Election 2012 and the white minority (and Bill O’Reilly)

In many ways, elections are in the same vein as census results for the historian: they are snapshots of the U.S. population taken at regular intervals whose results lend themselves to nearly infinite analysis and extrapolation. The 2012 election is particularly rich, as it seems to show—

—women voting for Democrats and men voting for Republicans

—such sex-based voting trumping other demographic factors (race, income, immigration status, rural/urban, religion, education level, etc.)

—the older vote (45 and over) going Republican (as it has trended for about three decades) and,

—white votes becoming a smaller bloc

That is the way it’s being presented, at least: whites are becoming the minority population, and so the “white vote” is no longer critical to those running for office. But it’s more complicated than that; race is actually not the primary characteristic to count votes by. The best case to be made from the 2012 results, it seems, is that your sex matters most, as the majority of women of all races, incomes, etc., voted Democratic and the majority of men voted Republican. Age might come second, as people 18-45 vote Democratic and those 45-over vote Republican. Your job is up there, too, as union members voted pretty solidly Democratic.

It is true that White Americans will be in the Minority by 2019, and that our youngest populations in the U.S. are already minority white. But more important is that as our national population becomes more racially mixed, race is less of a card to play either way for a candidate—appealing to a certain race does not yield big rewards. Those who felt sure whites would vote for Romney were wrong when it came to women and the young, and right when it came to men and the elderly. Those who felt sure that blacks would vote for Obama were more right, but he is our first black president, and that’s a factor (he won 70% of the Latino vote as well). In 50 years, after (one hopes) a few more black and a couple of female presidents, a non-white presidential candidate will not be so new, and will have to fight for non-white votes.

The interesting point here is that race is just one factor, and “the white vote” does not mean “white people” but “white, older men”, the small group for whom race may be the primary factor in an election. But race is just one in a string of adjectives candidates need to pay attention to now, along with age, income, education, location, religion, sexuality, and others.

And so Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News analyst, is wrong when he pins the election on race. In his instantly infamous stream of consciousness monologue on election night, he stated:

“It’s a changing country. The demographics are changing. It’s not a traditional America any more. And there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and he ran on it. And, whereby twenty years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney. The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama, overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?”

In our next post we’ll do a close reading of this text, as historians do, to get at the heart of its inaccuracies. For now, we leave feeling some relief, perhaps, that race is no longer the be-all and end-all of election politics, and our diverse society is reflected more completely in its diversity of makeup than in previous elections.

Next time: here’s your stuff

Were Puritan laws harsh? A look at individual rights

Hello and welcome to part 2 of our series on Puritan law—specifically the 1641 Body of Liberties created by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Last time we looked at the proto-democratic process by which these laws were created; here we focus on the first section of this body of 100 laws, which covers individual rights. We won’t look at each of the 17 laws in this section, for time’s sake, but pull out the laws that are most indicative of the nature or gist of the Body. If you’d like to read the whole Body of Liberties, and the codes of law that followed it and incorporated it, you can find it in libraries or for sale online under the title The Colonial Laws of Massachusetts: reprinted from the edition of 1660, with the supplements to 1672, containing also the Body of Liberties of 1641.

We should note here that “man” is used pretty consistently, except in the short section devoted to the liberties of women. That section, which we’ll cover later in this series, specifies a woman’s treatment by her husband, disallowing abuse and mandating that a wife be fairly treated in her husband’s will. Otherwise, it’s all about “men” in the Body. This does not mean that the laws that follow did not apply to women. It means two things: “man” was used to mean people; and some of the laws were about men only (such as the laws about military service). Women could be banished and fined just like men, so laws about those things applied equally to both sexes.

(All spelling has been modernized in the following excerpts.)

1. “No man’s life shall be taken away, no man’s honor or good name shall be stained, no man’s person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered, nor any ways punished, no man shall be deprived of his wife or children, no man’s goods or estate shall be taken away from him, nor any way indemnified under color of law or countenance of authority, unless it be by virtue or equity of some express law of the country warranting the same, established by a General Court and sufficiently published, or in the case of the defect of a law in any particular case by the word of God. And in capital cases, or in cases concerning dismembering or banishment, according to that word to be judged by the General Court.”

—This is the heart of the Body of Liberties; as discussed in part 1 of this series, the whole purpose of creating the Body was to have a set of laws to go by. No one is going to be sentenced to anything unless he has broken an actual law that has been made publicly known. Judgments will not be made according to some magistrate’s whim or personal feelings. People will know what the law is, and what the penalties are for breaking laws. The last part, regarding “the defect of a law in any particular case”, means that if there is some problem for which no law has been written as yet, the magistrates will turn to the Bible for guidance; however, if someone does something that seems to call for capital punishment in the Bible, the General Court will step in and “that word [of God] will be judged”. Here we see that when push comes to shove, human reason ranks above the word of God for the Puritans.

2. “Every person within this Jurisdiction, whether inhabitant or foreigner, shall enjoy the same justice and law that is general for the plantation [the colony], which we constitute and execute one towards another without particularity or delay.”

—One law for all, no one above the law, and an early expression of the idea that justice delayed is justice deferred.

…12. “Every man whether inhabitant or foreigner, free or not free, shall have liberty to come to any public court, council, or town meeting, and either by speech or writing to move any lawful, seasonable, and material question, or to present any necessary motion, complaint, petition, bill, or information, whereof that meeting has proper cognizance, so it be done in convenient time, due order, and respective manner.”

—The law is open to all, no matter their status, and all men have the right to attend public meetings and participate in them, so long as their participation is respectful and the ideas or complaints they have are relevant to the body they’re addressing—that is, if you are in town meeting, you bring up town business and not colony-level business, and vice-versa.

14. “Any conveyance or alienation of land or other estate whatsoever, made by any woman that is married, any child under age, idiot or distracted person, shall be good if it be passed and ratified by the consent of a General Court.”

—While it is distressing to see women, children, and “idiots” lumped together as one category, this law actually states that it is not only men who may buy and sell land or goods (“estate”), and that is crucially important in a colony where land is the chief source of wealth. A woman may do what she sees fit with land she is left by her husband. (Women can also make their own wills, as guaranteed in liberty 11.) Underage children may make decisions about land left to them. The clause on “idiot or distracted persons” likely refers to people who made out wills when they were of sound mind but did not die of sound mind; those wills and the decisions in them will be upheld. All this is contingent on the General Court looking the decisions over and confirming them, but looking through the records of the colony shows that in most cases decisions made by this group were upheld.

We skipped laws in this section that prevent people from being fined for not responding to a court summons if they are incapable of getting to court, outlaw mandatory military service, ensure that no one can be forced to work on a government project, ban estate taxes, keep the government from seizing goods, and give people the right to move out of the colony whenever they like. Basically section 1 limits the power of the colonial government and secures individual liberties, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yes, that line comes from a later document and another time, but we see here in section 1 of the Body of Liberties of Massachusetts early forerunners of those guarantees in our Declaration of Independence.

In section 2, we’ll look at Rights, Rules, and Liberties concerning Judicial Proceedings.

Next time: the longest section

What to remember about the Alamo

“Remember the Alamo!” is one of those phrases from American history that most Americans know, but don’t understand (right up there with Washington crossing the Delaware and “one if by land, two if by sea“). As is the case whenever history is lost, myth has grown up around the Alamo, not really regarding what happened there but why it happened.

Most Americans do know that a group of Americans—including Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett—holed up in the Alamo, a fortified mission in today’s San Antonio, Texas, and fought to the death, outnumbered, against the Mexican forces of General Antonio López de Santa Anna. This happened in February 1836. The mix of roughly 200 Americans and Mexicans (fighting against their own country) held out through several charges by Santa Anna’s much larger army but were eventually killed. The Alama became a rallying point for Americans fighting for Texas independence and American liberty.

As we point out in our post The U.S. declares war on Mexico, the real story is not as grand as the myth:

“American citizens who moved to Mexico to settle its northern state of Coahuila y Tejas decided, after a short residence, to create an independent state there called Texas. The Mexican government responded in 1829 by levying a property tax, putting high taxes on American imports, and prohibiting slavery. Because Americans in Coahuila y Tejas outnumbered native Mexicans, and because internal political strife in Mexico made it difficult to fully command the northern states, they were able to ignore those laws, particularly the one against slaveholding. But when General Antonio López de Santa Anna became dictator of Mexico in 1834, he was determined to bring Coahuila y Tejas firmly back under Mexican control, and when the Texans declared their independence in 1836, Santa Anna traveled north to squash them.”

It was in part their determination to enslave black Americans that drove the Texans in their fight for independence. If Mexico had not begun to phase out slavery in 1824 (the last enslaved people were freed there in 1829), the Americans in northern Mexico would likely have continued to live as citizens of the Mexican state for much longer, until their numbers were much greater and a break much easier to make and to defend. But when the president of Mexico, Anastasio Bustamente, ordered that abolition be enforced in northern Mexico—Texas—the Americans living there orders began to think seriously of breaking away from Mexico and forming their own nation.

It shouldn’t have been hard to do. Mexico’s government was weak and its ability to enforce the law in its very far-flung northern territories (California as well as Texas) was limited. The Americans should have been able to break away and force Mexico to terms when it realized it could not put down the distant revolution in a small district that seemed to have no essential value to the nation.

But Mexico decided to take a hard line, and in April 1830 it forbid any further American emigration to its territory. Mexico didn’t want the number of Americans in Texas rising and rising, and hoped to subdue those already in rebellion. This strategy failed in 1832 when Americans fought a small battle, the Battle of Velasco, against Mexican forces. In that year and the next, Texans formed a Convention that asked the Mexican government for reforms, which were rejected by Mexico. The 1833 Convention drafted a constitution for Texas which was also rejected. The war officially began on October 2, 1835, with the Battle of Gonzales. The Texans were victorious in the next few battles, including the Siege of Bexar in December, which led to the American capture of San Antonio.

Now comes the battle of the Alamo, a fortified mission in San Antonio which the Americans occupied, first under the command of Ben Milam, then William Travis. On February 23, 1836, Santa Anna arrived to recover San Antonio. Santa Anna was particularly adamant that Mexico fight off any foreign claims to its territory, and was willing to spend money and lives to do that when both were dear. The Americans held out againt Santa Anna’s superior numbers from February 23 to March 6, when another Mexican charge finally breached the fortified walls of the Alamo. The Americans inside fought hand-to-hand until all were dead. San Antonio was recovered by Mexico.

Unbeknownst to the men at the Alamo, on March 2 the Convention of 1836 adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence. Members of the Convention had been receiving updates on the siege, and when word reached the Convention of the loss of the Alamo and the stand made by Americans there, the Declaration and the war were given greater impetus, and Remember the Alamo! became a rallying cry of the Texans. On April 21, Texans led by Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Santa Anna withdrew, and Texans celebrated their independence (a little too early, as Mexico never formally ceded the territory, and when it was accepted into the U.S. as a state in 1845, the Mexican War was the result).

There are many legends about exactly what happened inside the mission. The most famous story is that Travis drew a line in the dirt and asked every man willing to fight to the end to cross it, and all but one did (that man was allowed to leave). Movies have portrayed all the men as paragons of liberty and integrity, fighting extremely venal, bloodthirsty (and rather foppish) Mexicans who want to establish a police state. Santa Anna is particularly portrayed as a cross between an effete pretender and a cruel dictator. It’s ironic at best, since it was Mexico that wanted to abolish slavery in the territory, and Mexico that was fighting to keep its land against strangers who had been allowed to settle there and suddenly announced that the land was theirs. But we in the U.S. tend to get the idea that it was Mexico trying to take American land away from its rightful owners.

No one can deny the bravery of the men who fought at the Alamo. But the cause for which they fought was not true liberty. Like the United States it would soon join, Texas fought for the ideal of liberty but not the full reality, as it kept black people enslaved. It would take the Civil War to end slavery in Texas, and fulfill its original mandate of liberty. The Alamo was also a battle in a war to seize a section of northern Mexico without just provocation. The Alamo is important to remember clearly, objectively, and with an eye to understanding what really happened there.

Washington’s Farewell Address: the closing

In our last post in a series on Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address, we come to the conclusion of this message to the nation and its posterity. Here Washington sums up his main points in a very personal way, using “I” repeatedly to emphasize that these are his own thoughts, his personal conclusions; we’re getting a look inside the man who has been our President for eight years, getting a chance to see the workings of his mind and thus an understanding of why he has made the decisions he has made. For a private man like Washington, this must have been hard. But he knew it was his final message to the nation, and he wanted to be transparent—in large part, so that if its audience read the Address and felt that Washington’s reasoning had been faulty, they could change course for something better, and not be tied to any bad policies simply because they were Washington’s. He knew how the country venerated him; he did not want it to be tied to his mistakes. And so he sums up his thoughts, actions, and motives:

“In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.”

—Part of the appeal of the Address is its eerie focus on the future—on us. Washington was aware that his presidency set precedents, simply by being the first, and he wanted to take the best parts of what he had accomplished and pass them on. He knows that the advice of one man, no matter how great, can’t change human nature. He is not a dictator. But if we heed his warnings about “[moderating] the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism”, that will be enough to keep us aware of the right path, and see it as right not because it was his, but because it works to keep us strong.

“In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the twenty-second of April, 1793, is the index of my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it. After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.”

—Again, here Washington is letting us in behind closed doors to understand why he went for neutrality in 1793, and why he stuck with that position despite opposition.

“The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct, it is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all. The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes.”

—The choice to remain neutral has paid off, both in foreign powers honoring that neutrality and in giving the U.S. time to grow and stabilize without being derailed by war. Indeed, U.S. neutrality has been a noble obligation to “maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations”. Jumping into war for no good reason, into wars that don’t involve you, is as bad as starting useless wars. The U.S. is a good example to other nations if it can stay out of war on principle, and fight only when there is good reason for it to fight.

“Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”

—This is so reminiscent of Washington reading a letter from Congress in 1782 to his men after the Revolution, when the coffers were so depleted that the soldiers were about to be sent home without months of back pay, and the officers were mulling over a revolt and a coup that would place Washington at the head of government. Washington had found out about the plot and addressed the men, but not quite convinced them not to assault the liberty they had just fought for. So he went to read the letter, to bolster his case, but he could not find his glasses. When he found them he paused, then said, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”

As a Major Samuel Shaw put it in his journal, “There was something so natural, so unaffected in this appeal as rendered it superior to the most studied oratory. It forced its way to the heart, and you might see sensibility moisten every eye.” The mutiny fell apart immediately, and the men reproached themselves with their own greed when their leader was ready to sacrifice all that he had for the cause of American liberty.

And here in the Address we see that Washington once more. What American could read this line in the Address and not feel a tremble of emotion: “I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”

“Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”

—What American would not give her all to make this happen for Washington? To make it possible for him to live out his life in the happy enjoyment of a job well-done, of a peaceful, free nation, a good government, and the knowledge that his good work would not be thrown away? To protect and preserve the founding principles of this nation is to honor Washington. He would be proud to see that connection, just as we are inifinitely lucky and proud to have had a first president who did so much to make us a proud nation.

Washington’s Farewell Address: avoiding foreign entanglements

In part 3 of our series on Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address, we continue our close reading, picking up near the middle of this long text. So far, Washington has explained why he feels the nation is stable enough for him to safely resign the office of president, and he has urged Americans to remember these things:

—the government they live under is their own creation;

—there will be many groups, foreign and domestic, who have no faith in that representative democracy Americans have created, and they will try to tear it down. Only dedication to the principles of liberty that found our government will save the American people from disaster;

—regional in-fighting will be the death of the United States. Every region must remember its dependence on the other regions, and turn to the federal government to resolve disputes.

Now Washington turns to other threats, in a section that is eerily prophetic of our own troubled political environment today, and a proof that Washington’s Address is pertinent and valuable to us today:

“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

—This is the part of the Address that most people remember (the idea, if not the actual words). Here Washington is warning against political factions, and he equates the formation of political parties with inevitable dissension. This definition of what can happen when partisanship runs rampant must sound familiar to us today: “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension… leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual [who] turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” When the political process grinds to a halt because one or more political parties refuses to work with others, only a charismatic individual can take the lead, and this kind of cult of personality is antithetical to democracy.

“Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.”

—Political factions or parties “[serve] always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.” Again, so familiar to us today, at a time of great partisan conflict.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”

—Washington says that religious belief is critically important to upholding democracy because without belief in God and the consequent devotion to goodness that it brings, we cannot perform the duties of a just government. But he never goes on to say that therefore we must have a state religion, or that anyone seeking office must be a member of a religion. And his call for “institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge” seems more a call for higher education—colleges—than churches.

“Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it – It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?”

—This is a great passage, in which Washington says if we carry out the duties of government with good faith and justice, joining our sense of personal morality to a demand for political justice, we will be a free, enlightened, and someday soon a great nation. Democracy is, at this point, “too novel”, as no other nation enjoys the system of representative democracy that the U.S. does. It will be hard to maintain this very high level of personal and public morality, but the rewards are incalculable. Is it impossible? Are humans just too flawed? This was the common argument against the U.S. experiment, but Washington has faith that Americans can carry it off.

“In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.”

—We must have clear heads: you can’t think clearly if you aren’t objective. You can’t just hate a certain nation and love another, overlooking evidence to the contrary, because this leads to bad foreign policy and leads Americans themselves to sell out their country’s interest to promote the interests of their favorites. Washington is thinking of the France-Britain debate in the U.S. at the time, with many Americans passionately hating the British who enslaved us and unconditionally loving the French who Britain were at war with, and other Americans passionately hating the French and loving powerful, familiar Britain. Each faction wanted the U.S. to form a lasting, binding, political alliance with its favored nation, mostly just to hurt its hated nation. But Washington says that U.S. government policy, domestic or foreign, cannot be about making one or the other foreign nation happy, or making the U.S. appealing to one or the other. We have to do what is objectively right and objectively best for us. Loving or hating other nations is just another form of dangerous partisanship.

“The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.”

—For now, while we are weak and Europe is strong, and while our political interests are so different from theirs, let’s have economic relations and trading partners, but keep it economic. No political alliances. It’s hard to do that now, when we’re weak, and other nations ignore our neutrality and impress our sailors and put garrisons on our western lands, but as we grow stronger they will start to back off, and we will be feared and respected and left alone without ever having to make an agreement with anyone. We won’t have to buy peace—we’ll command it.

That’s basically the end of the section people know about. Next time, we’ll read the gracious conclusion of the Address, and allow our Founder to express his love and concern for us once again. For he was concerned about us, he was addressing us; Washington so often says he’s talking about the nation in 1796 so that the nation that develops later will have the best counsel. We will hear what he has to tell us once more.

Next time: the conclusion

George Washington’s Farewell Address: A Close Reading, part 1

In the second installment of our series on George Washington’s Farewell Address, we do a close reading of the first section of the first president’s parting remarks as he left office in 1796, to get at the heart of his message to Americans of his own day and their posterity—us. I have reproduced about 75% of the text here, omitting some of the elaborations on core ideas.

“Friends and Citizens:

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction that the step is compatible with both.”

—We are forced to recall, right off the bat, that President Washington was a dedicated student of etiquette all his life, and therefore his writing style reflects the proper style of the day, which is to be a little circuitous in coming to the point. Long sentences, multiple clauses, all well-executed but foreign to us for the most part today. What he is saying here is that he wants to explain why he’s not running for a third term, in part so that people will focus their attention on new candidates and not say, I think Washington should run and I’m holding out for him. He also doesn’t want other candidates to feel uncomfortable in creating their own platforms (“it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice”). In the second paragraph, Washington wants to make clear that it’s not that he feels he’s unpopular or unwanted, or that he no longer cares about the welfare of the nation. That said, he will explain his refusal to run for another term as president.

“The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea.

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination to retire.”

—Here Washington is fairly blunt: serving as President has been a burden, and he longed to refuse a second term, but from “motives I was not at liberty to disregard” he sucked it up and served another four years. In particular, he worried about “our affairs with foreign nations”—England and France, each of whom was continually angling to involve the U.S. in their war. He does not mention it explicitly, but Washington was also concerned about “internal” rebellion, such as he faced in the Whiskey Rebellion, and wanted to remain in office to help strengthen the authority of the federal government. That accomplished, and foreign affairs stable for the moment, he is, happily, now able to “retire”.

“The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administration of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.”

—While he had all the goodwill in the world and did his best, Washington is no politician, and he feels his lack of experience at every turn. Every issue he has dealt with as president has reminded him of what he doesn’t know, and as he gets older that burden gets heavier. Any special appeal he has as president is temporary, and (though he doesn’t come out and say this) the result of his status as a war hero. All that said, he has done his duty as best he could, and thus done all that patriotism requires.

“…If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.”

—A valuable lesson to learn from his terms of service is that even though the public were divided at times, and argued about the right thing to do, they did two crucial things: they supported a president who was acting in good faith, and they voluntarily chose to abide by the terms of the Constitution. When they disagreed with Washington, they did not rise up, or react with violence—they worked within the law, and continuing to put the Constitution first will be what makes the U.S. great.

“Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.”

—He’s going to give us some advice, which we should take as the objective advice from a loving friend that it is. He’s not trying to influence later U.S. policy, or the men who serve as President after him. He’s just going to speak from the heart.

“The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.”

—You love your democracy and your democratic government, and you should. But remember that it is a painfully new idea, and there are going to be many people—outside the U.S. and even within it, your fellow citizens—who don’t believe it will really work. They will try to tear it down, and tell you you’re crazy, and get you to go back to the old ways. You’ve got to remember that being united under your unique government is your greatest treasure. Forget the things that make you different, like religion or customs and focus on what you have in common, what you share that no other people on earth share: a democratic government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

“But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. …The East, in a like intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one nation…

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments… Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”

—Here Washington addresses the regional factions that were growing in the nation between North and South, East and West. You all benefit from each other; you’re all mutually dependent, he says; recognize this and embrace it. Remember that if you start to fight amongst yourselves, you make the nation vulnerable to outside attack. If you’re all united, you won’t be threatened by internal disputes or external attack, and so you won’t have to support an “overgrown military establishment”, which so often leads to military rule.

“These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.”

—Washington elaborates on this principle for a few more paragraphs, imploring Americans to turn to their government for help with regional problems, and to remember that they are unified by nothing more than their desire to live in a democracy and their willingness to obey the Constitution they have created. They have begun an experiment, Washington says, and devotion to a great result is both carrot and stick to Americans as they face the internal divisions that will inevitably come to such a large nation.

Having warned Americans to treasure their political and philosophical unity, Washington will turn to other threats.

Next time: the danger of party politics

Washington’s Farewell Address

Welcome to the first in a short series on President George Washington’s farewell address of 1796. Most students of American history learn a little about this address, and the one thing that usually sticks with them is that Washington warned the nation not to make permanent or even long-term alliances with other nations. While this was a guiding principle of Washington’s presidency, it’s not the only or even the main point of note in his address.

We have to say “address”, rather than “speech,” because contrary to common perception, Washington did not read his message publicly. He sent it to the Philadelphia Daily American Advertiser, which printed it on September 19, 1796, and it was picked up and reprinted by other newspapers around the country. But the address has become a speech since Washington’s time: in 1862, in the depths of the Civil War, the people of Philadelphia petitioned Congress to have the address read aloud at a joint meeting of the House and Senate to celebrate the 130th anniversary of Washington’s birth. Senator Andrew Johnson presented the petition saying, “In view of the perilous condition of the country, I think the time has arrived when we should recur back to the days, the times, and the doings of Washington and the patriots of the Revolution, who founded the government under which we live.” In 1888 it was read again to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Constitution, and since 1896 it has been an annual tradition to read the address aloud to the joint session each February (and was read by Jeanne Shaheen on February 27 of this year).

In this series we’ll look at the address and do one of our usual close readings to get at the messages Washington wanted to send to the nation he had done so much to found and protect and set on the right course.

Next time: the reading begins!

The Slaughterhouse Cases, or, corporations are actually people

Hello and welcome to this post on the 1869 Slaughterhouse Cases, legal decisions that changed the nature of business in the United States forever. It’s hard to believe that such a ground-breaking series of legal cases can be so invisible to the general American public today, but it’s sadly true. So we’re going to take a good look and see how we started down the path of legal rights for corporations and corporations being given the rights of individual citizens.

America, and then the U.S., had been viewed as a land where everyone had the right to rise by working hard from the start of European settlement. The immigrant, the poor person, the obscure and uneducated could always better their lot and improve themselves by working. Only in the U.S. was land freely available and relatively cheap, so anyone could farm if they really worked at it. Only in the U.S. were factories abundant, so anyone, even the unskilled laborer or the city poor, could earn a living wage. One of the most persuasive arguments anti-slavery groups made in the antebellum period was that slave labor robbed free men of the chance to work; the Free Soil political party made right-to-labor its main plank. The U.S. could only be great so long as its citizens had the opportunity to contribute their honest toil to the economy and improve both themselves and their nation.

But until 1869, no official body had made the claim that individuals had a legal right to pursue their occupation, no matter the consequences to others. Everyone had the opportunity to work, but no one had the legal protection to work in any way they saw fit. That would all change with a group of butchers in Louisiana.

In the mid-1800s, many butchers worked just north of New Orleans, throwing their offal into the Mississippi River. The end result was that low tide meant the reek of rotting animal carcasses filled the city, and the city’s drinking water was irredeemably polluted with blood and feces. To remedy this situation (at least for New Orleans), the city government requested that the butchers move their shops south of the city. But this wasn’t the simple offer it seemed: the land south of the city that the butchers were to remove to was owned by the state, which demanded a high rent for the new space. The butchers, fearing bankruptcy if they had to pay the high rents, sued the state and the corporation it had set up to administer the land.

Their claim was not just that the rents were unfair and that the state-owned company had no competition and could therefore raise the rents as high as it liked. That would be simple extortion. Instead, they took their argument to a new level by saying that they had a constitutionally protected right to pursue an occupation, and that forcing them to move deprived the butchers of their right to do their work as they saw fit. If they felt that working upriver from the city of New Orleans was good for their business, then any attempt to remove them—for any reason, even the disease their offal brought to the residents of the city—was an unconstitutional attempt to deprive them of the right to work.

The lower courts which heard this case found in favor of the state, but the butchers persisted, and in 1873 they took their case all the way to the Supreme Court. They also came up with an argument worthy of that highest of courts: the lawyers for the butchers actually went so far as to bring in the newly passed Fourteenth Amendment to support their case. This Amendment was meant to extend federal protection to formerly enslaved black Americans by overriding any possible state or local laws that would deny them due process and basically re-enslave them. The Slaughterhouse lawyers applied it to say that the state was depriving the butchers of their right to work and make a living while denying them due process under the law. You can’t just tell people to move because they’re poisoning a city’s water supply, the lawyers said; you have to take into consideration those people’s right to make a living, and if moving their business will harm that living, they can’t be made to move. People have a constitutionally protected right to work.

The Court found in favor of the state once again, but only by a 5-4 margin. It did not reject the butchers’ claims that they had a constitutional right to practice their profession in the way that seemed best to them. It decided, rather, that the Fourteenth Amendment was only about federal protection of citizenship; it was meant to preserve the citizenship of formerly enslaved people against state laws. Slavery was now illegal, and could not be reinstated by state laws. The butchers had not been deprived of their citizenship. The right to work could be managed by each state as it saw fit, and in the case of the butchers, the state had a clear right to uphold the common good by removing a clear threat to the public health—New Orleans had suffered nearly a dozen cholera outbreaks since 1832, which were clearly related to the offal in the drinking water. The state has a right and a duty to protect its citizens, stated the majority opinion, and the butchers must go.

But the minority opinion latched on to the idea that businesses themselves had a right to exist. Justice Stephen Field wrote in the dissenting opinion,

“It is contended in justification for the act in question that it was adopted in the interest of the city, to promote its cleanliness and protect its health, and was the legitimate exercise of what is termed the police power of the State. That power undoubtedly extends to all regulations affecting the health, good order, morals, peace, and safety of society, and is exercised on a great variety of subjects, and in almost numberless ways. All sorts of restrictions and burdens are imposed under it, and when these are not in conflict with any constitutional prohibitions, or fundamental principles, they cannot be successfully assailed in a judicial tribunal. With this power of the State and its legitimate exercise I shall not differ from the majority of the court. But under the pretence of prescribing a police regulation the State cannot be permitted to encroach upon any of the just rights of the citizen, which the Constitution intended to secure against abridgment.

…It is contended in justification for the act in question that it was adopted in the interest of the city, to promote its cleanliness and protect its health, and was the legitimate exercise of what is termed the police power of the State. That power undoubtedly extends to all regulations affecting the health, good order, morals, peace, and safety of society, and is exercised on a great variety of subjects, and in almost numberless ways. All sorts of restrictions and burdens are imposed under it, and when these are not in conflict with any constitutional prohibitions, or fundamental principles, they cannot be successfully assailed in a judicial tribunal. ” [my italics]

The subtle change going on here is evident, first in the phrase “the just rights of the citizen”. While Field most likely meant it to refer to the men who worked at their jobs, later corporate lawyers and big business owners would morph “citizen” to mean the business itself—the corporation. If a person has the right to work, then doesn’t a business have the right to exist, so it can provide that work? And if a business has a right to exist, it has the right to operate in any way it sees fit. Successful business was determined by profits, and if a profitable company pursued certain business tactics like monopoly or price-fixing or child labor, who could tell that company it had to stop? It was providing work for thousands of people, creating jobs, and fueling the economy. What outside body could decide that those profitable tactics were wrong? How could anything that made money, jobs, and materials be wrong? The law as people knew it simply did not apply to business. Business was a new class of citizen.

Secondly, the right of a government to impose restrictions in the name of the common good and public health and safety is unimpeached only when it is “not in conflict with any constitutional prohibitions”. But if corporations have a constitutionally protected right to exist and conduct business as they see fit, then no government can impose any restrictions on them.

Field went even further, invoking the spectre of “involuntary servitude” and using language [in italics] that seemed to refer to the forced removal of the butchers and the restriction that they work only in one allotted location:

“[It is] clear that [the words “involuntary servitude”] include something more than slavery in the strict sense of the term; they include also serfage, vassalage, villenage, peonage, and all other forms of compulsory service for the mere benefit or pleasure of others. Nor is this the full import of the terms. The abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude was intended to make every one born in this country a freeman, and as such to give to him the right to pursue the ordinary avocations of life without other restraint than such as affects all others, and to enjoy equally with them the fruits of his labor. …A person allowed to pursue only one trade or calling, and only in one locality of the country, would not be, in the strict sense of the term, in a condition of slavery, but probably none would deny that he would be in a condition of servitude. He certainly would not possess the liberties nor enjoy the privileges of a freeman. The compulsion which would force him to labor even for his own benefit only in one direction, or in one place, would be almost as oppressive and nearly as great an invasion of his liberty as the compulsion which would force him to labor for the benefit or pleasure of another, and would equally constitute an element of servitude.” [my italics]

(It is bitterly ironic that slavery would come up in this case, as one of the lawyers for the butchers was John A. Campbell, who had resigned from the Supreme Court to serve the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War and spent his post-war career thwarting black Americans’ attempts to enjoy the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.)

The door was now open to other lawyers representing much bigger clients than the Louisiana butchers to claim that any restrictions on big business was tantamount to slavery. Price-fixing, monopolies, hostile takeovers, graft, child labor, inferior-grade materials (including foodstuffs), corrupt trusts, and other practices would all be protected or ignored by the law on the grounds that these were the necessary components of successful corporations. The U.S. government was particularly susceptible to this argument in 1873. Determined to grow the economy after the Civil War, and devastated by the financial panic of 1873 itself, the government was more willing to let profitable corporations do whatever it took to build the economy.

So corporations began to take on the rights of citizens, and very protected citizens at that, while workers, small businessmen, consumers, and others were relegated to second- or third-class citizens. It would take decades of Progressive reforms, beginning in the late 1800s and lasting into the mid-20th century, to undo the damage and make corporations accountable to the law.

We are seeing a pendulum swing now, though, in the early 21st century, as corporations have gained the status of private citizens so far as political campaign contributions go, and the federal government is loathe to tax corporations appropriately. Who knows what the next Slaughterhouse Case will be?

The Cross of Gold, the 1896 presidential election, Scopes, and beyond

Part the last of our series on William Jennings Bryan’s famous 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech brings us to the 1896 election, for which Bryan was the Democratic candidate. He ran against Goldbug William McKinley who, like most Republicans, blamed the Democrats and their bi-metallism platform for the economic Panic of 93. The McKinley campaign issued fake dollar bills that read “IN GOD WE TRUST…FOR THE OTHER 53 CENTS” to illustrate the Republicans’ belief that a dollar backed by silver instead of gold would only be worth 47 cents. McKinley looked for support not only from the big businessmen, financiers, and bankers Bryan decried in his Cross of Gold speech, but also from rich farmers, skilled workers, and small businessmen who had more to gain from reducing the flow of currency and curbing inflation.

McKinley was successful in winning this portion of the electorate, which included the wealthy farming states of the Great Lakes region and gold-mining California. McKinley’s alliance with stable, wealthy sections of the populace seemed more promising for the nation’s economic future than Bryan’s rag-tag army of small farmers, coal miners, and social reformers. The 176 electoral votes won in the poor southern and midwestern states that went to Bryan in the election could not match the 271 electoral votes of the wealthy northern and eastern states, and California that went to McKinley.

President McKinley was blessed by incredible good luck: shortly after his election, word of the gold finds in the Klondike reached the continental U.S. California’s gold had pretty much dried up, and McKinley had been faced with the problem of getting enough gold to replace the silver he was going to remove from the currency. That problem was solved by the Klondike, and McKinley was credited at the time with restoring the boom economy.

Bryan ran against McKinley once again in 1900, still pushing for bi-metallism and the little guy, and accusing McKinley of imperialism because of the Spanish-American War of 1898. McKinley won easily, as gold and the war were both very popular with the average American. 1908 saw Bryan run once again, and once again advocating silver while attacking the Republicans for trust-busting that helped big business and hurt small business. His slogan was “Shall the People Rule?” Their response was to elect William Howard Taft in a landslide.

After 1908, Bryan gave up his attempts on the presidency and became a much sought-after public speaker. He was asked to deliver his Cross of Gold speech hundreds of times, and he did so, never tiring of its populist message, and taking heart from its continued popularity. He was made Secretary of State in 1913 by President Wilson but resigned after Wilson declared war on Germany in 1915. Bryan continued to promote reform politics, supporting both Prohibition and women’s suffrage.

But his most famous second act was acting as the prosecution counsel in the famous 1925 Scopes Trial (the Scopes “Monkey Trial”) in which Tennessee teacher John Scopes was put on trial for teaching evolution. Bryan’s reputation made him a seemingly knockout choice, but he was humiliated and outwitted by defense counsel Clarence Darrow, and while the jury returned the guilty verdict everyone had expected they would, the Supreme Court overturned the ruling on a technicality. If you have ever seen a cartoon or show that has a southern lawyer facing a big-time lawyer, and the southern lawyer says “Now, I’m just a country lawyer, but…” then tells a folksy anecdote, then goes in for the kill on the uppity, smug lawyer, that is a reference to Darrow’s skewering of Bryan. It’s unfair in that the big-time lawyer is usually represented as a rich, big-city, corporate lawyer, which is a 180 from who Bryan was, but that is the image that has gone down to posterity. Bryan’s reputation was shattered by the daily newspaper accounts of his humiliations in court at the hands of Darrow; fortunately for him, Bryan did not live long with the embarrassment. He died from complications from diabetes five days after the trial ended.

Thus the curtain closes on Bryan and the Cross of Gold. He recorded the still-popular speech in 1921, and you can hear it here. It’s worth our while to understand this speech and its importance, and to see that while Bryan never won the presidential office he sought, his ideas and reforms were in large part successful, and part of our lives today.

The Cross of Gold speech: a close reading

Part 3 of our series on William Jennings Bryan’s famous 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech focuses on the text of the speech itself. We’ve looked at the battle over bi-metallism fought by Silverites and Goldbugs that the speech addresses in part 2, and now we’ll see how Bryan lays out his argument for silver.

The text is from History Matters; the following are excerpts, not the entire text (it’s too long for us to consider here). All italics are my own unless noted. So let’s begin:

“I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were but a measuring of ability; but this is not a contest among persons. The humblest citizen in all the land when clad in the armor of a righteous cause is stronger than all the whole hosts of error that they can bring. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity. When this debate is concluded, a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commendation of the administration and also the resolution in condemnation of the administration. I shall object to bringing this question down to a level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest of principle.”

—Remember that Bryan was speaking at the Democratic National Convention, so the distinguished gentlemen his audience have already listened to are the candidates vying to become the party’s presidential nominee, and their supporters. Bryan, while a Democrat, was in spirit a Populist; he was a supporter of the “common man”, the farmer and laborer, as opposed to the big businessman, banker, and machine politician. He immediately begins by positioning himself as a somewhat common man who has every right to speak to such a high-powered convention because he is “clad in the armor of a righteous cause”. He may be but “an atom”, but he speaks in the name of an eternal principle “as holy as the cause of liberty” itself, and, indeed the cause of humanity itself. Anyone who studies rhetoric will see a master practitioner in Bryan. He is in just one paragraph humble yet charged with integrity, a defender of humanity. Anyone who could listen to him and not choose the “resolution in condemnation of the [current president’s] administration”, the resolution against the gold standard, is basically an inhuman criminal.

“Never before in the history of this country has there been witnessed such a contest as that through which we have passed. Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been fought out as this issue has been by the voters themselves.”

—Never? There’s never been such a great issue as this? Not federalism, states’ rights, or slavery? Technically Bryan is covering himself by saying that this issue will be fully decided by votes, not war or acts of Congress. But all the same it’s a dramatic overstatement.

“On the 4th of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of the nation asserting that the money question was the paramount issue of the hour; asserting also the right of a majority of the Democratic Party to control the position of the party on this paramount issue; concluding with the request that all believers in free coinage of silver in the Democratic Party should organize and take charge of and control the policy of the Democratic Party. …Our silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory, until they are assembled now, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment rendered by the plain people of this country. …Old leaders have been cast aside when they refused to give expression to the sentiments of those whom they would lead, and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this cause of freedom. Thus has the contest been waged, and we have assembled here under as binding and solemn instructions as were ever fastened upon the representatives of a people.”

—This is the important point: the bi-metallist platform of the Democratic party is the result of grass-roots activism; the “common men” of the party, the voters, have sent the clear message that they want the party to support silver coinage. Party leaders who wouldn’t go along with the people were voted out, and new leaders, like Bryan, voted in. Thus, Bryan, and his listeners, are under “binding and solemn instructions” to support silver. This is how Bryan represents the cause of humanity, and liberty: he is truly a representative of the majority of the people of his party, who lives only to do their will.

“The gentleman who just preceded me [Governor Russell] spoke of the old state of Massachusetts. Let me assure him that not one person in all this convention entertains the least hostility to the people of the state of Massachusetts. But we stand here representing people who are the equals before the law of the largest cities in the state of Massachusetts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your action. We say to you that you have made too limited in its application the definition of a businessman. The man who is employed for wages is as much a businessman as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a businessman as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a businessman as the merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth, is as much a businessman as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go 1,000 feet into the earth or climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured in the channels of trade are as much businessmen as the few financial magnates who in a backroom corner the money of the world.”

—Bryan claims that farmers, small businessmen, miners, and common laborers are just as important to the U.S. economy as big businessmen, bankers, lawyers, and Wall Street traders because the former does the exact same thing as the latter: they generate wealth. They put money into the economy. They grow the economy. But he goes further: the small businessman and farmer are actually better than the bankers and big bosses because the little guy actually does real work—he “by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this country creates wealth”. Big guys grow fat off the sweat of the little guy’s brow. Bankers don’t do anything but collect interest, bosses make money off their workers. Miners risk life and limb, while traders sit in nice rooms betting on what the market will do. Does the trader really deserve as much respect and consideration as the miner? Bryan thinks not.

“Ah, my friends, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—those pioneers away out there, rearing their children near to nature’s heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead—are as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest. We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded. We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!”

—Here Bryan builds on his theme of the virtue of the laborer and takes it into truly melodramatic realms. The little guys are all pioneers and mystical seers, “rearing their children near to nature’s heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds”, and can be found “out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their children and churches where they praise their Creator, and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead”. Apparently only country people love nature, provide an education for their children, love God, and bury their dead. Since the little guys of the Democratic party voted for silver, Bryan and all the leaders of the party are speaking for these people, but it goes beyond that; suddenly, Bryan and his audience are those people. “They” turns to “we” as Bryan goes on: “We are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity… We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!” For someone who started out assuring a Massachusetts Democrat that no one in the room had any hostility toward the east coast, Bryan has quickly turned the east coast into a hideous “them” who the Democrats are not just fighting but defying.

“Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have a different opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business.”

—If putting democratically elected government representatives rather than rich, corrupt bankers, in control of U.S. economic policy was good enough for Thomas Jefferson, it’s good enough for Bryan.

“The gentleman from New York says that he will propose an amendment providing that this change in our law shall not affect contracts which, according to the present laws, are made payable in gold. But if he means to say that we cannot change our monetary system without protecting those who have loaned money before the change was made, I want to ask him where, in law or in morals, he can find authority for not protecting the debtors when the act of 1873 was passed when he now insists that we must protect the creditor.”

—A New Yorker (of course–east coast!) says he’ll go along with bi-metallism, which reduces the value of the dollar, only if contracts that were signed before the bi-metallism law is passed are mandated to be paid in gold. So if I lend someone $10 in gold, I want them to repay that loan with ten valuable, gold-backed dollars, not ten silver-backed dollars that are only worth about $6 in the international markets. This would basically protect banks, the enemy of the farmer and small businessman who have to borrow a lot of money under the gold standard. But Bryan says, You’re very concerned about protecting lenders—why didn’t you care about protecting borrowers during the Crash of 1873, when many were forced into bankruptcies as banks called in loans? The New Yorker, of course, is biased against the little man.

“Now, my friends, let me come to the great paramount issue. If they ask us here why it is we say more on the money question than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that if protection has slain its thousands the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why we did not embody all these things in our platform which we believe, we reply to them that when we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, and that until that is done there is no reform that can be accomplished.”

—Why is the party focusing its entire platform on one issue, bi-metallism? Doesn’t the country have other problems that need to be addressed? Bryan replies that bi-metallism is the source of nearly all the problems in the country: debt, small business failure, monopoly, etc. If silver is restored, “all other necessary reforms will be possible.”

“Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the sentiments of the country? Three months ago, when it was confidently asserted that those who believed in the gold standard would frame our platforms and nominate our candidates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think that we could elect a President… Mr. McKinley was nominated at St. Louis upon a platform that declared for the maintenance of the gold standard until it should be changed into bimetallism by an international agreement. Mr. McKinley was the most popular man among the Republicans ; and everybody three months ago in the Republican Party prophesied his election… Why this change? Ah, my friends, is not the change evident to anyone who will look at the matter? It is because no private character, however pure, no personal popularity, however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an indignant people the man who will either declare that he is in favor of fastening the gold standard upon this people, or who is willing to surrender the right of self-government and place legislative control in the hands of foreign potentates and powers…”

—Goldbugs had this 1896 election locked up with their pro-gold Republican candidate McKinley, and were sure bets to steamroll the Democrats into accepting the gold standard as well, but the sheer and pure power of the People, the little guys, won out. McKinley’s “personal popularity, however great”, cannot protect him from “the avenging wrath of an indignant people”. McKinley’s decision to act bilaterally with the United States’ international trading partners and adopt a currency policy that everyone agreed on, was in effect a move to “surrender the right of self-government and place legislative control in the hands of foreign potentates and powers…” Thus the rise of the Democrats, against all odds, in the election.

“If they tell us that the gold standard is the standard of civilization… we can tell them this, that they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance in which the common people of any land ever declared themselves in favor of a gold standard. [This] is a struggle between the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country; and my friends, it is simply a question that we shall decide upon which side shall the Democratic Party fight. Upon the side of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the struggling masses? [The] sympathies of the Democratic Party, as described by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic Party. There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.”

—The only people who want the gold standard are the parasitic, idle, undemocratic rich. There is no trickle-down economics, where legislation that makes the rich richer also benefits the poor (“their prosperity will leak through on those below”). What does exist is poor men working their way up the ladder through their smarts and hard work and democratic principles, which benefits the whole nation.

“You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.”

—Immediately after this, Bryan will insist once again that he accuses the east coast of no wrong; it is clear, however, that this is a west v. east battle for him, great cities against small farms, “broad and fertile prairies” against cities. Farms are the backbone of the economy and the virtue of the nation, and it is farms that are irreplaceably important, not cities and banks and smokestacks.

“If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

—There is power in our union: the battle for silver will be won by the little man, the “producing masses of the nation”, and not the inactive parasites sitting on their golden thrones in New York or Boston. The poor man will not be crucified with a crown of thorns, will not be sacrificed to the gold standard; and since the little guy is humanity, “you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

One can only imagine the torrential applause this speech was concluded with. Bryan was elected the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, and newspapers across the country reverberated with the story and the speech, which was reprinted ad infinitum. Next time, we’ll see how it all played out.

Next time: the 1896 election