Equal Rights

The most important aspect of citizenship, and what often separates citizens from non-citizens, is to provide for legal rights that are enforceable under the law, although non-citizens are entitled to legal rights as well. Rights, however, are more complex than may first appear. For example, the concept of rights can be broken down into different categories: civil, political, and social rights. This distinction was introduced by the sociologist Thomas H. Marshall, who also worked on drafting the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights, with Eleanor Roosevelt, and others.

As civil rights developed historically it becomes obvious that there are flaws, or contradictions, within civil rights, in other words they do not go far enough in providing freedom for people. This then leads to the development of political rights, and then to social rights. It should also be obvious that many people have not been able to enjoy these rights, this is true today, but especially in the past. This is a contradiction that goes to the heart of American politics, as from the very beginning it has been asserted that all people are entitled to rights (Declaration of Independence), yet it is obvious that not everyone enjoyed these rights. A major aspect of American history is trying to resolve this contradiction, or make the belief (what Chesterton calls a theory) in the Declaration a reality. So, not only has the idea of rights become deeper over the years, but there has also been a process of expanding rights to more and more people. Again, this idea of seeing how things are connected and how they develop over time is what is meant by a dialectical approach. 

Part of the idea of seeing things as connected means seeing how their opposite is also connected to them. So, in the case of civil rights, if civil rights are meant to create freedom, then the opposite of freedom is also a part of civil rights because civil rights only go so far in providing freedom. Once you realize that these opposites (freedom and unfreedom) are connected it pushes you on to resolving that contradiction, so you get to an idea of political rights, and so forth. This process tends to work itself out throughout history, and involves large groups of people, not just individuals. This can be a tricky idea to grasp, but I think Marshall shows how rights have evolved over time, in each case striving to provide more freedom to people. So, if you have already read Marshall it might be easier to understand.

Another thing to consider is if it is even possible for people to enjoy the fullest enjoyment of rights (civil, political, and social) under a capitalist system. There seems to be a strong contradiction between an economic system based on the profit-motive and a political society which is supposed to grant people rights. It would seem that too often people's rights are sacrificed in the name of profit. This would be an example then of a contradiction in society. Philosophers, including Marxists, who hold to a dialectical view of things would argue that history is the process of removing these contradictions, almost like going through different levels of development. At the level we are at right now, there are still many contradictions that have not been dealt with. For one, the US lags behind many other countries in providing social rights, as mentioned already. But, even in other countries that grant these rights, like European countries, there is still a conflict between rights and a profit driven economic system. For Marxists, the only way to resolve this contradiction is with socialism. Marshall seems not to share this view, but I would argue there are still lingering contradictions in societies even with fairly extensive social rights. That leads to a whole set of other questions which I will not go into now.

These are things to consider, but what exactly are the different kinds of rights? Civil rights refer to basic freedoms like freedom of speech, religion, a free press, and due process of law, which itself means that the government must follow certain rules and procedures before it can deprive anyone of life, liberty or property, as it says in the 5th and 14th amendments to the Constitution. Civil rights specify how the legal process works, and limits the power of the government. Political rights refer to the right to vote and to participate in the political process, or as Aristotle would say, the art of "ruling and being ruled." Social rights refers to rights like education and healthcare, and other rights that Marshall says are necessary to lead a "civilized life." The notion of economic security is fundamental to this concept.

Civil rights refer to certain protections each individual is granted, and where they are free from any kind of government interference. In Western political philosophy, the idea of civil rights can be summed up by what John Locke referred to as "natural rights": life, liberty, and property. Locke was a profound influence on Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence. Marshall shows that civil rights, although inherently against the idea of slavery, is fairly limited in its meaning, and can also serve to deny social protection :

The explanation lies in the fact that the core of citizenship at this stage was composed of civil rights. And civil rights were indispensable to a competitive market economy. They gave to each man, as part of his independent status, the power to engage as an independent unit in the economic struggle and made it possible to deny him social protection on the ground that he was equipped with the means to protect himself.

Of course, we are familiar with the "civil rights movement" for equality. The very denial of these rights for so many years, and the hypocrisy of American rhetoric explains why Douglass cannot join in the celebrations of Independence Day, and also reminds people that the meaning we give to events is influenced by our values and perspective. But, many of aspects of the civil rights movement also contained a demand for greater political participation as well as social protections. After civil rights were established the next demand came in the form of greater political participation, the right to vote and hold office. Unlike pure civil rights which poses no threat to the capitalist system, extending the right to vote to the whole population could lead to a greater demand for equality by passing laws to that effect:

The political rights of citizenship, unlike the civil rights, were full of potential danger to the capitalist system, although those who were cautiously extending them down to the social scale probably did not realized how great the danger was. They could hardly be expected to foresee what vast changes could be brought about by the peaceful use of political power, without a violent and bloody revolution.

The extension of political rights then leads to the demand for social rights:

But the normal method of establishing social rights is by the exercise of political power, for social rights imply an absolute right to a certain standard of civilization which is conditional only on the discharge of of the general duties of citizenship. Their content does not depend on the economic value of the individual claimant.

In the 1930s-40s, the idea of social rights, always more controversial in the US, was gaining force. Again, this is best represented by FDR's Economic Bill of Rights (this would imply these rights should be made into constitutional amendments) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The "civil rights" movement could more accurately be described as the civil, political and social rights movements, as the movement had to struggle for all three simultaneously. Social rights continued to be an issue through the 1960s and 70s which saw the creation of programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Housing and Urban Development, Environmental Protection, and the passage of landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration Act, however since the 1980s, these rights have been scaled back, and redefined by the Reagan and Bush administrations as "privileges" or "desirable goals" but not necessarily rights, with very little pushback from Democratic leaders. To be fair, on the other side there are many Democrats who declare healthcare to be a right, and then vote against single payer healthcare, as happened recently in California.

Much of the animosity towards undocumented immigrants stems from the perception that they are "overburdening" public resources like education and healthcare. However, as it says in the 14th amendment, all people are entitled to due process of law and to the equal protection of the law. It does not specify citizenship as a qualification for legal rights, but is something extended to all people, regardless of class or status.

How did these rights come about, and what are rights in the first place? Rights are basically social norms or values, accepted by a large community of people. In liberal philosophy, your rights are inherent in nature, as Locke or Jefferson would say, or God-given, meaning that no government can take them away, and any government that tries to should be resisted.

Machiavelli

 Other political philosophers like Niccolò Machiavelli would say, that your rights are really just privileges that the government can take away if it interferes with the interests of the state. Machiavelli's ideas certainly seem more realistic, but if you accept his view, then there is no motivation to resist a government that tries to take away rights. On the other hand, Machiavelli's point was to remind people that our rights are not secure unless we have a political structure than can enforce our claims to rights, a point Locke would agree with. 

Modern political philosophers would say, rights are real, and exist outside the state, because of a moral consensus that people agree on. The idea of a rational consensus then becomes something binding on people, and in that sense real, but only as long as it is a consensus arrived at without force or coercion. The reality is most political, moral and ethical debates do feature elements of coercion whether in the media, schools, or elsewhere. If people were actually to debate morals under the ideal conditions, it is hard to say what people would really agree with, other than things that are universal like prohibitions against murder, and things like that. Other issues would have to be decided on a more localized basis. To be fair, most industrialized countries, with the exception of the US, do, for the most part, agree with the idea of healthcare and education as a right, but in the US these are ideas are divisive.

Marshall looks at the development of rights in Great Britain between the 17th-20th centuries. Its a long, slow development beginning with civil rights in the late 17th century. Political rights would not be won until the mid 19th century, and only partially, until well into the 20th century (women received the right to vote in 1928). The relationship between political and social rights in this example is interesting, as Marshall argues that as the working class won the right to a vote (a process that occurred gradually) there began a call for social rights through law and politics. As the working class gained in power, the demand for social rights grew, until the British granted it to its people in the 1940s, actually during the war, and then after, resulting in free college education and the National Health Service, a single payer healthcare system.

Marshall's analysis gives the impression that rights develop out of one another and follow a logical sequence: civil, political and social. However, the other sociologists Michael Mann and Charles Tilly bring a different approach. Mann looks at rights as "ruling class strategies" (back to Machiavelli) that the ruling class concedes in order to gain the obedience of the population, to accept their rule as being legitimate. So, according to this logic, the ruling class only gives out social rights when it feels it has to, when it feels that the working class will not accept them any other way. This raises the question, why do people in the United States accept a ruling class that does not grant social rights? In a sense, people in the US give their obedience for very little, compared to other countries. Mann argues, in a somewhat convoluted way, that since the American white male working class won the right to a vote at an earlier date than the British working class, before socialism was an important movement, they never learned to articulate an idea of social rights. 

Bismarck

Of course, Mann also brings attention to the fact that a ruling class exists even in countries that grant social rights. Here Mann goes beyond Marshall's single example of Great Britain, and looks at the historical development of rights in other countries, and several different paths for rights to develop. For example, he finds in Imperial Germany, before World War I, a government that granted civil and social rights, but not political rights, under Otto von Bismarck.



The Soviet Union, and other communist countries, granted extensive social rights, but neither civil or political rights. The conclusion from this is that social rights can exist in an authoritarian government, and is no guarantee that social rights assumes a strong democratic foundation, if anything, the most valuable rights are political rights, the rights that elites hold on to the most. This is not to disparage social rights, or civil rights.  Mann shows, in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, you have no rights at all. You cannot automatically assume a government that grants social rights is democratic, you need all three. Tilly's argument, largely covers the same ground, offering a broader historical analysis than given by Marshall. 

In the U.S. we have the Bill of Rights, but the concept of rights, sometimes grouped together as "human rights" has found expression in other sources as well. The best example is the United Nation's International Bill of Rights, composed of three separate documents the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESER, signed by the U.S., but not ratified). Some argue, that the concept of "human rights" conceals Western and secular biases, but supporters argue these rights make up only general statements that everyone can agree on.


The idea of social rights then speaks to the idea that everyone is entitled as Marshall says "to a certain standard of civilization" meaning that people are entitled to the things necessary for a healthy and productive life. Political struggles for these rights only increased during the 20th century. In the U.S. the greatest period for the extension of social rights occurred between the 1930s and 1970s beginning from the New Deal to the civil rights movement. When Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis for a sanitation worker's strike, and he even renamed his movement, the "poor people's campaign" showing that he saw his struggle as something evolving, first to eliminate legal segregation which did consist of the government interfering in the lives of black people by telling them where they could eat, work, etc., to a movement that struggled to secure the basic necessities of life for all people.

Since the 1980s, and especially after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, there has been a dramatic scaling back and reduction of the idea of social rights. Despite this, social rights still make up 2/3 of the government budget in the form of benefits paid out through programs like Medicare and Social Security (the other 1/3 being almost all spending on military, homeland security, and interest on debt). The economist Paul Krugman commented that the US government is like "an insurance company with an army," being that most of its spending is basically providing some form of social insurance.

Marshall argues demand for social rights begins with public education. If civil rights means the government cannot interfere with you, then on that basis alone there is no clear right to provide education for all people. It is commonly accepted that everyone is entitled to go to school, at least primary school, but this is only because we accept the idea of education as a kind of social right that everyone needs. In today's politics, things like healthcare would be considered a social right. This however makes it clear, that not everyone agrees on the idea of social rights. When it comes to healthcare most other countries have accepted it as a social right, this is still something debated in the U.S. With education there is a continuing effort to privatize education and de-fund and eventually shut down many public schools.

Marshall's argument for rights is also compelling in that there is a kind of logic or evolution for rights: civil, political, and social. Mann argues, the US followed a different path of development than the British, and explains why social rights are relatively so few compared to other nations. Mann argues that because political rights were granted so early (1820s or so) before the development of socialist movements. But, consider his definition of democracy and political rights. For Mann, like many sociologists, assumes that a state can be considered democratic and grant political rights when the white, male, adult population receives the right to vote. What if we use a more modern definition of democracy, where all adults have the right to vote, not based on race or gender? 

By that standard, the US did not really become a democracy until 1965 when the Voting Rights Act is passed. Prior to that, black people did not have the right to vote. Following that, there is a strong movement for social rights (Medicare and Medicaid are created the same year) lasting through the 1970s. In fact, the civil rights movement should really be called the civil, political, and social rights movement. In other words, Marshall argues that as workers in Europe gained political rights, they soon began to demand social rights, similar to what happened in the US in the late 60s. As mentioned, there has been a strong conservative backlash against these ideas since the 1980s, which, at best, were at their peak in the 1930-70s, and really only about from the late 60s through late 70s, a fairly short period of time in the context of American history. Public opinion polls now show that a clear majority, almost 2/3 or more in some cases, support core social rights like public education and even healthcare, higher taxes on the wealthy, and in favor of immigration.

https://prospect.org/article/most-americans-are-liberal-even-if-they-don’t-know-it



Of course this has not, for the most part, translated into public policy.

Another aspect to consider is to what extent we need rights. As mentioned rights are based on the notion of class conflict, but would legal rights still be needed in a classless society? For example, Marx was not simply for raising the minimum wage, but for getting rid of the system of wage labor entirely. A minimum wage would be a good example of a social right, but should people put their energy in raising the minimum wage, or getting rid of the wage system?

There are many other rights based issues to focus on. Certainly,  immigrant deportation and detainment policy is one of the most important civil rights issue at the present moment. It is also fair to point out that many of these policies were ongoing during the Obama administration, but only now are people taking this seriously. The overall decline in civil rights since 2001 regarding surveillance, the increase in police powers, is a constant feature of American life now, which of course also relates to immigration. ICE was created by the Homeland Security Act in 2002, supported by Democrats like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Charles Schumer (who all also voted for the PATRIOT Act). 
https://www.aclu.org/issues/immigrants-rights/immigrants-rights-and-detention

The curtailment of political rights, is another issue, as Republicans come up with new schemes to deprive people of the right to vote, now validated by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, so called blue states like NY still have a "closed primary" making it harder to vote in primary elections, not to mention the mysterious purging of hundreds of thousands of voters during the Democratic primary of 2016. Not surprisingly, a little known but important story is the DNC fraud lawsuit which revealed that the primaries are basically a fraud anyway.
https://medium.com/the-jist/the-dismissed-dnc-fraud-lawsuit-explained-85f7a5c26574

One passage that stands out, and which is of interest, is that the DNC lawyer basically admitted that political primaries do not have to be fair and impartial, and that they can be as biased as they want to whatever candidate they prefer:

“We could have — and we could have voluntarily decided that, ‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way.’ That’s not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have also been their right… There’s no right to not have your candidate disadvantaged or have another candidate advantaged. There’s no contractual obligation here…it’s not a situation where a promise has been made that is an enforceable promise.”

So, it would seem then that none of the rights are really all that secure in the US.

 

Next class, we begin discussing Congress and the different branches of the federal government.

Civil Disobedience

In this class, and the next we will be focusing on civil liberties and civil rights, both important concepts, inseparable from the idea of citizenship. We will look at the idea of civil liberties through some of the most important figures in American history, all fierce champions of liberty, ready and willing to call out the abuses of government.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), wrote, the essay "Civil Disobedience," and a true radical in a political history which usually idolizes moderate liberals. The idea of civil disobedience is unique to democratic societies. It means breaking the law and thus challenging the authorities, but usually in a non-violent fashion. In Thoreau's case he refused to pay his taxes in 1846 because he believed the money was being used for an immoral purpose, namely the Mexican-American War which he saw as a war to advance the interests of slave owners and he was put in jail. He was bailed out the next day by his friend and famous poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Supposedly, there was an exchange between the two, where Emerson questioned Thoreau on why he was in jail. Thoreau allegedly responded "why are you not in jail?" In other words, the idea behind civil disobedience is that  morality requires you to disobey unjust laws. Passively accepting a corrupt society, Thoreau argues, makes you as guilty as the people who actually oppress others and do violence to people. It is even worse in a democracy because here the citizens actually have some ability to alter the course of laws and government.


This idea is also a core component of the civil religion, and refers to the higher authority that is referred to in the Declaration, as "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights," in other words, a form of law based on natural rights higher than the laws of political states. The basis of civil disobedience can be found in the Declaration itself which explicitly authorizes disobedience to the extent in which government departs from protecting the rights of its citizens.

Thoreau, much like Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther King Jr., see natural law and human law as antagonistic, and separate, as he says: "Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward" (p. 222). Thoreau was a big influence on King who similarly practiced civil disobedience in opposing segregation in the South, and in his later Poor People's Campaign which we will discuss next class. Like Thoreau, King was not afraid of going to jail and composed one of his most well known writings literally from the Birmingham, Alabama jail.

Thoreau was very conscious in which respect for laws or traditions and mores can easily turn into a mechanical and unthinking submission to whatever the authorities may be:

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army; and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens (p. 223).

Government is only as good or bad as the people who run it. It is not evil in itself nor is it good in itself, or as  he says, "But, to speak practically and as a citizen unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it" (p. 222). In other words a government closer to the ideas of equality and justice that we are entitled to according to the Declaration.

He is very clear on the source of his disgust for the current government, "I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also" (p. 223) (referring to the slave owners not the actual slaves)

In The Federalist we discussed how the ideal of government was supposed to function like a machine and thus create an impersonal system of control that is not under the control of any one person. As long as the machine functions properly and maintains justice in society but what happens if the machine is creating injustice:

If the unjustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth––certainly the machine will wear out. If the unjustice has a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or a crank,  exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will not be worse than the evil; but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say break the law. Let you life be a counterfriction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn (p. 226).

"Civil Disobedience" was written about the same time as Karl Marx and Fredrick Engel's "Manifesto of the Communist Party", that begins its first chapter with the famous line, "the history of all hitherto existing society, is the history of class struggles." These writings stand in the same tradition of provocative literature as Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," something very much lacking in today's political discourse. The sociologist, Alvin Gouldner, spoke of a "culture of critical discourse" developing from the 18th century, establishing certain norms for how political debate, or any intellectual debate should take place. Gouldner addresses many issues connected with this, but George Orwell goes right to the heart of the matter in his essay "Politics and the English Language," where he speaks of the political uses (or misuses) of language, especially how language is used to mystify and deceive people. Anyone familiar with his novel, 1984, is aware of how the totalitarian government uses language to deceive the population. He even outlines six guidelines for writing that I think are important, and very counter-intuitive for how people are usually taught to write in college, where they are always thinking about page length and things like that: 

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

I bring all this up because I want to bring attention not just to the content of the readings in question, but form as well, in other words how they write. In my opinion, they write with more passion and clarity than you see in today's political commentators.


Judith Shklar was a known political philosopher. Her lectures on citizenship, collected in the book, American Citizenship (1991), reveal some important insights into American culture, and why Americans value the idea of equality so much, even in a highly unequal society. Though not on the syllabus, I think this book explores several themes that relate to the readings this week. Shklar explains: 

The dignity of work and personal achievement, and the contempt for aristocratic idleness, were from colonial times onward at the very heart of American civic self-identification. The opportunity to work and to be paid an earned reward for one's labor was a social right, because it was a primary source of public respect. It was seen as such, however, not only because it was a defiant cultural and moral departure from the corrupt European past, but also because paid labor separated the free man from the slave (p. 387).

For her, citizenship in America is essentially defined by two things, voting, and the ability to earn. However, she values citizenship more for the social recognition, or status, it brings, rather then the formalities of voting and limited participation:

The significance of the two great emblems of public standing, the vote and the opportunity to earn, seems clearest to these excluded men and women. They have regarded voting and earning not as just the ability to promote their interests and to make money. They have seen them as the attributes of an American citizen. And people who are not granted these marks of civic dignity feel dishonored, not just powerless and poor. They are also scorned by their fellow citizens. The struggle for citizenship in America has, therefore, been overwhelmingly a demand for inclusion in the polity, an effort to break down excluding barriers to recognition, rather than civic participation as a deeply involving activity (p. 388).

Frederick Douglass

The historical development of rights for African-Americans follows a dramatically different path then that of the white working class in this country. As Frederick Douglass illustrates in his most famous speech. Douglass, points to a glaring gap in the creed of America, which according to Chesterton is embodied in the Declaration of Independence: 

But such is not the sate of the case. I sat it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeather by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! 

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. 

In his other writing, Douglass distinguishes between various forms of the abolition movement that in his eyes are inadequate. He refers to the Free Soil Party founded in 1848 of former Democrats and some radical abolitionists. The party failed to win any presidential elections, but helped transition anti-slavery democrats to the   Republican Party, originally formed as an anti-slavery party in 1854 and supported by papers like Horace Greeley's New-York Tribune.

The Democratic Party at the same time which was so powerful in the South and New York has become the party of slavery. However, in Douglass' view the Free Soil movement does not go far enough because it only wants to restrict the further expansion of slavery, not to abolish it where it already is. Although scientific reason was opposed to slavery it did create the "cautious" attitude that you do not do things too radically. Douglass is equally opposed to the Garrison Abolitionists, named after William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879), a New England journalist who became one of the most well known abolitionists. Garrison favored total abolition, but he was apolitical, in other words he thought the best way to fight slavery was not to deal with it or people who benefit from it. Douglass saw this as little better than closing your eyes to a problem, and like the Republicans, favored political involvement, but like Garrison, wanted total abolition.

Until the 1960s, most African-Americans could not even claim to have basic civil rights, let alone political or social rights. Even though there were people before then like Douglass, DuBois, and others, unfortunately they had not been able to make much progress, at least in getting the country as a whole, to accept rights for African-Americans. In many ways, democracy is a fairly new idea in this country. If you accept the basic notion that a democracy is where all the citizens are allowed to vote, then the country can not really be considered a democracy until about 1965. Clearly, the idea of democracy frightens many people and there has been a strong backlash against these democratic forces since then.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), and Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) were all active members of the abolition and women's rights movements, which originally were united, and who used the idea of civil disobedience that Thoreau spoke of, as a means to agitate the political system, to initiate radical reforms, and ultimately to win full citizenship. 

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Stanton and Anthony were leaders of the Women's Rights movement which since the 1840s had been organizing to win for women the right to vote. They shared leadership of the movement, with Stanton being more of a writer, and Anthony being more of an orator. Stanton's Declaration of Rights and Sentiments is modeled after the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..." (pp. 231-32). 


Besides their ideological strength, they were skilled organizers and were able to create a network of political institutions composed of voluntary associations, small political parties, and newspapers. All were involved early on with the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), supported by newspapers like The Liberator or the National Anti-Slavery Standard. Frederick Douglass published his own abolitionist paper The North Star, which later merged with the newspaper of the abolitionist political party, the Liberty Party to form Frederick Douglass' Paper. Anthony published her own women's rights paper The Revolution which was the official paper of the National Women's Suffrage Association (NWSA) formed by Stanton and Anthony in 1869. The NWSA was formed after the breakup of the earlier American Equal Rights Association between 1866-1869, which split over the issue of granting voting rights (suffrage) to women and freed slaves. The text of the 15th amendment to the Constitution (1870) shows clearly that the right to vote cannot be taken away because of a person's race or color, but it does not specify gender. Women would not win the right to vote in the country until 1920 (after Stanton and Anthony had died) with the passage of the 19th amendment. They also illustrate the importance of third parties in the US, which although it is common knowledge the US is a two party system, the history of third parities like the Liberty Party in the 1840s, the Communist Party in the 1930s, and arguably the Green Party today, or Democratic Socialists of America (as well as others), have all had a tremendous impact on public policy and even how we talk about politics, even if they failed to win at electoral politics.

Today, the network of organizations, media, and activists is known as the public sphere, but the development of this sphere was supported by the beneficial economic advantages of the U.S. including relative economic equality, as well as a literate population. Also, civil liberties which, of course, include freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press. 

Anthony was arrested in 1872 after attempting to vote in New York. The same year women's rights activists Victoria Woodhull ran a presidential campaign under the the Equal Rights Party, with Frederick Douglass as Vice-President (Douglass never responded to the nomination), though they received no electoral votes and a very tiny amount of the popular vote. The excerpt here is from the closing statements of the trial United States v. Anthony. Anthony is skillfully able to turn the trial itself into a trial of the American system by pointing out the obvious hypocrisies and contradictions in a political system based on the idea of citizenship and equality but that excludes almost half the population from being a real citizen, which she notes emphatically is impossible without real political rights including of course the right to vote:

All my prosecutors, from the 8th Ward corner grocery politician, who entered the complaint, to the United States Marshal, Commissioner, District Attorney, District Judge, your honor on the bench, not one is my peer, but each and all are my political sovereigns; and had your honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, even when I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but native or foreign, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, awake or asleep, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior; hence, in no sense, my peer.

Susan B. Anthony

The 14th amendment to the Constitution explicitly states that all people born or naturalized within the United States are citizens of the United States and are entitled to all the protections of the law and all the rights and privileges that come with citizenship. Anthony argues quite clearly that her arrest and trial clearly contradict her rights as defined by this amendment in the Constitution.

As important as the formal rights in the Constitution are, the preservation of these rights depends on democratic political institutions and an open society. Social norms can sometimes prevent change as they become dogmatic, but because of the struggles of people, civil disobedience itself is an established norm in American culture, in other words, somewhat paradoxically, a tradition of opposing authority.

Besides voting, Shklar also points to the economic aspects of citizenship, of earning a living, and being independent, something which creates certain obsessive qualities in American culture, as she says:

The addiction to work that this induced was noted by every visitor the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century. So was the passion for money, which, as the most astute noted, meant not just gain, but also independence, the freedom to do with one's life as one pleased. To have money is to spend and save and give as one chooses, without asking leave of any superior. It had taken the place that honor occupied in aristocratic societies. And indeed, independence had replaced honor as the object of social aspiration. It was an enormously radical change. Independent citizens in a democratic order had now not only to be respected for working, they also had a right to self-improvement, to education and unblocked opportunities for self-advancement. These rights partly fulfilled the promise of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, and partly they were the necessary corollary of the duty to contribute to the progress and prosperity of the republic. For the individual citizen that also meant that socially he was what he as an earner at any given moment in his life (pp. 416-17).

The importance of earning, and how one earned a living, became even more of a focus after the Civil War, as some of the barriers to voting began to fall. However, the economic class struggles that defined the late 19th century were only beginning to intensify. One cannot talk about class struggle without mentioning Karl Marx. Marx, of all people, actually wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln, congratulating him on the North's efforts to end slavery in the South: "If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery," and concludes the letter with: 

The workingmen of Europe feel sure, that as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendance for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

Marx, then, understood that the struggle against slavery was a struggle of humanity against oppression, and would reverberate throughout the world. It was also an important step in modernizing the American economy, which Marx always believed would eventually lead to socialism.

It has become common to be dismissive or cynical towards the motives of the North in fighting slavery, for example in the movie Gangs of New York, by Martin Scorsese, the working class is portrayed as racist and hostile to the war effort. It is true that Lincoln was reluctant, at first, to call for the end of slavery, and there were riots in New York City when the North instituted the first draft for military service. On the other hand, 80 percent of Northern soldiers voted for Abraham Lincoln in 1864, after three hard years of fighting, with the war still going on, and after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, clearly signaling their support for the cause.

One of Marx's most important insights was that under a capitalist economic system, which was still developing in their time, the class structure of society becomes simplified into two classes of owners and workers, or as Marx termed them, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. This marks a change from earlier feudal and slave societies that had more complex class structures, or in simpler terms, pre-capitalist societies had "caste" systems that were fairly complex, while capitalist societies have a class system.

In the American context, Shklar argues that the radical nature of the American revolution destroyed the feudal ideas of privileged classes and hierarchy that had infected European life, just as much as Japan, or elsewhere. However, the growth of a class system under capitalism was something that was just beginning to develop at the time of the revolution, and posed new challenges that are still unresolved today. Furthermore, the racial aspects of class struggle in American life also pose significant challenges, as slavery and segregation afterwards, have always had an economic aspect of exploitation, as much as politically denying the vote and representation.


Next class, we will talk more about rights.

Federalism

Ramon de Elorriaga,  "Washington's Inauguration," 1889
 April 30th, 1789, Federal Hall, New York
Trinity Church is in the background which is also still there today

The high point of Federalist influence in the country was the inauguration of George Washington in 1789,  after designing the Constitution and successfully arguing to get it ratified by the states. For more than a decade, the Federalists would control government. After 1800, they rapidly fade away as a political force in the country and never gain dominance again (at least not in the same form or same name).

The final development to be explained is federalism and the emergence of the party system, which emerged separately from the Constitution. Federalism speaks to the division of power between the national government and the states. Most states do not have this distinction. The term United States of America is hardly analyzed today, but in theory, this country is made up of a union of states, or basically separate "countries." Clearly, the sense of national unity is much stronger today, but there are definitely traces of state and regional identity, and the larger geographical and cultural separations between North and South are still evident. Today, it may be more accurate to speak of coastal areas and the interior, meaning the East and West Coast are culturally more similar while the interior of the country is distinct. Coastal areas are shown to be more politically innovative, as shown in Jack Walker's innovation score for the states. On the other hand, the interior of the country was once the center of the populist movement, as journalist and historian Thomas Frank points out in his book What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004).

Parties emerge from this too, even though there is nothing in the Constitution that provides for the establishment of political parties, and as we will see, in the first decade of the operation of the new political system, the idea of party competition was unforeseen, not anticipated, causing major difficulties in the early days of the Republic. In simplest terms, political parties recruit, nominate and campaign for candidates to occupy the offices of government. 

If the Constitution establishes the separation of powers and the structure of the government itself, then political parties compete to place their members within this structure. In another sense, political parties, have always provided patronage to supporters. Patronage is the practice of providing jobs or other means of assistance in return for the loyalty (votes) of your supporters. The modern political system is really incomplete without discussing the emergence of the the party system which eventually settled into the two-party dominant system we are familiar with today. We will discuss its emergence in the context of rapid industrialization and urbanization in the first decade of the new republic and the conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson (leaders of two opposing parties). 

Washington's inauguration can be seen to be highly symbolic (and relevant for the present) considering that his inauguration was in New York City, on Wall Street. New York was originally the capital of the country, although only from 1789-1790. Hamilton who represented big New York bankers became Washington's Secretary of Treasury, and very little has changed in the relationship between the government and Wall St. bankers since then. 


In Hamilton's life and his writings, you see clearly the intersection between politics and economics, and he understood (though by no means the only one) that  law and politics are fundamentally about shaping, controlling, or influencing economic forces.

Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton was a member of the Cabinet. The President's Cabinet was a combination of advisors, but also department heads who would run the agencies considered necessary to running the government and carrying out the laws passed by Congress. Originally there were five, each headed by a "Secretary" (similar to a Minister in other countries): State (deals with foreign countries); Treasury; War (now called the Defense Department after WWII); the Attorney General is not referred to as Secretary but is the head of the Justice Department which prosecutes criminals under federal law, heads up agencies like the FBI and the DEA, defends the U.S. in lawsuits, and enforces the law. Finally, the Post-Master General of the Post Office who has since been "demoted" and is still a government agent but no longer "Cabinet-level" which is considered the highest level. Today there are 15 Cabinet departments, other Cabinet-level offices like the Chief of Staff, and various other agencies below that.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet

The federal judiciary (of which Hamilton was a prime architect) set up under the Constitution also went into effect, along with the Judiciary Act of 1789 which further specified the structure and duties of federal courts. One of the busiest was the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The 94 federal district courts are the lowest level of the federal judiciary. Above them, presently, there are 13 U.S. Courts of Appeal, in most cases these are the highest federal judicial authority most people will deal with if they have to. Higher than this is the U.S. Supreme Court but it limits the amount of cases it hears every year to about 100. 

The primary concern of the Southern District today includes Manhattan and the Bronx and handling cases under "admiralty law" or cases involving trade or shipping disputes with foreign countries or interstate trade from other states. This is a highly sought after position and has been used a springboard for even higher offices, for example before he became Mayor of New York City in 1993, Rudolph Giuliani was the State's Attorney (or federal prosecutor) for the Southern District of New York. This is distinct from the Government of New York State and the City of New York, you can see now how the different layers of government: federal, state, and municipal all overlap with each other depending on authority and function.

Southern District of New York

Legal matters involving trade with a foreign country come under the jurisdiction of federal law. Since the port of New York was the busiest port in the country, most cases involving disputes over shipping and international trade would occupy most of the court's activity.

New York was already the most populous city in the country. The first census was conducted in 1790 and has been done every 10 years since. According to the first census the population of New York City was only about 33,000. Philadelphia was second, followed by Boston, and then Charleston, South Carolina, and Baltimore, Maryland in that order. According to the first census in 1790, the total population of the U.S. was just under 4 million at that time (today the population is over 310 million, the 3rd largest in the world).

Wall St., New York, The building pictured was the temporary headquarters of the new government
The remodeled City Hall, now Federal Hall

In the early 1700s and even into the early revolutionary period, Philadelphia was considered the largest city. Both New York and Philadelphia had a superior geographical location, a deeper harbor, and a better river system than Boston. Both cities were also considered more open and tolerant than Boston, and so many people moved there and the population grew. New York simply had more of these qualities than Philadelphia and that is why it became the bigger city: it's harbor was a little bit better, it was closer to the ocean, and culturally it was even more open and tolerant than Philadelphia (the city of "Brotherly Love"). 

In the early 1800s the construction of the Eerie Canal linked the economy of New York with the entire Great Lakes Region of the country, and linked completely through waterways. By 1860, New York's population was 250,000 more than Philadelphia's total population. The harbor of New York is considered one of the most "perfect" natural harbors in the world, ironically, the port is now virtually inactive due to years of corruption and mafia penetration of labor unions has raised the cost of doing business so much, that many containers are now unloaded once again in Philadelphia or Baltimore or mainly in "Port Newark" and the Elizabeth Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is now the busiest port in the country. However, Philadelphia's symbolic stature in the country's history is also secured, because it was where the Continental Congress met to sign the Declaration of Independence, and where the Constitutional Convention met to sign the Constitution.

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Second St., Philadelphia
At the time the largest "shopping district" in the U.S.

One of the first major conflicts in the new government was over the creation of a National Bank. Hamilton's strategy was actually part of a larger approach to managing the finances and credit of the nation. Article VI of the Constitution says that the new government is responsible for all debts incurred under the Articles of Confederation (1783-1789). Now, Hamilton wanted to explicitly commit government revenues in the form of new taxes to pay off bondholders who had purchased government bonds. Bonds are debt, so when you buy government bonds or any bonds you are "buying debt," literally you give money by paying for the bond that they promise will pay you back later, when the bond "appreciates." The problem was that in the meantime, financial speculators had purchased large blocks of these bonds from individuals who had purchased them, in many cases to provide support for the revolution, but had become almost worthless in the meantime. Controversially, Hamilton proposed and succeeded in getting the current holders of the bonds the full payoff, vastly enriching a small group of financial speculators, giving financial interests in New York a huge advantage.

In addition, Hamilton wanted to absorb all the debts of the individual states which would increase the overall debt and lead to more taxes as well. This also angered states which had already paid off their debts and would now have to pay for other states. Taking on all this debt actually established the credit of the U.S. which might sound contradictory. The most important aspect of credit is credibility, in other words, can you be counted on to make regular payments on your debt? That is usually more important then even the amount of debt you owe. On the contrary, most financial institutions are more than happy to lend you more money, assuming they feel confident you will pay them back–that is essentially what credit is. If they do not feel confident they will not loan however, and your credit score is supposed to be a measurement of their confidence in your ability to pay things back. Countries also have credit scores although they use a different scale. In any case, most of the principles are fairly similar even at larger levels although obviously much more complicated. Hamilton's plan was successful and the U.S. began with perfect credit. To this day, the U.S. is still considered the safest market to invest in (meaning putting money in banks, other businesses, or government bonds) despite unprecedented high debt.

The final measure, as I already said, was the establishment of a National Bank. State banks of course had already existed, but at the time there was not a centralized financial institution that was large or powerful enough to regulate the finances of the entire nation. The advantages of the bank is that it would have more money on hand and be able to loan out bigger sums and thus finance bigger projects, but this would also lead to more economic concentration in fewer hands. Furthermore, the "constitutionality" of the bank was also questioned as there was no explicit clause establishing a national bank. Hamilton's response was that under the "Necessary and Proper" Clause in Article I, that it implies the power to create a bank.  The matter was resolved through a compromise: the bank was approved by Congress and in exchange the capital of the country was moved from New York, to a new "Federal City" which had yet to be built, but would become the District of Columbia, or Washington D.C., located not coincidentally, nearer to Virginia (the base of anti-federalist opposition). George Washington was never in the White House which was not completed until 1800 (Washington died in 1799). This also started a tradition of separating the political capital of individual states from its most economically developed city. Very few state capitals are the largest cities in their state (Boston is the only  exception I believe and that is because its so old it predates this tradition). Albany, for example, became the capital of New York in 1797. However, it took about 10 years to build the new federal capital, for ten years, Philadelphia became the "temporary" capital of the country, although even this decision many believed was the result of corrupt political bargaining. 

 Senator Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, holding a money bag
drags the capital to Philadelphia

In early 1791, as a result of the conflicts over the bank, the anti-federalist opposition began to be mobilized again. Now, people like Madison who were so influential in making the Constitution and was one of the principal authors of the The Federalist, had now switched sides. On top of this, Thomas Jefferson was now back in the country and served on Washington's first Cabinet as Secretary of State. Jefferson and Madison now began to organize opposition to the Federalists and in the process they created the modern political system which we now have in the form of the party system. 

The Federalist "Party" was not a true party or at least not until Jefferson had already organized. The Federalist relied more on personal connections and relationships and was thus informal. They were a loose association of like minded elites made up of large merchants and bankers in the cities of the North, and commercial farmers and large plantation owners in the South. Besides their support for measures like the National Bank and government tariffs to protect their industry they were also pro-British. This may seem strange to us having just talked about the revolution, although in real life terms seven or eight years is a fairly long time. However, economic reasons were of course the main attachment. Simply, many of the goods shipped out of Northern ports ended up in Great Britain, so they depended on the British for trade. 

At the same time, they were more opposed to the French who were at this time going through the French Revolution. The conservative federalists were alarmed by the revolutionary rhetoric and sought to insulate themselves from the French, even though the French had supported the American revolution (the costs of which actually contributed to the breakdown of their government, ironically). Both the British and French had started a policy of harassing American ships or imprisoning American sailors. This would continue for decades, and lead to an "undeclared" naval war with France in the late 1790s, and an official war with Great Britain (as of 1801 the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) the War of 1812. Jefferson, who was former Ambassador to France and was in France during the early days of their revolution was perceived as being too "pro-French." It did not help matters that the French government sent officials like Edmond Gênet, "Citzen Gênet," to stir up support for the French revolution and establish "revolution clubs." 

In 1791, the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) began against French colonial rule, inspired by the revolutionary ideas of the French Revolution. This was used by Federalists as an example of the "contamination" spread by the French and did not "recognize" the new government in Haiti until the 1820s, despite being the only other successful colonial revolution in the Americas before the 19th century, and the first and only successful slave revolution in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti also began political "independence" in serious debt to France, which was not paid off until 1947.

The election of 1792, was the second presidential election (and the only one to occur three years after the first one in 1789). Washington was again elected unanimously. However, the Vice-President John Adams was re-elected but not unanimously, and this began to show the first cracks in the Federalist armor. Conflicts between the Federalists, and the newly formed Republican party–made up of the remnants of the anti-federalist opposition, the new immigrant populations mainly Germans and Irish at this time, and Western farmers–were extremely heated. There is even allegedly an American political cartoon showing George Washington being sent to the guillotine, the infamous execution device used in the French Revolution! No known copies of this exist and it was most likely destroyed. Washington also had to suppress what became known as the "Whiskey Rebellion" in 1794, after Western farmers rebelled against the extra taxes levied against them for producing whiskey. This was interpreted as Hamilton and Washington putting the tax burden on the poor while also stimulating the rum trade which was based on trade with the West Indies and Great Britain and went through Northern port cities.

"Triumph Government," circa 1793
President Washington heads off an invasion of French"cannibals" Jefferson tries to stop the wheels, while a dog lifts its leg on a Republican newspaper

"A Peep into the Antifederal Club," circa 1793
Shows the Republicans as "crazy anarchists" and "devil worshippers"
Jefferson is standing in the center with his arms open


George Washington did not decide to seek a third term in office, although this may have been due to health reasons. In 1796, the third presidential election was held. This time the former Vice-President John Adams was elected in a very close election against Thomas Jefferson. Since Jefferson came in second, according to the original rules of the Constitution this made Jefferson, the new Vice-President. So for the first and only time in U.S. history you had a president and vice-president from two different parties, who had just fought an extremely bitter and volatile election–who continue to do so even after taking office.

 This conflict probably reached its climax in the late 1790s with passage of laws like the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Act was the first attempt to limit immigration to this country. While not over-stressing the point, I think I have tried to demonstrate at certain points the political conflicts and the ideologies used in these conflicts back then, are not all that different than what you see today, including the bitterness and the hostility. Not surprisingly, there was anti-immigrant feelings back then too, and federalist economic policies did not really benefit immigrants either. Politically then it should be not surprising they would limit immigration if they believed most immigrants would not support them. The Sedition Act perhaps even more controversially made it illegal to say anything "false" about the government or its agents; in reality of course this was used to censor the opposition.

This is the main issue in Madison's report to the Virginia General Assembly in 1800, who is speaking for Jefferson. Although dense and difficult to read, in this document is arguably the origins of the later Confederate States of America as it contains all the principles later adopted by Southerners, including the right to cancel or "nullify" laws that states decide violate the Constitution and asserts the rights of the states as being equal with the Union as a whole. In other words you can see clearly how the earlier arguments of the Federal Farmer and the Anti-Federalists are incorporated within the newly formed "Republican" Party.

This continued until 1800, sometimes known as the "Revolution of 1800," although that may be an overstatement. After a decade of organizing and fighting, Jefferson's Republicans had created a nationwide organization at this time bound together through a network of newspapers, and "friendship societies" established in all the major cities and smaller villages too. One of the most important friendship societies was the Society of St. Tammany in New York City (later known as Tammany Hall), then run by Aaron Burr (1756-1836), a very controversial figure in U.S. history. Its support among the newly emerging working classes in the city were enough to deliver the state to Jefferson. However, Burr in this election tied Jefferson and this set off another constitutional crisis when Burr did not defer to Jefferson. Similar to the 2000 election, the winner was not chosen until February 1801, a month before the President was supposed to be inaugurated (back then it was in March, today its January). As stated in the Constitution, the House of Representatives would then vote to decide a tie. It took however, 36 attempts at voting before Jefferson was finally approved with a majority. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution was later passed in 1804 to address this problem by specifying the votes for "President" and "Vice-President," instead, of deciding based on the highest and second highest number of votes cast. Ironically, Alexander Hamilton from behind the scenes used his influence to get Jefferson elected, his old enemy. Aaron Burr became the third Vice-President of the U.S. He would later kill Hamilton in a duel in 1804 after Hamilton blocked Burr's plans to become Governor of New York.

The importance of New York for the early Republicans cannot be overstated. This established a successful formula for the Republican party as they were able to take the South plus New York in almost every election, and this combination would be enough to win both any presidential election and for a majority in Congress. The party was completely dominant from 1800 to the mid 1820s and the country was basically a one-party government at this time. After the Civil War, Southern Democrats (remember the "Republican" Party became the Democratic Party in the 1820s) were not credible to run for any national election. So, basically until the 1930s, the Governor of New York was basically the default Democratic candidate for President in almost every election (most of the time whoever he was lost).

Election of 1800
Three new states have been added:
Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee
Notice the size of Virginia (largest state) which includes West Virginia
and Massachusetts includes Maine

	Election Year
House	1788	1790	1792	1794	1796	1798	1800	1802	1804	1806
Federalist	37	39	51	47	57	60	38	39	25	24
Republican	28	30	54	59	49	46	65	103	116	118
Percentage Republican	43	43	51	56	46	43	63	73	82	83
Senate	1788	1790	1792	1794	1796	1798	1800	1802	1804	1806
Federalist	18	16	16	21	22	22	15	9	7	6
Republican	8	13	14	11	10	10	17	25	17	28
Percentage Republican	31	45	47	34	31	31	53	74	71	82

In the election, Jefferson's sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemmings was reported on several times, and their were frequent references to Jefferson's "dark mistress," among the many other vicious political attacks launched by both sides during the campaign. Jefferson's relationship with Hemmings has been the subject of controversy and many writings, but I think what is sometimes not communicated is that this was not an unearthed secret that modern historians found, but in fact, people were very much aware of it in Jefferson's day (and that Jefferson "survived" the scandal it caused). Jefferson was known for his public condemnations of slavery, but equally publicized though less well-known is that Jefferson supported re-settling former slaves in the Caribbean or Africa, he did not believe that blacks and whites could co-exist together for a variety of reasons.

Many modern commentators point out how bitterly divided and partisan (as in supporter of a party) politics is today over the election of Barack Obama, as if it were something new. Besides that most people can also remember when Bill Clinton was impeached, what is confusing about this is that politics were always, partisan, bitter, and dirty, and vicious. The images for example shown above are meant to be shocking. These are images of the same person who today are on Mt. Rushmore (a prime example of the blending of religion and politics), and the nickel. Yet he is shown cavorting with the devil in these political cartoons. 

The mythical image of Jefferson however which was only created in hindsight, as we can see, is very much intact today. It is indisputable that being the principal author of the Declaration of Independence that Jefferson comes closest to being the true author of the "creed of America" as Chesterton spoke of. As modern historian Gordon Wood has said in an interview, "when Jefferson acts ignobly, we feel as if somehow America itself has acted ignobly" (ignoble being a fairly outdated word meaning "not noble").

Jefferson's contradictions and ambiguities do not end there. He is a perfect example of the complicated mixture of religious and scientific ideas that I have discussed previously. Jefferson uses the language of the Enlightenment which can be confusing at times but he retains the older religious tradition of fraternity and community as integral parts of the political system. Jefferson takes it upon himself to take these older religious experiences but to translate them into modern scientific language, a very difficult synthesis and arguably one he fails to make.

There is a kind of psychology underlying the Federalists and the Republicans. Federalists believe there tends to be a conflict between "interest" which is rational and "affection" which is instinctive, the problem is precisely that people let their affections for things closest to them cloud their interests or ability think in the long-term.  The "psychology" of The Federalist is to at least replace if not destroy the affection people feel for their local government with the new national government. The way to do this was to make the government effective or "energetic" as Hamilton would say, and once it satisfied people's needs or interests their affection would turn to it. 

Jefferson you must remember is not an opponent of the Constitution and wants the people to love their government, but believes this can only be done by building on levels of trust and affection from the local and up. He does not doubt that affections can be misplaced, but that affection for the local community is not "evil" in itself. The political party was intended to serve this purpose as an intermediate body in between the government and individual, local and state governments would have the same purpose. Jefferson did believe however that the Constitution should be updated every ten years or so and is remarked to have said it would be a good thing if there was a revolution every ten years or so! This attitude however does not complement itself well with the Federalist attitude towards the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson

In his Inaugural Address from 1801, many of these themes can be seen. The Inaugural Address is an important tradition in U.S. politics as it provides the President an opportunity to address the other branches of government and basically explain what they plan on doing. Again, like in many other political speeches you see Jefferson appealing to the common bonds that bring us together, "we are all Republicans–we are all Federalists," sounds almost identical to then State Senator Obama saying the same thing about Democrats and Republicans in 2004 and repeated many times after. He urges us to return to the harmony and affection without which no political order is possible. Contrast this with the Federalists who rely upon economic interest as the primary bond. 

Jefferson, like most liberals, also believed that humans were endowed with a "moral instinct" or "moral sense" a term created by the Scotch-Irish philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746). In order to preserve order and prosperity, government must develop this sense among the people. His concern was that like other senses, they can be dulled or degenerate over time, he even supposed that people could perhaps be born without a moral sense, similar to how some people are born without a sense of hearing or sight.

Chesterton referred to "Jeffersonian democracy", specifically that the "melting pot was traced on the outlines of Jeffersonian democracy," and many other political commentators would agree that the system we have now did not fully develop until the administration of Jefferson establishes both a party system for choosing candidates for election, as well as increasing the level of democratic participation from the populace. Most of the property restrictions were removed to voting at this time (although gender and racial barriers remained). 

Of course, power is to a large extent hidden under the surface of American institutions which are supposed to limit power, and achieve a consensus among political actors. If we turn to the days leading up to the Civil War, we can see how power hides under the appearance of consent. This is known as "ideology" a term first associated with Karl Marx, but now used more commonly. In Marx, he defines ideology as ideas, whether political, economic, moral, religious, legal, etc. that make the class relations of domination appear normal and natural, creating "false consciousness." In the more general use of the term, ideologies refer to political beliefs and a worldview that different groups have. In this usage, Marxism itself can be seen as an ideology since it provides a coherent worldview in this sense, though it has very little to do with normalizing class domination.

Webster

Daniel Webster's famous speech defending the Compromise of 1850 is a prime example of ideology in the Marxist sense, although it does provide a worldview. Webster, who represented the North in Congress, uses his impressive gifts as a speaker to argue for the passage of this legislative compromise in order the preserve the Union which already showed signs of breaking apart. In the name of national unity, Webster is willing to support the Fugitive Slave Act, which would have made it a crime to aid escaped slaves and empowered slave hunters. The concession made by the South would be to admit the state of California as a free state. Legislative compromises like these were common in the years leading up to the Civil War, and shows the lengths Congress was willing to go to preserve unity:

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out in the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of Liberty and Union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our asperations [sic] as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men...Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the states to this Constitution for ages to come. We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole people. No monarchical throng presses the States together, no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last for ever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. 

 Like many political speakers, Webster is so convinced of the sanctity of American institutions that he is willing to protect slavery, but how can a system be good that allows slavery in the first place? The obvious contradictions are covered over by the eloquent rhetoric of Webster, just as other social contradictions are obscured by many obviously talented, even brilliant speakers, whether it be Lincoln, Kennedy, Roosevelt (both of them), even Obama. This tendency to romanticize American institutions makes it harder to change these institutions, and one very important reason why culture plays such an important role in politics.

John C. Calhoun, on the other hand, representing the South, ironically is much more blunt than Webster and not blinded by the romanticism of freedom and inequality in America. As a hardened defender of slavery, Calhoun sees no need to pretend that America is the land of the free. 

Calhoun

What is truly astounding about Calhoun is that he takes the further step of actually defending slavery as a good system, that is the best possible social arrangement between whites and blacks, quoting famed historian Richard Hofstadter here:

Slavery, he affirmed in the Senate in 1837, "is, instead of an evil, a good–a positive good." By this he did not mean to imply that slavery was always better than free labor relations, but simply that it was the best relation between blacks and whites. Slavery had done much for the Negro, he argued. "In few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or... more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age." His condition is greatly superior to that of poorhouse inmates in more civilized portions of Europe. As for the political aspect of slavery, "I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South...forms that solid and durable foundation on which to rear stable political institutions." (pp. 79-80).

Calhoun's extreme defense of slavery, ironically leads him to being very honest about the economic exploitation that occurs in every society. Here, he does not shy away from history like Webster. He also sounds very similar to Marx on the labor theory of value and class conflict, the theory that all value, and thus wealth, is produced by the laborer, and that the profits produced by the capitalist system are only possible by extracting a surplus from the laborer, meaning paying the laborer less than the value of their work. Marx regarded the idea of surplus value as the "secret" of capitalism and is the foundation of his whole analysis of capitalism, so it is strange that such a conservative as Calhoun would express such views:

He was sure that "there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other." It would not be too difficult "to trace out the various devices by which the wealth of all civilized communities has been so unequally divided, and to show by what means so small a share has been allotted to those by whose labor it was produced, and so large a share to the non-producing classes (p. 81).

Calhoun, also correctly, points out that class conflict in the North, between industrialists and workers, is growing and will become more intense with the end of slavery. He was right, and the end of the Civil War sees the beginning of some of the bloodiest struggles between capital and "free" labor (more so than in Europe) and continues all the way through the 1930s, where the New Deal administration of FDR begins a different kind of relationship with labor, supporting them instead of capital (at least for the most part).

Lawrence, Massachusetts Textile Strike, 1912

Calhoun goes so far to propose an alliance between the plantation owners and the industrialists to hold down the laboring classes in both systems. He also proposes what he calls the "concurrent majority," basically a theory of a dual executive branch, in other words, a President for the North and another for the South. Naturally, these ideas would not come to pass but it is amazing that he even proposes them.

The legacy of Calhoun raises important questions of how we deal with American history. Many historians try to smooth over, or de-emphasize, the history of slavery and many other aspects of American history. Another point of view is to speak openly and honestly about these aspects of history to remind people of how things have changed over time, and how the legacies of the past still impact the present.


As mentioned, one of the ironies of Calhoun, given he did not subscribe to the idealized or romanticized version of American history, was being able to speak quite honestly about certain key aspects of social life, that again, those like Webster and many others would gloss over, being so consumed with America's own sense of righteousness and goodness. Even today, this sense of righteousness blinds people to the totalitarian nature of American politics in the present.

Large segments of the population were excluded from participating in the political system. So, in the second part of the class we will now look at how this system has evolved in terms of the struggles and movements by excluded groups to gain access to the political system.