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Artesian wrote: >This issue is simply that the enslavement of labor >in the South precludes, not national development, not >national independence, not a national market-- all those >issues so critical to the bourgeois, but slavery precludes >the organization of labor for emancipation from its >condition as wage-labor. Damn you, Artesian. Your presentation on the “up side “ of the American Civil War is so persuasive that if Zinn had not written otherwise I might think this struggle might indeed be characterized as, you know, the “p” word. The problem now is that this whole anti-slavery thing just might tie back in the so-called American Revolution in ways that undermine the Zinnite hegemony here on Marxmail. This is obviously serious business. All right thinking radicals believe, of course, that the so called American Revolution was fought merely to set up a Caucasian Republic based on the notion that all white people are created equal. This is certainly what is taught at the eighth grade level around here and we all know how much Middle School teachers know about history and Enlightenment philosophy. This means that by the time of the Civil War the Southern planter elite's resentment over tariffs and trade policy makes sense but their paranoia about the prospects of abolition seems wildly exaggerated since the entire country, North and South, was equally based on the cornerstone of White supremacy. Now you have me thinking about the ideological foundations of Succession, such as they were, and in particular the famous ‘Cornerstone’ speech delivered by Alexander Stephens the vice-president of the CSA, which was widely reprinted and distributed throughout the South. Remember that ringing denunciation of Thomas Jefferson and the rest of that reprehensible gang of ‘foundering fathers’? >The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading >statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, >were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the >laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, >and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, >but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow >or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent >and pass away….. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. >They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an >error…. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite >idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the >great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery >subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. >This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, >based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This sounds to me as if there were some sharply competing ‘self evident’ truths at work in the struggle between the North and the South. What is more, could it be that our belief now in a racist consensus underlying the entire American Independence thing was not shared by those who later felt compelled to initiate armed struggle to dissolve the Union? How long will it be before I start calling into question other assumptions such as those shared by Tom, >The actual objective truth is…what occurred then was not really > a social revolution, but a political revolution against British rule, > unlike what happened in 1861-1870s which was a social revolution >on an epochal scale. The extensive newspaper reporting on the American Revolution in Continental Europe at that time certainly portrayed it as ‘a social revolution on an epochal scale.’ From a Marxist perspective besides slavery blocking the road to working class emancipation there were other formidable obstacles. How about religious sectarianism and the reactionary theology of Protestants and Catholics alike justifying established churches and a hierarchal society based on aristocratic privilege? After national independence was won, laws prohibiting Catholicism quickly vanished including the statute in New York City punishing the saying of mass by a priest with the death penalty. This does not mean that the Catholic Church as an institution embraced this insurrection. Although the invasion of Quebec was a military failure, there were thousands of French Canadian volunteers who joined the Continental Army and as a result and they were all excommunicated by the Archbishop. The colonialists who has taken up arms against the Crown were in rebellion against the very notion of monarchy and aristocracy and that was a sin the Catholic hierarchy would not forgive. (American Catholics were few in number and strongly supportive of Independence but they were a mission territory and did not have an extensive hierarchy in place.) There is much more but I am too upset to go on. This intellectual anguish I am suffering now is all your fault Artesian and I do not take this assault lightly. Not only will I look you up the next time I am in NYC, but I intend to track you down. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
