous than the life of slaves in the Old South. I would add that American slavery, being managed by whites, that is, members of the world's most ethical and altruistic race, who themselves were, furthermore, as a culture, steeped in Christianity (and were as a group far more serious and sincere in their religiosity than most of us today), was probably the most, or one of the most, humane slave systems that ever existed. There are literally innumerable instances in the historical literature of slaves who exhibited tremendous affection for their masters - and vice versa.
No, this nonsense about the wickedness of American slavery is merely the outgrowth of contemporary attitudes being applied ex post facto to a very different past - a kind of "historian's fallacy".
And none of what I said even addresses the far more brutally "politically incorrect" issue of whether blacks were not better off under slavery than they would have been had they remained in Africa. Certainly their descendants are (while whites, of course, are much ...).
@150
"As I pointed out in an earlier post here, I believe that slavery was a wicked institution, and so did many loyal Confederates. But just because an evil exists it doesn’t mean that you are obliged to turn the world upside-down to root it out. That is why I am just as troubled by extreme anti-abortionists as I am by abolitionists."
Mr Salemi, this is my point - not all abolitionists were "extreme abolitionists", just as not all pro-lifers are extremist. And even then, though, even the worst of the extreme abolitionists were motivated by moral conviction - however overzealous one might believe it to be - rather than a lust for power. And I said it earlier in the thread and will reiterate it now: I *personally* believe that were slavery allowed to die a natural death it would have come within decades, and that the misery that caused the slaves themselves would have been off-set by the greater ease with which they would have been able to enter society as free men after the institution expired, and would have lessened the harshness of the world to which their free sons and daughters would have been born, that is to say those extra decades of toil and hardship would have saved their descendants generations of misery.
"You know very well that I never said that slavery was “a noble, virtuous institution.” Quite the reverse."
You are correct and my inference was off-base. I apologize. I was hyperbolizing, I suppose, to counter the hyperbolic implication that all abolitionists - or even most - were "crazy".
"What is at issue here is the motivation of those who were willing to send hundreds of thousands of their fellow-countrymen to their deaths just to satisfy their peculiarly New Englandish sense of moral rectitude."
There is nothing whatsoever "peculiar" about believing slavery to be a wicked, evil institution. There is nothing "peculiar" about wanting to end such an institution. And I disagree that Northerners sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers to their deaths to rectify or avenge that evil - I don't believe most Union were fighting to free the slaves, they were fighting to retain territory.
@ 151
"Some of your requests should be granted in fairness such as names of some of the fruitcakes you seem to be defending and that is only fair. ( Although earlier you said you were defending no abolitionists in particular.)"
That's not really what I'm asking for. I understand that there were abolitionists who were zealots and firebrands whose rhetoric would seem irrational. Providing their quotes doesn't demonstrate that they exemplify the greater body of the movement. Regardless, though, my main contention is simply that these people - the firebrands as well as the more run-of-the-mill abolitionists - were motivated primarily by moral conviction. Whether one finds that moral conviction misguided, ill-founded and irrational (like many of you) or well-founded and righteous (me) is a different argument entirely. It's one we can have, but I don't think it will be very constructive.
And cheers right back atcha. I indeed had the fireplace roaring - it's absolutely frigid New England weather we're dealing with up here now, and is supposed to start snowing around 9AM today, and accumulate 2 inches per hour. By the time I leave work we could have a foot of snow on the ground. I think we can all agree that THAT is an abomination!
@148
"Yes many of the people here are protectionist. Clyde Wilson and a few others, are not. I too am not. Buchanan in an economic nationalist, and I think that is silly.
President Davis spoke of “…freest trade which our necessities will permit.” Well, that principle has helped them in this crisis. Like it or not, the hyper-unionism has not helped Detroit one bit."
Oh I agree on that count - the unions have done their damage as well. But supposing a fair agreement vis a vis wages and benefits could be reached - one you yourself found acceptable and reasonable. American manufacturers would still be at a disadvantage, as it would still be more costly for them to produce autos than it would in Asia or Mexico, and to compete here in America they would need to cut corners and sacrifice on quality (as they do now). How would it not be better to - and I loathe using this phrase - "level the playing field" in favor of American manufacturing and the American men who earn their living there? To keep more of that wealth within our borders, instead of exporting that wealth and those jobs overseas to third world foreigners?
I understand the general free-market arguments but I think they hold for commerce *within* the U.S. I cannot see an argument for why our trade policy should benefit other nations more than us ourselves. Have we benefited from shipping our manufacturing base overseas? Surely the mass exportation of wealth and jobs and industry has hurt rather than harmed us, no?
#154 - Leon Haller, "I would add that American slavery, being managed by whites, that is, members of the world’s most ethical and altruistic race,...' I must assume you are joking, right? Other than it having the fetid odor of racist propaganda, how does enslaving human beings reflect altruism and ethics?
Mr Meng - Mr Haller is a white supremacist. I don't mean that as an epithet - he's an actual white supremacist/white nationalist, Stormfront type.
Mr. Meng:
Why would you think I was joking? Isn't it obvious that whites are the most generous of races? Who else rushes around the world feeding the hungry, beggaring itself to fight disease in Africa, worrying over human rights in the Punjab, leading the world in the fight to preserve the biosphere less tarnished or denuded for future generations? Which race ended the immemoriable institution of slavery? To all these and so much more, ONLY THE WHITE RACE. Obviously we are ethically superior.
Indeed, which race is the only race which is NOT ethnocentric, which literally persecutes its best patriotic sons in order NOT to offend the ludicrous hypersensitivities of 'minorities'? Which race is willing to commit territorial suicide rather than deport even illegal aliens? Which is the only race whose constituent nations even accept racially alien immigrants? ONLY THE WHITE RACE. (Perhaps you've never read Sam Francis in CHRONICLES.)
Our virtue is our vice. Our altruism is killing us. This is a fact, not debatable or arguable in any way. The white race is going extinct (probably to the great joy of an Asiatic-surnamed leftist like you) because we are too ethical to survive - or more precisely, over the past half-century we have been ideologically reconstructed to believe justice requires our not resisting our own demographic death. That this "anti-racism" is even more theologically suspect than the idiotic contention above that Christianity and slavery were/are incompatible (Sam disproved that hoary lie), has not yet reduced its stranglehold over the contemporary Western mind. But some of us are working on it, and growing stronger and bolder ...
Finally, reread my post. You obviously have low reading comprehension. I did not say slavery reflects altruism, but rather that whites' superior, biologically evolved altruism (supplemented by Christianity) would have made slavery in the Old South more humane than other forms of slavery throughout history. Perhaps Prof. Wilson would care to elaborate on that point ...
As for Mr. Toddard @ 159: I have nothing to do with Stormfront, and I have elsewhere noted that there exists a difference between racial conservatism (to which I adhere) and racial nationalism - let alone racial supremacism. But I'm curious: in a/the nation founded and built by whites, what precisely is wrong with white supremacism? And how do you define it anyway?
Toddard,
After "sleeping on it", on all that we had discussed yesterday, I awoke with the strange feeling that I had been duped into riding into one of the oldest kinds of traps, the box canyon --- or what the acncients described as "attempting the last word with a woman." If this is true, and I now believe it is, I am finished with this thread and would have surrendered much earlier if I had known. Perhaps we will meet again on another thread and another subject much wiser to the ways of the world we both inhabit. Thanks for staying in the fight and my regards to Dr. Wilson for all that he is and does for the people, the things and country he loves. Long live Macon in the minds of men !!!
Robert, I'm not sure what you're talking about, there was no trap or ruse or any such thing in anything I wrote or said. I've stated perhaps a dozen times what my chief objections were to the piece itself, i.e. that it reduces the conflict between and history of the North and South to the sort of black and white, Good Guy Bad Guy narrative one usually finds in professional wrestling or comic books. Nothing more.
"Which race ended the immemoriable institution of slavery? To all these and so much more, ONLY THE WHITE RACE. Obviously we are ethically superior."
Note that Mr Haller, like a good abolitionist, considers the eradication of slavery a moral and ethical good, and proof of ethical superiority.
One wonders, is Mr Toddard constantly watching this thread, waiting for the next post in reply to him? I've read through 161 posts and learnt nothing from Toddard, but a few things from the other responders. Toddard is a waste of time. Dont worry about him, it's not worth it.
Perhaps some more elaboration or actual discussion of Macon or other lesser known heroes of the revolution or of colonial times would be time better spent. Since Macon is horribly, disgustingly stained with the unwashable, stinking, filthy, odorous, putrid, repulsive, black stain of slavery, perhaps we could choose another? Not necessarily a Southern hero, or even an Anglo-Saxon one. Surely we could respect William Penn regardless of his Quakerism (members of the Penn family owned slaves, so maybe not). Anyone here wish to criticise John Peter Zenger, or could we possibly learn something useful about him without getting so sidetracked?
Personally, I would like to hear about the Swamp Fox, or Light Horse Harry Lee (an ancestor served under him), but then I would be showing my unforgivable Southern bigotry in making such a suggestion, and be admitting that I hold slavery quite dear in my heart and just long to lash out with a long whip at anyone or any poor creature I could put at my evil mercy, at least until the righteous abolitionists show up and put an end to my wickedness, and maybe they can do that before I molest some poor slave girl with my sick lusts.
Mr. Allen Wilson has said it perfectly. Stoddard, if that is his name, has wasted more than enough of our time. Let us close this for good. Perhaps I will be inspired to treat one or two other neglected Founders in future.
@ 164 Allen Wilson
“One wonders, is Mr Toddard constantly watching this thread, waiting for the next post in reply to him? I’ve read through 161 posts and learnt nothing from Toddard”
Indeed Mr Wilson you have not, if you somehow inferred that I believe “Macon is horribly, disgustingly stained with the unwashable, stinking, filthy, odorous, putrid, repulsive, black stain of slavery”, or that this was my point. To whit:
“I respect and admire Nathaniel Macon and don’t believe his owning slaves need mitigate that admiration.”
“I don’t believe any discussion of Jefferson, Madison or Washington need contain a condemnation of or apology for slavery.”
“I do not think that makes all slave-owners immoral, or slave-ownership itself inherently immoral - back then. It’s unfair, I think, to project our values backward in time onto people who lived centuries ago. I’m not convinced one can fault a man for living in his time, with the mores of his people and the knowledge available, and acting accordingly.”
“I’m not using slavery to make the case that Macon was anything less than a hero and patriot - I don’t believe he was less than a hero or patriot.”
And here the point I was making, repeated so many times the only excuse for failing to grasp it is an obtuseness feigned so that one might revel in perpetual victimhood while flamboyantly posing as a defender of one's heroes against an attack against them that never happened:
“it’s not slavery I’m opposing here, it’s the reduction, the simplification, of history into a Good Vs Evil narrative, always with the narrator’s side (shocker!) being The Good.”
“replacing one false narrative for another is no way to correct a record.”
“I merely object to painting all yankees - the elite, farmers, minutemen, layabouts, sincere and disingenuous - always with the same brush as scoundrels and liars and usurpers.”
“And “all of this” is not “from praising a great American and true patriot”, it is from *maligning* and *defaming* other American patriots to aggrandize the subject of this piece.”
“my issue was his claim that abolitionists were primarily motivated by maliciousness and a “lust for power” rather than moral indignation.”
“I object to the reduction of the history of the pre-WBTS and WBTS America to a Good Guy/Bad Guy narrative, where the blemish-free, wholly noble, innocent and valiant Heroes battled the wholly ignoble, dishonest, villanous Scoundrels. It is the exact same narrative put for by Lincoln worshippers and Union partisans with the roles reversed, and it is equally, in my opinion, representative of the truth.”
“there are myriad legitimate arguments to be made to rectify the wrong done to the South by historians, and to elucidate the history of South in such a way as to dispel the myths widely held about it, and to put in their rightful place her sons and heroes. “Northerners are all malicious, unpatriotic moneygrubbers” isn’t it.”
“I’ve stated perhaps a dozen times what my chief objections were to the piece itself, i.e. that it reduces the conflict between and history of the North and South to the sort of black and white, Good Guy Bad Guy narrative one usually finds in professional wrestling or comic books. Nothing more.”
Does anyone remain confused, still, about the point I was making, what my objection was, and whether I consider American heroes unfit for reverence based on the idea that their honor is “stained” by slavery?
Professor Wilson #165 I am looking forward to your articles!
Leon T. Haller @ 160
No, I read you right, my reading comprehension is excellent; and what I read of your written thoughts is a crackpot theory to justify chattel slavery as it occurred in the South. Your main claim is that altruism and ethics are natural to the white race -- "...whites' superior, biologically evolved altruism" is what you wrote -- when you have given no proof whatsoever of this claim. At the same time, it seems quite logical, that if your claim were true, then slavery could not possibly have ever existed among the white race throughout history.
Of course, there are historical examples that can be served up which certainly repudiate your claim. Ever since the Protestant Revolt, the white man has been engaged in ever increasingly horrible wars over nothing, i.e., that is territory or power or economic advantage. Can we blame the blacks, the Hispanics, the Red Indian, or even Asiatics for the Wars of Succession of the 18th century; or the bloodbath of the French Revolution and its consequent wars; or the violent injustices committed against the Red Indian for the sake of gold or land or other natural resources; or, what non-white race brought on the War between the States; whose altruism instigated the horrific wars of the twentieth century? And what about those 6 white justices of the Supreme Court, plus one black justice, who foisted upon this nation the sophisms in the Roe v Wade decision which has led to the slaughter of 50 million preborn human beings? This historical sketch doesn't show me any general altruism or ethics predominating in the white race.
Oh, by the way, Meng is a Swiss name.
Clyde Wilson says "Perhaps I will be inspired to treat one or two other neglected Founders in future."
We can only hope, Dr. Wilson that it is sooner rather than later. There are not very many like you left in our country. The situation with Stoddard is not that "he" is wasting time, rather it is "she" is wasting eternity on "her" moral convictions. The problem is perrenial and is always the gordian knot for any man who has attempted to argue to some conclusion with an irritated woman. But as you say, and as we all will learn some day, enough is enough. Thanks and God Bless.
Leon T. Haller @ 154
In the matter of slavery, I follow the opinion of Orestes Brownson, the 19th-century Roman Catholic writer who argued that slavery was an evil for both the slave and the slave-owner: in the case of the first, because it deprived him of his liberty, property, and free choice in many matters; and in the second because it allowed him to act out his worst proclivities as a fallen human being (you mention this when you allude to the abuse of young slave-girls). Both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas believed slavery to be evil, but being sensible men, they realized that it was a part of the human condition and could not be eradicated.
And in fact slavery exists today -- "the thing but not the name", as that very astute Southern senator put it. In the economic conditions of contemporary life, many persons are essentially slaves to their employers, their health-care plans, their union pension funds, their colleagues at work, and of course to the ultimate Simon Legree with a whip -- our hideous and out-of-control Federal Government.
This doesn't mean that we had to have a Civil War to destroy the "peculiar institution." Toddard himself seems to agree with that. That horrid war embittered the South forever, fostered the worst sort of race hate, turned the government over lock, stock, and barrel to rapacious capitalism and industrialism, and made "Yankee" synonymous with "American."
Revilo P. Oliver himself said that very strong moral arguments could be made against slavery. He himself felt, as Brownson did, that slavery was a bad idea for slave-owners as well as slaves. But he made a brilliant point when he added that he didn't think the lives of single company of brave young men from Minnesota, Vermont, Georgia, Texas or any other state were worth paying to give some accusatory abolitionist fanatic in Boston the satisfaction of feeling morally superior.
I should also mention, in this connection, Aquinas's views on prostitution. Naturally as a Christian he felt that it was sinful. But he also said that it was necessary for society, just like a sewer system.
Leon T. Haller again
Let me add that the information passed down to you by your older family members is absolutely relevant to this entire argument. Any institution -- no matter how objectively evil -- can be made less onerous and less inhumane by the inherent good will and kindness of those who administer it. I am sure that you are totally correct about the comparative mildness of slavery in the American South as compared to the kind of butchery and mindless cruelty that has marked modern totalitarian states.
Dr. Wilson @165
I nominate John Taylor of Caroline or perhaps even Albert Gallatin, the supposed actual target of Mr. Adam's Alien & Sedition Acts.
@171, You know, Joseph, you sound like, not that you are, be assured of that, but in #171 you sound like a sycophant.
@ 173
I think "sycophant" might be a bit strong, but I'd like to point out to Mr Salemi that a hallmark of the absolute worst totalitarian societies is the use of slave labor. The use of slave labor at concentration camps and gulags are a great part of why civilized people consider the Nazi and Soviet regimes as among the most monstrous in the history of the world. Slavery - much like human sacrifice amongst the Gauls, cannibalism amongst the tribal peoples of the south seas, or pederasty in ancient Greece - could be considered excusable when practiced amongst people who knew no better. Now, however, we do know better, and appropriately find these sorts of practices - slavery, pederasty, human sacrifice, cannibalism - to be repellant. But as I said it is unfair to project modern, civilized morality backward in time to apply it to slavers, pederasts, cannibals and the like.
@174, possibly, you are correct with regard to my labeling Mr. Salemi a "sycophant". More likely, the word "homage" or "deference" would better describe what I think he was manifesting in # 171.
Slavery was and always has been a Northern institution.
The slave-trade was conducted only by Northern ships from Africa to Brazil and the Caribbean in the Triangular Trade. Northern slavers brought slaves to the South. Northern slavers forbade the South from ending slavery when it, several times, tried to abolish it. Northern slavers profited more from Southern farms than the South did. Northerners persecuted Southerners because white worked side by side black in the fields. Northern slavers built Northern industry from slavery's profits. The North became the dominant section of the continent from slavery's profits. Northern slavers continued to ply slaves long after the trade was abolished. When the cost of maintaining slaves became more expensive than hiring laborers, the North started a war to keep the whole South, black and white, in perpetual grey slavery.
The whole model today of society, centrally controlled by high finance over a population utterly dependent on corporate employment and loans, is that of universal grey slavery.
Whereas the old Southern economy was a model of independent yeoman farmers, living free on the land with no power between them and God.
#174
Have you read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich? I think you'll find that life in a Soviet Gulag differs in kind, not in degree, from life on a plantation in the American South. Further, as you are certainly aware, the Soviets and Nazis executed millions in these camps. This is NOT comparable in any substantial way to American slavery. Slaves were provided with food and shelter, and they were generally able to preserve a strong family structure, as well as religious and community identity. In other words, slaves, unlike those unfortunate enough to end up in Siberia or Auschwitz, were secured of life and able to retain their humanity through the preservation of family and faith.
"What I don’t feel the need for is any more animosity on this tragedy unless it is directed against the old elite from New England."
Jon I.
I still feel a need for animosity directed against Roth for sending his bastard childe Belmont to these shores.
I think he was in Cuba first, but if anyone tried to have him killed, he failed to the curse of this nation.
"Toddard" can't tell the difference between domestic servitude in the Bible and the Old South and enslavement of free people by governments. There was no barbed wire and guard towers on the plantation. This is a fairly typical half-educated American proclivity for names rather than things.
Enough, enough, enough.
"“Toddard” can’t tell the difference between domestic servitude in the Bible and the Old South and enslavement of free people by governments. There was no barbed wire and guard towers on the plantation."
This is a fairly typical half-educated American proclivity for confusing differences with distinctions. As though the absence of barbed wire and guard towers is in any way significant.
No, the distinction between the two is that 20th century Germans and Russians should have known better. It is the ignorance of American slave-drivers that prevents them from being considered monsters - as does the ignorance of the ancient gauls, the ancient Greeks and the cannibals of the south seas - not the window dressing, as though bullwhips and slave-pens are somehow preferable to guard-towers and barbed wire. As I've said it is unfair to project 20th Century morality backwards on 19th, 18th, 17th century Americans.
Here is nearly poetic irony - in my above post, when meaning to point out that Dr Wilson's argument demonstrated a "proclivity for confusing distinctions with differences", I then proceeded to use "distinction" in place of "difference", and *literally* confuse the two.
So, feel free, my good opponents, to mark that as a score against me.
That post *should* have read:
““Toddard” can’t tell the difference between domestic servitude in the Bible and the Old South and enslavement of free people by governments. There was no barbed wire and guard towers on the plantation.”
This is a fairly typical half-educated American proclivity for confusing distinctions with differences. As though the absence of barbed wire and guard towers is in any way significant.
No, the difference between the two is that 20th century Germans and Russians should have known better. It is the ignorance of American slave-drivers that prevents them from being considered monsters - as does the ignorance of the ancient gauls, the ancient Greeks and the cannibals of the south seas - not the window dressing, as though bullwhips and slave-pens are somehow preferable to guard-towers and barbed wire. As I’ve said it is unfair to project 20th Century morality backwards on 19th, 18th, 17th century Americans.
Unless Toddard either finds a coherent historical argument or lapses into dignified silence, I shall have to ask the webmaster to close off this discussion. In reading many tedious posts, I have yet to see on argument, Christian or otherwise, that supports the contention that slavery is per se immoral. Toddard obviously believes that modern liberals have discovered some moral truth unknown either to Aristotle or St. Paul, but what he/she cannot apparently do is explain why a Christian or a conservative should accept his newfangled religion. He/she is a perfect example of something I heard this morning on the radio. Tom Cruise was being interviewed about his new movie on the plot to kill Hitler, and poor Mr. Cruise was trying to explain how strange he found the German acceptance of Naziism. "I'm an American, and I was raised [sic--and with good reason] to have the ability to think for myself." That is obviously how he came to be a Scientologist. What is the difference between this poor ignorant actor who thinks he is capable of thinking for himself and people like Toddard? Beats me. Sorry, Clyde, that you have had to endure this. I admire your patience.
"I have yet to see on (sic) argument, Christian or otherwise, that supports the contention that slavery is per se immoral."
It violates the ethics of reciprocity, the most basic and fundamental rule of morality, as expressed by Christ Himself in Matthew 7:12. I've made that argument a number of times in this discussion, so your failure to "see" it is, to me, baffling. I should rather assume you actively *choose* to not see it, being incapable of formulating a logical riposte, or perhaps you did see it and are merely dishonest. I'll leave it to you to tell us which.
"What is the difference between this poor ignorant actor who thinks he is capable of thinking for himself and people like Toddard?"
You mean people like Toddard, Thomas Jefferson, and General Robert E. Lee, both of whom also believed slavery immoral. Tell us, TJF, do you believe the similarities between Scientologist Tom Cruise, General Robt E. Lee and Thomas Jefferson end at what you perceive to be the profound ignorance of these three men, and their shared lack of a true comprehension of Christian morality, or do you believe it goes deeper than that?
J. Meng @ 173 and 175
Is it sycophantic to say that someone has made a good point? You had better check your dictionary, Meng.
And by the way -- are you ever going to answer that question I asked you about Pope John Paul II? You know him, of course: Pontifex Maximus, Vicarius Christi, et Servus Servorum Dei.
S. L. Toddard @ 181
"20th century Germans and Russians should have known better..."
"it is unfair to project 20th century morality backwards.."
Here, in a nutshell, is the biopsy slide we needed to analyze Toddard's mentality and rhetorical motives. He believes that only a certain type of thinking is appropriate or allowable to moderns, and anything that goes against that orthodoxy is verboten. This is a textbook example of unconscious Whiggery.
Who the hell are you, Toddard, to say what twentieth-century people "should" believe, or "ought" to believe? Why come here and insult serious scholars like Dr. Fleming and Dr. Wilson over the fact that they see things in a heterodox way? You are, in fact, a moral totalitarian, just like that loathsome creep Harry V. Jaffa, who has spent his life worshipping Lincoln, and who refuses to allow anyone to think differently on the subject.
And you are also just like those lunatic abolitionists, who insisted that their moral position be carved into America's flesh, and who couldn't tolerate anyone thinking differently below the Mason-Dixon line.
@184: Mr. Joseph Salemi, yes, as I was cautioned by S. L. Toddard, the use of sycophant was a bit strong, and for that I apologize and as you noticed, I did scale it down.
As to your demand for an answer to your question about John Paul II, I can only answer you this, if he was a true pope, he was a very sorry pope. Take it or leave it, Joseph. It really doesn't matter to me.
@182: Dr. Fleming, there is an excellent article explaining the Christian contention that slavery is immoral:
http://catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0006.html.
@183: S. L. Toddard, well, I for one have enoyed and appreciated your polite attempt, and erudite attempt (it seems to me), to have Dr. Wilson moderate his blanket condemnation of the motive of northern abolitionists as only a "malicious lust for power" in opposing slavery. In seeking what truth can be sifted from the historical record, it seems incumbent upon the one who makes a claim, but is opposed by a request for evidence, should provide the evidence. Why hide it? And, if there is no evidence, then the claim should be redefined as a subjective interpretation, which is most likely unhistorical. You have defended your point, well.
It seems S.L Toddard learned about slavery from Neil Young.
"Who the hell are you, Toddard, to say what twentieth-century people “should” believe, or “ought” to believe?"
Oh I would never presume to do that. I was merely commenting on what civilized persons in the 20th (and now 21st) century *do* believe. They *do* believe slavery of the sort that was practiced in America before the 13th Amendment is immoral. That is why it is illegal in every civilized nation in the world, and indeed in nearly every nation period. It is almost literally universally agreed upon that slavery is immoral. There is not one major Christian denomination or sect whether Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican or otherwise that now defends slavery as moral and consistent with the teachings of Christ. Now, perhaps you know something that all the churches in Christendom do not. If so I'm sure they'd like to hear it - and I would too.
But again, this is besides the point - or at least besides mine. This argument about slavery was started and is being maintained by other people - I merely keep getting dragged back into it. My point, as I think I've made clear, was about the reduction of history to a comic bookish Good Vs Evil narrative with the two sides starkly contrasted in black and white. I only mentioned slavery in my first post to demonstrate how that simplistic narrative does not reflect reality.
An apology - had I known "TJF" was Dr Fleming I would have written Dr Fleming. I only used those initials because it was all I had, having infrequently delved into the comments sections before, not because I was treating him like a brother at some vulgar fraternity.
My apologies, Dr Fleming.
Mr. Toddard, this has grown redundant. Simply agree to disagree and leave it at that.
@189: Daniel Maxwell, Sir, this issue has only become redundant, because those who Mr. Toddard has requested evidence have failed to do so; instead, they have vilified him for his "presumption" to question a "god" of history, who has made a general claim without any benefit of evidence. The excessiveness is on the part of those who made the claim in the first place. Get your facts straight.
Sorry, S. L. Toddard, for barging in where you are more than capable of defending your position. I'm going out to take a walk in the snow covered streets and cool off.
Good idea Meng and while you are at it why don't you take a walk for a season with the migrant workers who pick your fruits and vegetables for a living. Most "conservative "conversations in America were taken over by kids a long time ago and you silly sweethearts on this thread thumping your chests about slavery amd southerners are a great example of good people going silly in a shouting match. God Bless you though I know you and Toddard mean well and it isn't that what you are saying is dishonest it is just incomplete. Also what ever became of the old Christian idea of respecting your elders even if in the modern imagination they are not your betters ? Not one jot or tiitle should pass away .... And if anyone should teach these little ones,,, they should have a millstone tied aroung the neck ... Pompous Asses are we all !!!
No apology necessary, and thank you Mr Meng. It's nice to know someone has both read and understood what I've written.
This thread needs a mercy killing.
The demand to present "evidence" on the vast slavery question in a short article about a Founding Father is ridiculous and can only be clever sabotage. In fact, in my presentation I was quite properly describing and paraphrasing Macon's views. "Toddard" is a good exhibition of the tactics of the more sneaking and less crazy type of leftist deceiver. While completely dominating discourse and suppressing all disagreement, they are quick to denounce lack of "balance" when a hint of a different perspective peaks through.
"The demand to present “evidence” on the vast slavery question in a short article about a Founding Father is ridiculous and can only be clever sabotage."
Strawman. I wasn't asking for "evidence" on the "vast slavery question", I was asking you to back up the hyperbolic claims that abolitionists in general were motivated by a lust for power (as opposed to moral indignation), and that yankees cared not for liberty but only for "making a quick buck off the government" (paraphrased). I didn't expect any evidence to really be proffered, since there isn't any. I was trying to demonstrate that these claims were *inaccurate* - that they were simply wrong, and that they would be more at home in a propaganda piece than a purportedly historical article.
"they are quick to denounce lack of “balance” when a hint of a different perspective peaks through."
Another strawman. I was denouncing a lack of accuracy, I was denouncing sweeping, unsound generalizations, but I never mentioned "balance" and specifically addressed - to you - why I don't believe "balance" of the sort you're talking about now is warranted. Strawmen, ad-hominem ("sneaking", "half-educated" etc) - who's acting like a "leftist" here? In the grand scheme of things, Dr Wilson, there is very, very little about which you and I disagree. I am no more of a "leftist" than you are.
That's the last I'll say about any of this unless I get dragged back in. I apologize for the disruptions. I thought this section was where readers could come to discuss - and, yes, even disagree about - the pieces here. Perhaps it might help to avoid any further unpleasantness if Chronicles were to change the title of this section from "Comments" to "Praises" or "Acclamations" or "Huzzahs and Hurrahs" or some such thing.
This is obvious, Dr. Wilson.
The North ran the slave trade.
That's what the Triangular Trade was, from New England to the Gold Coast to Brazil and back to New England, three points of the Triangle, selling rum for slaves for sugar for rum.
All Northern industry was built on the profits from slavery, profits from both introducing slavery to new lands and from the entire plantation economy, especially cotton. Northern rum distilleries and cotton mills became the foundation for Northern industry. The profits from slaves, rum, cotton, and shipping everything to and from the South became the foundation for Northern finance.
The South several times proposed to end slavery for good, but the Northeast blocked each proposal.
Even after the war against the South when hundreds of thousands were killed, raped, burned, and tortured, the blacks were kept working on plantations under conditions unheard of before. Tens of thousands died. And the new system of debt slavery, built on the profits of the Northern slave trade, became universal.
And at the time of Adams, New Englanders were no more serious about ending slavery than they were about mass seppuku. Obviously.
Dr. Wilson should not have to explain fundamental historical facts that every educated adult should already know. Maybe Toddard should pull out a junior high history book and read up on the Triangular Trade.
@197 - PcH, this is just an academic question for my own information. I address the question not only to PcH, but to Dr. Wilson, and to any other commentator on this site. Granted that Northerners were involved in the slave trade, as well as Britain and Holland; where was the major market in the British North American colonies for these slaves; who bought the slaves; who exploited them for personal profit?