Dear Founding Fathers … Gimme Rewrite
George Washington--opponent of a strong central government? Hardly.
What brings this to mind is a conversation I had the other night with a friend, a confirmed Limbaugh/Hannity man. The conversation turned to Bachmann’s contention that the Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly” and “would not rest” until slavery was abolished.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826–50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. James Madison–the last living member of the constitutional convention of 1787, and so arguably the last of the “founding fathers”–died 10 years later. The Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t signed until 1863. Given all that, what Bachmann has said doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. Even the “founder” who Bachmann cited directly, John Quincy Adams–actually the son of a founder–died in 1848, 15 years before any slaves were actually freed.
In other words, he was resting and no longer working tirelessly.
My friend was not impressed. “She had it about right,” he said of Bachmann. The founders were responsible for freeing the slaves.
I pointed out that the 3/5ths compromise is proof enough that it’s simply not true. “No!” he said. “That’s proof that the Founders did abolish slavery.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I sputtered.
And so it is. I won’t waste too many words on the subject, but plainly the 3/5ths compromise was not about abolishing slavery, it was the opposite. By being permitted to count slaves as 3/5th of a person, the slave states were able to solidify their power to preserve slavery. It gave them greater representation both in Congress and in the Electoral College and increased their ability to raise tax revenues. The anti-slavery forces–represented by the under-appreciated Gouverneur Morris–tried to prevent the South from counting slaves at all, because slaves had no rights as citizens. The pro-slavery forces wanted to count each slave as one person. The compromise, which was actually a resounding defeat for the anti-slavery forces, was the 3/5ths solution. It embedded slavery firmly into the Constitution, meaning that the South had to be forced into war before slavery could finally be eradicated. Nice job abolishing slavery, Founding Fathers! States’ Rights This dynamic extends, too, to those people who insist that “the Founding Fathers” opposed “a strong central government.” Some did, mostly those same pro-slavery southerners, including Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is, incidentally, always cited in this argument, but instantly falls out of the discussion as soon as the subject of America’s place as “a Christian nation” is raised. Jefferson was, you see, very nearly Unitarian in his religious beliefs. Another untidy fact, easily ignored. In these revisionist fantasies, the hero of the story of the Founder’s opposition to a “strong central government” is often George Washington himself. Only one problem: Washington actually supported a strong central government, as did his fellow Virginians George Mason and James Madison. And all with excellent reason–in the years before the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the individual states were acting essentially as independent–and almost warring–nations under the Articles of Confederacy. All sorts of mischief was afoot. The federal government, for instance, could not tax the states, but could only “requisition” money from them–feeble requests that often went ignored. That put the country in a terrible position with respect to the debts it ran up with European nations to fund the Revolutionary War against England. What’s more, states with ports and harbors forced other states that had none to pay them stiff tariffs in order to send or receive the products essential to their commerce. Also some states, rather than ignoring the federal government’s requisitions, collected by force, confiscating the property of farm owners who could not pay–which was most of them–and throwing some of them in jail. In Massachusetts, that resulted in Shay’s Rebellion, a shameful episode in which Americans marched into cannon muzzles manned by other Americans. “There could be no stronger evidence of the want of energy in our governments than these disorders,” Washington said. The tenacity with which individual states clung to power at the expense of the federal system, Washington complained in July 1787, was “the primary cause of all our disorders.” That rendered the United States “weak at home and disregarded abroad … and contemptible enough it is.” In a letter to James Madison written Nov. 30, 1785, Washington impatiently spelled out his case: “We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which [has] national objects to promote, and a national character to support. … If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” Arguing facts like these with true believers who choose to simply ignore them is an exercise in both frustration and futility. Still, it is hard to resist the urge to try and reverse what feels like an Orwellian pull toward cleansing our history, in order to make gods of the people who made us what we are–through their formidable, and very human efforts. Why does it feel like we are handing the reins over to the kids who were too lazy, or too hyperactive, to pay attention in history class?
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