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Shays'
Rebellion Indicates the Need for a New Constitution
(1786)
George Washington (1732-1799)
One of the key events
that led to the 1787 Constitutional Convention was a
series of uprisings by Massachusetts farmers in 1786
and 1787 that became known as Shays’ Rebellion.
Faced with a combination of bad harvests, a
shortage of hard currency, and heavy taxes
(instituted in part to payoff Revolutionary War
debts), farmers were threatened with the loss of
their farms and imprisonment for failure to pay
debts and taxes. Many farmers, after failing to
convince the state legislature to enact debt relief
measures, resorted to mob action to shut down local
courts and intimidate local authorities. Daniel
Shays, a former Revolutionary War army officer,
began training a group of farmers in military drills
and became the symbolic leader of the insurrection.
The Massachusetts government raised a strong militia
force that crushed the rebellion in battles in
January and February of 1787. News of Shays'
Rebellion spread throughout the states and was used
by many as evidence that a new constitution creating
a stronger national government was needed. One
important figure to draw this conclusion was George
Washington. Having resigned as general of the
Continental Army in 1783, Washington was officially
retired from public life. But he was disturbed by
events in Massachusetts and elsewhere that suggested
that the new nation he had helped to create would
founder without a stronger government.
Washington expressed these views in several letters
to friends and associates, including a November
5,1786, letter to fellow Virginian James Madison. In
his letter to Madison, reprinted below, Washington
refers to a letter from Henry Knox, one of
Washington's generals during the Revolution, which
described the situation in Massachusetts as a
serious one.
 What
concerns does Washington express about the future of
the nation? What does he find most disturbing about
the disturbances in Massachusetts and the beliefs of
the people leading them?
My dear Sir:
I thank you for the communications in your letter of
the first instt. The decision of the [Virginia]
House on the question respecting a paper emission
[issuing of paper money], is portentous I hope, of
an auspicious Session. It may certainly be. classed
among the important questions of the present day;
and merited the serious consideration of the
Assembly. Fain would I hope, that the great, and
most important of all objects, the federal governmt.,
may be considered with that calm and deliberate
attention which the magnitude of it so loudly calls
for at this critical moment. Let prejudices,
unreasonable jealousies, and local interest yield to
reason and liberality. Let us look to our National
character, and to things beyond the present period.
No mom ever dawned more favourably than ours did;
and no day was ever more clouded than the present!
Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time
to rescue the political machine from the impending
storm. Virginia has now an opportunity to set the
latter, and has enough of the former, I hope, to
take the lead in promoting this great and arduous
work. Without some alteration in our political
creed, the superstructure we have been seven years
raising at the expene of so much blood and treasure,
must fall. We are fast verging to anarchy and
confusion! A letter which I have just received from
Genl Knox, who had just returned from Massachusetts
(whither he had been sent by Congress consequent of
the commotion in that State) is replete with
melancholy information of the temper, and designs of
a considerable part of that people. Among other
things he says, there creed is, that the property of
the United States, has been protected from
confiscation of Britain by the joint exertions of
all, and therefore ought to be the common property
of all. And he that attempts opposition to this
creed is an enemy to equity and justice, and ought
to be swept from off the face of the Earth.
Again:
They are determined to annihilate all debts public
and private, and have Agrarian Laws, which are
easily effected by the means of unfunded paper money
which shall be a tender in all cases whatever.
He adds:
The numbers of these people amount in Massachusetts
to about one fifth part of several populous
Counties, and to them may be collected, people of
similar sentiments from the States of Rhode Island,
Connecticut, and New Hampshire, so as to constitute
a body of twelve or fifteen thousand desperate, and
unprincipled men. They are chiefly of the young and
active part of the Community.
How melancholy is the
reflection, that in so short a space, we should have
made such large strides towards fulfilling the
prediction of our transatlantic foe! "Leave them to
themselves, and their government will soon
dissolve." Will not the wise and good strive hard to
avert this evil? Or will their supineness suffer
ignorance, and the arts of self-interested designing
disaffected and desperate characters, to involve
this rising empire in wretchedness and contempt?
What stronger evidence can be given of the want of
energy in our governments than these disorders? If
there exists not a power to check them, what
security has a man for life, liberty, or property?
To you, I am sure I need not add aught on this
subject, the consequences of a lax, or inefficient
government, are too obvious to be dwelt on. Thirteen
Sovereignties pulling against each other, and all
tugging at the federal head will soon bring ruin on
the whole; whereas a liberal, and energetic
Constitution, well guarded and closely watched, to
prevent encroachments, might restore us to that
degree of respectability and consequence, to which
we had a fair claim, and the brightest prospect of
attaining. With sentiments of the sincerest esteem
etc.
The Threat
Posed By Shays' Rebellion Has Been Exaggerated
(1787)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
In the years following the American Revolution,
many impoverished farmers in several states resorted
to mob violence in an effort to attain debt and tax
relief. Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1786
was one of the most serious of these insurrections.
Many political leaders throughout America looked
upon such events with alarm, believing them evidence
that America was falling apart. Thomas Jefferson
presents a different view of Shays' Rebellion in
two letters reprinted in part here. Jefferson-the
author of the Declaration of Independence and a
future president of the United States-was at the
time of this writing U.S. minister to France. In
the first letter, written to Edward Carrington on
January 16, 1787, Jefferson maintains that the
respect for America among European governments has
not been diminished by events in Massachusetts, and
he compares favorably the independent state of
people in America with the situation in Europe. In
the second letter, written to James Madison on
January 30, Jefferson argues that occasional
rebellions are necessary to preserve free
government.
What
is the proper relationship between the people and
government, according to Jefferson? How do his views
on the meaning and significance of Shays' Rebellion
compare with those of George Washington, author of
the opposing viewpoint?
The tumults in America I expected would have
produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our
political state. But it has not. On the contrary,
the small effect of these tumults seems to have
given more confidence in the firmness of our
governments. The interposition of the people
themselves on the side of government has had a great
effect on the opinion here. I am persuaded myself
that the good sense of the people will always be
found to be the best army They may be led astray for
a moment, but will soon correct themselves.
Inform the People
The people are the only censors of their governors;
and even their errors will tend to keep these to the
true principles of their institution. To punish
these errors too severely would be to suppress the
only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to
prevent these irregular interpositions of the people
is to give them full information of their affairs
through the channel of the public papers, and to
contrive that those papers should penetrate the
whole mass of the people. The basis of our
governments being the opinion of the people, the
very first object should be to keep that light; and
were it left to me to decide whether we should have
a government without newspapers, or newspapers
without a government, I should not hesitate a moment
to prefer the latter. But I should mean that
every man should receive those papers, and be
capable of reading them.
I am convinced that those
societies (as the Indians) which live without
government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely
greater degree of happiness than those who live
under the European governments. Among the former,
public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains
morals as powerfully as laws ever did anywhere.
Among the latter, under pretense of governing, they
have divided their nations into two classes, wolves
and sheep. I do not exaggerate.
This is a true picture of
Europe. Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our
people, and keep alive their intention: Do not be
too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by
enlightening them. If once they become
inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and
Congress and assemblies, judges and governors shall
all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our
general nature, in spite of individual exceptions;
and experience declares that man is the only animal
which devours his own kind; for I can apply no
milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the
general prey of the rich on the poor.
My last to you was of the
16th of December; since which, I have received yours
of November 25 and December 4, which afforded me, as
your letters always do, a treat on matters public,
individual, and economical. I am impatient to learn
your sentiments on the late troubles in the Eastern
states. So far as I have yet seen, they do not
appear to threaten serious consequences. Those
states have suffered by the stoppage of the channels
of their commerce, which have not yet found other
issues. This must render money scarce and make the
people uneasy
This uneasiness has produced acts absolutely
unjustifiable; but I hope they will provoke no
severities from their governments. A consciousness
of those in power that their administration of the
public affairs has been honest may, perhaps, produce
too great a degree of indignation; and those
characters, wherein fear predominates over hope, may
apprehend too much from these instances of
irregularity, They may conclude too hastily that
nature has formed man insusceptible of any other
government than that of force, a conclusion not
founded in truth nor experience.
Three Forms of Society
Societies exist under three forms, sufficiently
distinguishable: (1) without government, as among
our Indians; (2) under governments, wherein the will
of everyone has a just influence, as is the case in
England, in a slight degree, and in our states, in a
great one; (3) under governments of force, as is the
case in all other monarchies, and ill most of the
other republics.
To have an idea of the curse
of existence under these last, they must be seen. It
is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a
problem, not clear in my mind, that the first
condition is not the best. But I believe it to be
inconsistent with any great degree of population.
The second state has a great deal of good in it. The
mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree
of liberty and happiness. It has its evils, too, the
principal of which is the turbulence to which it is
subject. But weigh this against the
oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing.
Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam seroitutem
[I prefer liberty at risk to peaceful servitude].
Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents
the degeneracy of government and nourishes a general
attention to the public affairs.
I hold it that a little
rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as
necessary in the political world as storms in the
physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally
establish the encroachments on the rights of the
people which have produced them. An observation of
this truth should render honest republican governors
so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to
discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary
for the sound health of government.
YESTERYEAR'S LIBERTY
(& LIMITATION)
DEBATE:
Original/classical
Conservatism
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):
Leviathan (1651)
1. Does
Hobbes believe that innate human nature is fundamentally fine or
flawed?
2. What three drives are we born with according to Hobbes?
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INTRODUCTION. This illustration from the title page to Leviathan captures
the essence of Thomas Hobbes's This The ruler is embodied by individuals who
consent to his dominance for the general welfare. All look to him and in the
process lose their individual authority, but gain stability and security.
The Latin quotation reads, "Upon the earth, there is not his like." Thomas
Hobbes was one of the great political philosophers of the seventeenth
century. His major work, entitled Leviathan, was published in 1651 and
reflects the insecurity and fear of the English Revolution that had resulted
in civil war (1642-1646) and had just seen the decapitation of a sovereign
monarch in 1649. Hobbes himself, because of his aristocratic associations,
had been forced to flee England. Living during some of the most tumultuous
times in European history, it should be no surprise that his theories were
thoroughly pessimistic regarding human nature. |
Nature has
made men so equal, in the faculties of the body and mind; as that though
there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker
mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the differences
between man and man, is not so considerable. . . . For as to the strength of
body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by
secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same
danger with himself. And as to the faculties of the mind... I find yet a
greater equality among men, than that of strength.... Such is the nature of
men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or
more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there are many
so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men’s
at a distance....
From this
equality of ability, arises equality of hope in the attaining of our ends.
And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they
cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end, which
is principally their own conservation ... endeavour to destroy, or subdue
one another. And from hence it comes to pass, that ... an invader has no
more to fear than another man's single power; if one plant, sow, build, and
possess a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared
with forces united, to dispossess, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of
his labour, but also of his life, or liberty. And the invader again is in
the like danger of another... [Thus], men have no pleasure, but on the
contrary a great deal of grief, in keeping company, where there is no power
able to over-awe them.
So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel.
First, competition; secondly, insecurity; thirdly, glory.
The first, makes men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third,
for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves master of other
men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the
third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other
sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by reflection in
their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.
[Therefore, it is clear] that during the time men live without a common
power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called
war; and such a war is of every man, against every man.... In such
condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is
uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use
of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no
instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no
knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters;
no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent
death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short...
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THEN: Original/classical Liberalism
John Locke
(1632-1704):
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690)
1. What
social consequences were implied by the argument that every
person's mind was at first just "white paper"?
2. Do you find Locke's view of human nature accurate?
John Locke |
It is an
established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the understanding
certain
innate principles;
some primary notions, characters, as it were
stamped upon the mind of man; which the soul receives in its very first
being, and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient
to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I
should only show (as I hope I shall in the following parts of this
Discourse) how men, barely by the use of natural faculties, may attain to
all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and
may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or principles...
Let us then
suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters,
without any ideas:- How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that
vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with
an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the
materials
of reason
and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all
our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our
observation employed either, about external sensible objects, or about the
internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is
that which supplies our understandings with all the
materials
of thinking.
These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have,
or can naturally have, do spring.
First, our
Senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the
mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways
wherein those objects do affect them. And thus we come by those
ideas
we have of
yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet,
and all
those which we call sensible qualities; which when I say the senses convey
into the mind, I mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what
produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we
have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the
understanding, I call SENSATION.
Secondly,
the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with
ideas is, the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it
is employed about the ideas it has got;-which operations, when the soul
comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another
set of ideas, which could not be had from things without. And such are
perception,
thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing,
and all the
different actings of our own minds;-which we being conscious of, and
observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings as
distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of
ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense, as having
nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might
properly enough be called
internal sense.
But as I call the other Sensation, so I call
this REFLECTION, the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by
reflecting on its own operations within itself....
The
understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas
which it doth not receive from one of these two.
External objects
furnish the
mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different
perceptions they produce in us; and
the mind
furnishes the understanding with ideas of its
own operations.
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Relations between Great Britain and its thirteen American
colonies began to break down in the mid-1700s, as British
efforts to tighten control were resisted by colonists accustomed
to running their own affairs. Disputes over taxation and other
issues eventually turned into war in April 1775, with the
Americans deciding on July 4, 1776, to declare independence.
That bold (and disputed) decision was just the beginning of a
significant series of turning points and challenges facing the
Americans. In the quest to become a new and independent nation
the former colonists defeated the world's mightiest military
empire in battle, negotiated alliances with other nations, coped
with the economic dislocations of war and independence, replaced
the colonial governments with new state constitutions, and
created a new national constitution and national government.
Throughout this time the American people strongly disagreed
about many issues concerning the break with Great Britain and on
what kind of new nation should be created once independence was
declared.
British Rule in the 1700s
To govern this realm, Great Britain (created by the 1707 union
of England and Scotland) relied on two London-based
institutions: a Privy Council to review and sometimes veto
colonial laws and a Board of Trade to regulate and enforce
British trading rules designed to enrich Great Britain. These
governing bodies, however, often received scant attention from
the British government and were thus often ineffectual. In
addition to these institutions, Great Britain was represented in
the colonies by colonial governors.
By the 1760s the leaders of the colonies came to believe that,
as Englishmen, they possessed certain fundamental rights of
self-government that could not be rescinded. On the other hand,
British authorities held that colonial self-government was a
mere privilege that could be rescinded unilaterally by the Crown
or Parliament.
The French and Indian War
A pivotal event in the relationship between Great Britain and
the colonies was the French and Indian War (known in Europe as
the Seven Years' War). Part of a larger conflict fought in
Europe, India, and elsewhere, the war from the American
colonists' perspective was the culmination of a long struggle
between Great Britain and France for control of North America.
Ironically, Britain's defeat of France planted the seeds for
eventual American independence. Free from the need for
protection from the French threat, colonists in America were
emboldened to pursue an independent course. In addition, the
immense debt Great Britain had incurred to pay the costs of the
French and Indian War convinced members of the British
Parliament to attempt to tighten their control and raise
revenues from the colonists-actions which soon sparked protest
in the colonies.
Taxes and Protest
Beginning in 1763 the British Parliament, at the urging of King
George III, passed a series of laws designed to raise revenues
from the thirteen colonies and to strengthen British control
over them. Parliament voted to maintain a standing army in
America, mandated that colonists provide British soldiers with
living quarters and supplies, and proclaimed that colonists may
not settle west of the Appalachian Mountains until treaties with
the Native Americans there could be made.
The single most objectionable act, in the minds of many
colonists, was the 1765 Stamp Act, which imposed a tax on all
legal documents, pamphlets, almanacs, business licenses, and
other items. Many Americans, noting that they had no
representatives in Parliament, adopted the slogan of "no
taxation without representation." Colonists organized economic
boycotts against British goods. Secret clubs called Sons of
Liberty engaged in violence and threats of violence to prevent
enforcement of the Stamp Act. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in
1766 but also passed a resolution affirming parliamentary
authority over the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."
Parliament again asserted its tax authority in 1767 by passing
the Townshend Acts, which created import duties on several
British goods. Again the colonists protested, pamphlets and
newspapers decried the measure, and a boycott of British goods
was organized. Parliament backed down and repealed the taxes but
refused to cede the principle of its authority to tax by
retaining a small tax on tea. This tax, coupled with British
efforts to give a British trading company a monopoly in the
American tea trade, inspired perhaps the most significant single
act of colonial tax resistance: the 1773 Boston Tea Party, in
which a group of colonists boarded British ships in Boston
Harbor and threw the tea overboard.
The disputes over taxes reflected a deeper division over
political authority. The British held that all parts of the
British empire had to yield to the ultimate authority of
Parliament, whether they elected members to it or not (many
cities in Great Britain, for instance, did not send members to
Parliament). But many colonists held that although the colonies
should maintain loyalty to the Crown, political authority in the
colonies lay with each colonial assembly. Many Americans cited
English political writers, such as John Locke, Thomas Gordon,
and Joseph Priestley, to justify their views.
The Intolerable Acts
Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing a series
of measures designed to punish Massachusetts. Known in America
as the Intolerable Acts, these included closing the port of
Boston, requiring the quartering of additional British troops,
and increasing the powers of the governor. In
September 1774 the trend toward political union took a further
step with the convention of the First Continental Congress in
Philadelphia, a gathering of delegates for the purpose of
formulating a united colonial response to the Intolerable Acts.
Elected by colonial assemblies, many of which were meeting
without authorization from the colonial governor, and at other
extralegal meetings, few delegates at this time supported
American independence; the goal was to express and gain redress
for grievances against Great Britain. They expressed these
grievances in a petition to King George III that attacked
virtually all of Parliament's actions since 1763.
The delegates resolved to boycott imported British goods and
adjourned after determining to meet again in May 1775 if their
concerns had not been addressed.
The Decision for Independence
When the Second Continental Congress convened as planned on May
10, 1775, the first battles of the Revolutionary War had already
been fought. British troops sent from Boston to capture
military supplies had exchanged fire with Massachusetts militia
(called minutemen) in Lexington and Concord on April 19. By
April 20 an army of twenty thousand New England patriots was
besieging the British garrison in Boston.
The Second Continental Congress continued to debate
independence. King George III declared the colonies in a state
of rebellion in December 1775. In January 1776 Thomas Paine's
pamphlet Common Sense was published and sold thousands of
copies. Paine's arguments convinced many Americans of the need
for a total break from Great Britain. On July 2 the Continental
Congress adopted the resolution "that these United Colonies are,
and, of right, ought to
be, free and independent states." On July 4 they passed the
Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson, to
explain to the world the reasons for their decision for
independence and war.
The Revolutionary War
The American Revolution had three interrelated components.
First, it was a military confrontation between Great Britain and
the colonies. It was also a continuation of the struggles
between Great Britain and France, with France allying itself
with the Americans to avenge defeat in previous wars with
Britain. Lastly, the American Revolution was a civil war, with
the American population divided between supporters of Great
Britain (loyalists) and supporters of independence.
The military confrontation seemed a mismatch. On one side was
the British Empire with the powerful British navy and one of the
world's leading professional armies. The population of the
British Isles in 1776 was 11.5 million, compared to 2.5 million
colonists (of which a third were either loyalists or slaves).
The armed forces the colonies were able to muster lacked
training, experienced officers, naval support, equipment, and
money. The Continental Army led by George Washington was
defeated repeatedly by British forces in the early years of the
war. However, the Americans did have the advantage of fighting
on their home territory. The British were fighting in unfamiliar
and often unfriendly circumstances and had to be equipped and
supplied from abroad.
Washington was able to achieve his underlying objective of
keeping his forces together and prolonging the war until the
British no longer wished to fight. Diplomacy played a major
role in the American Revolution, as many European nations,
envious and fearful of Great Britain's worldwide power, took
various steps to ensure British defeat and American victory. The
most Significant of these nations was France. Eager for British
defeat, the French government secretly supplied much of the
munitions used by the Americans in the first years of the war.
In 1778, following American victory in Saratoga, New York,
France openly allied itself with the rebelling colonies. French
naval and armed forces were instrumental in the Battle of
Yorktown in 1781, the last major battle of the war and one of
the few outright victories for the Americans.
The Revolutionary War was in some respects a civil war. Many of
the colonists remained loyal to Great Britain or were
indifferent. The British had planned to enlist the help of
Loyalists (or Tories), who totaled about a quarter of the
American population. Loyalists were drawn from all social ranks
and classes, ranging from prominent landowners to African slaves
and members of ethnic and religious minorities. Nevertheless,
the effectiveness of loyalists in helping the British was
hampered by three factors: the vigilant actions of the local
patriot (Whig) militia, the cruelty of many English soldiers
toward the American populace, and the decision of about 100,000
loyalists to flee the country during the Revolutionary War.
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The American Revolution not only separated neighbors and
friends, it devastated many families, including the
Franklins. William Franklin, pictured here, a Loyalist,
rarely, if ever, spoke to his Patriot father Ben after the
war. |
CIVIL WAR:
Loyalists,
Fence-sitters, and Patriots
It is impossible to know the exact number of American colonists who
favored or opposed independence. For years it was widely believed
that one third favored the Revolution, one third opposed it, and one
third were undecided. This stems from an estimate made by John Adams
in his personal writings in 1815.
Historians have since concluded that Adams was referring to American
attitudes toward the French Revolution, not ours. The current
thought is that about 20 percent of the colonists were Loyalists —
those whose remained loyal to England and King George. Another small
group in terms of percentage were the dedicated patriots, for whom
there was no alternative but independence.
On
the Fence
Often overlooked are the fence-sitters who made up the largest
group. With so many Americans undecided, the war became in great
measure a battle to win popular support. If the patriots could
succeed in selling their ideas of revolution to the public, then
popular support might follow and the British would be doomed.
Patriots
subjected Loyalists to public humiliation and violence. Many
Loyalists found their property vandalized, looted, and burned. The
patriots controlled public discourse. Woe to the citizen who
publicly proclaimed sympathy to Britain.
Families were sometimes divided over the revolution. Benjamin
Franklin's son, William, a Loyalist governor of New Jersey,
supported the British effort during the war.
What
Happened to the Loyalists? In the end, many Loyalists simply
left America. About 80,000 of them fled to Canada or Britain during
or just after the war. Because Loyalists were often wealthy,
educated, older, and Anglican, the American social fabric was
altered by their departure. American history brands them as
traitors. But most were just trying to maintain the lifestyles to
which they had become accustomed. After all, history is always
written by the winners.
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The State Constitutions and the Articles of Confederation
While the military battles, the diplomatic maneuverings, and the
clashes between Whigs and loyalists proceeded, the new United States
of America attempted to create a government. All thirteen former
colonies had formulated and passed new state constitutions before
the Revolutionary War was over. Most of these constitutions
included guarantees of civil liberties, including freedom of speech,
religion, and the press; many extended suffrage to most white male
taxpayers. Meanwhile the Continental Congress, without formal and
defined powers, took on more of the trappings and duties of a
national government: It created and supplied the Continental Army
(with George Washington as commander in chief), issued paper
currency, established a post office, and oversaw diplomatic efforts.
In 1777 the national body approved the Articles of Confederation.
Ratified by all the states by 1781, the Articles formalized some of
the powers Congress was already using and created a central
government-but a government sharply limited in its powers to tax
American citizens or directly regulate the states. Sovereignty and
political authority remained with the states and the colonial
assemblies that governed them-a deliberate decision by Americans who
did not want independence from Britain only to be ruled by a new,
large, remote, and potentially tyrannical government.
The major legislative achievements of the Confederation Congress
were the Land Ordinance in 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance in
1787. These laws provided for the orderly surveying, sale, and
governing of the western territories. The Northwest Ordinance
was notable for establishing the principle that these
territories should eventually enter the Union as states fully
equal to the original thirteen and for banning slavery in the
new territories.
Postwar Problems
Great Britain formally recognized American independence in the
Treaty of Paris in 1783, in which the United States also gained
western territory bordered by Canada to the north, Florida to
the south, and the Mississippi River to the west. However, the
new nation of 900,000 square miles and 3 million people faced
several significant difficulties. An economic depression hit the
new nation in 1784, aggravated by the loss of trading privileges
with the British West Indies and of British naval protection
against North African pirates. Commerce was also hurt by Spain's
closure of the Mississippi River to American goods and by the
fact that each state set its own tariff rate (the national
government under the Articles of Confederation had no authority
to regulate trade). The Confederation Congress, unable to levy
taxes, could neither support its issued currency nor meet
payments on domestic or foreign debt. Diplomacy faltered because
the national government was unable to enforce any obligations it
entered into with foreign nations. State laws and taxes pitted
debtors against creditors. Shays' Rebellion, in which
Massachusetts farmers in 1786 violently resisted tax and debt
collection, alarmed many Americans fearful of anarchy. Congress
also proved unable to respond to conflicts between Native
Americans and the rapidly increasing number of white settlers
moving west. Attempts to amend the Articles fell short of the
required unanimous consent of the states.
In May 1787 leading American figures gathered in Philadelphia to
devise a replacement for the Articles of Confederation. The
result of their deliberations was the U.S. Constitution. The
Philadelphia meeting had been proposed in 1786 at an earlier
convention, called by Virginia to discuss problems of interstate
commerce. The delegates of the Philadelphia convention, which
included such noted national figures as George Washington,
Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison, decided to go beyond
merely revising the Articles of Confederation by devising a
whole new system of government.
The document they created differed from the Articles of
Confederation in several important respects. It created a
national government with powers to tax and regulate commerce,
whose laws would be held supreme over conflicting
state laws. States would be forbidden from conducting foreign
policy, coining money, or setting tariff rates. Unlike the
Articles of Confederation, which concentrated legislative,
judicial, and executive functions in Congress, the Constitution
established three separate branches of government. In the
Confederation Congress each state had one vote; the
Constitution, in a crucial compromise, created a divided
legislature in which each state had two votes in the Senate, but
votes relative to its population in the House of
Representatives.
Ratification of the Constitution
Many Americans had been generally satisfied with the
government under the Articles of Confederation and were highly
suspicious of this attempt to create a new and more powerful
central government. The ratification of the Constitution-a step
that required the approval of special ratifying conventions by
nine of the thirteen states-was marked by an intense public
controversy that featured hundreds of newspaper articles and
pamphlets debating the merits and demerits of the Constitution.
Opponents of the Constitution termed anti-federalists-criticized
the creation of what they viewed as a potentially tyrannical
government with supremacy over the states. Many criticized the
lack of a bill of rights. In Massachusetts and other states,
passage was secured after supporters of the Constitution
(federalists) pledged to immediately amend the Constitution by
adding a bill of rights. Due in large part to this promise, the
Constitution was successfully ratified in 1788. The new Congress
passed ten amendments (drafted largely by James Madison) in
1719; they were ratified in 1791 and are known today as the Bill
of Rights.
Early Domestic and Foreign Policy Disputes
The first government under the new Constitution assembled in
New York City in 1789. George Washington, the nation's first
president, took care to appoint to his administration people who
had supported the Constitution. Yet this did not prevent
divisions within America's government and Washington's
administration over important public policy decisions involving
foreign policy and finance. Relations with France, Great
Britain, and Spain were difficult, especially after those three
nations went to war with each other in 1793. The people
Washington appointed, especially Secretary of the Treasury
Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson,
differed over which nation to support as well as such issues as
the creation of a national bank and the funding of the national
debt.
Two political camps emerged within Washington's administration.
One, led by Hamilton, advocated a strong and vigorous national
government and generally backed Great Britain in foreign policy.
The other, led by Jefferson and James Madison, then a member of
the House of Representatives, advocated a weaker central
government and favored France in foreign disputes. The
differences signaled the emergence of opposing political
parties-the Federalists, led by Hamilton, and the
Democratic-Republicans, led by Jefferson. This development was
something the makers of the Constitution did not anticipate.
Political parties were bitterly attacked by George Washington
in his Farewell Address in 1796. Their emergence clearly
shows that the momentous decision for independence, the
victorious war with Great Britain, and the successful creation
of the Constitution did not mark the end of political
controversy within the United States.
D'SOUZA'S CASE FOR LIBERTY’S SUPERIORITY AS THE BASIS OF
JUDGMENT
There are some, as we have seen, who fear that America no longer
stands for what is good. They allege that American freedom
produces a licentious, degenerate society that is scarcely worth
defending. We return, therefore, to the question of what America
is all about, and whether this country, in its dedication to the
principle of freedom, subverts the higher principle of virtue.
Let us concede at the outset that, in a free society, freedom
will frequently be used badly. Freedom, by definition, includes
freedom to do good or evil, to act nobly or basely. Thus we
should not be surprised that there is a considerable amount of
vice, licentiousness, and vulgarity in a free society.
Given the warped timber of humanity [innate human nature is has
good and bad aspects], freedom is simply an expression of human
flaws and weaknesses. But if freedom brings out the worst in
people, it also brings out the best. The millions of Americans
who live decent, praiseworthy lives deserve our highest
admiration because they have opted for the good when the good is
not the only available option. Even amidst the temptations that
a rich and free society offers, they have remained on the
straight path. Their virtue has special luster because it is
freely chosen. The free society does not guarantee virtue
any more than it guarantees happiness. But it allows for the
pursuit of both, a pursuit rendered all the more meaningful and
profound because success is not guaranteed: it has to be won
through personal striving.
By contrast, the externally directed life that [for example]
Islamic fundamentalists seek undermines the possibility of
virtue. If the supply of virtue is insufficient in self-directed
societies, it is almost non-existent in externally directed
societies because coerced virtues are not virtues at all.
Although much of America is immersed in Rousseau's ethic of
authenticity, there are sizable segments of the culture that
have not been infiltrated by it. The firefighters and policemen
who raced into the burning towers of the World Trade Center
showed that their lives were dedicated to something higher than
"self-fulfillment." The same can be said of Todd Beamer and his
fellow passengers who forced the terrorists to crash United
Airlines Flight 93 in the woods of western Pennsylvania rather
than flying on to Camp David or the White House. Authenticity,
thank God, is not the operating principle of the U.S. military.
America's enemies should not expect to do battle against the
Starbucks guy. The military has its own culture, which is closer
to that of the firefighters and policemen, and also bears an
affinity with the culture of the "greatest generation." Only now
are those Americans who grew up during the 1960s coming to
appreciate the virtues--indeed the indispensability-of this
older, sturdier culture of courage, nobility, and sacrifice. It
is this culture that will protect the liberties of all
Americans, including that of the Starbucks guy.
As the American founders knew, America is a new kind of society
that produces a new kind of human being. That human
being--confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future
oriented--is a vast improvement over the wretched, servile,
fatalistic, and intolerant human being that traditional
societies have always produced, and that Islamic societies
produce now. In America, the life we are given is not as
important as the life we make. Ultimately, America is worthy of
our love and sacrifice because, more than any other society, it
makes possible the good life, and the life that is good.
America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in
existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism
and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the
world, is now the last best hope for the world. By making
sacrifices for America, and by our willingness to die for her,
we bind ourselves by invisible cords to those great patriots who
fought at Yorktown, Gettysburg, and Iwo Jima, and we prove
ourselves worthy of the blessings of freedom. By defeating the
terrorist threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism, we can protect
the American way of life while once again redeeming humanity
from a global menace. History will view America as a great gift
to the world, a gift that Americans today must preserve and
cherish.
CONTEST FOR MEMORY: What to remember about the American
Revolution?
| OPPRESSION |
FREEDOM |
Untold
Truths About the American Revolution
The American
Revolution—independence
from England—was
a just cause.
Why should the
colonists here
be occupied by
and oppressed by
England? But
therefore, did
we have to go to
the
Revolutionary
War?
How many people
died in the
Revolutionary
War?
Nobody ever
knows exactly
how many people
die in wars, but
it’s likely that
25,000 to 50,000
people died in
this one. So
let’s take the
lower
figure—25,000
people died out
of a population
of three
million. That
would be
equivalent today
to two and a
half million
people dying to
get England off
our backs.
You might
consider that
worth it, or you
might not.
Canada is
independent of
England, isn’t
it? I think so.
Not a bad
society.
Canadians have
good health
care. They have
a lot of things
we don’t have.
They didn’t
fight a bloody
revolutionary
war. Why do we
assume that we
had to fight a
bloody
revolutionary
war to get rid
of England?
In the year
before those
famous shots
were fired,
farmers in
Western
Massachusetts
had driven the
British
government out
without firing a
single shot.
They had
assembled by the
thousands and
thousands around
courthouses and
colonial offices
and they had
just taken over
and they said
goodbye to the
British
officials. It
was a nonviolent
revolution that
took place. But
then came
Lexington and
Concord, and the
revolution
became violent,
and it was run
not by the
farmers but by
the Founding
Fathers. The
farmers were
rather poor; the
Founding Fathers
were rather
rich.
Who actually
gained from that
victory over
England? It’s
very important
to ask about any
policy, and
especially about
war: Who gained
what? And it’s
very important
to notice
differences
among the
various parts of
the population.
That’s one thing
were not
accustomed to in
this country
because we don’t
think in class
terms. We think,
“Oh, we all have
the same
interests.” For
instance, we
think that we
all had the same
interests in
independence
from England. We
did not have all
the same
interests.
Do you think the
Indians cared
about
independence
from England?
No, in fact, the
Indians were
unhappy that we
won independence
from England,
because England
had set a
line—in the
Proclamation of
1763—that said
you couldn’t go
westward into
Indian
territory. They
didn’t do it
because they
loved the
Indians. They
didn’t want
trouble. When
Britain was
defeated in the
Revolutionary
War, that line
was eliminated,
and now the way
was open for the
colonists to
move westward
across the
continent, which
they did for the
next 100 years,
committing
massacres and
making sure that
they destroyed
Indian
civilization.
So when you look
at the American
Revolution,
there’s a fact
that you have to
take into
consideration.
Indians—no, they
didn’t benefit.
Did blacks
benefit from the
American
Revolution?
Slavery was
there before.
Slavery was
there after. Not
only that, we
wrote slavery
into the
Constitution. We
legitimized it.
What about class
divisions?
Did ordinary
white farmers
have the same
interest in the
revolution as a
John Hancock or
Morris or
Madison or
Jefferson or the
slaveholders or
the bondholders?
Not really.
It was not all
the common
people getting
together to
fight against
England. They
had a very hard
time assembling
an army. They
took poor guys
and promised
them land. They
browbeat people
and, oh yes,
they inspired
people with the
Declaration of
Independence.
It’s always
good, if you
want people to
go to war, to
give them a good
document and
have good words:
life, liberty,
and the pursuit
of happiness. Of
course, when
they wrote the
Constitution,
they were more
concerned with
property than
life, liberty,
and the pursuit
of happiness.
You should take
notice of these
little things.
There were class
divisions. When
you assess and
evaluate a war,
when you assess
and evaluate any
policy, you have
to ask: Who gets
what?
We were a class
society from the
beginning.
America started
off as a society
of rich and
poor, people
with enormous
grants of land
and people with
no land. And
there were
riots, there
were bread riots
in Boston, and
riots and
rebellions all
over the
colonies, of
poor against
rich, of tenants
breaking into
jails to release
people who were
in prison for
nonpayment of
debt. There was
class conflict.
We try to
pretend in this
country that
we’re all one
happy family.
We’re not.
And so when you
look at the
American
Revolution, you
have to look at
it in terms of
class [which
means some
classes are
doing better
than others;
some thus find
themselves in
less privileged
position].
Do you know that
there were
mutinies in the
American
Revolutionary
Army by the
privates against
the officers?
The officers
were getting
fine clothes and
good food and
high pay and the
privates had no
shoes and bad
clothes and they
weren’t getting
paid. They
mutinied.
Thousands of
them. So many in
the Pennsylvania
line that George
Washington got
worried, so he
made compromises
with them. But
later when there
was a smaller
mutiny in the
New Jersey line,
not with
thousands but
with hundreds,
Washington said
execute the
leaders, and
they were
executed by
fellow mutineers
on the order of
their officers.
The American
Revolution was
not a simple
affair of all of
us against all
of them. And not
everyone thought
they would
benefit from the
Revolution.
We’ve got to
rethink this
question of war
and come to the
conclusion that
war cannot be
accepted, no
matter what the
reasons given,
or the excuse:
liberty,
democracy; this,
that. War is by
definition the
indiscriminate
killing of huge
numbers of
people for ends
that are
uncertain. Think
about means and
ends, and apply
it to war. The
means are
horrible,
certainly. The
ends, uncertain.
That alone
should make you
hesitate.
Once a
historical event
has taken place,
it becomes very
hard to imagine
that you could
have achieved a
result some
other way. When
something is
happening in
history it takes
on a certain air
of
inevitability:
This is the only
way it could
have happened.
No.
We are smart in
so many ways.
Surely, we
should be able
to understand
that in between
war and
passivity, there
are a thousand
possibilities.
|
Myths
About the Founding
(NPR Commentary) by Dinesh D'Souza
SOURCE:
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/articles/myths.html
For me,
president’s day is a good occasion to celebrate George
Washington and the American founding. Washington and the other
founders who gathered in Philadelphia wanted America to be a
“new order for the ages,” and they have succeeded beyond their
imagining. The United States is today the economic, political
and cultural guiding light of the world, and the magnet for
immigrants from every continent. Without exaggeration, we are
living in what may be termed Planet America.
I frequently
lecture at American high schools and colleges, and I must
acknowledge that many educators do not share my enthusiasm for
the founding. “The constitution was a racist document,” they
say. “After all, it says that a black person is three-fifths of
a human being.” I hear this all the time. Some teachers allege
that even their good ideas the founders plagiarized from
nonwhites. “They stole all their ideas from the Iroquois
Indians,” a history teacher informed. I expressed surprise: “You
mean,” I said, “that concepts like free elections, separation of
powers, checks and balances and freedom of speech and religion
were all invented and practiced by the Iroquois?”
“Absolutely,” I was told. And then, in a condescending tone:
“Maybe it’s time you went home and did your homework.”
Well, I have
done my homework, and here are the facts. The notorious
three-fifths clause of the constitution, the central exhibit in
the claim that the document is racist, in fact reflects no
denial of the equal worth of African Americans. Indeed the
three-fifths clause has nothing to say about the intrinsic worth
of any individual or group. It arose in the context of a debate
between the northern and southern states over the issue of
political representation.
It turns out
that the South wanted to count blacks as whole persons in order
to increase its political power. The North wanted to count
blacks as nothing, not for the purpose of rejecting their
humanity, but in order to preserve and strengthen the
anti-slavery majority in Congress. It was not a pro-slavery
southerner but an anti-slavery northerner, James Wilson of
Pennsylvania, who proposed the three-fifths compromise.
The effect
of the compromise was to limit the south’s political
representation and thus its ability to protect the institution
of slavery. Frederick Douglass, the great black abolitionist,
understood this. He praised the three-fifths clause “a downright
disability laid upon the slave-holding states” depriving them of
“two-fifths of their natural basis of representation.” So the
notion that the three-fifths clause demonstrates the racism of
the Constitution is both wrong and unfair.
And what
about those Iroquois? It turns out that there was an Iroquois
League that had been formed to adjudicate disputes between
warring tribes. Sometimes the group’s efforts at mediation
failed, but in general the League was reasonably successful in
keeping the peace.
Benjamin
Franklin heard about the Iroquois League, and he wrote a letter
to the framers in Philadelphia. Here is what he said: if a group
of savages can learn to settle their disputes without killing
each other, surely we civilized men can get together and agree
upon a constitution. I feel a bit embarrassed to say this to a
history teacher, but this is pretty much the extent of the
connection between the Iroquois and the American founding.
The truth of
the matter is that the founders produced a constitution that
enshrined the noble principles of liberty and equality under the
law. These were principles higher than the practices that the
founders saw around them, higher than the practices of some of
the founders themselves. Yet it is their notion that we are
created equal and endowed with inalienable rights that provided
the moral basis for the war that ended slavery, and for the
civil rights movement as well. We who are minorities in this
society owe these dead white men a debt of gratitude.
|
 "History
doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." ~Mark Twain
AMERICAN HISTORY RHYME: The Liberal | Conservative Divide
 James
Poniewozik on HBO’s John Adams:
THEN: Thomas Jefferson (Liberal) and John Adams (Conservative)
Source:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1724399,00.html
When our nation started there was a liberal|conservative divide:
“The most thought-provoking differences are between Adams and Jefferson.
Jefferson is a classic Enlightenment optimist, who believes in philosophy
and science and the improvability of mankind. Adams believes that you can
change people's condition--make them freer, more prosperous, more fairly
represented--but you can't better their souls. Their differences spill over
into politics after the Revolution. Jefferson is leery of creating a strong
Constitution that will effectively force the choices and values of his
generation on Americans to come. Adams favors it--for exactly that reason.
To him, it's human nature to revert to mob rule and injustice. If his
generation is lucky enough to get the rules right for once, they should damn
well be cemented so that later generations can't screw them up. "You have a
disconcerting lack of faith in your fellow man," Jefferson chides. "And
you," Adams retorts, "display a disturbing excess of faith in your fellow
man." It's an eternal, multifaceted, unresolved argument. Put one way, it's
the debate between hope and pragmatism. Put another, it's the argument
between liberalism and conservatism. Who was right? Who ultimately won?
Unlike the reply on Mount Rushmore, that answer has not been set in stone."
NOW: There are Two Irreconcilable Americas: Red (Conservative) & Blue
(Liberal) America
Source:
http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2008/10/14/there_are_two_irreconcilable_americas
Still today in our nation the liberal|conservative divide continues:
It is time to confront the unhappy fact about our country: There are now two
Americas. Not a rich one and a poor one; economic status plays little role
in this division. There is a red one and a blue one.
For most of my life I have believed, in what I now regard as wishful
thinking, that the right and left wings have essentially the same vision for
America, that it's only about ways to get there in which the two sides
differ. Right and left share the same ends, I thought. That is not the
case. For the most part, right and left differ in their visions of America
and that is why they differ on policies. Right and the left do not want the
same America.
The left wants America to look as much like Western European countries as
possible. The left wants Europe's quasi-pacifism, cradle-to-grave socialism,
egalitarianism and secularism in America. The right wants none of those
values to dominate America. The left wants America not only to have a
secular government, but to have a secular society. The left feels that if
people want to be religious, they should do so at home and in their houses
of prayer, but never try to inject their religious values into society. The
right wants America to continue to be what it has always been--a
Judeo-Christian society with a largely secular government (that is not
indifferent to religion). These opposing visions explain, for example, their
opposite views concerning nondenominational prayer in school.
The left prefers to identify as citizens of the world. The left fears
nationalism in general (this has been true for the European left since World
War I), and since the 1960s, the American left has come to fear American
nationalism in particular. On the other side, the right identifies first as
citizens of America.
The left therefore regards the notion of American exceptionalism as
chauvinism; the United Nations and world opinion are regarded as better
arbiters of what is good than is America. The right has a low opinion of the
U.N.'s moral compass and of world opinion, both of which it sees as having a
much poorer record of stopping genocide and other evils than America has.
The left is ambivalent about and often hostile to overt displays of American
patriotism. That is why, for example, one is far more likely to find
American flags displayed in Orange County, Calif., on national holidays than
in liberal neighborhoods in West Los Angeles, Manhattan or San Francisco.
The left subscribes to the French Revolution, whose guiding principles were
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The right subscribes to the American
formula, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." The French/European
notion of equality is not mentioned. The right rejects the French Revolution
and does not hold Western Europe as a model. The left does. That alone makes
right and left irreconcilable.
The left envisions an egalitarian society. The right does not. The left
values equality above other values because it yearns for an America in which
all people have similar amounts of material possessions. This is what
propels the left to advocate laws that would force employers to pay women
the same wages they pay men not only for the same job but for "comparable"
jobs (as if that is objectively ascertainable). The right values equality in
opportunity and strongly believes that all people are created equal, but the
right values liberty, a man-woman based family and other values above
equality.
The left wants a world -- and therefore an America -- devoid of nuclear
weapons. The right wants America to have the best nuclear weapons. The right
trusts American might more than universal disarmament.
The left wants to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples for the
first time in history. The right wants gays to have equal rights, but to
keep marriage defined as man-woman. This, too, constitutes an irreconcilable
divide.
For these and other reasons, calls for a unity among Americans that
transcends left and right are either naive or disingenuous. America will be
united only when one of them prevails over the other. The left knows this.
Most on the right do not.
ONGOING LIBERTY
DEBATE:
 |
EXPLAINING POLITICAL DIFFERENCES
There
is quite a debate over what best explains the origins of
political differences: some say it is innate
(nature) while others counter it is what we learn
(nurture). |
 |
|
LIBERALS
believe in governmental action to achieve equal
opportunity and equality for all, and that it is the
duty of the State to alleviate social ills and to
protect civil liberties and individual and human
rights. Believe the role of the government should be to
guarantee that no one is in need. Believe that people
are basically good (which is why they inherently deserve
things).
Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the
government to solve people's problems. |
CONSERVATIVES
believe in personal responsibility, limited government,
free markets, individual liberty, traditional American
values and a strong national defense. Believe the role
of government should be to provide people the freedom
necessary to pursue their own goals.
Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of
the individual to solve problems. |
 
ISSUE SUMMARY. As a rule, humans understand abstract or complex ideas
in terms of more concrete or accessible concepts. Usually this process
involves the use of a metaphor. For example, Americans—like many other
cultures—understand a complex, hard-to-conceptualize social group, our
nation, in terms of something closer to home, our family. Models of
idealized family structure lie metaphorically at the heart of our politics.
The very notion of the founding fathers uses a metaphor that construes the
nation as a family, with familial roles, such as parents and children. We
think metaphorically without realizing it—the Nation as a Family, with
citizens as family members, is such a natural metaphor that we don't even
notice it is there.
But it is there. And it drives how we think about political and social
issues. In American culture there are two opposed and idealized models
of the family, the Nurturant Parent model and the Strict Father model. The
metaphor of the Nation as a Family maps the values and relationships from
those family models onto our politics, creating "liberal" and "conservative"
political positions that we understand through our models of family
structure.
The progressive worldview represents, metaphorically, the Nurturant
Parent family model, and the conservative worldview represents the Strict
Father model. The two models come with distinct moral systems that are
founded on different assumptions about the world, interpret shared values
such as responsibility or fairness differently, and center around different
moral priorities. In other words, our beliefs about what a family
should be exert a powerful influence over our beliefs about what kind of
society we should build. For instance, those with a strong Strict Father
model are likely to support a more punitive welfare or foreign policy than
someone with a strong Nurturant Parent model, who are likely to favor more
cooperative approaches. Those with a strong Nurturant Parent model are more
likely to favor social policies that ensure the well-being of people such as
health care and education, whereas someone with a strong Strict Father model
would object to social programs in favor of promoting self-reliance.
For more information about
George Lakoff,
click
here for his own summary
The
Progressive/Liberal Worldview: The Nurturant Parent Family Model
In the
Nurturant Parent family, it is assumed that the world is basically good.
And, however dangerous and difficult the world may be at present, it can be
made better, and it is your responsibility to help make it better.
Correspondingly, children are born good, and parents can make them better,
and it is their responsibility to do so. Both parents (if there are
two) are responsible for running the household and raising the children,
although they may divide their activities. The parents' job is to be
responsive to their children, nurture them, and raise their children to
nurture others. Nurturance requires empathy and responsibility.
In the
Nurturant Parent family, the highest moral values are Empathy and
Responsibility. Effective nurturing requires empathy, which is feeling what
someone else feels—parents have to figure out what all their baby's cries
mean in order to take care of him or her. Responsibility is critical,
since being a good nurturer means being responsible not only for looking
after the well-being of others, but also being responsible to ourselves so
that we can take care of others. Nurturant parents raise children to
be empathetic toward others, responsible to themselves, and responsible to
others who are or will be in their care. Empathy connects us to other people
in our families, our neighborhoods, and in the larger world. Being
responsible to others and oneself requires cooperation. In society,
nurturant morality is expressed as social responsibility. This
requires cooperation rather than competition, and a recognition of
interdependence.
In the
conservative worldview, it is assumed that the world is, and always will be,
a dangerous and difficult place. It is a competitive world and there will
always be winners and losers. Children are naturally bad since they want to
do what feels good, not what is moral, so they have to be made good by being
taught discipline. There is tangible evil in the world and to stand up to
evil, one must be morally strong, or "disciplined."
The
father's job is to protect and support the family. Children are to respect
and obey him. The father's moral duty is to teach his children right from
wrong, with punishment that is typically physical and can be painful when
they do wrong. It is assumed that parental discipline in childhood is
required to develop the internal discipline that adults will need in order
to be moral and to succeed. Morality and success are linked through
discipline. This focus on discipline is seen as a form of love—"tough love."
The
mother is in the background, not strong enough to protect and support the
family or fully discipline the children on her own. Her job is to uphold the
authority of the father and to care for and comfort the children. As a
"mommy," she tends to be overly soft-hearted and might well coddle or spoil
the child. The father must make sure this does not happen, lest the children
become weak and dependent.
Competition is necessary for discipline. Children are to become self-reliant
through discipline and the pursuit of self-interest. Those who succeed as
adults are the good (moral) people and parents are not to "meddle" in their
lives. Those children who remain dependent—who were spoiled, overly willful,
or recalcitrant—undergo further discipline or are turned out to face the
discipline of the outside world.
When
everyone is acting morally and responsibly, seeking their own self-interest
in a self-disciplined fashion, everyone benefits. Thus, instilling morality
and discipline in your children is also acting for the good of society as a
whole.
|
 
PERSPECTIVE B.
Thomas Sowell's Unlimited (unconstrained) and
Limited (constrained) Visions (worldviews)
THE
NATURE & POTENTIAL OF HUMANS: How Visions Influence our Perception of
History
Many things go into the
making of a good historian (e.g., learning how to use history tools, working
with evidence, researching, writing, etc.) but perhaps what is most crucial
for a history thinking machine [HTM] is self-awareness. We all, to
varying degrees, bring our own subjective views to what we experience.
Two people can share the same experience yet draw different conclusions from
the event: e.g., two can see the same movie but how the movie
impacts/influences them [i.e., what it means to them] may vary widely.
The same applies to events in history. Say the event was the capture
of Saddam Huessin in Iraq in 2003. If you followed this event, you saw
that while some celebrated his capture, others lamented it. In this
case, conceding that we all agree that the event happened, how do we account
for such contrasting reactions? The core of the answer lies in the
eyes of the beholder. The event remains fixed, but what varies is the
interpretation or reaction to the event. In a figurative sense, what
varies is what vision we hold as we encounter the event. What
profoundly influences how we see history—and life for that matter—derives
from what vision we hold of the world.
The first necessary step on the path of becoming a true history thinking
machine is to admit that we have a problem. The problem we all share
is that we are subjective rather than objective when it comes to perceiving
events. The HTM seeks objectivity and that must remain a worthwhile
goal, but the reality is that we cannot escape our own subjective views.
Thus we must accept the challenge to understand our own subjective views so
that we can make the necessary corrections or concessions. The
importance of this should be made clear by using the “glass
half-full/half-empty” example. Depending on whether you are an
optimist or a pessimist [and we all lean one way or another—yes you too
because otherwise to be perfectly balanced between the two is a bit
presumptuous wouldn’t you say?] this proclivity might largely
influence how you perceive/interpret a situation. A similar issue
challenges us here: what is the nature and potential of human beings?
How you respond to this issue will largely influence how you “see” an event.
This issue then becomes a crucial pursuit of the HTM: what is your
vision of how our human world operates?
Directing our inquiry is Thomas Sowell’s
book
A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles.
In this book he set as his task an understanding of what accounts for
perpetual conflict among people. It would seem that we encounter
conflict in many of life’s situations. Academic, business, family, on-line,
political, social – none of the environments in which we live appears immune
to discord. What is it about the human condition that routinely fosters
conflict? Sowell argues that people vary in their visions of the
nature of human beings, social institutions, and social progress, and that
these visions influence their assumptions and perceptions about how best to
achieve a good society. Sowell argues that these visions are "silent
shapers of our thoughts ... pre-analytic cognitive acts [of] our [intuitive]
sense of how the world works, and "a gut feeling." He concludes that
different perceptions of reality are at the base of fundamental differences
over how the world works, because it is rooted in a person’s vision of both
the nature and potential of man.
Sowell
cautions us not to take for granted that arguments can always be won and
lost in terms of the issue at hand. Perhaps you too have found
yourself in this predicament. After an extended conversion say when
debating political and economic issues, you are no closer to changing the
mind of your opponent as they have been in changing your mind. Sowell
is out to examine the philosophical reasons why “the same familiar faces can
be found glaring at each other from opposite sides of the political fence,
again and again.” Obviously, an impasse to an accord can be attributed
to mutual stubbornness or willful slighting of the facts, but Sowell argues
that there is something more profoundly at work that keeps the two parties
in the debate from reaching a shared consensus.
Sowell’s hypothesis is that the major political struggles of our day reflect
two dominant and conflicting visions of man’s nature and potential. Yet most
struggles are debated on another level, without any acknowledgment of these
visions. Thus “those with different visions often argue past each other,
even when they accept the same rules of logic and utilize the same data, for
the very same terms of discourse signify very different things.” For Sowell,
each human being has one of two basic underlying orientations. Some may
label these “conservative” and “liberal”. Sowell chooses to brand these
contrasting visions as “constrained” or “unconstrained”.
Sowell says that there is a continuum of visions between these two extremes,
but most people are toward one extreme or the other. He acknowledges that
these "silent shapers" are not the sole determinants of our values, beliefs,
and opinions, and that self-interests, traditions, and other factors
influence people. He argues, however, that if you understand a person's
vision of human nature and social institutions, it will help you predict how
they will respond to various proposals about social arrangements. For
the history thinking machine, understanding this continuum is a crucial
step. But it is not just about history. It is about
understanding ourselves, and about how others see the world as well.
 |
The word "code" can refer to a
system of either communication
or morality. President Obama has
integrated the two. The Obama
Code is both moral and
linguistic at once. The
President is using his enormous
skills as a communicator to
express a moral system.
Progressive Values Are American
Values
The logic is simple: Empathy is
why we have the values of
freedom, fairness, and equality
- for everyone, not just for
certain individuals. If we put
ourselves in the shoes of
others, we will want them to be
free and treated fairly. Empathy
with all leads to equality: no
one should be treated worse than
anyone else. Empathy leads us to
democracy. Those
empathy-based moral values are
the opposite of the conservative
focus on individual
responsibility without social
responsibility.
Biconceptualism and the
New Bipartisanship
Biconceptualism is central to
Obama's attempts to achieve
unity - a unity based on his
understanding of American
values. The current economic
failure gives him an opening to
speak about the economy in terms
of those ideals: caring about
all, prosperity for all,
responsibility for all by all,
and good jobs for all who want
to work.
Protection and Empowerment
This view of government meshes
with our national ideal of
equality. There needs to be
moral equality: equal protection
and equal empowerment. We all
deserve health care protection,
retirement protection, worker
protection, employment
protection, protection of our
civil liberties, and investment
protection. Protection and
empowerment. That's what "works"
means - "whether it helps
families find jobs at a decent
wage, care they can afford, a
retirement that is dignified."
Morality and Economics Fit
Together
Crises are times of opportunity.
Budgets are moral statements.
President Obama has put these
ideas together. His economic
program is a moral program and
conversely. Why the quartet of
leading economic issues -
education, energy, health,
banking? Because they are at the
heart of government's moral
mission of protection and
empowerment, and
correspondingly, they are what
is needed to act on empathy,
social and personal
responsibility, and making the
future better.
Contested Concepts and
Patriotic Language
I've written a whole book -
"Whose Freedom?" - on the word
"freedom" as used by
conservatives and progressives.
In his second inaugural, George
W. Bush used "freedom," "free,"
and "liberty" over and over -
first, with its common meaning,
then shifting to its
conservative meaning: defending
"freedom" as including domestic
spying, torture and rendition,
denial of habeus corpus,
invading a country that posed no
threat to us, a "free market"
based on greed and short-term
profits for the wealthy, denying
sex education and access to
women's health facilities,
denying health care to the poor,
and leading to the killing and
maiming of innocent civilians in
Iraq by the hundreds of
thousands, all in the name of
"freedom." It was anything
but a progressive's view of
freedom - and anything but the
view intended in the Declaration
of Independence or the
Constitution.
Summary
The President hasn't fooled the
radical ideological
conservatives in Congress. They
know progressive values when
they see them. They think
their conservative values are
the real American values. They
still have their message machine
and they are going to make the
most of it. The ratings for Fox
News and Rush Limbaugh are
rising.
Without a countervailing
communications system on the
Democratic side, they can create
a lot of trouble, not just for
the President, not just for the
nation, but on a global scale,
for the environmental and
economic future of the world.
|
A
tale of two nations
By Michael Barone
Posted 5/4/03
Online source:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/articles/030512/12pol_print.htm
CONTEXT. Although Barone is clearly a
partisan of Hard America that he will define below, he
still offers a limited role to Soft America. He states
that "I do not take the view that all Softness is bad.
We don't want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of
the Marine Corps or to leave old people helpless and
uncared for. Many Americans seek jobs in Soft America so
they will have time for raising their families and
participating in community organizations, activities
that provide American society with much of its strength
and special character. It would be a cruel country that
had no Soft niches." One of the peculiar features of our
country is that we produce incompetent 18-year-olds and
remarkably competent 30-year-olds. Americans at 18 typically
score lower on standardized tests than 18-year-olds from
other advanced countries. Watch them on their first few days
working at McDonald's or behind the counter in chain
drugstores, and it's obvious that they don't really know how
to make change or keep the line moving. But by the time
Americans are 30, they are the most competent people in the
world. They produce a stronger and more vibrant
private-sector economy; they produce scientific and
technical advances that lead the world; they provide the
world's best medical care; they create the strongest and
most agile military the world has ever seen. And it's not
just a few meritocrats at the top: American talent runs wide
and deep.
Why? Because from the age of 6 to 18,
our kids live mostly in what I call Soft America--the part
of our society where there is little competition and
accountability. In contrast, most Americans in the 12 years
between ages 18 and 30 live mostly in Hard America--the part
of American life subject to competition and accountability;
the military trains under live fire. Soft America seeks to
instill self-esteem. Hard America plays for keeps.
Soft America took over much of
society because in the early and middle 20th century,
America seemed to many people to be too Hard. Not many kids
made it up the educational and job ladders. Much work was
hard labor, and in the 1930s, jobs were scarce and charity
inadequate. Educators wanted to make schools Soft, and New
Dealers wanted to shield people from the marketplace with
strong unions and Social Security. By the 1970s Soft America
was trying to Soften Hard America with guaranteed incomes,
job tenure, and comparable worth (bureaucrats, not markets,
setting salaries).
In the 1980s and 1990s Hard America
fought back. Surging private-sector growth brushed aside
attempts to Soften the Hard economy. The military, hobbled
by public contempt after Vietnam, built a voluntary force in
which people could gain benefits and honor by performing.
Politicians started passing laws to make the people who run
the schools accountable for results. A sensible society
wants to keep some part of itself Soft: We don't want to
subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or
to leave old people helpless and uncared for. But a sensible
society also understands--and the military has been driving
home the lesson--that Soft America lives off the
productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America.
And that we have the luxury of keeping part of our society
Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.
|
And so, the debate continues. Note how each refers
to "American Values" but they don't define the same
ones.
"American Trinity"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn4IH3yng4k
And even when the same word is used, it is not the same
definition. The same as when the country started.
|
 
|
OPTIONAL
1ST PARAGRAPH FOR THIS TOPIC. The challenge for the
historian is to locate the "
The Donkey—Presidential candidate Andrew Jackson was the first
Democrat ever to be associated with the donkey symbol. His opponents during
the election of 1828 tried to label him a "jackass" for his populist beliefs
and slogan, "Let the people rule." Jackson was entertained by the notion and
ended up using it to his advantage on his campaign posters. But
cartoonist Thomas Nast is credited with making the donkey the recognized
symbol of the Democratic Party. It first appeared in a cartoon in
Harper's Weekly
in 1870, and was supposed to represent an anti-Civil War faction. But the
public was immediately taken by it and by 1880 it had already become the
unofficial symbol of the party. The Elephant—Political cartoonist
Thomas Nast was also responsible for the Republican Party elephant. In a
cartoon that appeared in Harper's Weekly in 1874, Nast drew a donkey
clothed in lion's skin, scaring away all the animals at the zoo. One of
those animals, the elephant, was labeled "The Republican Vote." That's all
it took for the elephant to become associated with the Republican Party.
Despite their popularity, neither the donkey nor the elephant have been
adopted as their party's official symbol.
Declaration of Independence
