by eric144 » Sun Oct 30, 2005 2:30 pm
Consider certain features of the lives of three men. The first was a very wealthy man. In l787, many considered him the richest man in all the thirteen states. His will of l789 revealed that he owned 35,000 acres in Virginia and 1,119 acres in Maryland. He owned property in Washington valued (in l799 dollars) at $l9,132, in Alexandria at $4,000, in Winchester at $400, and in Bath at $800. He also held $6,246 worth of U.S. securities, $10,666 worth of shares in the James River Company, $6,800 worth of stock in the Bank of Columbia, and $1,000 worth of stock in the Bank of Alexandria. His livestock was valued at $15,653. As early as 1773, he had enslaved 216 human beings who were not emancipated until after he and his wife had both died.2 <br><br>The second man was a lawyer. He often expressed his admiration of monarchy and, correspondingly, his disdain and contempt for common people. His political attitudes were made clear following an incident which occurred in Boston on March 5, 1770. On that day, a number of ropemakers got into an argument with British soldiers whose occupation of Boston had threatened the ropemakers' jobs. A fight broke out and an angry crowd developed. The British soldiers responded by firing into the crowd, killing several. The event has since become known as the Boston Massacre. The soldiers involved in the shooting were later acquitted thanks, in part, to the skills of the lawyer we have been describing, who was selected as the defense attorney for the British. He described the crowd as “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs.”3 <br><br>The life of the third man was more complex, more filled with contradiction than the other two. He was wealthy. He owned over 10,000 acres and by 1809 he had enslaved 185 human beings. States one biographer, “He lived with the grace and elegance of many British lords; his house slaves alone numbered twenty-five.” Yet slavery caused him great anxiety; he seems to have sincerely desired the abolition of slavery but was utterly incapable of acting in a way which was consistent with his abolitionist sympathies. He gave his daughter twenty-five slaves as a wedding present, for example. And when confronted with his indebtedness of $107,000 at the end of his life in 1826, he noted that at least his slaves constituted liquid capital. He had several children by one of his slaves and thus found himself in the position of having to face public ridicule or keep up the elaborate pretense that his slave children did not exist. He chose the latter course and arranged, discreetly, to have them “run away.”4 <br><br>Who are these three men? We know them well. They are among our “Founding Fathers,” or Framers as we shall call them. They are the first three presidents of the United States, George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. <br><br>The brief sketches of these men are but glimpses into their personal lives, but some of the details are significantly revealing. They suggest that the Framers, far from champions of the people, were rich and powerful men who sought to maintain their wealth and status by figuring out ways to keep common people down. Moreover, I shall present additional evidence about the lives of the Framers, the Constitution, and the period in which it was written which supports the contention that the Framers were profoundly anti-democratic and afraid of the people. Some of the information may be surprising. In 1782, for example, Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris believed that a stronger central government was needed to “restrain the democratic spirit” in the states. Eric Foner tells us that Morris's private correspondence reveals “only contempt for the common people.” 5 Benjamin Rush, “the distinguished scientist and physician” from Philadelphia and Framer (although he was not at the Constitutional Convention), would often refer to common people as “scum.” Alexander Hamilton called the people “a great beast.”6 Not all the Framers resorted to name calling, but it is clear that they feared and distrusted the political participation of common people. Perhaps even more shocking than the personal opinions of the Framers, is the process by which the Constitution was ratified. As described in more detail in Chapter 3, secrecy, deceit and even violence played key roles in the Constitution's passage. These unsavory tactics were used by the Framers and their allies because the majority of the people were against the ratification of the Constitution. What is striking about this historical fact is its similarity with public policy and elite decision-making today. At times, the interests of elites and the public interest coincides. When it does not, however, elites tend to go ahead anyway. And because so much of what corporate-government elites believe to be in the national interest violates accepted standards of decency, many public policies are formulated and carried out covertly. But the point here is that covert and anti-democratic measures are not new developments. They have been the method of guaranteeing class rule ever since the Framers decided that they needed the present political system to protect their power and privilege. <br><br> <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://cyberjournal.org/cj/authors/fresia/#c1">cyberjournal.org/cj/authors/fresia/#c1</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>US Presidents who owned slaves : George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Ulysses S. Grant.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.corsinet.com/trivia/s-triv.html">www.corsinet.com/trivia/s-triv.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=eric144>eric144</A> at: 10/30/05 11:31 am<br></i>
