What is America? Poli 110J

What is America?Poli 110J Bound by Mystic Chords

John C. Calhoun • 1782-1850 • "the Union, next to our liberty, the most dear." • From South Carolina, endorsed SC’s position in nullification crisis. • Federal gov’t becoming tyrannical, infringing on Const’l rights of the states • Champion of the South, states’ rights in Senate, 1st half 19th C. Major figure in antebellum Democratic party • VP Under J.Q. Adams, Jackson; Sec. of War under Monroe “Slavery a Positive Good” – Feb. 6, 1837

John C. Calhoun • Broke with Jackson beginning with Force Act (gave federal gov’t right to use force to enforce the tariff) • Jackson supported states’ rights, but thought Union threatened by nullification

John C. Calhoun • Strong states’ rights • “The subject [slavery] is beyond the jurisdiction of Congress - they have no right to touch it in any shape or form, or to make it the subject of deliberation or discussion. . . .” • Exactly what powers were and were not ceded to the Federal government in the Constitution?

John C. Calhoun • Right to secession • People in non-slave states soon “will have been taught to hate the people and institutions of nearly one-half of this Union, with a hatred more deadly than one hostile nation ever entertained towards another. It is easy to see the end. By the necessary course of events, if left to themselves, we must become, finally, two people.”

John C. Calhoun • Southern partisan: • “We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions.” • The South feels that the federal government is a tool of the Northern, anti-slave faction. They see it as hostile and oppressive.

John C. Calhoun • Slavery: something for everyone • For (elite) whites: freedom from labor leads to greater accomplishments: • “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.” • (While other figures also believed in the supremacy of whites, it did not play as central a role in their vision of power & government)

John C. Calhoun • White racial solidarity served to conceal the real class divisions between plantation-owning, slaveholding whites and small, non-slaveholding white farmers/citizens.

John C. Calhoun • Benefits of slavery to slaves: • “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.”

John C. Calhoun • Benefit of slavery to slaves: • “in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age.” • Better than being an industrial laborer, a more gentle, paternal form of power

John C. Calhoun • Thus, slavery stabilizes society: • “There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and which explains why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North. . . .”

Frederick Douglass • ~1818-1895 • Born a slave • Escaped on 3rd attempt, 1838 • Abolitionist & supporter of women’s suffrage • Supported Irish home rule, but still popular in Britain • Active in Reconstruction politics

Frederick Douglass • “Why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?”

“The character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.”

The Humanity of Slaves • Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being?

“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”

“The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither.” • Slavery a betrayal of American beliefs

A note on terminology • ‘Black’ vs. ‘African-American’ (power and words) • While the preferred term is today African-American, the point is that black people at the time we are discussing were deliberately excluded from the American political community. • When discussing the historical injustice of racial relations in the US, it seems inappropriate to pretend that people of African descent were not excluded from the political community

Abraham Lincoln • 1809-1865 • Main themes: • Equality the defining characteristic of American thought • National identity prioritized over state identity • US points beyond itself to something higher • The law and American political institutions make political freedom and equality possible • Union politically inseparable from freedom

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • Sen. Douglas: “Our fathers, when they framed the Government under which we live, understood this question just as well, and even better, than we do now.” • Lincoln agrees • Capturing history • “What was the understanding those fathers had of the question mentioned?” • Understanding? • Fathers? • Question?

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • The “frame of government” must be the Constitution. • Thus, “our fathers” must be the original 39 signatories of the Constitution • What is the question that they understood “just as well, and even better than we do now”? • Whether or not the Constitution forbids the Federal government from controlling slavery in Federal territories • 21 of the 39 voted in favor of federal regulation, limitation of slavery in the federal territories • The judgment of those who understood the question “better than we do.”

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • “I defy any to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his understanding” any Constitutional prohibition on federal regulation of slavery in the Territories. • In fact, he defies any man to show him that anyone said this before the past fifty years. • History • What is the American way?

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • To Southerners: • “When you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to ‘Black Republicans.’” • Politics of insult & contempt

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • “Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensible prerequisite—license, so to speak—among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all.” • Baseless accusations • A dynamic of extremism: individuals have an incentive to outdo one another in their condemnation. • Not disagreement, but hatred

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • “True, we do in common with ‘our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live,’ declare our belief that slavery is wrong,” but there’s no danger of a slave rebellion. • History • Gradualism & deportation

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • You say you’ll break up the Union rather than give up your Constitutional rights. • Fine, but where exactly is the right to expand slavery westward in the Constitution? It is literally silent on the issue. • The Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott that slavery was Constitutionally protected, but they said it was “distinctly and expressly affirmed” in the Constitution. • The word “slave” does not appear • Other documents use the word. Why not this one?

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • “You will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be on us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you shall be a murderer!”

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • To Republicans: • Peace is the most desirable things • The Southerners say they want only to be left alone, but we leave them alone, and still they are not satisfied. • “What will convince them? This, and this only: Cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right.” • In both words and actions • Blackmail

Address at Cooper Institute(1860) • “LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.” • Duty • Epistemological limitations

Secession • Nov. 6, 1860: Lincoln elected • December 20, 1860: South Carolina secedes • By February 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas join it to form the Confederacy, later joined by Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee • March 4, 1861: Lincoln inaugurated • April 12, 1861: South attacks & takes Fort Sumter, war begins

First Inaugural • Major themes: Secession is bad because it • Breaks contract • Violates the nation • Is anti-democratic

First Inaugural • Contract & Covenant: • ““All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights be maintained” • No one can name “a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied.”

First Inaugural • Contract & Covenant: • Even if the Constitution were only a contract (it’s not), one party cannot unilaterally exit a contract • The question is one of definitive interpretation: • “May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.” • Power over the meaning of the law

First Inaugural • Likewise, the Constitution is silent on “the only substantial dispute” facing the country; that “One section of the country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes that it is wrong, and ought not be extended.” • How is this dispute to be resolved? • The black letter of the law can’t fix this, it is a matter of persuasion & argument (politics)

First Inaugural • But the Union is not a contract, it is a single, national people • “The Union is much older than the Constitution… finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was ‘to form a more perfect union.’ • But if the destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.”

First Inaugural • Secession anti-democratic • “Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy, or despotism in some form, is all that is left.” • The choices are between despotism, democracy, or anarchy

First Inaugural • The Union is bound by a shared history and belief • “I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, streching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Gettysburg • July 1-3, 1863, after Lee’s invasion of the North • 95,000 Union soldiers, 75,000 Confederate • 23,000 Union and 28,000 Confederate casualties • Myth of Lee’s invincibility broken, major turning point in the war • Pickett’s Charge

Gettysburg Address • Main Themes: • America is a nation founded in and directed toward equality • Americans can succeed or fail in this charge • The Union is the definitive test case for democracy • Redemptive potential of the current crisis • Central metaphors of birth, death, and rebirth • Giving the war meaning by embedding it w/in greater narrative

Gettysburg Address • “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” • Biblical method of dating • Language of conception & birth • Equality the central ideal of American politics, it is the telos. • Defining the American community

Gettysburg Address • “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” • The war is an ordeal, a test • The case of the US is determinative. Can democratic republican governments endure w/o succumbing to anarchy or tyranny?

Gettysburg Address • They came to dedicate the cemetery, • “as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live” • Gave their lives • Died so the nation might live • Martyrs

Gettysburg Address • It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us---that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…

Gettysburg Address • The living must show greater devotion even than the dead • The great task is not the war, but the national pursuit of equality.

---that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain---that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom---and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Gettysburg Address • By the blood of martyrs, the US will be born anew, purified of its gravest sin. • But we can fail, we must show necessary resolve. • “Under God” • Religious authorization of refounded Republic, but also chastened by knowledge of its higher accountability

Gettysburg Address • All of the people, the polity includes all Americans regardless of race. • The community is defined by its belief in equality, not in particular origins or racial classes

Gettysburg Address • “perish from the earth” • Jeremiah 10 • Promise of divine retribution • The fallibility of human works

Second Inaugural • Powerlessness of human effort • Spiritual equality  political humility, forgiveness • Spiritual unity of the US • Critical position on self, politics, the war

Second Inaugural • 4 years before, there was cause for extented remark. “Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the nation, little that is new could be presented.” • The binding power of history over the present

What is America? Poli 110J