John Adams and Thomas Jefferson on the Fourth of July

On July 4, I’ve always reflected on this country that I call my home. The United States has made many mistakes in the course of its history, but it has also achieved a lot of great things that all Americans should be proud of. I am especially admiring of the history of reform in this country, from the abolitionists to the women’s suffragists to the civil rights activists to the activists working for change today. These reformers have worked to help its country live up to its highest ideas. The Founding Fathers were not perfect, but many of them were also reformers who worked to created a more perfect union. Two of the most celebrated Founding Fathers were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. They were best friends and they also were important leaders in the fight to free this country from the British Empire. One of the most fascinating things about Jefferson and Adams is that they both died on the same day: July 4, 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met in the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War. They worked together in various committees, with Adams doing most of the speaking and Jefferson doing a lot of the writing, and they became friends. Their friendship deepened when they served as ambassadors to France and England, as John and Abigail Adams felt Jefferson was part of the family. Those were tough times for Jefferson, as his beloved wife Martha had just died, and the Adams were there to console Jefferson during his time of grieving. Abigail felt Thomas Jefferson was “the only person with whom my companion could associate with perfect freedom and reserve.” Joseph Ellis wrote about them in his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation:

They were an incongruous pair, but everyone seemed to argue that history had made them into a pair. The incongruities leapt out for all to see: Adams, the short, stout, candid-to-a-fault New Englander; Jefferson, the tall, slender, elegantly elusive Virginian; Adams, the highly combustible, ever combative, mile-a-minute talker, whose favorite form of conversation was an argument; Jefferson, the always cool and self-contained enigma, who regarded debate and argument as violations of the natural harmonies he heard inside his own head. The list could go on – the Yankee and the Cavalier, the orator and the writer, the bulldog and the greyhound. They were the odd couple of the American Revolution.

…There were, to be sure, important political and ideological differences between the two men, differences that became the basis for the opposing sides they took in the party wars of the 1790s. But as soulmates who had lived together through some of the most formative events of the revolutionary era and of their own lives, Adams and Jefferson bonded at a personal and emotional level that defied their merely philosophical differences. They were charter members of the “band of brothers” who had shared the agonies and ecstasies of 1776 as colleagues. No subsequent disagreement could shake this elemental affinity. They knew, trusted, even loved each other for reasons that required no explanation.

During the 1790s, their political differences led to a rift between the Republican Jefferson and the Federalist Adams that last for over a decade. They finally reconciled after Jefferson left the Presidency, thanks to the efforts of their mutual friend, Benjamin Rush. In their last years, they maintained a wonderful correspondence where they discussed politics, literature, family, and the state of the country that they had such a big part in founding.

When the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approached, Jefferson and Adams were asked to give a few words to commemorate the special day. John Adams, the more skeptical of the pair, felt that the American experiment was something that always had to be worked on with diligence by its citizens. Adams had less faith in human nature than Jefferson did, and always felt that the checks and balances that were set up in the American government were necessary to reign in the passions that might destroy a republican government. Joseph Ellis summed up Adams view in his book Joseph Ellis wrote about them in his book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation:

For Adams, the American Revolution was still an experiment, a sail into uncharted waters that no other ship of state had ever successfully navigated. There were no maps or charts to guide a republican government claiming to derive its authority and legitimacy from public opinion, that murky source of sovereignty that could be as choppy and unpredictable as waves on the ocean. He had been a member of the crew on this maiden voyage, even taken his turn at the helm, so he knew as well as anyone, better than most, that they had nearly crashed and sunk on several occasions, had argued bitterly among themselves throughout the 1790s about the proper course. Jefferson seemed to think that, once unmoored from British docks and unburdened of European baggage, the ship would sail itself into the proverbial sunset. Adams thought he knew better, and he also would go to his grave believing that a fully empowered federal government on the Federalist model was a fulfillment, rather than a betrayal, of the course they had set at the start. Without a sanctioned central government to steer the still-fragile American republic, the new crew was certain to founder on that huge rock called slavery, which was lurking dead ahead in the middle distance and even Jefferson acknowledged to be a “breaker”.

With this in mind, Adams gave this equivocal response to the committee of the citizens of Quincy, Massachusetts on 7 June 1826, as a response to their invitation to the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:

My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, of the independence of the United States: a memorable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.

Thomas Jefferson was more optimistic than Adams about the ability of the people to govern themselves in the new American republic. Gordon Woods gave a good description of Jefferson’s outlook in his book Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different:

No one of the revolutionary leaders believed more strongly in progress and in the capacity of the American people for self-government than did Jefferson. No one was more convinced that the Enlightenment was on the march against the forces of medieval barbarism and darkness and religious superstition and enthusiasm…

…None of the other major founding fathers was as optimistic and confident of the people as Jefferson was. All the problems of the present, he believed, would eventually be taken care of by the people. This sublime faith in the people and the future is the source of the symbolic power he has had for succeeding generations of Americans. He was never more American than when he told John Adams in 1816 that he liked “the dreams of the future better than the history of the past”.

Thus Jefferson’s commemoration for Independence Day in 1826 offered a more uplifting message than Adams:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government… All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, to let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

A youtube video of a reading of the Declaration of Independence

A youtube video of a scene from HBO’s miniseries “John Adams”, during the making of the Declaration of Independence

A youtube video of a scene from HBO’s miniseries “John Adams”

A youtube video of a lecture on the Declaration of Independence by Professor Freeman for a Yale course

Here are more blogs about the Founding Fathers

Alexander Hamilton and the New York Manumission Society
Benjamin Franklin and His Fight to Abolish Slavery
The Founding Fathers Grapple With Slavery
The Founding Fathers Grapple With Slavery Part 2
Benjamin Banneker, Thomas Jefferson and the Question of Racial Equality
George Washington and the Freeing of His Slaves
The Friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams

Presidents and the Supreme Court

In the next week or so, the Supreme Court will be ruling on whether parts or all of Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, specifically the mandate on making people buy health insurance, is constitutional or not. This will have a major affect on the President’s prestige and political agenda, as this health care reform law is the President’s major achievement on domestic affairs. This is not the first time, however, that the President and the Supreme Court has clashed. James F. Simon, a Martin Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus at New York Law School, has written three books about different times in history where the Executive Office and the Supreme Court have had clashes over the limits of the federal government. His three books, What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States, Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President’s War Powers, and FDR and Chief Justice Hughes: The President, the Supreme Court, and the Epic Battle Over the New Deal describe three periods in which a strong President and an equally strong Chief Justice clashed over the limits of the Presidency and the Supreme Court. I’m reading FDR and Chief Justice Hughes right now, and hope to read the other books soon.

What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States describes the struggle between President Thomas Jefferson and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall over the constitutional relationship between the executive and judicial branches of government. Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States and he was a Republican who strongly believed in the power of state governments as a checks and balance to the power of federal government. John Marshall was a strong federalist who served as Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835. In Supreme Court decisions like Marbury vs. Madison, Fletcher vs. Peck, McCulloch vs. Maryland and Cohens vs. Virginia, Marshall enforced the Supreme Court’s right of judicial review, gave the Supreme Court the right to strike down state laws as unconstitutional, and affirmed federal supremacy over the states. Though Jefferson and Marshall were first cousins, their philosophical difference led to bitter conflicts over the meaning of the constitution. Joseph Ellis, an eminent historian, wrote in a review of the book for the New York Times Book Review

Simon hits his stride once Jefferson ascends to the presidency, in 1801, and Marshall, the mightiest of the ”midnight judges” appointed by the lame-duck President Adams, begins his long career as chief justice of the United States. The discussion of the landmark decision Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review, shows Marshall as the master of what Jefferson called ”twistifications,” meaning arguments that circle back to do their greatest damage to Jefferson’s cause while claiming to defend it. The chapter on the impeachment trial of Justice Samuel Chase, another defeat for Jefferson, is a model of narrative history written by someone who knows the law. (The Chase trial became an important precedent during the Clinton impeachment trial because of the lofty standard it set for ”high crimes and misdemeanors.”) The tour de force is Simon’s chapter on the treason trial of Aaron Burr, the best brief version I have read. Hollywood could have a field day with this story, which features a supremely confident, if thoroughly conspiratorial, Burr; an obsessed Jefferson, hellbent on sending Burr to the gallows; and a laconic, slightly mischievous Marshall, determined to deny Jefferson the prize. Marshall’s ”not guilty” decision not only freed Burr, it also made treason difficult to use as a political weapon. And it established clear limits on executive privilege that eventually came back to haunt Richard Nixon during Watergate.

Marshall, in effect, won every major battle, chiefly because his more expansive view of the Constitution as a binding contract among the American people had the future on its side, a destiny clinched by the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War…

Abraham Lincoln once said that America was founded on a proposition (i.e., ”We hold these truths . . .”), and Jefferson wrote it. More accurately, it was founded on an argument about what that proposition means. You could also say it was founded on an argument between 1776 and 1787 as the seminal moments of the American republic. Or you could say that it was founded on a disagreement over whether the term ”United States” was a singular or plural noun. The beauty of the dialogue between Jefferson and Marshall is that it contained all these renditions. The chief virtue of ”What Kind of Nation,” no small achievement, is to recover that dialogue in all its messy grandeur.

Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President’s War Powers examines the clash between President Abraham Lincoln and Chief Justice Roger Taney over the powers that were bestowed to the President by the war powers in the Constitution. Both men strongly hated slavery, but Lincoln had a more expansive view of the powers of the federal government while Taney strongly emphasized its limits and the powers of the states. Though Taney opposed slavery and eventually freed his own slaves, he also believed that the Constitution gave the federal government no power to restrict the spread of slavery and this led to the infamous Dred Scott vs. Sanford decision of 1851. Lincoln believed that the Constitition gave the Presidency and the federal government implied powers in extraordinary times like the Civil War. In his inaugural address, Lincoln said:

But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. 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.

David Walsdstreicher wrote in a February 4, 2007 review for the Boston Globe

Taney, a devout Catholic Marylander who saw slavery as evil, had a gift for making compelling legal arguments. He helped Andrew Jackson attack the Bank of the United States on constitutional grounds, only to be turned down by an angry Senate for the post of Treasury secretary. But the Democrats won the Senate and Marshall died, enabling Taney to be confirmed as the new chief justice. The tide seemed to have turned against judicial supremacy and the national government.

Taney shocked and delighted his critics by refusing to lead a judicial revolution against Marshall’s nationalism. By the 1850s he was revered as a non partisan defender of the Constitution. That very reverence for the process of constitutional adjudication set the aging jurist on his collision course with Lincoln. Simon artfully paints Lincoln as a young lawyer from Illinois looking for a good case. Brilliant and passionate when he believed in his clients, Lincoln represented a Kentucky slaveholder who liked to bring his slaves back and forth from his farms on both sides of the Ohio River, until several ran away. He lost the case. As a congressman, Lincoln vainly demanded that the pro- war and proslavery Polk administration name the exact spot where Mexican forces had supposedly crossed the Rio Grande and attacked — earning himself the nickname “Spotty.” Only in 1854, with the Kansas-Nebraska crisis, did Lincoln find a fight worthy of his gift for conceding every point but the crucial one. He began to argue that slavery in the new territories went against the intentions of the Founding Fathers and could be legally excluded.

Taney argued nearly the opposite: The founders had made slavery the law of the land and its regulation a state matter. Had he been a pure states-righter or a party hack, though, he would not have wanted the Supreme Court to even hear a fugitive slave case like Dred Scott. Precisely because he wanted to preserve the Union as he saw it, Taney tortured the historical evidence in his famous declaration that blacks could never be citizens and had no rights. But Simon does not stop there. He follows the story into the Civil War, when Lincoln magnified the war powers of the presidency to save the Union and the Constitution from those he saw as its enemies. Taney, ailing and impoverished, stayed on the bench and vainly tried to save the states, and his Maryland friends, from the long arm of Lincoln’s law. War, he argued, does not change the constitutional limits of the federal government. In 1864, Lincoln went to his funeral — and a few weeks later appointed his Treasury secretary, the abolitionist Salmon P. Chase, to Taney’s seat on the court.

FDR and Chief Justice Hughes: The President, the Supreme Court, and the Epic Battle Over the New Deal describes the fight between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes over the constitutionality of the New Deal programs and Roosevelt’s subsequent attempt to pack the Supreme Court. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were bringing relief to people suffering through a fifth year of the Great Depression, when the Supreme Court began to rule various statutes of the New Deal unconstitutional. In frustration, Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court with justices more amenable to his political programs. In the prologue, James Simon wrote three paragraphs that sum up the book and says why this history is still important:

In official Washington, only the U.S. Supreme Court appeared immune to FDR’s spirit. The Hughes Court was anchored by four ideological conservatives intractably opposed to Roosevelt’s New Deal. The Court’s liberal wing was led by Justice Louis Brandeis, supported by Associate Justices Benjamin Cardozo and Harlan Fiske Stone.

Chief Justice Hughes and his fellow Hoover appointee, Associate Justice Owen Roberts, held the balance of judicial power throughout the critical constitutional battles over New Deal legislation. By force of his commanding intellect and exemplary public service, Hughes was expected to lead the court. But in which direction? He sometimes appeared to split the differences between the two warring factions, writing eloquent majority opinions protecting civil liberties but frequently joining the Court’s conservatives in striking down New Deal statutes.

Roosevelt publicly derided the Court’s anti-New Deal decisions as relics of a bygone “horse and buggy” era. His criticisms did nothing to deter a Court majority that continued to declare one New Deal statute after another unconstitutional. Not even his triumphant landslide re-election appeared to influence the justices. Finally, in frustration and anger in early 1937, the president proposed a so-called reform plan that would allow him to appoint one new judge for every sitting justice seventy years of age or older. Because six justices were over seventy, including Hughes, the plan would have permitted FDR to stack the Court with new appointees favorable to the New Deal. His radical proposal raised two unsettling constitutional questions: Should a president be able to mold a Court to meet his political goals? And should ideologically driven justices be allowed to frustrate the popular will? Both questions are as relevant in the twenty-first century as they were in the Great Depression.

The questions that Simon asks in the last paragraph are relevant in light of the tensions between the Obama administration and the Roberts Supreme Court. The debate between liberals and progressives, who believe an activist federal government is necessary to help those suffering in this economic crisis, and fiscal conservatives and Tea Party members, who believe in a very limited federal intervention and have much more confidence in the free markets and local control, are echoing debates that Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, Roger Taney, Franklin Roosevelt and Charles Evans Hughes had. The Tea Party are channeling the spirits of the Anti-Federalists, the Jeffersonian Republicans, the States Rights activists and the Barry Goldwater Republicans. Obama and the Democrats are in the spirit of the Federalists, the Radical Republicans of the Civil War era, and the New Dealers. This debate will never be resolved, and I think that’s a good thing for this country. As long as we respect the right of everyone’s freedom of speech, this debate will always invigorate our political discourse and inspire new activists, like the Tea Partiers, the Progressives, the Occupy Wall Street people, and many more in the future. One of the great things about the current book that I’m reading is though FDR and Hughes clashed with the New Deal and the court packing episode, it didn’t affect their friendship. They were able to respect the right of the other person to have a difference of opinion and they maintained great affection for each other. Simon would write:

Whatever enmity existed between Roosevelt and Hughes over the Court-packing plan had disappeared by 1939. Hughes denied that his relations with the president had ever been less than cordial. And Roosevelt, by the spring of 1939, had no reason to complain about the Chief Justice. The Supreme Court was no longer an obstacle to his legislative ambitions, which was more than he could say for rebellious conservative Democrats in Congress.

The friendly relations between Roosevelt and Hughes were vividly illustrated in June 1939, when the president prepared to welcome King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Washington. Roosevelt had issued the invitation to the king in September 1938, at the height of the Munich crisis, as a goodwill gesture to solidify relations between the two nations. The president planned every detail of the royal couple’s visit, from the parade to the White House to the weekend menu at Hyde Park, which included hot dogs on the lawn. Chief Justice and Mrs. Hughes were invited to the state dinner, but Hughes, who was undergoing two days of medical tests, had to decline. Roosevelt personally called Antoinette Hughes to express his regrets that her husband could not attend. He urged her to attend the dinner without the Chief Justice and promised to seat her next to the king, if she did. She attended the dinner, and the president kept his promise.

A vimeo video of James F. Simon talking about Thomas Jefferson and James Marshall

Osama Bin Laden and Extremism

When I heard that Osama Bin Laden was killed, I had many mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was relieved that this man was no longer around to mastermind terrorist acts that would kill more innocent people. I hope Bin Laden’s death put closure for the family and friends of all the people that Bin Laden had a hand in killing. On the other hand, I felt uncomfortable celebrating the killing of a human being, no matter how evil that person has been. In many ways, the way people are acting now is probably similar to the way previous generations reacted to the death of Adolph Hitler or Jospeh Stalin.

Osama Bin Laden represents to me the type of extremism that is at the heart of so much terrorism. Because of Bin Laden, Al Queda and the Iranian revolution, most Americans tend to associate religious extremism with Islam, but all religions are plagued with examples of extremism. The three Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam have had sad episodes of religious extremism where its partisans have used their religion to harass and kill those who do not hold their religious tenets.

In Pakistan, Muslim Salman Taseer, governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, and Christian Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister of minorities, were both killed for speaking out against the country’s blasphemy laws. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws punishes people for speaking out against the prophet Muhammad and it has been used by Islamist extremists to harass Muslims, Christians and other people who are not as extremist. According to an article by Shabhano Taseer, from 1986 to 2009, 479 Muslims, 340 Ahmadis, 119 Christians, 14 Hindus, and 10 others have been charged with blasphemy, according to the National Commission for Justice and Peace, an advocacy group set up by Pakistan’s Catholic bishops. Many of them were killed by Islamist vigilante groups.

The Christian minority in Pakistan has been especially harassed by the blasphemy laws. In one infamous case, Aasia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, is awaiting a death sentence for blaspheming the prophet Muhammad. In the summer of 2009, some women workers pressured Aasia to renounce her Christian faith and accept Islam. Aasia resisted them and she asked what Muhammad had done for them. Salman Taseer was speaking out for the release of Aasia Bibi and for the rejection of the blasphemy laws in the country. Taseer was killed for speaking out.

Shabhano Taseer notes that eight days after her father Salman Taseer was killed, a court in Punjab sentenced a Muslim prayer leader and his son to life in jail for blasphemy. They were found guilty of tearing down a poster of a gathering to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws is a danger to all free thinking people. Taseer wrote:

The biggest danger faced by Islam comes from those who claim to serve it. Its first victims are its own adherents. But our fight against these forces of darkness—forces that seek to snuff out the voices they disagree with—must begin with the strengthening of basic law and order. The extremists are a small minority, but they’re raucously vocal, well armed, and well funded. They operate by instilling fear in those they oppose. This intimidation works all too well.

Some Christians in this country hear news like this and want to stereotype all Muslims as being extremists. Christianity, though, has its own sad history of religious extremism. From Torquemada and the Inquisition to the Salem Witch Trails to various Russian pogroms against Jews in the 19th and early 20th century, Christians have also had episodes where a group of extremists have persecuted Jews, Muslims and other minorities.

In Uganda, Evangelical Christians have been preaching anti-gay messages, which have been feeding into the homophobic prejudices that were already a part of the country’s culture. After American evangelicals held a series of workshops and rallies in Uganda against homosexuality in April 2009, Uganda legislator David Bahati introduced the anti-gay bill which strengthens the criminalisation of homosexuality in Uganda. Originally the bill imposed the death penalty for people who have engaged in homosexual acts, but after international pressure, the death penalty was dropped and life imprisonment was substituted for those people caught in homosexual acts. Furthermore, if passed, the bill will require anyone who is aware of an offense or an offender, including individuals, companies, media organisations, or non-governmental organisations who support LGBT rights, to report the offender within 24 hours. If an individual does not do so he or she is also considered an offender and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding 250 “currency points” or imprisonment up to three years.

Many Christian groups in Uganda have pushed to have the Uganda Parliament to pass the anti-gay laws. Pastor Martin Ssempa, a charismatic and vocal opponent of homosexuality in Uganda, and Pastor Julius Oyet lead the Inter-Religious Taskforce Against Homosexuality. During the session with Speaker Kiwanuka, the Task Force presented a portion of over 2 million signatures it gathered from around Uganda in support of the bill.

Jeffrey Gettleman wrote in the January 27, 2011 edition of the New York Times

Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. In Kenya, which is considered one of the more Westernized nations in Africa, gay people can be sentenced to years in prison.

But Uganda seems to be on the front lines of this battle. Conservative Christian groups that espouse antigay beliefs have made great headway in this country and wield considerable influence. Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, who describes himself as a devout Christian, has said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

At the same time, American groups that defend gay rights have also poured money into Uganda to help the beleaguered gay community.

In October, a Ugandan newspaper called Rolling Stone (with a circulation of roughly 2,000 and no connection to the American magazine) published an article that included photos and the whereabouts of gay men and lesbians, including several well-known activists like Mr. Kato.

The Mr. Kato referred to in this quote is David Kato, one of Uganda’s most outspoken gay rights activists. After an anti-gay newspaper published photos of Kato with other prominent Ugandan gays and lesbians with the words “Hang Them”, David Kato was beaten to death on January 26.

Extremism is not just the province of religion. There are many instances of secular extremism in history, from the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, the purges of Joseph Stalin to the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1960s and early 1970s.

All extremism, whether it is religious or secular, is bad. Barry Goldwater was wrong when he said that that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. I remember reading somewhere that a good idea taken to an extreme is no longer a good idea. I think all people are capable of good and bad. Nice people are capable of doing cruel things. Bad people are capable of surprising acts of kindness. Our human nature makes all people capable of great good and great evil. That was one of the reasons that the Founding Fathers of this country set up a series of checks and balances to allow a government of the people while offsetting a tyranny of the minority and a tyranny of the majority. I appreciate the checks and balances of the United States because it allows for the rule of the majority and the protection of the rights of the minority. It has produced the American melting pot where a toleration of different cultures and religions and races is valued. Thomas Jefferson wrote about the American freedom of religion from his Notes on the State of Virginia:

The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. If it be said his testimony in a court of justice cannot be relied on, reject it then, and be the stigma on him. Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man.

…Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitor? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then; and , as there is a danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size by lopping the former and stretching the latter.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand different systems of religion; that ours is but one of that thousand; that if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the nine hundred and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves?

But every state , says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments? Our sister States of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourished infinitely. Religion is well supported; of various kinds, indeed, but all good enough; all sufficiently to preserve peace and order; or if a sect arises whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors without suffering the state to be troubled with it.

They do not hang more malefactors than we do. They are not more disturbed with religious dissensions. On the contrary, their harmony is unparalleled and can be ascribed to nothing but their unbounded tolerance, because there is no other circumstance in which they differ from every nation on earth. They have made the happy discovery that the way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws.

It is true we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the times. I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution for heresy, or a three years’ imprisonment for not comprehending the mysteries of the Trinity. But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war will remain on long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.

The Friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams

These are extremely partisan times. Democrats and Republicans seem to be unable to work together as they fight to an impasse in Congress over such issues as climate change, gay rights, immigration reform, and health care reform. Tea Party members try to vote out of office any politician who is not sufficiently conservative, while progressives decry the Obama administration for taking too many compromises in the health care reform bill and the stimulus bill. Though these times may seem exceedingly partisan, a look at our history shows that America has always had its partisan conflicts and divisive issues. From the Vietnam War to Civil Rights to Abolition, Americans have always been arguing about one issue or another.

In spite of these many disagreements, history is replete with many friendships of individuals with opposing viewpoints. Liberal Ted Kennedy and conservative Orrin Hatch were best friends in the Senate. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil would argue during the congressional debates, but would share drinks and exchange jokes afterwards. When Reagan was shot, O’Neil visited his bedside and comforted his wife Nancy. Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda were best friends even though Stewart was a conservative Republican and Fonda was an ardent New Deal liberal. The most famous friendship of opposites in Maerican history was the friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had met in the Continental Congress as supporters of revolution against England and as members of the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. They grew closer in Europe while serving as ambassadors to France and England, as John and Abigail consoled Jefferson over the loss of his wife. John and Abigail Adams felt Jefferson was part of the family and Abigail felt Thomas Jefferson was “the only person with whom my companion could associate with perfect freedom and reserve.”. Thomas Jefferson found Abigail to be the first woman that he could talk to as an intellectual equal.

With their friendship, there were great differences between the two of them both in personality and in appearance. Joseph Ellis wrote about them in his book Founding Brothers:

They were an incongruous pair, but everyone seemed to argue that history had made them into a pair. The incongruities leapt out for all to see: Adams, the short, stout, candid-to-a-fault New Englander; Jefferson, the tall, slender, elegantly elusive Virginian; Adams, the highly combustible, ever combative, mile-a-minute talker, whose favorite form of conversation was an argument; Jefferson, the always cool and self-contained enigma, who regarded debate and argument as violations of the natural harmonies he heard inside his own head. The list could go on- the Yankee and the Cavalier, the orator and the writer, the bulldog and the greyhound. They were the odd couple of the American Revolution.

Their political differences became apparent in the 1790s, while serving in George Washington’s cabinet. Jefferson feared the power of the federal government and found himself moving towards the new Republican Party. John and Abigail Adams believed a strong federal government was necessary for the new republic to survive, and leaned towards the philosophy of the Federalist Party. In 1796 and 1800, Thomas Jefferson ran against John Adams were pitted against each other for the Presidency, and the acrimony of the political campaigns caused a lot of resentment on both sides. John and Abigail Adams felt betrayed by Thomas Jefferson, feeling that Jefferson put his political ambitions over their friendship. When Adams was President, Thomas Jefferson secretly hired newspaperman James Callender to defame the Adams’ administration. After Jefferson was inaugurated in 1800, Jefferson and the Adams did not have a civil communication for 12 years.

The one correspondence that occurred during 12 year gap between 1800 and 1812 was a brief correspondence between Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Abigail had written a letter of condolence to Thomas Jefferson on May 20th, 1804 over the death of Jefferson’s daughter Mary Jefferson Eppes. Abigail had great fondness for Mary during their time in Paris, and she reached out to Jefferson in his time of sorrow. In his reply, however, Jefferson caused Abigail great anger by bringing up a political difference that bothered Jefferson. He wrote in a letter dated June 13, 1804:

This consideration was sufficient to keep down all jealousy between us, and to guard our friendship from any disturbance by sentiments of rivalship: and I can say with truth that one act of Mr. Adams’s life, and one only, ever gave me a moment’s personal displeasure. I did consider his last appointments to office as personally unkind. They were from among my most ardent political enemies, from whom no faithful cooperation could ever be expected, and laid me under the embarrassment of acting thro’ men whose views were to defeat mine; or to encounter the odium of putting others in their places.

This response infuriated Abigail. Abigail wrote back a response in which she defends her husband’s right as President to fill up vacant offices and she brought up the falsehoods that Jefferson paid James Callender to heap upon her husband’s Presidency. Abigail’s fury was shown in this response:

I have never made felt any enmity towards you Sir for being elected president of the United States. But the instruments made use of, and the means which were practised to effect a change, have my utter abhorrence and detestation, for they were the blackest calumny, and foulest falshoods, I had witnessed enough of the anxiety, and solicitude, the envy jealousy and reproach attendant upon the office as well as the high responsibility of the Station, to be perfectly willing to see a transfer of it. And I can truly say, that at the time of Election, I considerd your pretentions much superior to his (Mr. Burr’s), to whom an equal vote was given. Your experience I venture to affirm has convinced you that it is not a station to be envy’d. If you feel yourself a free man, and can act in all cases, according to your own sentiments, opinions and judgment, you can do more than either of your predecessors could, and are awfully responsible to God and your Country for the measures of your Administration. I rely upon the Friendship you still profess for me, and (I am conscious I have done nothing to forfeit it), to excuse the freedom of this discussion to which you have led with an unreserve, which has taken off the Shackles I should otherways have found myself embarassed with, – And now Sir I will freely disclose to you what has severed the bonds of former Friendship, and placed you in a light very different from what I once viewd you in.

A silence resumed between Jefferson and the Adams. A reconciliation occurred between Jefferson and the Adams through the efforts of a mutual friend, Benjamin Rush. Rush corresponded to both men, and push for them to write to each other. Jefferson wrote to Rush that he admired Adams “always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes incorrect and precipitate in his judgements.” Jefferson was still hurt from his correspondence with Abigail Adams of 1804 and wouldn’t make the first move in writing to either Adams. It took John Adams to finally take the first step when he wrote a letter to Jefferson on January 1, 1812.

At first the correspondence was rather polite, as both persons were trying to feel out how open they were able to be with each other. After a while though, they began to breach some of the subjects that they differed about, to try to understand each others point of view. In a letter that John Adams wrote to Jefferson on July 15, 1813, Adams wrote:

You and I ought to not die, before We have explained ourselves to each other.

In that same letter, Abigail added a note to Jefferson, to let him know that she still considered him a friend in spite of their differences:

I have been looking for some time for a space in my good Husbands Letters to add the regards of an old Friend, which are still cherished and preserved through all the changes and v (ic) issitudes which have taken place since we first became acquainted, and will I trust remain as long as

A. Adams

There were a variety of subjects that they corresponded about in which they disagreed. One subject, which was broached about in Adams’ July 15, 1813 letter, was their differing opinions on the French Revolution. Jefferson believed that the French Revolution was a continuation of the spirit of the American Revolution, and that both revolutions were the start of a wider fight against monarchial tyranny and for freedom. Joseph Ellis wrote in Founding Brothers:

…he saw the French Revolution as the European continuation the spirit of ’76. He acknowledged that the random violence and careening course of the French Revolution were lamentable developments, but he insisted they were merely a passing chapter in the larger story of triumphant global revolution. “I am convinced they (the French) will triumph completely,” he wrote in 1794, “& the consequent disgrace of the invading tyrants is destined, in the order of events, to kindle the wrath of the people of Europe against those who have dared to embroil them in such wickedness, and to bring at length, kings, nobles & priests to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with blood.” In one moment of revolutionary euphoria, he dismissed all critics of mass executions in France as blind to the historic issues at stake: “The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of that contest,” he observed in 1793, “and was ever such a prize won with so little blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed I would rather have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than it is now.”

John Adams was deeply troubled by the way the French Revolution had unfolded. Adams was more of a believer of evolutionary social change rather than revolutionary social change, as he thought that the American colonies had the leadership of the merchant class and the Southern gentry as well as established economies that provided a foundation that France and its millions of illiterate and its radical leaders could not provide. He felt that the enthusiasm of people like Jefferson for the French Revolution was based on a naive ideology that didn’t take into account the limitations of human nature. In his letter of July 15, 1813, Adams wrote to Jefferson of his objections to the French Revolution:

The Nations of Europe, appeared to me, when I was among them, from the beginning of 1778 to 1785 i.e. to the commencement of the Troubles in France, to be advancing by slow but sure Steps towards an Amelioration of the condition of Man, in Religion and Government, in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Kowledge, Civilization, and Humanity. The French Revolution I dreaded; because I was sure it would, not only arrest the progress of Improvement, but give it a retrograde course, for at least a Century, if not many Centuries. The French Patriots Appeared to me like young Schollars from a Colledge or Sailors flushed with recent pay or prize money, mounted on wild Horses, lashing and speering, till they would kill the Horses and break their own Necks.

Let me now ask you, very seriously my Friend, Where are now in 1813, the Perfection and perfectability of human Nature? Where is now, the progress of the human Mind? Where is the Amelioration of Society? Where the Augmentation of human Comforts? Where the diminutions of human Pains and Miseries? I know not whether the last day of Dr. Young can exhibit; to a Mind unstaid by Phylosophy and Religion, for I hold there can be no Philosophy without Religion; more terrors than the present State of the World.

When? Where? and how? is the present Chaos to be arranged into Order?

Jefferson and Adams also had very different views on what form a functioning republic should take. Thomas Jefferson was very wary of power being centralized in the Federal government and believed that power should be diffused in the states. He felt that there was in every nation a natural aristocracy of the most talented men that would naturally rise up in a free society, as opposed to the artificial aristocracy of Europe that was created by primogeniture and was thus corrupt and incompetent. Jefferson wrote to John Adams on October 28, 1813:

For I agree with you that there a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness, and other accomplishments, has become but an auxilary ground of distinction. There is an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it’s ascendency. On the question, What is the best provision, you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of our own reason, and mutually indulging it’s errors. You think it best to put the Pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where also they may be a protection to wealth against the Agrarian and plundering enterprises of the Majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil. For if the coordinate branches can arrest their action, so may they that of the coordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well as positively. Of this a cabal in the Senate of the U.S. has furnished many proofs. Nor do I believe them necessary to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find their way into every branch of the legislation to protect themselves. From 15. to 20. legislatures of our own, in action for 30. years past, have proved that no fears of an equalisation of property are to be apprehended from them.

I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by our constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the real good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt and birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society.

As opposed to Jefferson, Adams felt that a strong federal government with a strong executive branch was necessary for the American republic. Adams refuted Jefferson’s distinctions between a natural aristocracy and an artificial aristocracy because he believed that the natural aristocracy was just as vulnerable to the human weaknesses of greed and corruption as the artificial aristocracy that Jefferson described. John Adams felt that human nature was such that the utopian vision that Jefferson had for the American republic was not possible in real life, and that checks and balances were necessary to fight the inevitable corruptions that comes with political power. Adams wrote a reply to Jefferson on November 15, 1813:

Your distinction between natural and artificial Aristocracy does not appear to me well founded. Birth and Wealth are conferred on some Men as imperiously by Nature, as Genius, Strength, or Beauty. The Heir is honours and Riches, and power has often no more merit in procuring these Advantages, than he has in obtaining an handsome face or an elegant figure. When Aristocracies, are established by human Laws and honour Wealth and Power are made hereditary by municipal Laws and Political Institutions, then I acknowledge artificial Aristocracy to commence: but this never commences, till Corruption in Elections becomes dominant and uncontroulable. But this artificial Aristocracy can never last. The everlasting Envys, Jealousies, Rivalries and quarrells among them, their cruel rapacities upon the poor ignorant People their followers, compell these to sett up Caesar, a Demagogue to be a Monarch and master, pour mettre chacun a sa place (to put each one in his place). Here you have the origin of all artificial Aristocracy, which is the origin of all Monarchy. And both artificial Aristocracy, and Monarchy, and civil, military, political and hierarchical Despotism, have all grown out of the natural Aristocracy of ‘Virtues and Talents”. We, to be sure, are far remote from this. Many hundred years must roll away before We shall be corrupted. Our pure, virtuous, public spirited federative REpublick will last for ever, govern the Globe and introduce the perfection of Man, his perfectability being already proved by Price Priestly, Condorcet Rosseau Diderot and Godwin.

…You suppose a difference of Opinion between You and me, on the Subject of Aristocracy. I can find none. I dislike and detest hereditary honours, offices Emoluments established by law. So do you. I am for ex(c)luding legal hereditary distinctions from the U.S. as long as possible. So are you. I only say that Mankind have not yet discovered any remedy against irresistable Corruption in Elections to Offices of great Power and Profit, but making them hereditary.

Both Jefferson and Adams hated the banking industry and the rampant speculation that was creating huge profits for a small group of people. Both men felt that the profits of bankers were inherently immoral because bankers gained those profits by manipulating interest rates without producing an agricultural or an industrial product. Jefferson wanted the banks to be broken up, and believed that unregulated free markets would create an equitable distribution of goods. On January 24, 1814, Jefferson wrote to Adams:

I do not remember the conversation between us which you mention in yours of Nov. 15 on your proposition to vest in Congress the Exclusive power of establishing banks. My opposition to it must have been grounded, not on taking the power from the states, but on leaving any vestige of it in existence, even in the hands of Congress; because it would only have been a change of the organ of abuse. I have ever been the enemy of banks; not of those discounting for cash; but of those foisting their own paper into circulation, and thus banishing our cash. My zeal against those institutions was so warm and open at the establishment of the bank of the U.S. that I was derided as a Maniac by the tribe of bank-mongers, who were seeking to filch from the public their swindling, and barren gains. But the errors of that day cannot be recalled. The evils they have engendered are now upon us, and the question is how we are to get out of them? Shall we build an altar to the old paper money of the revolution, which ruined individuals but saved the republic, and burn on that all the bank charters present and future, and their notes with them? For these are ruin both republic and individuals. This cannot be done. The Mania is too strong. it has siesed by it’s delusions and corruptions all the members of our governments, general, special and individual.

Like Jefferson, John Adams had a hatred of banks and was against the banking program that was advocated by Alexander Hamilton. Unlike Jefferson and the Republicans, though, Adams had as much distrust for the free markets as he did for the banks. Joseph Ellis wrote of their differences in his book Passionate Sage:

But Taylor regarded all banks as conspiratorial agencies operating in collusion with government to defy and distort the natural laws of the marketplace. He was one of the first to articulate the sectional perspective of southern farmers as victims of a northern banking conspiracy sanctioned by the federal government. Supporters of Andrew Jackson, then again, later in the century, southern Populists would seize upon this vision to stigmatize banks and bankers as symbols of an unholy alliance between capital and government. Given their assumptions about the inherently equitable distribution of goods that would occur in an unfettered marketplace, the appearance of vastly unequal pockets of wealth could only be the consequence of government-sanctioned meddling. Taylor’s solution, like Jackson’s after him, was to sever all connections between banking and the federal government.

Adams, on the other hand, never believed in the benign operation of the marketplace. Left to its own devices, he thought that the marketplace would no more discipline itself than would Jefferson’s version of “the people”. Indeed, that was the major problem presented by what Adams called “the multitude of swindling banks”- they were essentially gambling houses that enhanced and accelerated the worst features of the marketplace. Adams did not object to banks because they were distorting the natural rhythms of a burgeoning capitalistic economy. He objected that government regulations were not in place to assure that the flow of money and property served the public interest rather than private interests. Rather than free banks altogether from federal control, he thought that all banks should be public institutions under the control of the national government: “My own opinion has invariably been, that there ought to be but one one Bank in the United States,” he wrote in 1811, “and that a National Bank with a branch in each State… this ought to have been a fundamental Article in the Constitution.” Banks, in short were like all other aristocratic elements in American society- dangerous yet indispensible creatures. “An attempt to annihilate them,” he warned, “would be as romantic an adventure as any in Don Quixote.” Banks could never be eliminated, but ought never be free to pursue their avaricious ends; they must be regulated by law to serve national economic goals. If Taylor’s views on banks foreshadowed the Jacksonians and the Populists, Adams’s views foreshadowed the regulatory legislation of the Progressives and the New Deal

In spite of their differences, Jefferson and Adams found many things that they agreed upon. Both were shocked at the rise of evangelical Christianity at the beginning of the 19th century, hoping instead for the country to become Unitarian. As anti-slavery advocates, they both worried about the potential of the issue of slavery to tear the United States apart. And as they got older, both shared their doubts about the existence of an afterlife.

I learned a lot from the friendship of Jefferson and the Adams. They were very open about their differences and tried with sincerity to listen and understand the others point of view. They moved on from some rough patches and maintained their friendships.

Joseph Ellis described the importance of Thomas Jefferson and John and Abigail Adams in his book Passionate Sage

Whatever we choose to call them, the political values that Jefferson championed, indeed that his name came to represent, became the central tenets of the American liberal tradition; the values Adams embraced became important ingredients for critics of that tradition on both the conservative and radical sides of the political spectrum. And that posture-critical realist of seductive Jeffersonian illusions- was the one Adams found most comfortable throughout his correspondence with that man at Monticello. Jefferson embodied deep and sincere convictions about a truly open-ended America, a fundamentally new kind of society which had liberated itself from the burdens of the past and from the class divisions of Europe; which required only a minimalist government, whose only function would be to remove artificial barriers to individual initiative; which could justifiably claim to represent an undifferentiated, nearly spiritual entity called “the will of the people”. No matter how powerful these convictions were to become in nineteenth-century America, Adams regarded all of them as illusions.

The Founding Fathers and Slavery Part 2

As Flag Day and July 4 approach, it is wise to consider the Founding Fathers and their accomplishments and failures. One of the things that these men have been criticized for in recent years, and one that many in the Left make about them, is that many of the Founding Fathers were slaveholders and that they did not eradicate slavery. Though I agree that the existence of slavery is one of the great stains in this nation’s history, I think it is wrong to stereotyp the Founding Fathers as being uncaring towards slaves. I wrote a previous blog about the Founding Fathers grappling with the issue of slavery and thought I’d write a followup. Though I am to the left of the political spectrum, the criticisms of many of the Left towards the Founding Fathers has bothered me. The early leaders did try to abolish slavery, but their fears of Southern secession eventually doomed those efforts.

From the 1770s to 1780s, several people developed plans as possible ways of abolishing slavery. Thomas Jefferson developed a plan of gradual abolition that featured an end to the slave trade, the prohibition of slavery, and the establishment of a date in which newly born children of slaves would be free. Prominent Virginians Fernando Fairfax and St. George Tucker submitted plans on the freeing of slaves: Tucker presented “A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It, in the State of Virginia” to the Virginia Legislature in 1796 and Fairfax developed his “Plan for Liberating the Negroes within the United States” in 1790. All of these plans were similar in that they wanted the abolition of slaves to be gradual, they wanted the government to compensate the slave owners for the lost property, and they wanted to colonize the freed slaves in a seperate place from the white society.

One of the great criticisms of the gradual abolition plans that Southern critics pointed out is that the federal government didn’t have enough money to compensate the slaveowners and transport the freed slaves to other lands. Ellis notes in his book Founding Brothers though that a gradual abolition plan would spread the cost of freeing the slaves over several decades as only a percentage of slaves would be freed over one time. St. George Tucker’s plan would spread the cost of freeing the slaves over a century, making a gradual abolition plan more financially feasibly.

The great problem of any abolition plan would be the threat of Southern secession. John Adams felt that any abolition plan would have to be led by enlightened Virginians like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington who were against slavery and might be able to press their fellow Southerners to adopt an abolition plan. Joseph Ellis wrote in his book American Sphinx that in the mid 1780s and before, Jefferson was a strong advocate for the abolition of slavery. In 1769 Jefferson proposed unsuccessfully that the Virginia House of Burgess emancipate the slaves of Virginia. In 1778 he successfully passed a bill through the Virginia legislature for the banning of future slave importation to Virginia. Jefferson authored on April 1784 a proposal to the Continental Congress that would’ve abolished slavery in the Northwestern Territory of the U.S. that failed to pass by a single vote. When Jefferson’s 1784 proposal failed to pass by one vote, he wrote, “the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, heaven was silent in that awful moment!”

If any politician had enough prestige to possibly get the South to go along with a gradual abolition plan, it might’ve been George Washington. Washington had stated that he wanted “to see some plan adopted, by which slavery in this country may be abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptible degrees.” Henry Wiencek, in his book, “Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America”, notes that Washington was contemplating the freeing of his slaves during his Presidency as an example for the nation, but backed away from those plans. Washington’s wife and relatives did not share his distaste for slavery and were fiercely against any abolition plan. Wiencek felt this was a great missed opportunity for Washington and the nation.

Washington did eventually free his slaves in his will. George Washington wrote his will in secret in July 1799, to conceal his emancipation plans from the disapproval of his family. Henry Wiecker notes in his book that Washington owned only 123 of the 316 slaves in Mount Vernon. The rest were Martha’s slaves. He put in his will that the slaves that he owned would be freed upon the death of Martha Washington, as a way to appeal to Martha to follow his lead and emancipate her own slaves. The old and the infirm freed slaves would be taken care of until death by their heirs. The freed children would be bound by the Court until they reached 25 years of age, and they would be taught to read and write and be brought up to some useful occupation. To ensure that the executors of the will would not try to find some way to evade his wishes to free the slaves, Washington wrote:
“…and I do hereby expressly forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever. And I do moreover most pointedly, and most solenmly enjoin it upon my Executors hereafter named, or the Survivors of them, to see that this clause respecting Slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled at the Epoch at which it is directed to take place; without evasion, neglect or delay…”

On February 3, 1790, Benjamin Franklin and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society had a petition in the House of Representatives to abolish slavery and stop the slave trade. The petition challenged the idea that the Constitution prohibited legislation against the slave trade until 1808 by suggesting that the “general welfare clause” (Article 1, Section 8 ) allowed the Congress to eliminate the slave trade and abolish slavery. It is written in the petition, “Your Memorialists, particularly engaged in attending to the Distresses arising from Slavery, believe it their indispensable Duty to present this Subject to your notice. They have observed with great Satisfaction that many important & salutary Powers are vested in you for ‘promoting the Welfare & Securing the blessings of liberty to the “People of the United States.’”

Many of the other Founding Fathers were against slavery. John Adams was an outspoken foe of the institution. Alexander Hamilton founded the New York Manumission Society, which was instrumental in abolishing slavery in that state. Some enlightened Virginians that were financially well off did free their own slaves, especially after the Virginia legislature passed a law permitting slave owners to free their own slaves at their own discretion. Robert Carter III, the richest man in Virginia, freed his 452 slaves and gave up his plantation. The book The First Emancipator: The Forgotten Story of Robert Carter, the Founding Father Who Freed His Slaves by Andrew Levy chronicles the influences of the radical Baptists in his views on race, where he worshipped side by side as equals with his slaves, in Carter’s enlightened views on race. In 1791, Carter filed a Deed of Gift in his home town of Williamsburg, Virginia, that led to a gradual manumitting of his 452 slaves. He did this inspite of his opposition of his sons and neighbors, which eventually led Carter to move to Baltimore to move away from their disapproval. In 1803 the year before his death, Carter wrote his daughter Harriot L. Maund, “My plans and advice have never been pleasing to the world”

The inability of the Founding Fathers to find a solution to the problem of slavery is one of their greatest failures. In spite of that, however, it is wrong for the Left and for many others to stereotype them as just being rich white men who were just interested in empire and business. Many of the Founding Fathers did care about abolishing slavery to square with the principals of liberty that was at the heart of the republican ideas of the Declaration of Independence. In this instance, radicals like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were need to provide the grassroots agitation to prod the nation to change. At heart, most of the Founding Fathers were liberal reformers who wanted to work within the system they created, and abolition needed radicals to provide the push from outside the system. Among the Founding Fathers, only Thomas Paine and perhaps a young Jefferson had that radical mindset. Abolition required a radical change in the South’s economic system away from the plantation system and the Founding Fathers were not willing to take that radical step.

Benjamin Banneker, Thomas Jefferson and the Question of Racial Equality

In the year 1791 an unusual correspondence took place.  Benjamin Banneker, a free African American and an astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, almanac writer and farmer, wrote a letter to then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.  Banneker’s letter was a plea for justice for African American slaves and a statement of racial equality and it challenged Jefferson’s suppositions of the inferiority of blacks.  At a time when most Americans shared Jefferson’s racial views, men like Benjamin Banneker were around to show the wrongness of such views.

Benjamin Banneker was born on November 9, 1731 to Mary and Robert Banneker.  Mary’s parents were Molly Welsh, a European, and Banneka, a member of the Dogon tribe in Africa that had knowledge of astronomy.  Banneka was originally a slave of Molly, but Molly freed and married him and they lived in a small farm to the west of Baltimore, Maryland.  This place was out of the way from the more mainstream South, so attitudes towards African Americans were more tolerant.  Mary received her learning from her parents, and she taught Benjamin how to read, farm, and interpret the sky.  This information is from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Banneker).

As a teen, Benjamin Banneker was taught by Peter Heinrich, a Quaker farmer who built a school near the Banneker farm.  The Quakers were leaders of the antislavery movement in colonial America and its members were advocates of racial equality, which made them perfect neighbors for a free African American who needed friendship and access to education.  The Ellicotts, another Quaker family, supplied Banneker with books so he could learn more about astronomy and sent the family his astronomical calculations predicting solar and lunar eclipses.   In 1791, Banneker surveyed for Major Andrew Ellicott the 100 mile area that would later become the District of Columbia.   He created the Benjamin Banneker Almanac, which had his astronomical calculations.  An anti-slavery society published Banneker’s almanac from 1792 to 1797.  This almanac was the basis of Banneker’s initial correspondence between himself and Thomas Jefferson. 

Thomas Jefferson needs no introduction to most Americans.  The author of the Declaration of Independence, our third President, a champion of religiuos tolerance and of the values of the Enlightenment, Jefferson was one of the most influential of our Founding Fathers.  On the pressing question of slavery, one can judge Jefferson based on two parts of his life:  Jefferson’s actions before the 1780s, when he was an active leader in trying to abolish slavery;  and Jefferson after the 1780s, when he receded from a leadership role and tried to avoid the issue.  Joseph Ellis, in his insightful book, American Sphinx, wrote about Jefferson’s early activist role in trying to abolish slavery:

“If Jefferson had a discernible public position on slavery in the mid-1790s, it was that the subject should be allowed to retire gracefully from the field of political warfare, much as he was doing by retiring to Monticello.  This represented a decided shift from his position as a younger man, when he had assumed a leadership role in pushing slavery onto the agenda in the Virginia Assembly and the federal Congress.   His most famous formulations, it is true, were rhetorical:  blaming the slave trade and the establishment of slavery itself on George III in the Declaration of Independence;  denouncing slavery as amorally bankrupt intitution that was doomed to extinction in Notes on Virginia.  His most practical proposals, all of which came in the early 1780s, envisioned a program of gradual abolition that featured an end to the slave trade, the prohibition of slavery in all the western territories and the establishment of a fixed date, he suggested 1800, after which all newly born children of slaves would be emancipated.  To repeat, up through this stage of his political career, he was a member of the vanguard that insisted on the incompatibility of slavery with the principles on which the American republic was founded.  Throughout this early phase of his life it would have been unfair to accuse him of hypocrisy for owning slaves or to berate him for failing to provide moral leadership on America’s most sensitive political subject.  It would in fact have been much fairer to applaud his efforts, most of them admitedly futile, to inaugurate antislavery reform and to wonder admiringly how this product of Virginia’s planer class had managed to develop such liberal convictions.”

In 1769 Jefferson proposed unsuccessfully that the Virginia House of Burgess emancipate the slaves of Virginia.  In 1778 he successfully passed a bill through the same legislature for the banning of future slaves to Virginia.  Jefferson authored on April 1784 a proposal to the Continental Congress that would’ve abolished slavery in the Northwestern Territory of the U.S.  that failed to pass by a single vote.   As President, he signed a bill abolishing the slave trade in 1807. 

As Joseph Ellis noted, after the mid 1780s, Jefferson stopped taking the lead in the fight for the abolition of slavery.   Two reasons stand out.  At around the mid 1780s, Jefferson began to realize how deeply in debt he was.   A large amount of Jefferson’s wealth depended on the value of his slaves, through either the selling or renting out of his slaves.  This was one way in which Jefferson could raise capitol to fend off his creditors.  So Jefferson wanted an emancipation plan that would compensate the slaveowners, and he felt that the U.S. government just didn’t have the money to do so. 

Also, Thomas Jefferson wanted to free the slaves, but he also wanted a way for the black population to be separated from the white population.  He gave his reasons in his Notes on Virginia:

“Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites;  ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained;  new provocations;  the real distinctions that nature has made;  and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race”

Unlike some of the other Founding Fathers who were against slavery, Jefferson shared some of the same racist assumptions as many whites at the time.  Some of the Founders, like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, felt that any perceived inferiority of African Americans was due to the degrading instititution of slavery and was not inherent in their race, which enabled them to see a time when freed African Americans could be integrated with whites in American society.   While Jefferson deplored slavery, he felt that African Americans were inferior in certain areas and he noted those areas in his book Notes on the State of Virginia.  This made him very pessimistic about any integrated racial society.

Even with the prejudiced atmosphere of the time, however, there were many African American accomplishments that could contadict Thomas Jefferson’s racial assumptions.  Phillis Wheatley was a famed African American poetess who was producing poems as good as any white poet.  Henry Wiencek, in his book, Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America, notes that 5,000 African Americans fought in George Washington’s army, and George Washington handpicked the Rhode Island unit, which happened to be 75 percent black, to carry out the most important military assignment that eventually won the war.  Benjamin Banneker, with his proven accomplishments in astronomy, surveying, mathematics, and writing, directly challenged Jefferson in his letter of August 19, 1791 (http://afroamhistory.about.com/library/blbanneker_letter.htm).

Benjamin Banneker begins his letter with a plea to Jefferson to help relieve the sufferings of those African Americans living under the yolk of slavery.  Banneker wrote:

“Sir,
I am fully sensible of the greatness of that freedom, which I take with you on the present occasion ; a liberty which seemed to me scarcely allowable, when I reflected on that distinguished and dignified station in which you stand, and the almost general prejudice and prepossession, which is so prevalent in the world against those of my complexion.

 I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world ; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt ; and that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments.

 Sir, I hope I may safely admit, in consequence of that report which hath reached me, that you are a man far less inflexible in sentiments of this nature, than many others ; that you are measurably friendly, and well disposed towards us ; and that you are willing and ready to lend your aid and assistance to our relief, from those many distresses, and numerous calamities, to which we are reduced. Now Sir, if this is founded in truth, I apprehend you will embrace every opportunity, to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions, which so generally prevails with respect to us ; and that your sentiments are concurrent with mine, which are, that one universal Father hath given being to us all ; and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also, without partiality, afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties ; and that however variable we may be in society or religion, however diversified in situation or color, we are all of the same family, and stand in the same relation to him.

 Sir, if these are sentiments of which you are fully persuaded, I hope you cannot but acknowledge, that it is the indispensible duty of those, who maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who possess the obligations of Christianity, to extend their power and influence to the relief of every part of the human race, from whatever burden or oppression they may unjustly labor under ; and this, I apprehend, a full conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles should lead all to. Sir, I have long been convinced, that if your love for yourselves, and for those inestimable laws, which preserved to you the rights of human nature, was founded on sincerity, you could not but be solicitous, that every individual, of whatever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof ; neither could you rest satisfied short of the most active effusion of your exertions, in order to their promotion from any state of degradation, to which the unjustifiable cruelty and barbarism of men may have reduced them.”

Benjamin Banneker directly repudiates the racist notions that somehow African Americans have inferior mental endowments that whites and that they are a more brutish race.   It seems that Banneker has heard of Jefferson efforts as a young man to abolish slavery through legislation and his outspoken criticism of the institution, and he hopes that Jefferson shares also Banneker’s belief on black’s intellectual equality with whites.  The purpose of Banneker’s letter seemed to be to persuade Jefferson, as Secretary of State of the U.S., to continue his efforts to fight for the emancipation of African Americans and to fight the prejudices that have grown around this race.   Banneker used Jefferson’s own words to try get Jefferson to continue in his fight.

“This, Sir, was a time when you cleary saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had just apprehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was now that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages : “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Here was a time, in which your tender feelings for yourselves had engaged you thus to declare, you were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature ; but, Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges, which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren, under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to yourselves.”

Banneker used the words of the Declaration of Independence to show Jefferson to show the contradictions between the high ideals of freedom and equality of America and the practice of slavery within its borders.   Jefferson’s attempts of abolishing showed that he was well aware of those contradictions, but having an African American point out those contradictions to him must have been jarring.    Banneker’s letter was a direct reproach towards Jefferson’s own racist beliefs and I hope it had the effect of changing them.  As proof of the intellectual prowess of Afrian Americans, Banneker offered the example of his own almanac, which he sent along with this letter.  He wrote:

“And now, Sir, although my sympathy and affection for my brethren hath caused my enlargement thus far, I ardently hope, that your candor and generosity will plead with you in my behalf, when I make known to you, that it was not originally my design ; but having taken up my pen in order to direct to you, as a present, a copy of an Almanac, which I have calculated for the succeeding year, I was unexpectedly and unavoidably led thereto.

 This calculation is the production of my arduous study, in this my advanced stage of life ; for having long had unbounded desires to become acquainted with the secrets of nature, I have had to gratify my curiosity herein, through my own assiduous application to Astronomical Study, in which I need not recount to you the many difficulties and disadvantages, which I have had to encounter.

And although I had almost declined to make my calculation for the ensuing year, in consequence of that time which I had allotted therefor, being taken up at the Federal Territory, by the request of Mr. Andrew Ellicott, yet finding myself under several engagements to Printers of this state, to whom I had communicated my design, on my return to my place of residence, I industriously applied myself thereto, which I hope I have accomplished with correctness and accuracy ; a copy of which I have taken the liberty to direct to you, and which I humbly request you will favorably receive ; and although you may have the opportunity of perusing it after its publication, yet I choose to send it to you in manuscript previous thereto, that thereby you might not only have an earlier inspection, but that you might also view it in my own hand writing. “

Jefferson replied to Banneker in August 30, 1791.  He wrote a gracious letter which stated:

“Sir,
I thank you, sincerely, for your letter of the 19th instant, and for the Almanac it contained. No body wishes more than I do, to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men ; and that the appearance of the want of them, is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I can add with truth, that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced, for raising the condition, both of their body and mind, to what it ought to be, as far as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances, which cannot be neglected, will admit.

I have taken the liberty of sending your Almanac to Monsieur de Condozett, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it as a document, to which your whole color had a right for their justification, against the doubts which have been entertained of them.

 I am with great esteem, Sir, Your most obedient Humble Servant,

THOMAS JEFFERSON.”

I don’t know if Jefferson changed his views on race after reading Banneker’s letter, but I hope it did.  Jefferson is one of my heroes, and I have other heroes, like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Malcolm X, who held racist views as young men but had the capacity to outgrow those racist views.  Banneker did a service to directly challenge the prejudice of his times with his letter to Jefferson and the example of his intellectual accomplishments.

Reading History on the Fourth of July

Growing up, my views of the American Revolution were influenced by the musical 1776 and the School House Rock specials on Saturday morning.   I grew to deeply respect our Founding Fathers and to see in them a heroism that is lacking in today’s leaders.  As a grown up I’ve started reading a lot of history books that remind that though these Founding Fathers were great leaders, they were also human, and that the Revolution was as much the story of the ordinary merchants, farmers, slaves, native Americans, and women as it was of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  Our historians remind us that the American Revolution was a complicated event, with mixed results many of the people who participated in the fight.   I’ve especially learned from 3 of my favorite historians, Howard Zinn, Gordon Woods, and Joseph Ellis, to see the founding of our nation in new ways.

Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States, devotes two chapters to the American Revolution.  He focuses on the divide between the rich upper classmen of New England businessmen and Southern gentry that made up the American leadership, and the merchants, sailors, farmers, slaves, indentured servants, and the rest of the American population that had to be mobilized to win the revolution.  In the beginning, John Adams estimated that a third of the population was opposed to the revolution, a third supported the cause, and a third were neutral.  Zinn noted that while mechanics and sailers were incensed at the British, much of the public was lukewarm.  The men who first joined the revolutionary army were respectable men with property and respectability in their communities, but the need for greater numbers led to the recruitment of poorer white men.  The military was a place where the poor could rise in rank and change their social status and many joined for that reason.   Some states used conscription to fill the ranks of their armies.   Excluded initially from the militia were friendly Indians, free African Americans, and white servants.  So the majority of support for the revolution came from the town mechanics, laborers, seamen, and small farmers who made up “the people” and bonded through the camraderie of military service and benefitted from the distribution of land.

During the War for Independence, Zinn noted that occassional riots would occur that were motivated by the resentments of the poor against the rich elite.  Divisive civil conflicts occurred during the course of the war in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, and to a lesser degree, Virginia.  The threat of slave revolts were a constant worry to Southern plantation owners.   Amid the chaos of the war, thousands of slaves fled for freedom, leaving on British ships to settle in England, Nova Scotia, the West Indies, or Africa, or staying in America as free blacks, evading their masters.   The war gave African Americans and other oppressed groups a venue to make demands for equal treatment from their white countryment.  In Boston, African Americans asked for city money to educate their children.  In Norfolk, they asked to be allowed to testify in court.  Peter Matthews, a butcher in Charleston, led free black artisans and tradesmen in petitioning the legislature to repeal discriminatory laws against blacks.  In 1780, seven African Americans in Dartmouth, Massachussetts, petitioned for the right to vote.  The agitation of African Americans and the poor white classes showed the gap between the high idealism of the Declaration of Independence and the realities of discrimination and poverty of a large segment of the American population.  This gap has led more radical historians like Zinn to see the American Revolution as being the trading of a British elite with an American elite.

Joseph Ellis is a historian who sees much more of the accomplishments of the Revolution than Zinn.  He’s famous for his books on the Revolutionary era and his latest book, American Creation, explores the evolution of the United States as it goes from fighting a revolution to setting up a working government.  This exploration weighs the accomplishments of the Founding Fathers and their two great failures.   Ellis felt that the American Revolution succeeded, while the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions failed, because the American leadership was made up of many different players with many different beliefs.  The diversity of the American leaders helped the United States from devolving into a one-man despotism, like Napoleon in France, Lenin in Russia, and Mao in China. 

Ellis felt that the revolutionary generation succeeded in many areas.  The Americans won the first colonial war for independence in the modern era, defeating the most powerful military in the world.  They established the first nation sized republic and the first secular state.  They created political parties as institutional channels for ongoing debate, permitting dissent as a legitimate voice.  And for Ellis, the most important thing was that the United States was able to reconcile two competing and contradictory political impulses.  The first impulse, as represented by the Declaration of Independence, was a radical document that locates sovereignty in the individual and depicts rebellion against government as a natural act.  The second impulse was represented by the U.S. Constitution, and it located sovereignty in the collective state, making government an essential protector of the people and not its enemy, and valuing social balance over personal liberation. 

With these achievements, Ellis notes two great failures of the founding of our nation.  The first was the failure of the nation to end slavery, or at least adopt a plan to gradually emancipate the slaves.   Most of the Founding Fathers were against slavery, and some of the leaders, notably Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, tried to get legislation to end slavery and the slave trade.  They were unsuccessful in their attempts to end slavery, though, and they realized that the existence and expansion of slavery would eventually lead the nation into civil war.   The other failure of the Founding Fathers was to find a way to implement a just settlement with the Native Americans.  Like with slavery, most of the leaders acknowledged that the Native Americans had a legitimate claim to their land.  They never successfully were able to come up with a just plan for the indigenous people of this country.

Gordon Woods is another historian who has gained a reputation for his insights on the Revolutionary period.  His book, Revolutionary Characters:  What Made the Founders Different, explores 8 of our revolutionary leaders and asks what it was about them that made them different from leaders of succeeding generations.  The leaders that he explores, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and Aaron Burr, were of different temperements and political beliefs, but most of them (with the exception of Aaron Burr) were united by their aspirations to be disinterested gentlemen, a sort of moral ideal of a leader with the 18th century virtues of politeness, grace, good taste, learning, and character.    Most of the leaders were the first in their families to attend college or attain social status, and they deeply believed in a leadership that was gained through talent and not heredity.   Aaron Burr was the one leader who didn’t aspire to the 18th century idea of the gentleman politician.  He seemed to always act upon political expediency instead of worrying about the public good, and this eventually lead to his famous duel with Alexander Hamilton.

Each of the founders were very different men with different beliefs and personalities.  Washington did his best to live up to the gentlemanly virtue of civility, and this led him to many of the decisions that garnered respect among his colleagues:  his decision to surrender his position as commander in chief to the Congress in 1783 rather than pursue greater power;  his decision not to run for a third term as President;  his decision to free his slaves after he dies.  Franklin’s sense of public service led him to be ambassador to England and France, where he helped the colonies victory by securing French support.  Jefferson’s belief in the ability of the people to make the right decisions lead him to fight for greater public education, for the separation of church and state, and the abolishment of slavery, all in an attempt to educate enlightened citizens in Jefferson’s idea of a perfect republic.  John Adams, Jefferson’s close friend and frequent political foe, believed in a natural aristocracy of merit, and believed in a balanced government between the aristocracy and the common people.  Alexander Hamilton believed that government should exploit the self interest of the influential class at the top of the society to harness their talents for the benefit of the rest of society.  James Madison believed in a government of clashing interests that neutralized each other, allowing liberally educated rational men to decide questions of the public good.  Woods considers Thomas Paine the first public intellectual who wrote Common Sense and his other radical tracts specifically for the average person in the taverns and guilds of the city.  

In his book, The American Revolution, Gordon Woods wrote:

“The history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed as a story of right and wrong or good and evil from which moral lessons are to be drawn.  No doubt the story of the Revolution is a dramatic one:  Thirteen insignificant British colonies huddled along a narrow strip of the Atlantic coast three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization, becoming in fewer than three decades a huge, sprawling republic of nearly 4 million expansive-minded, evangelical, and money-hungry citizens is a spectacular tale, to say the least.  But the Revolution, like the whole of American history, is not a simple morality play;   it is a complicated and often ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not celebrated or condemned.  How the Revolution came about, what its character was, and what its consequences were- not whether it was good or bad- are the questions this brief history seeks to answer.”

In this Fourth of July, I’m grateful for the work of these historians for giving me different views of the founding of our nation.  From Howard Zinn, I learned that the revolution was not just the story of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.  It is also the story of the merchants, the small farmers, the slaves, the freed blacks, and the Native Americans.  Zinn reminds us of the gap between the high idealism of the Declaration of Independence and the realities of the people in the margins of our society and that true social change only occurs when those marginalized people feel empowered to agitate for change.  From Joseph Ellis, I’ve learned to appreciate the accomplishments of the leaders in building a government that allowed debate to take place and didn’t degenerate into a one person dictatorship.  Ellis also reminds us though of the failures of the founders, of their inability to resolve the issues of slavery and the just treatment of Native Americans.  From Gordon Wood, I learned to appreciate the founders as individuals, with their own beliefs and personalities and gifts.  Each were united in trying to live to the 18th century idea of the virtous gentleman leader and this seperated them from future generations who lived up to different models of leadership.  Each historian gives us a different and more whole view of the American experience, one that shows the ideas and the people who helped shape who we are today. 

Debating with Conservative Friends

One could say that my life has been a series of debates.  This is not to say that I’m argumentative.  I’ve just been lucky in my life to have had friends with whom I could talk about issues and debate politics and religion.   Although I’m fairly liberal in my politics, I’ve had in my life a fair amount of conservative Republican friends with whom I used to be able to debate on points of disagreement and while still maintaining a sense of respect for each other.  Somehow, though, those type of talks have become less frequent in the past couple of years.  I’m not sure if people in the past few years have just become more polarized along certain positions and are no longer tolerant of differing opinions.  It’s become rare to meet that kind of friend, that friendship of opposites, and I miss those type of conversations. 

When I was a kid, I used to always argue with my friends about our favorite basketball players and teams.    People looking back to the 1980s always think of the Lakers and the Celtics, but in the playgrounds I played in, most people liked Doctor J and the Philedelphia 76ers.  My brothers and I were Celtics fans, so it was natural that we’d wind up getting into arguments with our friends about who was the better player:  Bird or the Doc.  Bird had a greater outside shot and was a great passer.  Doc drove better to the basket and was the greater leaper.  Bird was the rebounder, Dr. J was the greater individual defender.  We never convinced anyone to change their minds about anything, but it was fun to just argue things out and gab. 

This extended to politics.  One of my best friends was a guy named Eric.  He was a Reagn Republican, but he was not the typical Reaganite.  Eric was an agnostic who didn’t like the religious right, but he felt that anything was better than Carter.  We talked a lot about politics at that time, especially when Reagan decided to ship nuclear missiles to Europe.  Considering the vehemence of some of our debates, it’s ironic that years later, Eric went out of the closet and is now farther politically to the left than I am.  Whenever I see him, I always tell him that my arguments finally got through to him.  In reality, his experiences coming out as a gay man changed his perspective on politics and the way he saw the world. 

Three houses down from my parents house were our friends Rollie and Rick.  My brothers and I would hang out with them and play basketball every Friday, Saturday, and sometimes Sunday.  When I visited their house, I’d sometimes talk to their father about politics.  He knew I was a Democrat, so he’d talk about how we’re always taxing and spending with little regard on how that affects the working guy.   During the 1984 elections we’d talk about the merits of Mondale and Reagan, and it was nice that he talked to me even though I was not old enough at that time to vote.  When Reagan won in a landslide, I congratulated Rollie’s father and he was fairly gracious. 

I was lucky in my young life to be around people who respected differences of opinions and didn’t try to coerce me to agree with them.  During my college years, I didn’t really talk much politics as my college girlfriend and our circle of friends were relatively apolitical.   My classmates in the art building were more focused on improving their art than in talking much politics, although a few fine arts students that I knew were fairly radical, more so than I was at the time.   It was odd, but the best political conversations I had at the time were in the basketball courts.  I’d  just drop by a court for a pickup game, and after the game, we’d sometimes talk politics.  Most of those people were not that ideological, but they had definite opinions about  government doing too much to help the poor or government bureacracies running amok.     

Things began to change in the mid 1990s.  I had started attending an Asian American evangelical church and the first few friends that I made, I was able to be free in my opinions and engage in some fun conversations.  As I became more of a regular member and I started making emotional attachments to the community, things began to change.  The views of the people at that church are fairly diverse, but the vast majority of the evangelicals that I met tend to be conservatives, basing their politics on a literal interpretation of the Bible.  They were a different brand of conservatives than the ones I knew outside of the church:  while the nonchurchgoing conservative friends tended to be a bit more tolerant of differences of opinion and were able to enjoy the give and take of a fun debate, a lot of the conservative churchgoers were a lot more dogmatic and you could tell they didn’t approve of liberal positions like the right to choose an abortion and homosexuality.  The people in that church who were moderate or liberal tended to be quiet about their views, and I learned to be quiet in my opinions too.  They were nice people and I made many a lot of friends with them, and I just didn’t want to rock the boat.    I saw how they would often use peer pressure to get individuals to conform, or else ostracize those who didn’t conform, and I just slowly learned to keep any differences of opinion to myself. 

This was during the Clinton years, and a lot of the conservatives hated Bill and Hillary with the same vehemence that progressive nowadays hate our current President.  I learned at that time to be free with my political opinions only with other like-minded liberals or moderates.  I’d meet young conservatives straight out of colleges and universities during the late 1990s and early 200s who were very dogmatic about the free markets being the cure to all our ills, and disdainful of any government aid to the poor.  I’d always be annoyed at them, until I reflected that I might have been that way coming out of college as well, only from the liberal view of things.  Eventually I was enmeshed in a few conflicts in the evangelical church that got me to start thinking for myself again, and I left the church in 2002.

I don’t know if the Clinton and Bush years just polarized the left and the right wings more, leaving less room for friendly debates.   I sometimes even got in trouble with liberal friends, as when I supported Joe Lieberman in his run for the presidency in 2004.  I don’t agree with Lieberman’s position in Iraq, but I do agree with his positions on the environment, on most social issues, and I admire his strong advocacy of labor rights.  On these issues he’s actually more progressive than Howard Dean and especially John Murtha.  And I thought his plan for a progressive tax structure was better for redistributing wealth than any candidate except Dennis Kucinich’s.  No one really listened to me though.

A few years ago, I decided to research friendships between people with opposite political opinions.  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were best friends, even though Adams was a strong Federalist and Jefferson was a passionate Republican.  Their friendship was rocky at times, and they had a falling out in the 1790s, but their friendship was recovered in the 1800s with the assistance of their mutual friend Benjamin Rush, and they had a wonderful correspondence that lasted till the end of their lives.  Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart were best friends, even though Fonda was a New Deal liberal and Stewart was a conservative Republican.  They stayed friends all their lives, agreeing that their friendship was more important than their differences in political views.   Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill were friends, and O’Neil was at Reagan’s bedside offering support to Ronald and Nancy after the assasination attempt in 1981.  One of Ted Kennedy’s closest friends in the Senate is Orrin Hatch, and it was Hatch’s urgings in the 1990s that helped lead Kennedy to finally deal with his alcohol problem.

I don’t have as many conservative friends anymore as I once did.  One conservative friend that I do have though, is my brother-in-law, Erik.  Erik is a fiscal conservative, thought his views on social issues are rather liberal.  I enjoy visits with him, because he’s one of the few people nowadays that I can talk politics freely with.  Though he’s a social liberal, he feels it’s a mistake for the courts to rule for issues like homosexual and abortion rights to be imposed on the land, feeling instead that activists should do the hard work of changing the electorates’ opinions on these issues so that these issues are resolved the legislature.  We clash mostly on the free market and the role of government.  From Erik’s point of view, the government does more harm than good when it tries to put its reach on the economy and alleviating poverty, and that the unfettered free market would better alleviate many of society’s problems.  I, on the other hand, believe the free market has basic flaws that only the government can resolve. 

I enjoy these conversations, and I think it’s good for me that my progressive viewpoints get challenged.  It forces me to articulate why I believe the things that I believe, and it makes me see the strengths and weaknesses of my political beliefs.  In my many years of arguing with conservative friends, I’ve never been convinced of the rightness of their ideas.  But it’s helped me to see that they have a valid point of view, and hopefully it helps them see that my own left wing beliefs have some validity as well.  Instead of two monologues going passed each other, which has been my experience with a lot of more adverserial conversations have gone with more hostile conservatives, my talks with conservative friends have been actual dialogues.   And in this polarized political atmosphere, more dialogue is needed.