Jackie sent me a link to this terrific story on Raw Story. Never thought I would write that sentence! I guess the feeling is mutual, because Raw Story hates me. This time, it kept covering up the text as I was trying to read, but I managed to copy the story, in 7 bits and pieces. Normally I don’t post an entire story, but this one seems important, and really, how many of you will go to the trouble of trying to get the story if you have to go through that?
So here’s the story in its entirety. Since the story is long, I won’t say more than that, so let’s discuss it in the comments.
This posted accidentally a few days ago, so the first 15 comments are from that day, before I noticed the inadvertent publish!
Let’s stay on topic in this post – this is not an open thread.
A dark mystery from America’s past could save us from Trump’s tyranny
by Thom Hartmann
It’s probably, politically and spiritually, the darkest Thanksgiving for our nation in my lifetime. So how about a quick story out of America’s earliest history that somewhat echoes this moment and may give us some hope?
Donald Trump has told us he’s going to use the 1807 Insurrection Act to declare a state of emergency, which will allow him to round up not only undocumented immigrants but also his political opponents, who he refers to as “the enemy within.” He came to power using Willie Horton-like ads trashing trans people and is happy to demonize anybody else who stands up to his hunger for absolute power.
In an age-old technique usually employed during wartime, Trump regularly uses the rhetoric America has employed against foreign enemies to characterize Americans who disagree with him and his policies. Remember the “raghead” slurs against Arabs from the Afghan and Iraqi wars? Or politicians referring to Vietnamese in the 1970s as “slants” and “gooks”?
My dad, who volunteered to fight in WWII straight out of high school, called Germans and Japanese “krauts” and “Japs” to his dying days; American propaganda during wartime encouraged popular usage of these racist characterizations.
In this regard, Trump’s trying to lie us into a war. But not an external war; this time he’s pushing for something very much like a 21st century version of a second civil war. A war by Americans against Americans.
Often history tells us how the future may turn out: Trump isn’t the first American politician to use lies and slanders to whip up a war-like frenzy. Or to use the language of war for political gain.
Bush Junior wasn’t the first president to have lied to us about foreign affairs and war, or to use lies to justify eviscerating the Constitution. For example, Lyndon Johnson lied about a non-existent attack on the US warship Maddox in the Vietnamese Gulf of Tonkin. William McKinley (the presidency after which Karl Rove has said he’d modeled the Bush presidency) lied about an attack on the USS Maine to get us into the Spanish-American war in The Philippines and Cuba.
But most relevant to today’s situation were John Adams’ version of Trump’s slanders when Adams sent three emissaries to France and criminals soliciting bribes approached them late one evening. Adams referred to these three unidentified Frenchmen as “Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z,” and made them out to represent such an insult and a threat against America that it may presage war.
Adams’ use of “The XYZ Affair” to gain political capital — much like Trump demonizes Hispanic and Haitian immigrants for political gain — nearly led us to war with France and helped him carve a large (although temporary) hole in the Constitution. Similarly, much like Trump’s anti-media “enemy of the people” rhetoric, John Adams then used that frenzy to jail newspaper editors and average citizens alike who spoke out against him and his policies.
The backstory is both fascinating and hopeful.
At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties — the Democrats and the Republicans — into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today they’re known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped “Republican” from their name in the 1820-1830 era).
Adams and his Federalist cronies, using war hysteria with France as a wedge issue, were pushing the Alien & Sedition Acts through Congress, and even threw into prison Democratic Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont for speaking out against the Federalists on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Adams was leading the United States in the direction of a fascistic state with a spectacularly successful strategy of vilifying Jefferson and his Party as anti-American and pro-French. He was America’s first Trump, albeit nowhere near as toxic or psychopathic.
Adams rhetoric was described as “manly” by the Federalist newspapers, which admiringly published dozens of his threatening rants against France, suggesting that Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans were less than patriots and perhaps even traitors because of their opposition to the unnecessary war with France that Adams was simultaneously trying to gin up and saying he was working to avoid.
On June 1, 1798 — two weeks before the Alien & Sedition Acts passed Congress by a single vote — Jefferson wrote a thoughtful letter to his old friend John Taylor.
“This is not new,” Jefferson said. “It is the old practice of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage.
“But,” he added, “our present situation is not a natural one.”
Jefferson knew that Adams’ Federalists did not represent the true heart and soul of America, and commented to Taylor about how Adams had been using divide-and-conquer politics, and fear-mongering about war with France (the XYZ Affair) with some success.
“But still I repeat it,” he wrote again to Taylor, “this is not the natural state.”
Jefferson did everything he could to stop that generation’s version of Trump, but Adams had the Federalists in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts. In protest, Jefferson left town the day they were signed, never to return until after Adams left the presidency.
Jefferson later wrote in his personal diary:
“Their usurpations and violations of the Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses of Congress, were so great, so decided, and so daring, that after combating their aggressions, inch by inch, without being able in the least to check their career, the [Democratic] Republican leaders thought it would be best for them to give up their useless efforts there, go home, get into their respective legislatures, embody whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch.”
Democratic Republican Congressman Albert Gallatin submitted legislation that would repeal the Alien & Sedition Acts, and the Federalist majority in the House refused to even consider the motion, while informing Gallatin that he would be the next to be imprisoned if he kept speaking out against “the national security.”
Adams then shut down almost thirty newspapers, throwing their publishers, editors, and writers in prison. The most famous to go to jail was Ben Franklin’s grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache. Within a few months, Adams had effectively silence the opposition.
Then he went after average citizens who spoke out against him.
Adams and his wife traveled the country in a fine carriage surrounded by a military contingent. As the Adams family entourage, full of pomp and ceremony, passed through Newark, New Jersey, a man named Luther Baldwin was sitting in a tavern and probably quite unaware that he was about to make a fateful comment that would help change history.
As Adams rode by, soldiers manning the Newark cannons loudly shouted the Adams-mandated chant, “Behold the chief who now commands!” and fired their salutes.
Hearing the cannon fire as Adams drove by outside the bar, in a moment of drunken candor Luther Baldwin said, “There goes the President and they are firing at his arse.” Baldwin further compounded his sin by adding that, “I do not care if they fire thro’ his arse!”
The tavern’s owner, a Federalist named John Burnet, overheard the remark and turned Baldwin in to Adams’ thought police: The hapless drunk was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for uttering “seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States.”
It was the darkest moment in our new nation’s short history. But then a new force arose.
When Adams shut down the Democratic Republican newspapers, pamphleteers — that generation’s version of Substack writers not affiliated with national publications — went to work, papering towns from New Hampshire to Georgia with posters and leaflets decrying Adams’ power grab and encouraging people to stand tall with Thomas Jefferson.
One of the best was a short screed by George Nicholas of Kentucky, “Justifying the Kentucky Resolution against the Alien & Sedition Laws” and “Correcting Certain False Statements, Which Have Been Made in the Different States” by Adams’ Federalists.
On February 13, 1799, then-Vice President Jefferson sent a copy of Nicholas’ pamphlet to his old friend Archibald Stuart (a Virginia legislator, fighter in the War of Independence, and leader of Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans).
“I avoid writing to my friends because the fidelity of the post office is very much doubted,” he opened his letter to Stuart, concerned that Adams was having his mail inspected because of his anti-war activities.
Jefferson pointed out that “France is sincerely anxious for reconciliation, willing to give us a liberal treaty,” and that even with the Democratic newspapers shut down by Adams and the Federalist-controlled media being unwilling to speak of Adams’ war lies, word was getting out to the people.
Jefferson noted:
“All these things are working on the public mind. They are getting back to the point where they were when the X. Y. Z. story was passed off on them. A wonderful and rapid change is taking place in Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York. Congress is daily plied with petitions against the alien and sedition laws and standing armies.”
Jefferson then turned to the need for the pamphleteers’ materials to be widely distributed.
“The materials now bearing on the public mind will infallibly restore it to its republican soundness in the course of the present summer,” he wrote, “if the knowledge of facts can only be disseminated among the people. Under separate cover you will receive some pamphlets written by George Nicholas on the acts of the last session. These I would wish you to distribute….”
The pamphleteer — today he would have been called a Substack writer — was James Bradford, and he reprinted tens of thousands of copies of Nicholas’ pamphlet and distributed it far and wide. Hand to hand, as Jefferson did with his by-courier letter to Stuart, was how what would be today’s independent progressive writings were distributed.
In the face of the pamphleteering and protests, the Federalists fought back with startling venom.
Vicious personal attacks were launched in the Federalist press against Jefferson, Madison, and others, and President Adams and Vice President Jefferson were no longer on speaking terms. Adams’ goal was nothing short of the complete destruction of Jefferson’s Democratic Party, and he had scared many of them into silence or submission.
“All [Democratic Republicans], therefore, retired,” Jefferson wrote in his diary, “leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives, and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as Vice-President.
“Remaining at our posts, and bidding defiance to the brow-beatings and insults by which they endeavored to drive us off also, we kept the mass of [Democratic] Republicans in phalanx together, until the legislature could be brought up to the charge; and nothing on earth is more certain, than that if myself particularly, placed by my office of Vice-President at the head of the [Democratic] Republicans, had given way and withdrawn from my post, the [Democratic] Republicans throughout the Union would have given up in despair; and the cause would have been lost forever.”
But Jefferson and Gallatin held their posts and fought back fiercely against Adams, thus saving — quite literally — American democracy. Jefferson and Madison also secretly helped legislators in Virginia and Kentucky submit resolutions in those states’ legislatures decrying the Alien & Sedition Acts. The bill in Virginia, in particular, gained traction.
As Jefferson noted in his diary:
“By holding on, we obtained time for the legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their celebrated resolutions, saved the Constitution at its last gasp. No person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our country however.
“The spirits of the people were so much subdued and reduced to despair by the XYZ imposture, and other stratagems and machinations, that they would have sunk into apathy and monarchy, as the only form of government which could maintain itself.”
The efforts of that century’s truth-tellers made great gains. As Jefferson noted in a February 14, 1799 letter to Virginia’s Edmund Pendleton:“The violations of the Constitution, propensities to war, to expense, and to a particular foreign connection, which we have lately seen, are becoming evident to the people, and are dispelling that mist which X. Y. Z. had spread before their eyes. This State is coming forward with a boldness not yet seen. Even the German counties of York and Lancaster, hitherto the most devoted [to Adams], have come about, and by petitions with four thousand signers remonstrate against the alien and sedition laws, standing armies, and discretionary powers in the President.”
Americans were so angry with Adams, Jefferson noted, that the challenge was to prevent people from taking up arms against Adams’ Federalists.
“New York and Jersey are also getting into great agitation. In this State [of Pennsylvania], we fear that the ill-designing may produce insurrection. Nothing could be so fatal. Anything like force would check the progress of the public opinion and rally them round the government. This is not the kind of opposition the American people will permit.”
Like today’s progressive movement led by people like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Elizabeth Warren, Jefferson knew that peaceful protests had greater power than violence or threats.
“But keep away all show of force,” he wrote to Pendleton, “and they will bear down the evil propensities of the government, by the constitutional means of election and petition. If we can keep quiet, therefore, the tide now turning will take a steady and proper direction.”
A week later, February 21, 1799, Jefferson wrote to the great Polish general who had fought in the American Revolution, Thaddeus Kosciusko, a close friend who was then living in Russia. War was the great enemy of democracy, Jefferson noted, and peace was its champion. And the American people were increasingly siding with peace and rejecting Adams’ call for war.
“The wonderful irritation produced in the minds of our citizens by the X. Y. Z. story, has in a great measure subsided,” he noted. “They begin to suspect and to see it coolly in its true light.”
But Adams was still President, and for him and his Federalist Party war would have helped tremendously with the upcoming election of 1800. In France some leaders wanted war with America for similar reasons.
Jefferson continued:
“What course the government will pursue, I know not. But if we are left in peace, I have no doubt the wonderful turn in the public opinion now manifestly taking place and rapidly increasing, will, in the course of this’ summer, become so universal and so weighty, that friendship abroad and freedom at home will be firmly established by the influence and constitutional powers of the people at large.”
And if Adams’ rhetoric led to an attack on America by France?
“If we are forced into war,” Jefferson noted, “we must give up political differences of opinion, and unite as one man to defend our country. But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows.”
The tide was turned, to use Jefferson’s phrase, by the election of 1800, as Dan Sisson and I document in our book The American Revolution of 1800: How Jefferson Rescued Democracy from Tyranny and Faction — and What This Means Today.
The abuses of the Federalists were so burned into the people’s minds when Jefferson’s party came to power and he freed the imprisoned newspaper editors so reform-minded newspapers were started back up again, that the Federalists disintegrated altogether as a party over the next two decades.
As may well happen to Trump’s GOP two or four years from now.
All because average citizens and pamphleteers — and a handful of progressive politicians — stood up and challenged the lies of a fear-mongering president, and politicians of principle were willing to lead.
America has been burdened by lying presidents before, and even one who tried to destroy our Constitution like Trump is today threatening to do. But in our era — like in Jefferson’s — we are fortunate to have radical truth-tellers and political allies to warn us of treasonous acts for political gain.
If we stand in solidarity with today’s truth-tellers, and more politicians step forward to take a leadership role, then its entirely possible that with the elections of 2026 and 2028 American democracy can once again prevail.
END OF RAW STORY ARTICLE
Let’s stay on topic in this post – This is not an open thread.
dnfree
Wow, that’s thought-provoking.
Layer8Problem
I’m missing a title for this post.
Urza
This is great. Need a title and maybe repost later since it got bigfooted.
Raven
Most, not all, but most troops in Korea and Vietnam called the indigenous people those names. It wasn’t just politicians.
mrmoshpotato
@Layer8Problem: I suggest Punching Putin’s Bitch In His Fat, Orange, Fascist Face For Four More Years
Prescott Cactus
@Layer8Problem:
Elton John: “This Songs Got No Title” (just words and a tune) from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Great post water girl !
mrmoshpotato
Fixed. Can we shit on his grave yet?
Mike E
Thom Hartmann’s piece from Daily Kos
mrmoshpotato
How was Adams not hanged until dead like the Constitution-hating, traitorous pile of shit he apparently was?
stinger
Thom Hartmann may be a front pager but I’m pretty sure he’s not WaterGirl. Great piece anyway.
SpaceUnit
I really don’t think there’s any analogue in US history for what we’re about to experience. We’re heading into the abyss.
Steve LaBonne
@mrmoshpotato: Instead we write worshipful books and PBS shows about the bastard.
Old School
@Mike E: I was wondering.
I don’t think this was meant to be posted.
Steve LaBonne
A bit of hopium from Josh Marshall. On the most lucid day of his life Trump was never a hundredth as competent as John Adams, and he likes to surround himself with fellow morons.
WaterGirl
Yikes, i copied that from somewhere to be the start of a post at some point – obviously with attribution – but it wasn’t supposed to go up now. I must have fucked something up when I was trying to do the calendar post. oops!
Pulling it now until I can finish the post.
WaterGirl
First comment on Saturday!
tam1MI
A gentle reminder here that the Thomas Jefferson that this article holds up as a shining hero of democracy held his fellow human beings in bondage his entire life, and raped his female slaves for funzies. The female slave who bore his children he first raped when she was a child.
Meanwhile the John Adams being presented as History’s Greatest Monster stoutly opposed the vile institution of slavery until the day he died.
To say the above article is slanted and inaccurate is putting it mildly.
cmorenc
@tam1MI:
We get nowhere productive by harshly judging by contemporary standards, important historical figures who made enormous contributions toward productive civil, democratic society.
– George Washington was a big-time slaveholder. But without him, the Continental armies would never have pulled off independence from Britain.
– Abraham Lincoln kept the Union side fighting through challenging times and freed the slaves, but held attitudes toward blacks and their proper place in society that would be blatantly racist today.
– Benjamin Franklin was a notorious hedonistic womanizer who might have sexual abuser problems today with such behavior. We could go on with other examples of morally flaweed historical figures who accomplished something important, such as the notoriously antisemitic Martin Luther, key figure in creating the Protestant Reformation against the thocratically authoritarian Catholic Church.
As for Adams, did he attempt to use his claimed dictatorial power to actually free the slaves? No.
So, as WG requested, let’s stick on-topic to the topically relevant example of how Jefferson, with assistance from other less famous folks who would also be unlikely to pass moral muster by standards of today, nevertheless saved this country from descent into authoritarianism under John Adams, and how that tale contains useful parallels for today.
Weetabix
@tam1MI: Agreed, this article leaves so much out and is so slanted — bonus demerits for feeling the need to tell us that a pamphlet was like a “substack” — please.
Kristine
If the problem is ads flying in from all directions, try Reader View. In the Safari menu, it’s under View, Show Reader. When I use it, I usually get all the text and some or all photos.
Occasionally graphics don’t make the trip. And some sites have twigged to it and only allow part of the text to convert; for the rest, you have to go to the site-with-ads.
RevRick
@mrmoshpotato: Jefferson’s hands weren’t exactly clean and noble, because he was intimately tied into the Citizen Genet Affair of 1793-94, where the French ambassador tried to whip up war against Great Britain. And when he became President he turned the tables and actively suppressed Federalists.
Jackie
@tam1MI: You’re right about Jefferson’s abuse of slavery and Adam’s opposition to slavery, but this article isn’t about slavery.
@WaterGirl: Thanks for posting this. I’ve read this article multiple times and keep being reminded how much it could pertain to today.
Mark Field
I lurk here and don’t comment, but this post is so inaccurate that I wrote a fairly long rebuttal yesterday that apparently didn’t make it before Water Girl pulled her copy. I don’t feel like I can reconstruct my comment in the time I have, so I’ll just summarize the points:
zhena gogolia
I’m sorry, but there was an Ozark post that I wanted to read the comments on, and it’s disappeared?
WaterGirl
@Kristine: They blocked Reader view on that article. Or maybe for their whole site, not sure about that. I looked for reader view at the time. It was a good idea, but a no go in this instance.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, mistermix put up a new post when there were only 4 comments on the Ozark post, and I wanted Ozark’s post to be more widely seen than that.
I was about to let Ozark’s wife know that the post was up, so I’m glad i spotted the new post in time. mistermix may not even know who Ozark was, so I’m not blaming him.
Bad timing. I’ll put it up again.
WaterGirl
@Mark Field: Welcome to commenting! Your next comment will show up for people right away.
edit: I can’t speak to the details of history from that time, so I don’t have a substantive response to what you wrote.
WaterGirl
@Mark Field: Oh, you know what? I’ll bet your comment from earlier went into moderation because it was your first comment. It may still be there in moderation, I will go look.
Mark Field
@WaterGirl: Thank you for both 27 and 28!
Ruckus
@SpaceUnit:
It’s a different abyss but we’ve been in an abyss before. The difference is that we can see what is happening in real time and back then, with newspapers shut down or overpowered for use by the Adams government the level of communication necessary was minimal. There is a big difference. Next, shitforbrains is not that smart and is aging out, which means his anger and stupidity are his major assets. Now he will have help, there are always people that want everything, most of which they have zero entitlement to. But one of the things that will help the most is communications. Sure some of that can be shut down but that would shut it down for those trying to overthrow the government as well.
Kristine
@WaterGirl: Well, shoot.
Ads make some sites damned near unreadable.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
THIS. 10000000% this.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Thanks.
Another Scott
@RevRick:
Aaron Burr, also too.
People back then were inventing a national government. It’s not surprising that some of the good people were monsters and some of the bad people did good things. Humans are complicated, and the past is a different country.
Interesting piece, WG. Thanks for posting it.
Something something live to fight another day.
We have to keep pushing forward.
Best wishes,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Kristine: I read in Safari where I have ad blockers, except for sites that won’t let you see the article if you have an ad blocker.
So i have to read a Raw Story article in chrome, where i don’t have an ad blocker. And the flashing shooting ads make me nuts, so most often I don’t stay long enough to read an article.
But what it threw up over the screen wasn’t crazy ads – it was basically covered nearly the whole screen and it wouldn’t even let me read the article without subscribing. (Hell no!)
So I had a few seconds where I could copy a few paragraphs before it covered the screen. Like I said, 7 chunks, but I believe I got it all.
jackmac
Thom Hartmann is one sharp fella who’s a prolific and thoughtful writer, broadcaster and lefty Dem advocate. I like to catch his weekday radio show on WCPT-AM Chicago over the air and online (11 a.m.-2 p.m. CST) as well as other outlets around the country. If you’ve heard him, you know what I mean. If not, please check him out. He deserves a broader audience as a counter that monolithic right wing talk radio garbage on AM radio.
Another Scott
Archive.is version of the RawStory link – https://archive.is/hVYrf
(To use Archive.is simply go to https://archive.is and enter the URL you want to read in the second white on black box to search for the archived version.)
Best wishes,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Mark Field: No luck on finding your comment from couple of days ago. If it was in the middle of posting when I pulled the post, it just vanished
Ramona
@mrmoshpotato: I can’t believe I watched the HBO series on John Adams (portrayed by Paul Giamatti) about 15 years ago and thought that Adams was a good guy!
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I miss 12 foot ladder.
Chetan Murthy
@Kristine: Another problem might be that RS puts up a big block that’s “sticky” (doesn’t move) above the text, so you can read the article. There’s a “KillSticky” browser plugin (at least, for Chrome) that I invoke at that point, which blows away the block, and then I can read the page.
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl: In Chrome I run Ghostery, UBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and KillSticky. Not sure you care for all of those, but I rarely see ads.
Another Scott
@Mark Field: Thank you.
Best wishes,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, that’s what I was seeing.
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, but the thing is, I need a browser that doesn’t block ads, so I can still see an article that I can’t read in Safari because of the ad blocker. For me, that’s Chrome.
So I really can’t block ads in Chrome.
I am SO GLAD that Cole removed all the ads here.
Mark Field
@WaterGirl: I’m sure that’s right because I got a weird screen after I hit the button. I appreciate the effort.
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl: Ah. So in Ghostery, you can disable ad-blocking, then re-enable it later. And KillSticky is independent of adblocking (if sticky pop-overs is the problem).
New Deal democrat
There are at least two very important differences between the Constitutional situation as it existed in 1798 and today.
First, there was no large standing army to be called upon to suppress opposition. And whether the small army it had in the 1790’s could have overcome a State militia in any of the Democratic Republican States is very much an open question.
Secondly, while the Supreme Court was presided over by a Federalist, the Constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts was never before the Court. I think it is safe to say that nobody can trust the current Court to interpret the Constitution adverse to a Trump power grab.
MagdaInBlack
@jackmac: I listen to Thom there too. We in Chicago-land are fortunate to have WCPT 820 AM
tam1MI
@WaterGirl: It’s still around:
https://12ft.io/
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: I used to use Ghostery in Safari, and then I think some Safari upgrade wouldn’t let me use it anymore. grrr
WaterGirl
@tam1MI: Interesting! They closed it down for awhile, I wonder what they did to get around whatever had been instituted that made them take the site down.
edit: Looks like maybe it no longer gets around sites that block you, just cleans up the crap from sites you can get to?
jackmac
@MagdaInBlack: We are indeed fortunate to have WCPT. And starting a day with Stephanie Miller is a treat. Joan Esposito and Patti Vasquez are also quite capable hosts through the afternoon and early evening hours (but I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know!).
More Hal Sparks would be nice, too.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: Tracing the lineages of the political parties of today to those of the early Republic is complicated, because the Federalists were big government conservatives and the Democratic-Republicans were small government liberals. What caused the parties to exchange philosophical ideas about governmental size was slavery.
We get a better sense of the trajectory of the parties after the Monroe administration when the Democratic Republicans fractured into the activist National Republicans, who soon became the Whigs, and the Jacksonian Democrats, but even then the lineage is not direct.
The National Republican/Whigs were pro big government, pro development, proto feminist, believed in “improvement” of self, of society, of nation, increasingly anti slavery, pro big bank, anti immigrant, pro temperance, and sexually conservative.
The Jacksonian Democrats were anti big bank and pro hard money, opposed to government support of development, pro small farmer, pro defense of slavery and white male supremacy, pro immigration, pro working class, pro international trade, pro sexually liberal. As one wag put it America’s politics shifted when “Martin Van Buren’s soft hand reached for Mrs. Eaton’s knocker.” (A reference to the Eaton affair that rocked the Jackson administration and yes, that was a double entendre).
As you can see the parties have swapped some positions and kept others.
tam1MI
I am not entirely sure what they did. What I do know is that between that and Webpage Archive, I can pretty much read all the articles I am interested in.
MagdaInBlack
@jackmac: Hal has his own youtube channel where he does a show Mon, Weds, and Fri mornings, and something every evening.
I’ve become a big fan of Richard Chew at 6 am.
Chicago Progressive talk, for anyone here who is interested
https://heartlandsignal.com/wcpt820/
Sorry, WG, for being off topic. I should post it under “alternative news sources.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Instead we have a somewhat large national army, who is involved with numerous low level conflicts all over the word, and Trump wants to appointed a barely conscious drunk to do a massive doctrinal change, occupy the blue states, launch unprecedented round up of immigrants, fight a major war with China, an invasion of Mexico, and purge the leadership for regime loyalty all at the same time.
prostratedragon
@WaterGirl: A script manager can allow turning off scripts for a site unless permission is granted. I use one which defaults to no permission for RawStory, so I can read articles. If I want to look at comments I can quickly enable and then disable when I’m finished. The manager I use is NoScript, which has versions for firefox and chrome.
WaterGirl
@RevRick: I appreciate the information.
As someone whose eyes (unfortunately) kind of glaze over when reading about history, I’m really not concerned with the lineage of parties and what party holds what positions.
I’m personally most interested in any tactics that we might learn from to fight back some of the awfulness and help us through the upcoming darkness.
Prescott Cactus
@WaterGirl:
Still available with 4 other “helpers”
KatKapCC
@cmorenc:
Really? We aren’t allowed to say enslaving people and raping women were bad things? Okey dokey.
Soprano2
This story was told in the book “American Aurora”, but that was 900 pages. It is thought provoking, we almost lost our democracy at the beginning and few people know that story.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: Also, the Republican Party was originally a coalition of Northern “Conscience “ Whigs, Free Soilers, and Northern Democrats alienated by Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott and being used by the South’s growing militancy over slavery.
Baud
@KatKapCC:
Didn’t saying those were bad things cost us the election?
jackmac
@MagdaInBlack: I also like Richard Chew, but he starts too damn early!
MagdaInBlack
@jackmac: My morning commute, unfortunately.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Ramona:
IIRC, the series was based on the book by David McCullough, which was the first book in a long while to recharacterize the popular perception of Adams that Hartmann’s piece falls under.
As noted by others above, people like Adams and Jefferson had plenty of flaws in terms of policy, personality and personal lives, and we see those in all their lividness when discussing an incredibly fractious time in American politics.
But then flash forward X number of years and there’s another incredibly factious time in American politics. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
FWIW, this is a great thread. Glad to see so many other readers of the period offering a broader array of perspectives.
Roberto el oso
@KatKapCC:
it’s unlikely, especially on a blog like this, that bad behavior by historical figures is not going to get mentioned, as it probably should, even if it’s just in an “oh, and btw, X also did this…” sort of way. Doing so isn’t so much “harshly judging” as it is providing the necessary context which will keep folks from the pitfalls of hero worship.
CliosFanboy
Hartmann us a lousy historian so I wonder what my colleagues who study the Early National Period would make of this. I know they went librarian poo on Hartmann’s “today’s police are based on pre Civil War slave patrols” crap.
Note. 1. LBJ lied about the 2d Tonkin Gulf attack. The first one was in broad daylight and there are photos, and Vietnam has one of their shot-up boats on display. But also, the military insisted the 2d attack had occurred, so LBJ took them at their word.
.2. McKinley did not lie about the Maine. The US Navy did think it was blown up by a Spanish mine. The computer program that proved it was an internal explosion did not exist for over 70 years after 1898. And many of the Maines bottom hull plates were bent inward. It took computer modeling to show how that happened with an internal explosion.
This is why I stopped listening to Hartmann’s show. He’s so confident even when he has no clue what he’s talking about.
WaterGirl
@Baud: That’s not what cost us the election. At least I don’t think so. The ignorant and low information people never even heard those things.
CliosFanboy
Sorry about the typos and poor spacing on my comment. Typing on my phone is a pain in the butt.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
“This Liberal intolerance is why they lost the working class vote.”
–Somebody, probably
WaterGirl
@Roberto el oso: I wonder if you missed his main point, which was this:
I don’t think he was saying those people didn’t do awful things. I took his comments to mean that he wasn’t going to throw the baby out with the bath water. In spite of the bad things some of those people did, there are still useful parallels that can help us today.
To me, that was his point, that some appear to be studiously missing.
WTFGhost
What’s this? Imprisoned news paper editors? Go figure.
Look: I mentioned opposition to blanket pardons for blocks of people. Hunter as maliciously prosecuted, and deserved one, but other people haven’t been.
If you don’t even have people in jail to show your cause is being repressed, who is going to listen to you? Don’t get me wrong: “bankrupted by the congressional investigation” is bad, and, you might think you “might as well be in jail, when you’re dead broke,” but you’d find you’re very wrong.
“Protect the vulnerable” is a good and noble consideration, but if you’re going to use a big, fat, blunt object like a sweeping pardon across a lot of people, and you don’t even have any one person who remains under a meaningful indictment (Hunter was pardoned), you can’t put lipstick on that pig, even if you think we need a hundred pounds of bacon, stat.
Um. Sorry to be ghoulish ghostie, and possibly killing the mood. It was a good, interesting, article, but, while reading, the reason why broad stroke pardons can’t be justified yet.
WaterGirl
@CliosFanboy: I hate typing on phones.
I fixed what I could, hoping I guessed right.
billcoop4
While I agree generally that Thom Hartmann should be more widely know (along with the others on Sirius XM Progress 127), he’s always had a hardon for Jefferson, tended to be a total Bernie-bro who only cared about class and ignored identity issues for a long time, and still has Ro Khanna on — I don’t know if he pressed Khanna on his willingness to kowtow to the Muskyramasmary Cut The Budget project on Friday as I had work obligations.
Thom is a bit of a midwestern geek (not that either is a bad thing). I prefer Stephanie Miller and John Fugelsang because they put on a good show — not just a 3 hour rant.
BC
Martin
Maybe. Like, I’m of the view that Dems have a likely advantage in 2028 because I think Trump will fail. He may well succeed at the things he promises to do, but he will fail at the things the voters want to result. And if my thesis is correct, pretty much every incumbent is likely to be voted out because they are generally predetermined to fail – Democrats for not doing enough, and Trump for doing a lot, but the wrong things (because he’s a selfish asshole). And we might be in this cycle where the electorate hates all candidates because nobody can get anything done.
But that’s very small comfort because it also means that nothing materially changes and Democrats don’t get any lasting benefit – it becomes a cycle of endless dysfunction.
The two problems with the analogy is that two very big things have changed since then:
I think 1 forces Americans to be very invested in the status quo and 2 forces Americans to be pretty heavily propagandized on which parts of the status quo are good and which are bad, and which will (falsely) have no consequences if they are destroyed and which will (falsely) have a lot of consequences. Which is why DOGE isn’t going to touch national defense spending but seeks to annihilate the safety net.
I don’t know how you counter either of those effectively, and if you can’t counter them, you don’t really get the dynamic described. Jefferson wasn’t just relying on the public rejecting the abuses of Adams, but thought the lesson of those abuses would be internalized. I think in a short enough time frame the public will respond to the abuses as described, but 1 and 2 make the internalization of that largely impossible over the longer term. We didn’t internalize the abuses of the financial system in 2008 because we are too reliant on the system to really fight against it, and so over time we excuse those abuses because there are benefits to doing so. And all of that happens independently of the political system described because commerce has gotten so big and powerful that it has more power to shape politics than the politicians and voters do.
Roberto el oso
@WaterGirl: thank you. I agree with the sentiment quoted and most certainly agree with what you’re saying about “the baby with the bathwater”. My point (feeble as it perhaps was) is just that it’s unlikely that any mention of Jefferson, Franklin, et al., will not elicit comments on their flaws. I myself don’t feel the pressing need to bring up the flaws of historical personages every time, on the assumption (possibly wrong) that these flaws are common knowledge and taken into account when praise is being bestowed. … which, I now realize, makes my earlier comment somewhat tediously meta!
Roberto el oso
@WaterGirl: I also just realized my earlier comment should probably have been as a reply to #61 (KatKapCC), rather than cmorenc …
Eos
It’s difficult to take an article seriously when it doesn’t bother to get foundational information right; to wit, Jefferson’s party was not an amalgamation of two earlier parties, but a single party comprising anti-Federalists of various stripes, independent civic societies, etc. — and it was generally known as the Republicans. (That “Democratic-Republican” tag is mostly a retrospective label used now because history is messy.)
And this article’s fantasy John Adams: Wannabe Dictator — that invention falls apart when considering this article’s most glaring omission: Alexander F-ing Hamilton.
While the Federalist Party of the 1790s was trying to surf a wave of war fever into a permanent majority, it wasn’t Adams beating the drums — indeed, he was the one who ultimately stopped that madness (it was the one accomplishment he wanted in his gravestone), much to the chagrin of his party’s dominant personality, “General” Hamilton.
(Hamilton never got over his inferiority complex about having spent the Revolutionary War as Washington’s staff colonel, and never a commander in battle. The war with France was supposed to be his shot at glory, at ultimately becoming the literal Man on Horseback who was to ride in and save the day from those little, little politicians, etc.)
And even given the awfulness of the Alien and Sedition Acts, even given that he was often a vain, petty overgrown homunculus and a lousy, alienating politician besides, John Adams was still a better man, and a better president, than Thomas Jefferson — of course, that may be because Jefferson’s presidency has been comprehensively overrated for two centuries now.
WTFGhost
@Raven: when you are in a situation, where if you see one, you shoot “it,” a person might need the psychological distance of a slur, to deal with how they’d be a common serial killer, but for the uniform.
The military encourages this sort of thing, because they feel it helps make killers; I don’t know if they *ever* suggest that it’s something you need to turn off, once you no longer need to kill.
The military leaves lots of fighters with big, nasty, scars, and it’s not always *physical* scars, and the pains aren’t always noticed by the people suffering them.
NB: not excusing bigotry by a person, but, toss a normal person into a bigot mill, and you might make a bigot out of them yet.
WaterGirl
@Roberto el oso: They say the best way to get engagement on the internet is to say something people will disagree with, and they will feel compelled to let you know. :-)
So I wasn’t trying to suggest that no one point out the flaws. I’m just a tad disappointed that there wasn’t even more discussion of the parallels and how we might be able to take those and do something good with that information going forward.
WTFGhost
Good stuff.
WaterGirl
@Roberto el oso: Also fixable. done!
cmorenc
@New Deal democrat: Re: current SCOTUS serving as a knowing enabler of Trump, be interesting to see if they undergo an attitude adjustment at the point where Trump starts trying to bulldoze right through any of their rulings he thinks inconvenience or stifle what he wants to do, in the fashion of Andrew Jackson but with a harder, more menacing edge. They are not likely to stand by gladly being made empty impotent figureheads by Trump, irrespective of sharing some of the same goals. If Trump succeeds in installing Patel at FBI, the clash could come over Trump’s efforts to punitively pursue an enemies list, albeit perhaps not fast enough to inflict undeserved damage upon them.
Mark Field
Tangential to the main point, but since others have brought up the issue of slavery….
Historians have tried to reconstruct the 1800 popular vote by looking at the votes for electors (there was no popular vote for President until 1824). It turns out there isn’t really enough evidence to say for sure, but it’s quite plausible that Adams would have won in 1800 had it not been for the 3/5 clause.* That would have made a real difference, perhaps, in how we evaluate the Sedition Act and, more hypothetically, in the history of the US.
*Garry Wills wrote a book on that election, Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power, in which he discusses the then-evidence about the popular vote. Note that the title is taken from John Adams, who referred to Jefferson as a “n***** president” (meaning the 3/5 clause).
oldgold
Marbury v Madison was, in part, the fruit of this mess.
John Marshall, was the author of Marbury. He was a fierce Federalist. He was one of the 3 American diplomats the French supposedly attempted to bribe in the XY Z Affair. Later, he served as Adam’s Secretary of State, before Adam’s nominated him to be the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court.
Marbury was decided in the immediate aftermath of the Federalists loss power in 1804. The power grab it represents can, in part, be seen as a revanchist play by the Federalists.
Over the next decade we may pay a high price for this Federalist power grab that elevated the Supreme Court to a position of power not envisioned by the Framers.
tam1MI
This must be why when I read the article at the top of the thread, every other sentence I was like, “No, that’s not right… no, that’s that not right…”
tam1MI
Yes, it’s worthwhile to study the tactics of those who resisted Presidential overreach to see if we can replicate them*, but let’s not pretend that a bunch of slaveowners getting all upset because John Adams shut down the 18th century equivalent of Fox News are heroes on a par with Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks.
– Another resister against Presidential overreach who’s tactics might be worthy of study and emulation? John Quincy Adams and his fight against some of Andrew Jackson’s depredations…
Mark Field
@oldgold: The weight of historical evidence is that judicial review was a recognized concept before 1787 and was intended to be part of the judicial power. See Federalist 78 and Robert Steinfeld, ‘To Save the People from Themselves’: The Emergence of American Judicial Review and the Transformation of Constitutions
WaterGirl
@tam1MI: If you feel like you have the requisite knowledge to do so, you are welcome to write up a guest post for discussion. Just let me know.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Standards here have really increased since I first started commenting.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Well it is for a guest post. Comments are a whole different thing! :-)
Mark Field
The best discussion of JQA’s opposition to Jackson and slavery is The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams, by Leonard Richards. Adams was a gifted troll for the good guys, but it would be hard to say that was successful except for getting Congress to repeal the infamous “gag rule”; the heavy lifting took Lincoln and a War.
WTFGhost
@KatKapCC: The foundation of “moral relativity” is that different societies will come to different conclusions.
Weak moral relativism is just that: societies will come to different conclusions. One will say murder is wrong, so the death penalty must not be imposed – another will say murder is wrong, so it *must* be imposed.
Now: slavery was justified on the basis that Black people weren’t really human – they were descendants of Cain. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamped_from_the_Beginning is a good reference.)
Does that sound arrogant, stupid, and made-up to us? Sure it does. But, we weren’t alive when people thought buying and selling humanflesh was the same as buying and selling horseflesh.
Once you assume that Black people are like horses or mules, well… listen, if a guy wanted to have sex with a child, but chose to have sex with a yearling instead, you might be grossed out, but think “at least it wasn’t a *child*, and a horse has… sufficient capacity.”
So the next time someone says they don’t think slavery was so bad, remember that. “Oh, come on, now, do you think southern child molesters molested innocent southern girls? No, they just raped Black babies and children, because *that* didn’t *count*.”
You might be asking yourself “how could society be so blind?” Well.. cognitive dissonance is part of it. Once you “learn” that it’s okay to hear a slave screaming in agony due to torture used to terrorize them into obedience, you dull your compassion towards them until you start to feel contempt for them.
Sigh. Sad memory, I watched, I dunno, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle, responding to the 2016 election (SNL skit) and one white guy says electing Trump was “America’s most shameful moment” and, you know the two Black comedians mugged the *F* out of that for laughs.
Where was I? Right: I was bullied, and I know that when a bullying victim displays a certain kind of helplessness, it evokes contempt in a lot of people – even good people who swear “I would never!”
Well, that makes it easy to learn to deal with torturing Black slaves until terror caused them to comply. And being able to *accept* that torture, well, you have to believe they deserve it, or at least *need* it, or your sense of justice will try to strangle your pecker off (no idea if girlz have the same sort of reaction, since I was sent away from the film with the flowers and birds and butterflies that described the menstrual cycle, which I already knew about).
One day, I had a moment, where I realized how horrible the war in Iraq was, for Iraqis, and I realized I had no idea why no one else saw it. Then I realized, I saw it – it was my job to make others see it. I failed miserably, because I’m a failure at a lot of things.
(That’s not destructive self-deprecation – that’s acknowledgement that I didn’t yet know who or what I was, yet. You, too, are a failure at a lot of things, but, hopefully, you’re crashing success at being *you*.)
Well, now, think of the corresponding difficulty an abolitionist had, when everyone “knew” that slaves needed to be kept in constant terror of torture.
Yes, you can say slavery was bad, as I did here. I hope I succeeded at being interesting to read, while doing so.
tam1MI
My knowledge consists of having read some books, I am merely a history buff, not a an actual historian. But I can summarize what JQA did that I think is a tactic worthy of study. Adams was anti-slavery, but he was up against an electorate that thought slavery was either 1.) a positive moral good, or 2.) no big deal. So a head-on attack wasn’t going to work. What he did instead, as you can read here, was to wait for the Jacksonians to overreach, and when they invariably and inevitably did, he CAMPAIGNED AGAINST THE OVERREACH… and won! I think this kind of “bank shot” approach to fighting Trump might be a fruitful avenue to explore. For example, I think one approach towards fighting trans bathroom bills might be to attack them (and sue) on the grounds that they violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (people in wheelchairs often have spouses or other caregivers not of their gender who have to accompany them in to bathrooms to help them use the facilities). And what about mothers of infants who have to carry them in to the ladies room in order to use the changing table? Do boy babies have to go about all day in poopy diapers because it is now illegal for their moms to take them in to the ladies room to change them? Of course, the downside to this approach is it doesn’t attack the injustice at the heart of it, but the upside is that it could very well serve to KILL THE UNJUST LAW. And it also moves the Dems from a position of playing defense to playing offense.
Which it just occurs to me is what Jefferson and his followers did in their battle against the Alien and Sedition Laws (which were a terrible blot on Adams record, no question there). They didn’t let themselves get tied up in whether or not papers should be allowed to publish outright slander and libel (18th century newspapers were worse than Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax combined), they CAMPAIGNED AGAINST THE OVERREACH.
New Deal democrat
@Mark Field:
I don’t to get too far afield from the point of this thread, but it’s pretty clear that the power to declare a statute Unconstitutional did not exist in the UK. There may have been a few Colonial cases in the American colonies before 1787, but that’s a pretty thin reed on which to base a major power. And issuing an injunction ordering a coordinate branch of government to do something (vs. voiding a statute) did not exist at all if I recall correctly.
Thanks for the book citation though. Definitely looks like it is worth a read.
Mark Field
@tam1MI: These are good points. Here’s another idea off the top of my head: have a blue state — NY would be perfect — pass a defamation law consistent with English common law of 1787. Then let Dems sue MAGAs for defamation under it. Force the Court to strike down the law and undermine “originalism” at the same time.
New Deal democrat
@Mark Field: I’ve used the same argument about banning the purchase of types of ammunition, since the 2nd Amendment only refers to “arms,” not “arms and ammunition,” and in 1787 you typically made your own.
oldgold
@Mark Field: Then, where is it in the Constitution?
Mark Field
@New Deal democrat: Steinfeld’s book deals with the points you raise. That said, there is respectable company (well, Jefferson and Lincoln) opposed to any strong version of judicial review. There’s no doubt that it has more often than not been used for bad purposes. The question is whether it can be circumscribed in a way to make it beneficial.
A technical point about injunctions: only very rarely will a Court order an executive branch official to do something. It is far more common for the injunction to prevent them from taking action.
eemom
@tam1MI:
Or that the heroic pamphleteers of that time faced anything remotely resembling the gazillion dollar lie machine that props up today’s (ACTUAL) fascist, which is what today’s
pamphleteersSubstackers are up against.Which in itself renders this a naive, pathetic exercise at best. Not even getting into the grotesque historical inaccuracies and omissions others have noted.
WaterGirl
@tam1MI: Not asking for a historian! :-)
That sounds great. If you’re up for a guest post, put something together and send it to me by email? thanks
Mark Field
@oldgold: The Constitution grants the legislative power to Congress, the executive power to the President, and the judicial power to the Court. Now, all of these are pretty vague so we have to make decisions about what those powers include. But since judicial review was expressly said to be part of the judicial power in Federalist 78; since opposition to the VA and KY Resolutions argued that the proper forum for challenging the constitutionality of the Sedition Act was the Court; and since John Marshall wrote Marbury v Madison having been a delegate to the VA ratifying convention, it’s pretty hard to deny the historical evidence.
tam1MI
@WaterGirl: Would you mind if I made what I posted above the basis of the post? I could throw in a few sentences explaining a bit more the background of JQA’s campaign to add to it and it should be good. :)
Elizabelle
A fresh open thread, or post by Anne Laurie, would be minty. On this cold night.
WaterGirl
@tam1MI: More background for the peeps like me that aren’t history buffs like you and some of the others sounds good, though. :-)
And connecting the dots between then and now, and what you think could be done.
Whatever else you think belongs in there.
Geminid
@RevRick: The “Know Nothings” were another component of the 1860 Republican coalition. Their American Party dissolved itself in 1860 and the larger part went over to the new Republican Party. The Know Nothings were quite strong across the Northern and Border states.
tam1MI
@WaterGirl: Ok, thanks! :)
oldgold
Judicial Review is a fascinating topic, but at this moment, this obscure clause in Section 3 of Article Ii of the Constitution may be where the action is.
“in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he (the President) may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper”
The mischief and worse this clause could cause is substantial.
BlueGuitarist
@WaterGirl:
(Setting aside overwrought/problematic aspects of TH’s article)
Numbered for convenience, but not in order
Key parallels
1 control of US house, senate, presidency, and judiciary
by a political party that
2 imposes unconstitutional laws,
3 expands executive power,
4 criminalizes criticism of the president,
5 suppresses freedom of speech and of the press
6 Attacks immigrants
7 Engages in a quasi war/ reckless foreign policy exacerbating all of the above.
key elements of the response described in the text:
1 an opposition political party fully engaged with the crisis
2 New forms of media
3 individual leaders & ordinary folks to capture public attention thru opposing and mocking abuse of power
4 Disavowing armed conflict
5 legislators understanding rules of legislative procedure
6 probably most important:
using federalism and the opposition party’s power at the state level to resist the overreach of the national government and rally public opinion.
Ruckus
@SpaceUnit:
There are similarities in the present situation to the crappy past situations. Sure they may not be exact copies of those times but then what is? The world moves on. Even if shitforbrains lasts his entire term he is aging out – and he is constantly creating chaos because his ideals are 5th century bullshit – and there is a segment of the population that haven’t learned much if anything more than their likely not so great prior generations from that 5th century till today. It is life in the big, medium and small cities. We have history, much of it not all that good but it exists and while we can evolve from then, many barely do. What we have to do is move forward, become better people, do the best we can and leave a better world than when we arrived. And in many ways this is a better world than when I arrived many, many years ago. Will it ever be perfect? Well considering that humans are involved, I’d say not bloody likely. But it can be better. Now some will have to do a hell of a lot of growing up, you know – mature to full actual adulthood rather than a full grown 5 yr old. And just as likely that the world will never be perfect, neither will humanity. Not as long as greed is still with us. And I suspect that greed will out last humanity, hell it will likely be the cause of the end of it.
Oh well, do your best, enjoy breathing, work towards better and who the hell knows, humanity might just get there. I’m not holding my breath.
Geminid
Regarding Thomas Jefferson and Slavery in the United States, I keep in mind that Jeffrson was the prime mover behind the Northwest Ordinance passed in 1787. The Northwest Ordinance banned slavery in the new Territories of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. It pretty much determined the outcome of the Civil War that was won by the North in 78 years later.
As for Jefferson’s relationship with the enslaved people he held title to, The Hemingses of Monticello (2011) by Annette Gordon-Reed contains an exhaustively reseached account of the Hemings family and including their relations with Thomas Jefferson. Ms. Gordon-Reed won a Pulitzer Prize for this history and it is well worth reading.
frosty
Good story. I remember learning about the Alien and Sedition Acts in high school but nothing of the political backstory that’s told here.
I’m good with any American history that can give us hope now.
Ruckus
We have a country that doesn’t change basics easily. We paid a high price to get this country started when most/all of the other countries were often doing their best to become – THE COUNTRY. We’ve had large wars with societies trying to become THE COUNTRY. It has taken decades/centuries to get to the point that very large wars are not a common thing someone is using to grab power at any cost. We are in a situation where we are looking at some getting their knickers dirty trying to become the powers that be. And that is not in alignment with the premise of this country. We have extremely wealthy trying to adjust the country to further their money grubbing. And that is not in alignment with the premise of this country. It’s not that they cannot become wealthy or even far wealthier, it’s that money is not supposed to make you a guiding light of democracy. The word is EQUALITY. elon is not a leader, even as the richest man in the world. At best he has become a citizen actually worth no more than any other citizen. IOW his money should/cannot not buy him anything more than a nice house or 10. It does not make him a more powerful citizen (and yes I checked, he gained citizenship in 2002). Money does not make anyone a more powerful citizen than any one else. It makes them eligible to purchase more, it does not give them additional rights. elon is equal to any other citizen in this country. Legally. Personally I’d say he’s still not at the correct level of citizenship. But that’s just an opinion
When I served in the USN I had to talk rather often with officers. Many of them thought that their rank made them better citizens. It didn’t. It gave them a position of authority. Elon’s money doesn’t do that any more than those officers thought they had and doesn’t give him any more than any of the rest of the citizens.
CliosFanBoy
@WaterGirl: Thank you!
CliosFanBoy
@WaterGirl:
I’d be happy to read it, so please do it! My area is post-Civil War so I am sure you’ll catch mistakes I missed.
Omnes Omnibus
Any time we start talking about historical parallels and lessons to be drown from them, I take the opportunity to recommend Thinking in Time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Drawn, not drown.
WTFGhost
Watergirl: earlier, I’d made some mild criticism of one type of post you were making – if you care about my criticism, you remember it, and if you don’t, well, Imma say no harm, no foul!
Okay: this is *precisely* the sort of post I was thinking was better. So if you remember the criticism, I’m trying to say (without being smug) that this is what I was hoping for – you may have understood what I meant, or, my criticism might have been stupid, because *of course* you were planning a post like this, how *dare* I suggest otherwise.
My point is, if you felt I was *just* being a pain, here, I’m saying “great work” and trying to be a salve.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you for the recommendation. Seems like it would be a valuable concept for a lot of people.
In the work that I did in manufacturing molds and dies one had to define the part, the details of the plastic or metal – how it went from a warm/hot temperature/almost liquid to the finish part, what losing that temperature would to for the final form, (hot expands, cooling shrinks and every type of plastic does it differently) what the shape/size of the desired part had to do with this cooling, how to end up with a part that was the dimensions desired….. What would the materials required cost, what would the labor cost. And then cut and finish the metal to get there and hopefully make a profit. Some of the finishing used a sandblaster, some extremely fine polishing with diamond compounds. We did a lot of work for large companies, such as Mattel, I cut the parts that formed the body of Barbie Dolls when I was 14. I haven’t forgotten this in over 60 yrs. It was an interesting job.
WaterGirl
@WTFGhost: I do recall your criticism, though I don’t recall what day is was. Three times on Friday I thought it was Thursday, so my sense of time isn’t great at the moment. :-)
I started this post on Monday – maybe you will recall what day you criticized my post, but I do not. So only you will know whether your input intersected with this post in any way.
My years managing an IT support group left me with an awareness of human nature. The “thank you” was seldom at the same level as the “oh my god it’s the end of the world if this doesn’t get fixed right this minute:”
I appreciate your feedback, in both directions. As long as it’s constructive, I’m good with feedback. But if someone’s feedback is petty sniping or passive aggressive comments or personal attacks – then fuck you, your feedback is falling on deaf ears. Yours was not that!
I’m mostly trying to find my way, figuring out how to pick myself back up off the floor after the election. For a month, I mostly didn’t post at all. Some things will work, some won’t. All I can do is try.