tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87631275362589646272024-03-13T06:40:24.311-04:00U.S. History - to 1945Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comBlogger266125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-3179908630864840762023-11-26T21:09:00.004-05:002023-11-26T21:09:45.974-05:00Selling the Constitution: Alexander Hamilton Markets the New GovernmentHaving achieved independence with the end of combat in 1781 and with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the United States established itself as sovereign, and organized itself under a document known as the Articles of Confederation. This document had been ratified by all thirteen states between December 1777 and March 1781.<p>
This form of government quickly showed itself to be impractical and ineffective. Among other shortcomings, the Articles of Confederation left the national government too weak to enforce the Treaty of Paris, too weak to prevent the British government from dumping onto American shores boatloads of criminals, and too weak to prevent individual states from forming their own separate foreign policies, outside of the united policies, with regard to other nations. It was too weak to solve the economic crisis caused by the large amount of debt from the war; the ripple effects of the debt through the economy triggered Shays’ Rebellion, a movement which represented farmers who were losing land and property to debt collectors.<p>
In early 1787, Congress called for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation. That convention began in May and ended in September of that year.<p>
The new text produced by the convention did a bit more than “revise” the Articles of Confederation, as historian Ron Chernow writes:<p>
<blockquote>For all its gore and mayhem, the American Revolution had unified the thirteen states, binding them into a hopeful, if still restive, nation. The aftermath of the Constitutional Convention, by contrast, turned ugly and divisive, polarizing the populace. Four days after Hamilton affixed his signature to the Constitution, <i>The Daily Advertiser</i> gave New Yorkers their first glimpse of it, and many blanched in amazement. This charter went far beyond Congress’s instructions to rework the Articles of Confederation: it brought forth a brand-new government. The old confederation had simply gone up in smoke. Marinus Willett, once a stalwart of the Sons of Liberty and now New York’s sheriff, echoed the consternation among Governor Clinton’s entourage when he lambasted the new Constitution as “a monster with open mouth and monstrous teeth ready to devour all before it.”</blockquote><p>
The Americans, having only recently gained their freedom by fighting against a powerful central government, were sensitive to any plan of government which seemed to establish another powerful central government. Why had they rebelled against the King and Parliament of Britain, if they were simply proceeding to re-enslave themselves to the same type of tyranny?<p>
Was this new Constitution, produced by the convention in Philadelphia, establishing an undemocratic absolutism over the Americans? Or was it really, as the delegates to that convention claimed, given power for the purpose of protecting American freedom?<p>
Those who supported the new text were called Federalists, and those who opposed the ratification of it were called the Anti-Federalists.<p>
There was a large segment of the American public which opposed the new Constitution. In order to persuade them to accept, and then support, this Constitution, carefully-worded justifications and explanations would be needed to gain the public’s approval. An important piece of this marketing effort, perhaps the decisive piece, was a writing project known as the <i>The Federalist Papers</i>.<p>
This project consisted of a series of essays published over a period of months in various newspapers. There were a total of 85 essays, written by three authors: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Hamilton wrote 51 of the essays, and organized the project. The first essay was released in October 1787, and the last one in August 1788. They were released together in book form in 1788.<p>
Because Hamilton wrote a majority of the essays which together did a majority of the persuading, it is plausible to argue that he was the key factor in persuading the American public to cause their legislators to ratify the Constitution. If James Madison is often called the “Father of the Constitution” because he was influential in drafting the text, then perhaps Alexander Hamilton should be called the “Midwife of the Constitution” because he ushered it into the world.<p>
<i>The Federalist Papers</i> seem to have effected a significant change in public opinion. Between December 1787 and May 1790, all thirteen states ratified the text.<p>
In July 1788, New York became the eleventh state to ratify, and it was clear that it was only a matter of time until the Constitution would indeed be the operating system for a new government. The public, once largely skeptical, had in the meantime become enthusiastic about the Constitution, and about the man who sold it to the public, Alexander Hamilton.<p>
Ron Chernow describes the celebration in New York City. People lauded Hamilton and cheered on the ratification of the Constitution:<p>
<blockquote>The parade apotheosized the hero of the hour, the man who had snatched victory from the antifederalist majority. So exuberant was the lionization of Alexander Hamilton that admirers wanted to rechristen the city “Hamiltoniana.” It was one of the few times in his life that Hamilton basked in the warmth of public adulation. Sail makers waved a flag depicting a laurel-wreathed Hamilton bearing the Constitution while an allegorical figure representing Fame blew a trumpet in the air. This paled before the grandest tribute of all to Hamilton. Gliding down Broadway, pulled by ten horses, was a miniature frigate, twenty-seven feet long, baptized the “Federal Ship <i>Hamilton</i>.” The model ship rose above all other floats “with flowing sheets and full sails[,]... the canvas waves dashing against her sides” and concealing the carriage wheels moving the ship, noted one observer. The cart men fluttered banners that proclaimed, “Behold the federal ship of fame / The Hamilton we call her name; / To every craft she gives employ; / Sure cartmen have their share of joy.” When the <i>Hamilton</i> arrived near the Battery, it was received by congressmen standing outside Bayard’s Tavern. To represent the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, the ship changed pilots amid a deafening cannonade. The parade marked the zenith of the federalist alliance with city artisans. Hamilton had never courted the masses, and never again was he to enjoy their favor to this extent. Riding high on the crest of the new Constitution, Hamilton and the federalists held undisputed sway in the city.</blockquote><p>
More than two centuries later, the questions posed by the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists remain. Is the Constitution a system which will maximize and protect individual freedom, political liberty, and economic liberty? Or is it an oppressive system which tyrannizes people by taxing them and regulating them? Of course, the Constitution as a system is only one part of the answer to those questions. The other part is the character of the people who serve in the various elected and appointed offices created by the Constitution, and the degree to which they act in accord with the text.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-47732784597173865222023-07-24T20:41:00.000-04:002023-07-24T20:41:03.161-04:00Segregation and “Jim Crow” Laws — The Results of GovernmentIn the history of the United States, the bitter realities of segregation were both a harsh burden upon the victims and a result of government regulation left unchecked. Segregation was the result of legislation.<p>
One example illustrates this principle. In the State of Kentucky, public schools were often, although not always, segregated in the late 1800s. Private schools had the opportunity to be integrated — including both secular institutions and parochial religious schools.<p>
One private school in particular — Berea College — took advantage of that opportunity and functioned in a fully desegregated manner. In November 1903, a member of the Kentucky legislature, Carl Day, happened to be on the campus of Berea College. He witnessed firsthand how Black and White students socialized as equals.<p>
Carl Day returned to the state legislature, conferred with his fellow members of the Democratic Party, and introduced a bill which would require all schools — public and private — to be segregated. The president of the Democratic Club, J.M. Early, gave speeches in favor of this proposed legislation.<p>
Administrators, professors, and students from Berea College spoke in opposition to the bill, but to no avail.<p>
In January 1904, Carl Day’s bill was passed by the legislature, and in March 1904, it was signed into law by Governor John Crepps Wickliffe Beckham. Governor Beckham was known as “J.C.W. Beckham” in many reports.<p>
Left to their own devices, the people of Kentucky were content to have integrated institutions of higher learning. But the government imposed segregation. As historian Benjamin Shapiro writes:<p>
<blockquote>Segregation was governmentally imposed, not socially imposed. The whole reason that government was necessary was so that those who would not abide by social racism were forced to do so. As black economist Walter Williams states, “whenever there is a law on the books, one’s immediate suspicion should be that the law is there because not everyone would behave according to the law’s specifications.”</blockquote><p>
Walter Williams goes on to identify parallels between “Jim Crow Laws” in the United States and “Apartheid” in South Africa. In both cases, society had no desire for complete and legally enforced segregation. In both cases, individuals in the private sector were willing to violate the government’s demands for segregation.<p>
Racism requires the existence of government regulations in order to do its damage. Without such regulations, ordinary women and men are happy to do business with anyone of any race, if that person can strike a good deal. Walter Williams writes:<p>
<blockquote>The bottom line is that racists cannot trust free markets to racially discriminate. Free markets, with their dispersion of power, have little respect for race. Racial solidarity could not prevent white South African businessmen from contravening laws that banned them from hiring blacks in jobs "reserved" for whites. In the U.S., Jim Crow laws were frequently ignored. In South Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere, the private desire for profits and other personal gain challenged racial loyalty. Racists need the force of government to have success.</blockquote><p>
After the “Reconstruction” Era began to wind down, around 1877, the Democratic Party in many of the states in the South were still bitterly angry that slavery had been abolished and that the Democratic Party had lost the war. Walter Williams explains that these states “enforced some form of segregation through what were known as Jim Crow laws.”<p>
While American society was content to embrace integration and desegregation, historian Benjamin Shapiro explains that “segregation was imposed governmentally.”<p>
The suffering imposed on African-American in South after the Civil War, up until the relief provided by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960, was imposed not by American society, but rather by governments which had gained too much power over the daily lives of ordinary people.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-82472494201183488482023-06-15T07:16:00.002-04:002023-06-15T07:16:11.152-04:00Posing as Journalists, Soviet Agents Deliver China to Destruction: The Amerasia CaseOne skill needed for successful covert operations is the ability to establish a good ‘front’ — a seemingly innocuous activity or organization, behind which an intelligence agency can assemble its destructive efforts. Such was the case of the magazine <i>Amerasia</i>, which managed to hide the workings of both Soviet agents and Maoist insurgents.<p>
Aside from its obvious pro-communist prejudices, the periodical seemed to be an innocent enough collection of articles about the politics and policies of east Asia. In reality, however, the offices of the journal served as a junction for a network of spies. Once detected, the web of individuals and other ‘front’ organizations connected to <i>Amerasia</i> showed itself to be both large and significant.<p>
As reported in the <i>Taiwan Today</i> newspaper, the unraveling of the magazine’s facade began when one of its articles contained text which could have only come from a confidential source:<p>
<blockquote>The strange case of <i>Amerasia</i>, like many a fictional spy thriller, opened quite accidentally. One day in February, 1945, Kenneth E. Wells of the Office of Strategic Services picked up a recent issue of the magazine, dated January 26, and found himself quoted — but not cited. Wells was head of the Southern Asian Section of the research branch of the OSS. To his amazement he read, in an article entitled “The Case of Thailand,” the very language he had used in a highly classified memorandum describing the lack of harmony between British and American policies in that part of the world. The article contained, verbatim, whole paragraphs out of a secret OSS report prepared by Wells himself some months earlier. Obviously, the magazine writer must have had the document itself before him as he wrote.</blockquote><p>
It was clear that secret government documents had been stolen and were in the hands of people who had no clearance to have them. Further, passages from those documents had been published. This was a crime, a breach of national security, and posed a danger to the lives of both Americans and Chinese.<p>
The need for immediate action was obvious, as <i>Taiwan Today</i> explains:<p>
<blockquote>Wells properly called the matter to the attention of Archibald Van Beuren, OSS security chief, who was sufficiently alarmed to fly to New York on February 28. There he instructed his director of investigation, Frank Brooks Bielaski, to find out how and why the document had gotten out of OSS files. Bielaski was given a list of the names of some 30 persons to whom copies had been sent. Most of them were in the OSS, but a few were in the Department of State, and at least one in both Army and Navy Intelligence. Copies had gone also to a half-dozen Foreign Service officers on duty in the Far East. With secretaries and assistants counted, perhaps 100 employees of the United States Government had access to the OSS report on Thailand. Bielaski’s task was to locate the leak. Figuring that it would take 10 men to maintain a close watch on each person in Washington, Bielaski estimated that he would need at least 1,000 OSS agents for the job. Such a force was not available. It was decided, therefore, to make a preliminary investigation of the magazine itself. An agent was sent to the New York Public Library to analyze past issues of <i>Amerasia</i>, and its editorial offices at 225 Fifth Avenue were put under round-the-clock surveillance. Bielaski himself made some inquiries regarding the staff of the magazine.</blockquote><p>
Already early in the case, a number of OSS agents were involved: Kenneth E. Wells, Archibald Van Beuren, and Frank Brooks Bielaski. Soon more OSS operatives would be part of the events, as well as FBI agents and eventually investigators acting on behalf of the U.S. Congress.<p>
The cast of characters on the other side would grow as well. What began as a question about a small and even obscure little publication would turn into a catalogue of many of the most dangerous Soviet agents of the era.<p>
The Soviet Socialists understood that the future success or failure of Mao’s insurgents would not only shape the history of China, but also the history of the United States. In turn, America’s policies toward China would nudge Mao’s terrorists in one direction or the other: toward success or toward failure. The <i>Amerasia</i> case uncovered one of Stalin’s key weapons in this struggle: Soviet agents acting covertly — as “moles” — inside the U.S. government. Those who shaped America’s policies toward China were acting, not on reliable information provided by honest civil servants, but rather on fabrications and opinions provided by Soviet espionage agents planted within the U.S. State Department.<p>
Even as the battles of WW2 still raged, the Soviets were planning the postwar destruction of the Chinese government and the creation of Mao’s Marxist dictatorship.<p>
OSS agents investigating <i>Amerasia</i> found not only that the publication’s staff had obtained stolen documents, but that many of the magazine’s writers were actually Soviet agents, part of a larger network which led to still more Soviet agents in the government and in other organizations, as <i>Time</i> magazine reports:<p>
<blockquote>Chunky, spectacled Frank Bielaski, an ex-Wall Street broker turned Government secret agent, had handled many cases for OSS during the war. One midnight, tracing down the document quoted in <i>Amerasia</i>, Bielaski and four aides let themselves into a dark, empty building at 225 Fifth Avenue. They took an elevator to the eleventh floor and there, by what Bielaski later called “deceit and subterfuge,” entered <i>Amerasia</i>’s office. Once inside, they began a careful inspection. They found one room fitted out with photocopy equipment, a desk in another room spread with copies of Government documents. Behind a door were a bellows-type suitcase and two briefcases packed with other papers — altogether close to 300 originals and copies of documents stolen from the Offices of Naval Intelligence and Censorship, G2, OSS, State Department and British Intelligence. A few of them were marked “Top Secret” and “Secret”; all of them were labeled for official scrutiny only.</blockquote><p>
Clearly, there were moles at work inside the State Department. In addition to <i>Amerasia</i>, secrets were being passed on to the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), a policy think-tank, and to the IPR’s publications. The IPR’s main publication was a periodical titled <i>Pacific Affairs</i>.<p>
The Soviet Socialist espionage network inside the United States did more than steal secret documents. It was also active in shaping America’s policies. Individuals working the State Department who were associated with the IPR wrote briefings for decision-makers in the U.S. government.<p>
The Soviets, who sought the ultimate destruction of the United States, were shaping the decisions by which America was to defend itself against the Soviets. The USSR had managed to subvert the American system against itself.<p>
The OSS gained physical evidence which revealed how widespread the Soviet infiltration was, as <i>Time</i> magazine reports:<p>
<blockquote>The raiders picked up a dozen documents to show the kind of material they had found, and left. A few hours later Bielaski laid his report and the documents before officials in Washington.</blockquote><p>
<i>Amerasia</i> was co-edited and co-founded by Philip Jaffe. Jaffe was connected to a number of known Soviet spies, including Earl Browder, Owen Lattimore, and John Stewart Service. Each of these was connected to still others. In the end, a dizzyingly large network of Soviet operatives were related directly or indirectly to the <i>Amerasia</i> case.<p>
Ultimately, some of these were tried in court and jailed. Others were rendered useless to the Soviets because their identities had been revealed. But some of them also managed to slip away and continue their espionage activity.<p>
The case expanded from the OSS to the FBI, and then culminated in legal actions, as <i>Time</i> magazine explains:<p>
<blockquote>The case was assigned to the FBI. For almost three months FBI agents kept Jaffe and his office under surveillance. Other agents tailed Jaffe on frequent trips to Washington where he met assorted small-bore Government officials. By late May, James Mclnerney, first assistant to Tom Clark, who was in charge of criminal prosecution for the Justice Department, was ready to collar the crowd, start prosecutions for espionage.</blockquote><p>
All of this would be mere historical trivia, except for the fact that Mao’s terrorists ultimately destroyed both China’s government and much of Chinese society. Mao’s victory is due, in part or in whole, to less-than-energetic American support for Chiang Kai-shek. Had Chiang been able to defend China against Mao, and had Mao’s communist dictatorship not been able to oppress China for several decades, then millions of Chinese would not have been murdered by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).<p>
Not only would millions of Chinese lives have been saved, but also lives in Korea and Vietnam, including American lives.<p>
Why did America fail to stoutly oppose Mao’s genocidal takeover of China? In part because the network of individuals who were associated with <i>Amerasia</i> had persuaded U.S. policy makers that Mao was benign and that Chiang Kai-shek was useless. Acting on disinformation — a step worse than misinformation — U.S. policy makers were lulled into letting Mao have China. Philip Jaffe’s network of Soviet spies is directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-71438853334763559452023-06-13T14:44:00.001-04:002023-06-14T10:38:47.165-04:00When a Magazine Is More Than Simply a Magazine: Amerasia As a Front for Maoist-Stalinist EspionageIn June, 1950, <i>Time</i> magazine reported that Congress was examining a collection of classified government documents. These documents had been found, not securely stored under lock and key in a federal office, but rather in the offices of a magazine title <i>Amerasia</i>. The questions presented themselves: What information did these secret papers contain? How did they come to be in the offices of a quirky little periodical?<p>
More questions were prompted by the fact that the FBI had discovered the trove of confidential documents in 1945, and yet the Congressional investigations into the matter were underway in 1950. Why the five-year delay into an incident which revealed a stunning breach of national security? Wouldn’t such a discovery demand quicker action?<p>
The <i>Time</i> article reports:<p>
<blockquote>In a Justice Department office last week, staffmen of a Senate subcommittee combed through three large boxes containing hundreds of documents seized five years ago in the <i>Amerasia</i> case. Around the boxes swirled a storm of argument. Republican Senators, none of whom had actually seen the contents, cried that the Administration had put the fix on the <i>Amerasia</i> case, and that a real probe of the case would prove it. From Iowa, where he was campaigning in a primary election, Bourke Hickenlooper charged that at least some of the documents were important U.S. wartime secrets. Didn’t one of them show the disposition in 1944 of U.S. submarines in the Pacific? Wasn’t one of them a highly confidential (“for eyes only”) message from Roosevelt to Chiang Kaishek? Said Hickenlooper: “I think that all Americans will be appalled when the whole truth becomes known.”</blockquote><p>
It seemed that the administration — in this case, the Truman administration — was dragging its feet. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had confirmed <i>Amerasia</i>’s illegal possession of the papers in March 1945. Why would the government slow-walk a matter of national security?<p>
Was Truman himself involved in deciding the pace at which the <i>Amerasia</i> case would be handled? Or were underlings making these choices without the president’s knowledge?<p>
The <i>Time</i> article records the administration’s reaction to the congressional concerns:<p>
<blockquote>Such talk, Administration sources replied, was hogwash; the documents were nothing much. Said Assistant Attorney General James M. Mclnerney: Hickenlooper is “100% wrong.”</blockquote><p>
While obfuscation about the processing of the case muddied the waters, the facts of the case were simple and clear. Someone had stolen classified documents from the OSS. Those documents were found in the offices of <i>Amerasia</i>. This was a crime. In the words of historian Stan Evans, it was “felonious.”<p>
The case began in a straightforward way, as <i>Time</i> reports:<p>
<blockquote>As thick as the argument was the smoke screen of confusion around the whole affair, which the Administration seemed determined to preserve at all costs. In 1945, <i>Amerasia</i> was a magazine (circ. about 2,000) devoted more or less openly to the Communist line and the Far East, and published sporadically in New York by one Philip Jaffe. The case began that February when the eyes of a Government official fell upon a surprising <i>Amerasia</i> article. It quoted at length and almost verbatim from a secret report which was supposed to be tucked safely away in the Office of Strategic Services’ file. The OSS immediately put a special investigator, Frank Brooks Bielaski, on <i>Amerasia</i>'s pink and wispy trail.</blockquote><p>
As the initial investigation continued, it became clear that the case would involve much more than Philip Jaffe and his magazine.<p>
Jaffe was part of a network of Soviet operatives and communist sympathizers. This network had connections to Moscow and to Mao’s rebels in China. Jaffe’s associates included a number of current and former highly-placed officials in various government offices. Was the administration anticipating embarrassment when it was revealed that the Soviet Socialists had developed a spy network inside significant branches of the U.S. government?<p>
Jaffe’s associates constituted a list of known Soviet operatives, as historians Herbert Romerstsein and Stan Evans write:<p>
<blockquote>The contents of a secret OSS memo had appeared, in some respects verbatim, in the pages of <i>Amerasia</i> — the obvious implication being that someone had been leaking official data to the journal. This led agents from OSS, and then the FBI, to conduct an in-depth probe of the magazine and its personnel, including dragnet coverage of the suspects and their contacts, plus entry into <i>Amerasia</i>’s New York offices to photograph papers being held there. In the course of this inquiry, the Bureau noted Jaffe’s multifarious dealings with Service, Roth, State Department official Emmanuel Larsen, and journalist Mark Gayn. Interspersed with these, Jaffe was also surveilled meeting with U.S. Communist Party chief Earl Browder, visiting Chinese Communist bigwig Tung Pi-wu, officials at the Soviet consulate in New York, and self-described Soviet espionage courier Joseph Bernstein.</blockquote><p>
John Stewart Service worked in the State Department’s foreign service organization. In addition to stealing classified documents and passing them to Jaffe and Gayn, Service had gerrymandered his internal reports about the China situation: these reports circulated within the State Department and influenced American policy-making. Under the influence of Service, American support for Chiang Kai-shek became less enthusiastic, and Mao’s communists benefitted.<p>
Andrew Roth was a lieutenant in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI). He introduced Service to a group who were “avid supporters of the Communists at Yenan,” as Evans and Romerstein write.<p>
Philip Jaffe was not only networked in this way with a constellation of Soviet operatives, but <i>Amerasia</i> was linked to other organizations which, like <i>Amerasia</i>, were fronts for Soviet intelligence agencies.<p>
One such front organization was the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). Allegedly a think-tank for discussing regional problems and writing policy recommendations, IPR staff and board members greatly overlapped with <i>Amerasia</i>’s staff and board members. Both the IPR and <i>Amerasia</i> were located in the same office building, as was another organization, the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy. This “committee” was also a facade behind which the Soviet Socialists could run a pro-Mao operation.<p>
The IPR published its own magazine, <i>Pacific Affairs</i>. The list of authors who wrote for this magazine, and for other IPR publications, was nearly identical to the list of authors who wrote for <i>Amerasia</i>.<p>
The network went still further: “Lauchlin Currie,” writes Stan Evans, was “an executive assistant to President Roosevelt in the early 1940s whose portfolio included policy toward China. Currie left the government in 1945.” When investigations of <i>Amerasia</i> and the IPR continued, Currie “would flee the country,” because he had a central organizational role in the IPR. “In trying to retrace the steps by which the U.S. government had been penetrated by Communists and Soviet agents,” congressional investigators “got on the trail of Currie and his multitude of contacts.”<p>
<blockquote>Currie was, for instance, closely linked with Owen Lattimore, and with diplomat John Stewart Service, arrested in the <i>Amerasia</i> case after sending back a stream of dispatches from China denouncing the anti-Communist leader Chiang Kai-shek. Currie was also extremely thick with John Carter Vincent, the State Department official who played a critical role in shaping U.S. Asia policy in the years before the Red conquest of China.</blockquote><p>
Owen Lattimore was yet one more link in the chain connecting Moscow, Mao, and the network which included Philip Jaffe and John Stewart Service. Lattimore had been an IPR employee and then a foreign policy advisor in the Roosevelt administration. Lauchlin Currie had recommended to Roosevelt that Lattimore be dispatched to China to advise Chiang Kai-shek.<p>
It is worth noting that Lattimore and Currie were Soviet agents who had direct access to the President of the United States. They were not the only ones. Roosevelt relied on these men for advice, assuming that they were seeking what was best for the common Allied cause in WW2. Instead, these two, along with Alger Hiss and other known Soviet agents who met face-to-face with FDR, were advocating policies which would undermine the Allied cause and which would set up a postwar world framework favorable to the Soviets.<p>
In the end, <i>Amerasia</i> was not simply a magazine discussing foreign policy and thereby exercising its first amendment rights. It was a front for Soviet and Maoist intelligence agencies. It was part of a network which influence American policy in China, which led ultimately to Mao’s seizure of power in 1949, and which is therefore at least partly responsible for the deaths of millions of human beings.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-13496279480650190092023-04-18T21:37:00.000-04:002023-04-18T21:37:01.586-04:00Proliferation: How One Person’s Actions Affects MillionsTechnology — understood not merely as the latest iPhone or AI app, but rather in a more general way — has led to a situation in which one individual’s actions can affect, for good or for ill, the lives of millions. Such is the case of Alger Hiss.<p>
Alger Hiss is one of the most destructive people of the twentieth century.<p>
Born in the United States, in Maryland in 1904, Hiss came from a comfortable middle-class family. He was popular in high school, and succeeded academically, completing his undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, and his graduate work at Harvard. Alger Hiss developed significant social connections, which turned into professional and political connections, during his time at Harvard.<p>
In 1936, Hiss obtained a job within the State Department. Around the same time, he also became a spy for the Soviet Socialists. Although a paid employee of the USSR, Hiss did his espionage more as a passion than as a way to earn money: his desire was to destroy the United States as a constitutional democratic republic.<p>
Alger Hiss was an agent for the organization which would become the KGB.<p>
Eventually working his way up to the level of presidential advisor, Alger Hiss would have face-to-face meetings with President Roosevelt. As a Soviet agent, his task was twofold: first, to steal secrets from the United States government and send them to Moscow; second, to give misleading advice to President Roosevelt so that he would make decisions which favored the USSR and not the United States.<p>
One of Joseph Stalin’s paid employees was giving advice to the president of the United States.<p>
One of the Soviet agents to whom Alger Hiss reported eventually defected. Whittaker Chambers, a high-level insider in the Soviet Socialist espionage network, confessed to the U.S. authorities what he was doing. Chambers was not comfortable when he discovered the consequences of supplying the USSR with military intelligence.<p>
As a result of Soviet spying in the United States, the Soviet Socialists obtained the technology to build their own atomic bombs. Emboldened by this technology, they increased their resolve to oppress the nations of eastern Europe. Millions of people in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and other nations died or lived in servitude because of the Soviet hegemony.<p>
Further, the Soviet Socialists launched and maintained their military proxies in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The Soviet espionage network inside the United States gave them the technology to start such efforts, and the intelligence to maintain them.<p>
The roots of the Soviet spy network go back a decade earlier: In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Alger Hiss was assuring President Roosevelt that he could trust the promises of Joseph Stalin. Stalin pledged to allow free and fair elections in the nations of eastern Europe. Stalin broke these promises and ordered the Soviet Socialist army to invade these nations at the end of WW2. Alger Hiss was simultaneously sending U.S. military secrets to the Soviet intelligence headquarters in Moscow.<p>
Historian Christina Shelton writes:<p>
<blockquote>During the late 1940s, a high-level State Department official, Alger Hiss, was accused of spying for the Soviet Union by a senior editor of <i>Time</i> magazine, Whittaker Chambers, who previously had been a Soviet agent and Hiss’s “handler.” For two years, the political drama of congressional hearings and Hiss trials made headline news throughout the country. The case was particularly contentious, given Hiss’s prominence, the political climate of an incipient anti-Communist movement during the Truman administration, and, most importantly, because of the ideological rupture that unfolded. Battle lines were drawn between the right and the left that remain to this day. Hiss eventually was convicted of perjury related to espionage. The evidence that was crucial to the government’s case included stolen State Department classified documents, microfilms with classified material, and handwritten notes — all of which came to be known collectively as the “Pumpkin Papers” — that Hiss had turned over to Chambers for passage to Soviet military intelligence. Chambers had secreted them prior to his defection for his own future protection and then presented them shortly before the perjury trials began.</blockquote><p>
Some of the evidence which ultimately led to Hiss’s conviction was a set of documents which had been hidden inside a hollowed-out pumpkin: so they were called the “Pumpkin Papers.”<p>
Hiss had given these documents to Whittaker Chambers when they were both working for the Soviet Socialists. When Chambers decided to stop supporting the USSR, he kept these documents and hid them. Later, when Chambers had to defend himself against Hiss’s attacks, Chambers produced the documents and showed them to U.S. intelligence officials.<p>
When the evidence showed beyond doubt that Hiss had stolen U.S. information and attempted to send it to the USSR, it was clear that Hiss was guilty. Hiss had not only betrayed the United States, but he had willingly supported the Soviet Socialist efforts which caused millions of deaths in Korea, in Vietnam, and in eastern Europe.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-25357250251014807782022-11-29T14:25:00.005-05:002022-11-29T14:46:53.462-05:00A New Leader for a New Country: Presidents Make PrecedentsThe metamorphosis of eastern North America from British colony to independent sovereign nation lasted several decades. From the middle of the 18th century, especially after the French and Indian War ended in 1763, the colonies grew more and more restless under the oppressive British government. The King and Parliament levied a series of ever-higher taxes, confiscating thereby the hard-earned property of those living in the colonies. Further, the British regulated many facets of commerce — both business within the colonies and trade between the colonies and the rest of the world. The British also violated the rights of the colonists in egregious ways: the freedom of speech was threatened and violated.<p>
Over the third quarter of the century, tensions grew, outrage among the colonies grew, and British control and oppression grew, until April 1775, when the war started. The fighting ended in late 1782; a peace treaty was signed in 1783. The colonies were now the United States of America.<p>
Moving away from British persecution was only one half of the process. Moving toward the creation of the new nation’s own government was the other half.<p>
There are many examples of revolutions which succeeded in throwing off cruel governments, only to fail to have prepared a new government to step in and take over. This is why the French Revolution failed. This is why so many postcolonial nations have gained their independence and autonomy, and then become “failed states” or remain locked in a third-world condition.<p>
Throughout the 1700s, the Americans had not only developed vindications for their desire to be independent and sovereign, but rather they had also explored the general principles and possible specific programs for a new government. Some of these concepts had been tested in the settings of the legislatures within the individual colonies. The heritage of the British Parliament also provided a legacy from which both general principles and specific practices could be drawn, possibly modified, and sometimes rejected.<p>
The thinkers who prepared the way for the revolution of 1776, and who shepherded it for several decades afterward, had deep and broad educations. Some of them had traveled widely; others had experience from business, military, political, or agricultural endeavors. Among the many names which belong to this list are Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, James Otis, and Patrick Henry. Thomas Jefferson was able to read Greek at an advanced level by his early teenage years. Benjamin Franklin explored nearly every field of human endeavor, making groundbreaking discoveries in physics, and developing a music instrument for which Mozart, Josef Haydn, and Beethoven, among others, composed works. Among the authors of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, a working knowledge of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, German, and other languages was commonplace.<p>
In June 1776, a committee began to write a document which would eventually become the Articles of Confederation. This paper would be a forerunner to the United States Constitution. All thirteen states ratified the finalized text of the Articles of Confederation by February 1781.<p>
By September 1786, it was clear that the Articles of Confederation needed some adjustments. In the course of meetings to determine which changes were needed, starting in May 1787, the revisions were so significant that the document which emerged from these meetings in September 1787 was essentially an entirely new document, the U.S. Constitution.<p>
The final product of the Constitutional Convention was designed to improve on the Articles of Confederation. It included insights from contemporary debates about government: discussions from the writings of John Locke, Montesquieu, and others. The last few centuries of the British experience shaped the document: the Magna Carta of 1215, the English Civil War, the tenure of Cromwell, the Stuart Restoration in 1660, and the British Bills of Rights of 1689. Given that the delegates at the convention had an extensive knowledge of history, the antecedents of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the political thoughts of medieval Scholasticism, are visible in the Constitution.<p>
The Constitution displays a certain universality and timelessness, inasmuch as it draws upon the features of human nature. All people — regardless of the place or era in which they live, regardless of their language, culture, or religion — share certain basic characteristics because they are human beings. They all desire, e.g., peace, freedom, justice, and prosperity. The rare exceptions — the warmonger or the criminal — even have such properties, although hidden behind a mental or moral disease.<p>
The document features various procedural complexities designed to slow the functioning of the government, and thereby avert any scenario in which the government would infringe upon the rights of the individual. The Constitution is a set of rules which the government must obey. The Constitution protects the people from the government.<p>
The majority of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 was opposed to slavery and sought its abolition. To create an instability which would eventually demand that attention be paid to the cause of abolition, the famous — or notorious — “three-fifths clause” was inserted into the text. They designed this text to destabilize the institution of slavery. This wording was not, as some suppose, devised to solidify slavery, but rather to undermine it.<p>
Yet having an ethical and principled constitution was only the first step. Not only a structure of offices constitutes a system of government, but rather also the individuals who populate those offices.<p>
The launch of the new federal administration would find its success not only in the equilibrium and justice established by the Constitution, but rather also in the character and quality of the human beings who would fill the various roles in the new structure.<p>
It was in this respect that George Washington’s role became crucial, as historian Ron Chernow writes:<p>
<blockquote>The battle royal over the Constitution exposed such glaring rifts in the country that America needed a first president of unimpeachable integrity who would embody the rich promise of the new republic. It had to be somebody of godlike stature who would seem to levitate above partisan politics, a symbol of national unity as well as a functioning chief executive. Everybody knew that George Washington alone could manage the paradoxical feat of being a politician above politics. Many people had agreed reluctantly to the new Constitution only because they assumed that Washington would lead the first government.</blockquote><p>
The procedural mechanisms of the legislature, of the executive, and of the judiciary are the skeleton of the system, but the humans in the offices are its flesh and blood. The styles of communication, the abilities to see which compromises are reasonable, and other interpersonal intangibles also partly determine whether an individual is successful in office.<p>
George Washington possessed an ability to see talent and potential, even when it came in unlikely personalities, or was disguised behind immaturity. He also stuck unswervingly to his principles, ready to compromise on negotiables, but never conceding matters of integrity.<p>
It was in this way that the improbably good working relationship between Washington and Alexander Hamilton arose, as Ron Chernow reports:<p>
<blockquote>Perhaps the main reason that Washington and Hamilton functioned so well together was that both men longed to see the thirteen states welded into a single, respected American nation. At the close of the war, Washington had circulated a letter to the thirteen governors, outlining four things America would need to attain greatness: consolidation of the states under a strong federal government, timely payment of its debts, creation of an army and a navy, and harmony among its people. Hamilton would have written the identical list. The young treasury secretary gained incomparable power under Washington because the president approved of the agenda that he promoted with such tireless brilliance. Jefferson had it wrong when he charged that Hamilton manipulated Washington. On fundamental political matters, Washington was simply more attuned to Hamilton than he was to Jefferson. For that reason, Washington willingly served as the political shield that Alexander Hamilton needed as he became America’s most influential and controversial man.</blockquote><p>
Hamilton had both training and experience in the law. As part of the Constitutional Convention, he understood the document from the inside; he understood the competing viewpoints which had been mixed and welded into the text. He’d been one of the authors of the <i>Federalist Papers</i>, a series of essays designed to explain the new Constitution to the people, and to persuade them to adopt it.<p>
Had Alexander Hamilton lived two centuries later than he did, he may well have used phrases like “systems theory in political science” — or had such phrases applied to him. With no precedents to follow, he, along with Washington and the other members of the new government, had to implement the mechanisms of the Constitution for the first time. This first generation of elected and appointed officials had to grasp both theory and practice: they needed to be both thinkers and doers.<p>
The dynamics among the first cabinet members were both personal and political. The concept of “cabinet” was not yet clearly defined. Washington met with Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, Jefferson as Secretary of State, and Henry Knox as Secretary of War. The Attorney General, Edmund Randoph, was only marginally associated with the cabinet, while the Vice President, John Adams, was largely kept out of it.<p>
Hamilton was energetic, offering opinions on nearly every aspect of government. Ron Chernow describes Washington as “above the partisan fray” and “detached.” In this context, “partisan” does not refer to formally organized political parties, but informal alliances among various leaders: political parties had yet to be formally created. Washington “was gifted with superb judgment” and was “never a pliant tool in Hamilton’s hands.” Washington “often overrode his treasury secretary.”<p>
In contrast to Hamilton, Washington “had learned to govern his emotions” and “was conciliatory, with an innate sense of decorum.” Although Washington worked well with Hamilton, he “could weigh all sides of an issue and coolly appraise the political repercussions.”<p>
Washington and Hamilton counterbalanced and complemented each other. Hamilton was impulsive and sometimes deliberately provocative. Hamilton’s “excesses” and “rash decisions” ultimately cost him his life.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-16451830452554379762022-11-26T11:34:00.000-05:002022-11-26T11:34:18.103-05:00The Purposes of the Soviet Espionage Network inside the United States: More than Stealing SecretsOrdinarily, when people think of spies, they picture spies as stealing secrets. That’s what spies do.<p>
Yet spies do more than gather intelligence. They often plant falsehoods into the systems of the government against which they are working. They hope that the officials in that government will act on the basis of these fabrications.<p>
Spies also work to insinuate themselves into circles of power, whether by gaining posts in a government, or by becoming confidants and eventually influencers in political organizations. In these situations, spies can not only gain access to secrets and plant fabrications, but they can also influence decision-makers in the government and eventually become decision-makers in the government: in the very government which they are attempting to destroy.<p>
Finally, spies sometimes commit acts of violence: sabotage and assassination.<p>
From the earliest days of Soviet Socialism, starting with the revolutions of 1917, Soviet operatives inside the United States functioned in all the ways discussed above. Concrete examples include Alger Hiss, who had a stellar government career. He served as a clerk for a Supreme Court justice, and went on to work in the Justice Department. He then was an assistant to a Senate committee. In 1936, Hiss began working at the State Department. He held an impressive and ever higher series of government posts until he retired from government work in late 1946. In the latter years of his career, Alger Hiss met frequently in face-to-face meetings with President Roosevelt, and became a trusted advisor to the president. Not only did Hiss meet frequently with Roosevelt in the White House, but he traveled with him to the Yalta conference in February 1945. In Yalta, a city on the Crimean Peninsula, Roosevelt met with Stalin and Winston Churchill to make decisions about the postwar reorganization of Europe. Hiss exerted significant influence over Roosevelt at the conference; indeed, Roosevelt sometimes merely did whatever Hiss told him to do.<p>
Alger Hiss was also a paid spy working for the NKVD. The NKVD was a predecessor of the KGB. Alger Hiss was a Soviet agent.<p>
Another specific example is Harry Dexter White. He worked in the Treasury Department from 1934 to 1946. He had decisive influence in the shaping of U.S. policies. He was a paid agent, working for the Soviet Socialists.<p>
One tactic used by espionage agents is to find a naive and sympathetic individual who will be easily influenced. This individual will not be aware that he is being manipulated by sinister forces, yet will act in ways which support those forces. Soviet spies like Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White did exactly this with Henry Morgenthau, Jr.<p>
Morgenthau was the United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1934 to 1945 during the Roosevelt administration. Morgenthau formulated economic policy, both for the years of WW2 and projected for the postwar global economy. In this context, he is often cited as the author of the “Morgenthau Plan,” a policy proposal which would have devastated what little remained of the German economy and infrastructure at war’s end.<p>
Not only would this policy have been an attempt to consign the German people, already suffering after a dozen years of Nazi oppression, permanently to a third-world status, but it would have also removed an important line of defense: in order to shield western Europe from a Soviet attack, West Germany needed to have a solid infrastructure and industrial base to support the thousands of Allied troops stationed there.<p>
The plan called for Germany to be stripped of its industrial base and physical infrastructure, leaving the land “agricultural and pastoral.” Morgenthau’s personal motive may have been a sense of justice: Morgenthau felt that Germany needed to be punished for war crimes, and that Germany should not be given the opportunity to rebuild itself. Historians use the phrase “harsh peace” to describe Morgenthau’s approach. Morgenthau may have also thought that Germany should be kept weak, lest it start another war.<p>
Whatever Morgenthau’s emotional motives may have been, the plan itself was shaped decisively by Harry Dexter White. As a Soviet operative, White saw that a weakened Germany would give the Soviet Socialists a better chance in any potential future invasion of western Europe. Harry Dexter White used Henry Morgenthau’s emotions to get Morgenthau to promote the plan.<p>
Henry Morgenthau provided the unfocused emotion and bitter passion needed to sell the plan as justice. Harry Dexter White created the details of the plan, calculated to serve Stalin’s interests, leave western Europe vulnerable, and facilitate the enslavement of millions when the Soviet attack happened.<p>
The Morgenthau Plan should have been titled the Harry Dexter White Plan.<p>
At the same time, Alger Hiss was using his influence to persuade President Roosevelt that America could trust Stalin. Under Hiss’s influence, Roosevelt accepted Stalin’s promise, given with no guarantees, that the Soviet Socialists would allow free and fair elections in the countries of eastern Europe — the countries already, or soon to be, occupied by the Soviet army. Millions of people in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, and elsewhere would be subjugated to the Soviet Socialist dictatorship because Alger Hiss persuaded President Roosevelt to grant Stalin’s wish.<p>
Historians know with confidence that not only Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, but also dozens of other high-ranking officials inside the U.S. government, were Soviet agents. Although much of this was known, and some of it suspected, prior to 1995, it was in that year that the National Security Agency (NSA) declassified some documents from its Venona Project. These documents, dating from 1943 to 1980, were intercepted communications between individuals in the Soviet espionage network inside the United States. The NSA had to decrypt these messages, as they were written in code. These messages identified those officials inside the U.S. government who were working for the Soviet Socialists.<p>
In 1952, Whittaker Chambers wrote about Soviet intelligence activity. He himself had been a Soviet agent. He knew firsthand the workings of the Soviet espionage network. But in 1952, the Venona papers had not yet been published, and so he lacked documentation for some of what he wrote. He would be vindicated 43 years later, when the Venona decryptions were declassified. In one of his books, Whittaker Chambers wrote:<p>
<blockquote>In a situation with few parallels in history, the agents of an enemy power were in a position to do much more purloin documents. They were in a position to influence the nation’s foreign policy in the interest of the nation’s chief enemy, and not only on exceptional occasions, like Yalta (where Hiss’s role, while presumably important, is still ill-defined) or through the Morgenthau plan for the destruction of Germany (which is generally credited to White) but in what must have been the staggering sum of day to day decisions. That power to influence policy has always been the ultimate purpose of the Communist Party’s infiltration. It was much more dangerous, and, as events have proved, much more difficult to detect, than espionage, which beside it is trivial, though the two go hand in hand.</blockquote><p>
Chambers not only identifies Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, but points to the multiple tasks of the Soviet espionage network, i.e., that the agents did more than steal secrets.<p>
Stan Evans and Herbert Romerstein highlight the accuracy of the statements made by Chambers. This precision is even more remarkable, given that Chambers wrote before the declassification of the Venona decryptions.<p>
<blockquote>Chambers was correct about the roles of Hiss and White, though now accessible records that prove the point weren’t open to inspection when he made this comment.</blockquote><p>
Evans and Romerstein also give credit to Chambers for pointing out that the Soviet espionage network did more than steal secrets: “As to the relative importance of policy influence compared to spying, Chambers” indicated that Soviet agents planted disinformation and influenced policy decisions to a nearly unimaginable extent. The president of the United States was sitting in the Oval Office, having friendly one-on-one policy discussions with a man who reported to the Kremlin.<p>
Because Chambers had himself been a Soviet agent, his account of at least a segment of the spy network was authentic and detailed. Evans and Romerstein show that Chambers gave one of the most significant descriptions of the Soviet intelligence apparatus: “That sums up the matter about as well as it can be stated.”<p>
Ultimately, the truth became manifest. Alger Hiss was sent to prison. Harry Dexter White’s Morgenthau Plan was rejected in favor of rebuilding Germany. The purposes of peace, justice, and freedom were served. That is good news.<p>
Sadly, however, Hiss and White — and dozens of other Soviet spies operating inside the United States at the time — did substantial damage: they emboldened Stalin and his successors. They are at least partly responsible for the deaths in the Hungarian Uprising, the armed suppression of the Prague Spring, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, and other incidents around the globe.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-8699465640179116732022-08-02T09:01:00.000-04:002022-08-02T09:01:25.422-04:00The U.S. Constitution: System and Procedure Build JusticePoliticians refer to the Constitution often, usually claiming that it supports whatever viewpoint they have. But what is the Constitution? And equally importantly, what is the Constitution not?<p>
The Constitution is not a set of rules and laws. The Constitution is a set of instructions about how to make rules and laws. For example, the Constitution doesn’t care whether a community makes recreational marijuana legal or not. It doesn’t care whether the speed limit on the roads is 50 MPH or 80 MPH.<p>
But the Constitution cares about how that decision gets made.<p>
For example, the Constitution delegates the power to each state’s legislature to decide whether or not to legalize recreational marijuna. The point is not whether it’s legal or illegal: the point is who makes that decision. It would be a violation of the Constitutional process if the U.S. Congress made that decision.<p>
There are some decisions which should be made by the state legislatures, and other decisions which should be made by the Congress. The important question isn’t which decisions get made, but rather, who should make them.<p>
In the same way, there are some responsibilities to be carried out by the president and his executive branch, and other responsibilities which belong to the Supreme Court and its judicial branch.<p>
In the long run, it doesn’t matter which decision gets made — whether marijuana is legal or not — but it matters who made that decision, and which process was used to make that decision.<p>
The Constitution is a neutral document in this way. The Constitution can be, and should be, used by both sides — the people who are “for” and the people who are “against” any particular idea.<p>
Without a Constitution, and without people acting according to the Constitutional process, chaos results, and after the chaos, some individual or group can seize power, and then the people’s freedom disappears. True freedom and true justice exist only where a neutral procedure is followed.<p>
Because the Constitution is neutral, it is also timeless. Changes in society, technology, culture, or economics don’t affect the Constitution, and the process can apply equally to today or to a hundred years into the future. Constitutional procedures work for Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus. Constitutional processes work for old and young, rich and poor, men and women. They work for any ethnicity, race, or culture.<p>
The ideas in the Constitution last because they are built on human nature. Every human being has certain features in common with every other human being — anywhere, anytime. Concerning the universal principles of human beings, and how they are factored in to the Constitution, Ben Shapiro writes:<p>
<blockquote>The founders constructed the Constitution on the basis of three main realizations about human beings. First, they realized that human beings are imperfect, selfish, driven by self-interest. They will go to war with each other to assure the victory of that self-interest. The founders agreed with the central theory of Thomas Hobbes, that without government, man reverted to constant warfare: “No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”</blockquote><p>
Given that human beings are imperfect, how can they build a peaceful society? How can they live and work together in justice, peace, prosperity, and freedom?<p>
Back in the late 1600s, Thomas Hobbes wrote that only with a powerful absolute government — a dictatorship — could human society function decently. He felt that if people had freedom, they’d use it to attack each other. Today, there are still people like Hobbes: they believe that a powerful government should control the lives of people and make decisions for them.<p>
But the people who wrote the U.S. Constitution didn’t agree with Hobbes. They thought that humans can have both a decent society and freedom at the same time. They got some of those ideas from the books written by John Locke, who lived a few years after Hobbes, but before the foundation of the United States.<p>
Ben Shapiro explains how Locke articulated the idea of “limited government” — the idea that the government’s power shouldn’t be infinite, but rather that by limited the government’s power, the people protect their own freedom:<p>
<blockquote>But they disagreed with Hobbes that the only way to solve this conundrum was a great and powerful ruler. They believed that such rulers were similarly capable of brutality in their own self-interest. They adopted this philosophy from John Locke, who wrote, “The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed, when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation of the properties of their people?” In other words, if rulers invaded the rights of others, they ought to be curbed.</blockquote><p>
If the government has more power, then the people have less freedom; if the government has less power, then the people have more freedom.<p>
How, then, can people structure a government to ensure that it doesn’t become too powerful?<p>
The Constitutional system with its separation of powers is designed to make sure that no one part of the government gets too much control. If power divided between the three branches — legislative, judicial, executive — then each branch will have roughly one-third of the power, which is less than half, and therefore can be curbed by the other two branches.<p>
The power is further divided between federal, state, and local governments. When the power is chopped up into small pieces, and different parts of government each have a piece, it prevents any one part of government from having too much power. Freedom is achieved and preserved when the government is relatively weak and limited: a strong and expansive government is the type of government which can take people’s liberties and properties.<p>
Ben Shapiro explains how the Constitution carefully divides and balances power between different parts of the government:<p>
<blockquote>So, how could society survive without an all-powerful ruler checking men? By a series of mutual checks and balances. As James Madison famously stated in <i>Federalist</i> #51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”</blockquote><p>
It might seem odd to say that people want a weak and limited government. Wouldn’t everyone hope for a strong and expansive government? But it’s better to have a strong nation with a weak government than to have a weak nation with a strong government. Either the government will have control, or people will have control. In order to be free, the people must have a limited government. The greatest danger to liberty is the government. This is ironic, because the purpose of the government is to protect the people’s freedom, but it is also true that when people lose their liberty, it’s because the government took it.<p>
The best thing that can happen is gridlock. The word ‘gridlock’ might seem like something undesirable, but when the government is all bogged down in its own procedures, and when the government is doing little or nothing, that is when the people have the most freedom. When there’s a problem in society, or a problem, rather than having the government “do something,” it’s best if the government does nothing, so that the people can figure out how to fix it. The people will do a better job than the government.<p>
The Constitution is filled with various mechanisms designed to slow down the government’s processes, a Ben Shapiro explains:<p>
<blockquote>Checks and balances were designed to <i>prevent</i> government from overreaching its boundaries; only widespread agreement could overrule such checks and balances. The judiciary was therefore designed not to lord over the executive and legislative branches, but to interpret the law “under the Constitution;” it was checked by its requirement of funding from Congress and execution from the executive branch. The legislative branch was designed to pass laws in concurrence with the Constitution; the president was given the power to veto laws. Congress itself was checked by distribution of power between the House, chosen by population, and the Senate, chosen by state. The executive branch was checked by the legislature; the executive couldn’t create laws or self-fund, and the legislature could always impeach an incipient tyrant. The federal government as a whole was checked by state governments, all of which had their own checks and balances.</blockquote><p>
Although people often speak idealistically about the Constitution, it is, for the most part, not an idealistic document. The preamble, to be sure, does mention some ideals: justice, tranquility, the “blessings of liberty,” etc.<p>
But the majority of the Constitution is a procedural document. Is the mechanics of running a government. The grand ideals are more found in the Declaration of Independence. The two documents complement each other. The Bill of Rights, a third essential document, is a part of the Constitution, an extension of the Constitution. “The <i>structural</i> Constitution,” as Ben Shapiro writes, “is the essence of American government.”<p>
The design principles behind the Constitution factored in two realities: first, that the concrete details of societies change, and second, that human nature never changes. A system of government built on an understanding of human nature is designed to work in different situations. The Constitution applies, like the laws of algebra, in all contexts:<p>
<blockquote>And it has <i>nothing to do</i> with technological progress. It relies on the same vision of human nature held by the founders, and the same vision of human rights: that because you are a human being, you have inviolable rights that cannot be removed from you by majority vote.</blockquote><p>
One universal aspect of human nature is that people desire freedom. Another aspect of human nature is that, given large amounts of power, people will sometimes take freedom away from others. The Constitution was formulated around these two factors. It is a system designed to maximize liberty and to protect liberty.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-55458509320934329982022-06-27T12:19:00.001-04:002022-06-27T12:19:34.581-04:00The Tax Withholding System: People Pay More Than They KnowAlthough there were small experiments with income tax in the United States going as far back as the 1860s, it was not until 1913 that the income tax system as it is known today appeared. For the first twenty-five years or so, the income tax rates were low, and in some years, people of the working class did not need to pay any income tax at all.<p>
But three factors caused the government to need more money: first, the massive debt caused by New Deal spending programs; second, future obligations created by entitlement programs; third, the Second World War. Needing more money, the government raised income tax rates significantly.<p>
The new rates were publicized, yet people didn’t understand that, on March 15 of each year, they would be forced to send thousands of dollars to the government. There was a big problem in the making. What would the government do when the majority of its citizens didn’t pay their taxes — or were unable to pay their taxes.<p>
Historian Amity Shlaes recounts the looming problem facing government bureaucrats:<p>
<blockquote>As March 15, 1943 neared, though, it became clear that many citizens still were not filing returns. Henry Morgenthau, the Treasury secretary, confronted colleagues about the nightmarish prospect of mass tax evasion: “Suppose we have to go out and try to arrest five million people?”</blockquote><p>
Clearly, a new system was needed. It wouldn’t work simply to present each individual America, once a year, with a bill for thousands of dollars.<p>
<blockquote>Enter Ruml, man of ideas. At Macy’s, he had observed that customers didn’t like big bills. They preferred making payments bit by bit, in the installment plan, even if they had to pay for the pleasure with interest. So Ruml devised a plan, which he unfolded to his colleagues at the Federal Reserve and to anyone in Washington who would listen. The government would get business to do its work, collecting taxes for it. Employers would retain a percentage of taxes from workers every week — say, 20 percent — and forward it directly to Washington’s war chest. This would hide the size of the new taxes from the worker. No longer would the worker ever have to look his tax bill square in the eye. Workers need never even see the money they were forgoing. Withholding as we know it today was born.</blockquote><p>
The new tax system had several advantages. First, the government would get money in a steady stream all year long instead of one big amount once a year. Second, the government could collect interest on some of that money before it was spent. Third, the government could collect excess money from each individual, and then give an annual refund — meaning that the government had gotten an interest-free loan from each citizen. Fourth, the ordinary taxpayer would never really understand how much money the government was taking.<p>
Workers received their pay, but before they got it, the government had already taken a cut. The government could steal their money without the workers feeling the pain. There was also no consent requested from, or given by, the worker. The money simply disappeared into the government.<p>
This was a revolution in politics and economics, both of which depend more on perception than reality, more on psychology than mathematics. Amity Shlaes explains:<p>
<blockquote>This was more than change, it was transformation. Government would put its hand into the taxpayer’s pocket and grab its share of tax — without asking.</blockquote><p>
The transfer of the concept from a department store to the government made sense: both institutions could make life more palatable for the individual by offering a “pay as you go” program.<p>
The differences, however, were significant: the department store still required a deliberate volitional act of payment from the consumer monthly. The government required neither consent nor willingness, nor even awareness, on the part of the worker.<p>
<blockquote>Ruml hadn’t invented withholding. His genius was to make its introduction palatable by adding a powerful sweetener: the federal government would offer a tax amnesty for the previous year, allowing confused and indebted citizens to start on new footing. It was the most ambitious bait-and-switch plan in America’s history.</blockquote><p>
The advantage of the withholding tax was that it made the process more comfortable for the taxpayer. But comfort is not freedom. By analogy, one might add sugar to poison to make it easier to consume, but it remains poisonous. The withholding tax was easier to endure, but in the end, the government still confiscated a worker’s money.<p>
Taxpayers were faced with painful choices. In the absence of a withholding plan, some taxpayers took on debt in order to pay the massive annual tax bill. Withholding would avoid this debt. It also helped the war effort, and in 1943, as Amity Shlaes writes, that was loyal thing to do:<p>
<blockquote>Ruml advertised his project as a humane effort to smooth life in the disruption of the war. He noted it was a way to help taxpayers out of the habit of carrying income tax debt, debt that he characterized as “a pernicious fungus permeating the structure of things.” The move was also patriotic.</blockquote><p>
The mechanism for orchestrating a withholding tax at all would have been technically daunting. To orchestrate it in a short period of time would have been impossible. But something made it possible: the government had already put in place a similar system to collect taxpayer’s money for the Social Security system.<p>
Implementing the withholding program was very possible, even in a short period of time, because of the organizational infrastructure of the Social Security program. The IRS could simply piggyback on Social Security collections.<p>
<blockquote>Ruml had several reasons for wagering that his project would work. One was that Americans, smarting from the Japanese assault, were now willing to sacrifice more than any other point in memory. The second was that the federal government would be able to administer withholding - six successful years of Social Security showed that the government, for the first time ever, was able to handle such a mass program of revenue collection. The third was packaging. He called his program not “collection at the source” or “withholding,” two technical terms for what he was doing. Instead he chose a zippier name: “pay as you go.”</blockquote><p>
In addition to a more palatable name, the new withholding system had advocates and fans among the economic experts of the day. John Maynard Keynes saw taxes, not only as a method for collecting needed revenue for the government, but as a method for regulating the macroeconomy. Keynes advised that, in some circumstances, governments should collect taxes even if they don’t need the money.<p>
The withholding system allowed the government to easily and quickly change or increase the amount of taxes it was collecting, and so respond in Keynesian fashion to changes in the economic environment.<p>
Ruml’s plan went from paying the government’s bills to managing the entire economy by increasing, suddenly and at will, the amount of money being taken from each worker’s paycheck.<p>
<blockquote>The policy thinkers of the day embraced the Ruml arrangement. This was an era in which John Maynard Keynes dominated the world of economics. The Keynesians placed enormous faith in government. The one thing they liked about the war was that it demonstrated to the world all the miracles that Big Government could work. The Ruml plan would give them the wherewithal to have their projects even, they sensed, after the war ended. Keynesianism also said high taxes were crucial to controlling inflation. The Keynesians saw withholding as the right tool for getting those necessary high taxes.</blockquote><p>
After a few years, some of the experts began to question the wisdom of the withholding plan. One of them, Milton Friedman, later regretted promoting the withholding program, and contended that it should be dismantled, as Amity Shlaes reports:<p>
<blockquote>Among withholding’s backers was the man who was later to become the world’s leading free-market economist, Milton Friedman. Decades after the war, Friedman called for the abolition of the withholding system. In his memoirs he wrote that “we concentrated single-mindedly on promoting the war effort. We gave next to no consideration to any longer-run consequences. It never occurred to me at the time that I was helping to develop machinery that would make possible a government that I would come to criticize severely as too large, too intrusive, too destructive of freedom. Yet, that was precisely what I was doing.” With an almost audible sigh, Friedman added: “There is an important lesson here. It is far easier to introduce a government program than to get rid of it.”</blockquote><p>
Milton Friedman said, in an interview:<p>
<blockquote>I played a significant role, no question about it, in introducing withholding. I think it's a great mistake for peacetime, but in 1941–43, all of us were concentrating on the war. I have no apologies for it, but I really wish we hadn't found it necessary and I wish there were some way of abolishing withholding now.</blockquote><p>
One may note the general principle that wartime allows governments to take drastic actions which would not be countenanced in peacetime. People are willing to tolerate decisions made as necessary emergency actions during war. The sad lesson is that, with the advent of peace, the wartime controls often remain in the hands of the government.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-49934037964514450302022-04-06T08:36:00.005-04:002022-04-06T08:36:55.495-04:00Roosevelt’s Manic Start: The Chaos of the New DealThe election of 1932 was an expression of desperate hope. Poverty and unemployment were at high levels and threatened to go even higher. The campaigns of Hoover and Roosevelt were based more on sentiment than specific policy proposals.<p>
Roosevelt projected hope and optimism. One of the few specific actions he presented to voters was that he would support the repeal of the eighteenth amendment. Procedurally, however, the amendment was repealed by the individual states. Roosevelt’s presidential appeal on the topic was at best symbolic, but also utterly ineffectual and irrelevant.<p>
The Democrats had lost the 1928 presidential election. They thought that one reason for the loss was that their candidate, Al Smith, was a Roman Catholic. So in 1932, they nominated Roosevelt, a Protestant. There was, in fact, some anti-Catholic sentiment in the nation at that time; it is difficult to determine, however, whether that sentiment played a major role in the out come of the 1928 election.<p>
Voter sentiment was against Hoover, rightly or wrongly blaming him for the Great Depression.<p>
In the end, Roosevelt won by a landslide.<p>
The nation was eager to see what Roosevelt would do when he took office. Because the campaign had been vague on details, the public wasn’t sure which actions he would take. He’d promised to take measures dramatically and swiftly, as historian Amity Shlaes writes:<p>
<blockquote>By the time of his inauguration back on March 4, everyone knew that Roosevelt would experiment with the economy. But no one knew to what extent. Now, in his first year in office, Roosevelt was showing them. He would present it all in what came to be known as the Hundred Days, that first frenzied period of legislative activity.</blockquote><p>
Roosevelt’s actions were quick and significant, but not necessarily consistent or planned. His approach was one of experimentation. He simply wanted to what would work.<p>
Two major obstacles confronted FDR. First, the stakes were high to simply experiment: people’s livelihoods were at risk. Second, so many variables were changed and changing that discerning cause and effect was difficult or impossible.<p>
Several of FDR’s goals were in tension with each other: He hoped to raise prices, to increase income for both companies and workers. Yet an increase in price could lead to weaker demand, reducing sales and subsequently income.<p>
The president and the nation were, however, impatient and not willing to conduct careful analysis. They simply wanted to see action, and they hoped that action would bring improvement, even if the action was random, as Amity Shlaes explains:<p>
<blockquote>The main tasks Roosevelt assigned himself were simple. The first was that there be a broad sweep of activity; Americans must know Washington was doing something. If there were contradictions between experiments and within them, well, that did not matter.</blockquote><p>
So it was, then, that measures were taken to reduce agricultural output, even as food shortages shaped the market. No serious thought was given to the decreased income to farmers.<p>
Likewise, the New Deal would inevitably lead to increased taxation and increased national debt, sooner or later, and those phenomena would similarly slow the economy.<p>
The New Deal, which ultimately failed to offer significant help — economic variables hadn’t improved by 1937 — was the result of sentiment rather than analysis: a chaotic flurry of activity.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-74134319323354701012022-04-06T07:33:00.004-04:002022-04-06T07:33:54.690-04:00Turning the Corner: How and When Slavery Began to End in the AmericasStudents who know even a small amount about United States History, or American History, are aware that slavery existed. That’s not new knowledge.<p>
What is less well known is that slavery existed in the Americas — North America, Central America, and South America — not for centuries, but for millennia: not for hundreds of years, but for thousands of years. Slavery was ubiquitous in the Americas.<p>
This means that slavery cannot be treated merely as “a tangential part of the country’s history,” in the words of journalist Joe Heim, or as “an unfortunate blemish.” Slavery was an essential and pervasive feature of pre-Columbian cultures.<p>
It is well documented that civilizations like the Inca, the Aztec, and the Maya were based on slavery. It is less well understood that slavery permeated the areas which are now Canada and the United States.<p>
Given that slavery was everywhere established as a foundation of pre-Columbian societies in the Americas, the questions can be posed: How did slavery end? When did anti-slavery and abolitionist sentiments appear in the Americas?<p>
The first permanent and enduring settlement in what would become the original thirteen states of the United States was, of course, Jamestown in Virginia, founded in 1607. Within a few years, the anti-slavery view had become so prevelant that slavery was outlawed in Rhode Island in 1652, creating for the first time in history a defined territory in the Americas in which slavery was illegal.<p>
After hundreds and thousands of years, for the first time ever, there was a place in the Americas in which slavery was now longer perceived by society as the natural default circumstance. The inhumane institution of chattel slavery, kept in place for millennia, finally began to crumble after the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the ensuing settlements in North America.<p>
Although the first radical break with slavery began in the early 1600s, it would last many years until the last traces of it were erased from the hemisphere. The eradication of slavery proceeded in steps. First, the majority of the population in the majority of the United States got rid of slavery. But a few states clung fiercely to slavery: the result was the bloodiest military conflict in U.S. history.<p>
Because of the magnitude of the U.S. Civil War, and the fact that the war was caused largely by slavery, Joe Heim notes that people sometimes think of slavery “primarily as a factor in the Civil War.” But slavery is much more than the major cause of this war.<p>
Slavery is a defining characteristic of pre-Columbian indigenous civilizations in the Americas. It was omnipresent in the Western Hemisphere until settlements of Europeans established themselves on the continents.<p>
Sadly, some of the European were enchanted by the ways of the indigenous Native Americans and adopted the practice of slavery. Ultimately, slavery had to be purged not only out of the indigenous societies, but also out of some of the Anglo-European settlers.<p>
The institution of slavery was so persistent that it took several centuries of European presence to finally eradicate chattel slavery.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-25834483836982719272022-04-05T07:59:00.005-04:002022-04-05T07:59:29.466-04:00African-American Leaders during the Great Depression: The Government Is Incapable, so Citizens Take ActionDuring the Great Depression, the ingenuity of ordinary citizens was fueled by their challenging circumstances. The overworked phrases of “thinking outside the box” and “necessity being the mother of invention” are correctly applied to this phenomenon.<p>
Given the government's inability to make meaningful inroads against economic hardships — in 1937, things were as bad, or worse, than they were in 1932, despite five years of FDR’s “New Deal” — everyday people had to find ways to survive.<p>
Beyond merely surviving, they found ways to uplift and encourage their communities: ways to develop and strengthen a sense of neighborliness. As examples, historian Amity Shlaes offers two African-American leaders who understood that when the government is unable to help, common citizens could step up and achieve great things:<p>
<blockquote>Even the poorest communities, including the blacks, found their own response to joblessness and hunger. In Washington, Solomon Elder Lightfoot Michaux, a radio preacher, reached millions with his “Happy Am I” aphorisms. Michaux fed the hungry and maintained apartment houses for those evicted. Another figure in the black community to respond was Father Divine on Long Island. He began to expand the Sunday banquets served at his Sayville residence. What stood out about Father Divine’s meals was that they were the opposite of apples on the corner or soup kitchen food. Father Divine’s meals were luxurious. The coffee percolated; the roasts - chickens, ducks - were plentiful; the vegetables were splendid. “We charge nothing,” Father Divine ordained. “Anyone, man, woman, or child, regardless of race, color or creed can come here naked and we will clothe them, hungry and will will feed them.”</blockquote><p>
After the Great Depression and after WW2, Lightfoot Solomon Michaux went on to host his own television show starting in 1947. (In 1948 the show went from a regional broadcast to a national one.) It is significant that an African-American was hosting a TV program at this early date in the development of regular commercial broadcasting. Elder Michaux was born in Virginia in 1885.<p>
Father Divine is often alleged to be the source of the phrase “you’ve got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative,” which was later made into a popular song. Father Divine remains a mysterious figure: his exact birth date, birth place, and original legal name remain unclear.<p>
The lesson from Elder Michaux and Father Divine is this: The people can’t wait for the government to fix problems, because it usually doesn’t or can’t. The people can work together, and work around the government, to make life better for their communities.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-73478370168390952962022-03-25T08:49:00.005-04:002022-03-25T09:42:01.673-04:00American Women Advance in the 19th Century: The 1800s as an Era of Growth for Women’s Rights in the United StatesDuring the 1800s, the legal and social status of women in the United States improved significantly. Historians can document this development in a number of specific instances.<p>
Women in the U.S. began voting in 1869. The first state to enact women’s suffrage was Wyoming, quickly followed by other states. By the end of the century, the majority of women in the country had a legislative guarantee for their right to vote.<p>
Likewise, women began serving on juries during the 1800s. They served on an equal basis with men. In this development, too, Wyoming was the first state to promote the practice of having men and women serve equally on juries. After Wyoming began this custom in 1870, several other states followed suit.<p>
By 1864, it was established legal precedent for women to testify in court: a woman’s statement was admitted into evidence on the same basis as a man’s statement. It is difficult to determine exactly when the practice began, but in 1864, Senator James Harlan, a lawyer himself, cited the practice in the <i>Congressional Globe</i> as well-established. (The <i>Globe</i> is the predecessor to the <i>Congressional Record</i>).<p>
Women were elected to public office during the 1800s. Susanna Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, in 1887. Julia Addington was elected as a county superintendent of schools in Iowa in 1869. Annie White Baxter was elected as a county clerk in Missouri in 1890. In 1896, Martha Hughes Cannon was elected a state senator in Utah.<p>
Many more examples can be named: In 1894, Colorado elected three women to its legislature — Clara Cressingham, Carrie Holly, and Francis Klock.<p>
Lauren Eisenhuth was elected in 1892 to be the state superintendent of public instruction in North Dakota. In 1898, Permeal French was elected to be the superintendent of public instruction in Idaho.<p>
This trend — women becoming empowered in electoral politics and empowered in the legal justice system — began in the western states, perhaps because men and women often worked as a team, creating homesteads out of undeveloped land. This trend also took root where most voters identified with the Republican Party: the Republicans, having succeeded in their primary goal of abolishing slavery, turned to women’s rights as their next major task.<p>
By contrast, the Democratic Party, having lost the U.S. Civil War, still felt the sting of defeat, and was not energized to pursue any major political initiatives.<p>
The list of women elected to public office in the 1800s is much longer than can be presented here.<p>
By 1888, the mayor and all the members of the city council in Oskaloosa, Kansas, were women. In 1887, all the members of the city council in Syracuse, Kansas, were women.<p>
Women made great advances in higher education during the nineteenth century. In 1836, women began studying at Wesleyan College; in 1837 at Oberlin College. In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from medical school at Geneva Medical College in New York, earning her M.D.<p>
Rebecca Lee Crumpler earned her M.D. in Boston in 1864.<p>
In 1858, Sarah Jane Woodson Early became a professor at Wilberforce College.<p>
By 1899, it was common for women to be enrolled at universities and colleges across America.<p>
Armed with professional degrees, women made their way into various careers. In 1869, Arabella Mansfield became the first woman admitted to the bar and granted a law license in the United States. By 1879, women who were lawyers were arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.<p>
In 1870, Ada Kepley became the first woman to be a judge in the United States.<p>
By the end of the century, women were regularly graduating from law school and practicing as attorneys across the United States.<p>
The long list of other developments during the 1800s in the United States includes: Women were recognized as having full legal agency to negotiate, conclude, and sign contracts; to own and inherit property; and to keep or invest their earnings.<p>
Although it was not until 1916 that Jeanette Rankin was elected as the first woman to serve in the United States Congress, her election was the result of the advancements made during the preceding century.<p>
The nineteenth amendment, ratified in August 1920, guaranteed women’s right to vote, but it was by that point in time a merely symbolic act. It wasn’t needed because women had already been voting for half a century.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-13350710693922813012022-01-12T07:23:00.004-05:002022-01-12T07:23:49.360-05:00A Painful Struggle: America Works to Defeat SlaveryThe development of the United States is one of continuously expanding freedom. From times before the nation’s beginning in 1776, the America made progress along various lines in the direction of increasing liberty.<p>
The gravest and greatest of these steps was, of course, the elimination of slavery. The majority of Americans resisted slavery: the first slaves were imported into Brazil and other South American regions in 1510, but North America was able to hold out against slavery for more than another century.<p>
Prior to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation, the majority of the residents in the majority of the thirteen colonies opposed slavery. Led by Roger Wiliams, Rhode Island made slavery illegal in 1652. Samuel Sewall published abolitionist writings in Massachusetts as early as 1700.<p>
In all thirteen colonies, energetic abolitionist movements were at work prior to 1776.<p>
Once the nation was established as independent from Britain, is was clear that the “Founders wanted to abolish slavery,” as Ben Shapiro writes:<p>
<blockquote>From its founding, the United States attempted to come to grips with slavery and phase it out. The state of Vermont was the first sovereign state to abolish slavery, in 1777.</blockquote><p>
Thomas Jefferson wrote that King George III “waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither.” Rebellion against England’s king was a step toward ending slavery.<p>
Although slavery vanished from most of the original thirteen states, and from those later added to the union, it stubbornly resisted American efforts to eradicate it from some of the states, particularly those which had integrated it into agricultural economies of tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane.<p>
Continuing the struggle against slavery, the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, including the famous and controversial “three-fifths clause.” This phrase was introduced as an anti-slavery tactic: It both created a congnitive dissonance by its disconcerting logic, and denied power to a bloc of pro-slavery states. Ben Shapiro explains:<p>
<blockquote>The Constitution of the United States is frequently seen as enshrining slavery, but the so-called three-fifths clause was an attempt to do the opposite. The whole question of popular apportionment rested on whether to count slaves as full people for purposes of representation. To do so would have put the slaveholding south at a significant <i>advantage</i>: they would have counted slaves in their population, not allowed them to vote, then used their increased representation in order to re-enshrine slavery. As James Madison noted, the delegates from South Carolina fought for blacks to be counted as whole people so as to include them “in the rule of representation, equally with the Whites.” The three-fifths compromise was designed to curb the South’s expansionist tendencies with regard to slavery by preventing them from stacking the electoral deck. The Constitution also allowed slave importation to continue until 1808 — but Congress moved in 1807 to end it there.</blockquote><p>
By 1807, then, the U.S. was ahead of schedule in its efforts to end slavery. A small but entrenched group of leaders continued to support slavery.<p>
The final end of slavery was possible because the nation’s economy was based, not on slavery, but on free enterprise. Not only was the industrial part of the country not dependent on slavery, but rather it actively opposed slavery.<p>
Yet abolitionism was not confined to any one part of the United States. Before and during the war, significant abolitionist movements existed in all states. The South was not a united monolithic pro-slavery bloc.<p>
For at least these two reasons, then, a massive amount of energy was poured into the war to end slavery: because the larger part of the economy did not rely on slavery, and because the larger part of society was opposed to slavery:<p>
<blockquote>The United States fought a great and massive Civil War to free the slaves, in which over 620,000 Americans died, nearly half the total number of Americans to die in all wars combined. The economy of the United States was not built on slavery — in fact, the South’s economic power was dismal compared to that of the north, which is why the north was able to overcome the south during the Civil War.</blockquote><p>
Between 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and 1865, when the Civil War ended, America achieved its goal of ending slavery.<p>
In South America, Brazil kept slavery long after the United States had ended it. Slavery was not abolished Brazil until 1888. Likewise, Cuba maintained slavery until 1886.<p>
The movement to abolish slavery in the United States was part of a larger trend to expand freedom for all people. As soon as the Civil War was over, and slavery was gone, this movement went on to obtain another great goal. The abolitionist movement gave birth to the suffrage movement, with the goal of women voting. The same political party, the part of Lincoln, energized both movements. By 1869 — not 1920 as sometimes reported — women in the United States began voting regularly.<p>
Throughout American history, the nation has worked to increase liberty, expanding suffrage to larger and larger segments of society, creating more economic opportunities, and allowing more and varied forms of expression.<p>
The common thread which connects the points of U.S. history from the 1600s to the present is the persistent drive to expand freedom.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-4354709505849635442022-01-10T15:46:00.006-05:002022-01-10T15:50:31.916-05:00Some People Are Citizens, Others Are Residents: What’s the Difference?Usually people are citizens of the country in which they live, but not always. A person can live in one country, and yet be a citizen of a different country.<p>
A person could be an American citizen, but never have been in the United States at any point in her or his entire life. Another person might live in the U.S. for 20, 30, or 40 years, and yet not be a citizen.<p>
A citizen has rights, privileges, duties, and obligations. Each of those words has specific meaning: Rights belong to citizens, and citizens can legally claim their rights; rights cannot be legally denied to citizens. Privileges are given to citizens, but can be taken away legally. A duty is something that you should do, but which nobody will force you to do. An obligation is some that you’re required to do, and somebody will force you to do it.<p>
This can be made clear with examples: Freedom of the press is a right; people can print whatever they want on a piece of paper. To drive 70 miles per hour is a privilege; the government could change the speed limit to 60 miles per hour and people would have no recourse. To vote is a duty; citizens should do it, but they are not forced to do it. To pay taxes is an obligation; if people try to avoid doing it, they will be forced to do it.<p>
Non-citizen residents do not have as many rights and privileges as citizens. Victor Davis Hansen writes:<p>
<blockquote>A resident of America should be easily distinguished from a citizen by the etymologies of the respective two nouns. “Resident” derives from the Latin <i>residere</i>, “to sit down or settle.” It denotes the concrete fact of living in a particular place. In contrast, “citizen” entails a quality, a privilege of enjoying particular rights predicated on responsibilities — and not necessarily on location at any given time.</blockquote><p>
If a citizen of the United States happens to be in Norway on the day of a Norwegian election, the U.S. citizen does not get to vote in Norway, even though he’s there in that country, because he’s not a citizen of Norway.<p>
Likewise, if a citizen of Norway happens to be in the United States on the day of a U.S. election, the Norwegian does not get to vote in the U.S., even though he’s right there on election day, because he’s not a citizen of the U.S.<p>
Citizenship is not about a person’s race or religion; it’s not about a person’s gender or age. It’s about a piece of paper; it’s about the government under which you are. There are approximately 195 countries in the world. Every human being is a citizen of one of them.<p>
Are there exceptions? Yes. A small number of people have dual citizenship, or multiple citizenships. But the governments involved place pressure on them to select one citizenship to the exclusion of others, once they reach the age of adulthood, sometime between age 18 and age 25, depending on the country. There is also a very small number of people who have no citizenship; they are usually considered criminals. Victor Davis Hanson explains:<p>
<blockquote>An American resident can be a citizen or subject of any foreign nation who just happens to be living within the boundaries of the United States. US citizens, however, are entitled to constitutional protections wherever they go — to the extent possible given the constraints of their hosts. Most specifically, citizenship ensures the right to a US passport and, with it, leave and return to America whenever one wishes.</blockquote><p>
Having a citizenship doesn’t determine who you are, what you believe, or which political opinions you have. Simply because a person is a citizen of Germany or Switzerland, or of Poland or Czechia, doesn’t mean that she or he will love or hate certain people, or vote a certain way. It merely means that they are registered with a certain government.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-63404888856760587922022-01-07T16:11:00.001-05:002022-01-07T16:11:09.883-05:00The American Identity: A Nation Built on the Idea of FreedomIn the first few decades of the twenty-first century, the word ‘identity’ has gained a new, larger, and different role in society and in politics. This trend started already at the end of the twentieth century. Therefore it might be, in the context of American History, well and fitting to ask about “the nation’s enduring identity” in the words of Ben Shapiro.<p>
What is it that lies at the core of the identity of the United States? Part of the answer lies in the fact that it is founded on ideas. Most, or even all, previous nation-states were founded on the concept of a dynasty: that the right to rule was the property of a family — one particular family, the royal family — and that like other property, could be handed down through inheritance. The United States is different: It is a nation based on ideas.<p>
In other words, there is a choice in history: either a nation-state is founded on the exclusive hereditary rights of a dynastic family to rule, or it is founded on concepts.<p>
In the case of the United States, the ideas on which the nation is founded include: liberty, freedom, equality, and the rule of law.<p>
Liberty and freedom are slightly different, but those minutiae can be left to philosophers instead of historians. The “rule of law” is worth understanding: This concept speaks about the uniform, neutral, and equal application of laws to any citizen in a nation. The speed limit on a local road, e.g., is the same, even if the driver happens to be a congressman or a senator, even if the driver happens to be wealthy or influential. Anyone caught driving faster than the speed limit is liable to get a ticket and liable to have to pay the fine.<p>
The United States is founded on these ideas, but it has not always implemented them perfectly. American history is a series of steps toward ever-increasing levels of freedom; that path has not always been smooth or direct.<p>
From its earliest beginnings, the United States worked to eliminate slavery. When, e.g., Samuel Sewall published an abolitionist book in 1700, he was already preceded by a 1652 law, passed by the Rhode Island legislature, which outlawed slavery there. The law, encouraged by Roger Williams, was unevenly enforced, but nonetheless manifests the will of the people of Rhode Island.<p>
This same Roger Williams found his motives for opposing slavery to be united with his motives for nudging America away from British rule, revealing the American spirit to be, from its very beginnings, an abolitionist spirit. A majority of the residents of the thirteen colonies opposed slavery.<p>
Despite a strong abolitionist sentiment, it took considerable time to finally abolish slavery. It was not until Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War — i.e., until some point in time between 1863 and 1865 — that slavery in the United States was finally ended.<p>
Which leaves us with a painful and perplexing question: Why, then, did slavery persist in other nations around the world? Why did slavery persist in Cuba until 1886 and in Brazil until 1888? In Madagascar until 1896 and in Egypt until 1904? In Thailand until 1905 and in China until 1909?<p>
The answer, in part, lies in the foundation of the United States on the idea of freedom. Other nations were founded one one group — one family — claiming the right to exercise power over everyone else in the nation.<p>
People in various nations around the world looked at the United States and hoped to copy the American pattern — they hoped to gain the same freedoms and rights for themselves in their various nations. As historian Ben Shapiro writes:<p>
<blockquote>European colonists arrived in America in order to establish a country founded on principles of liberty and religious toleration. America is guilty of many sins in its past — but the principles enshrined in the Constitution are eternal and good. The Constitution’s central natural law principles laid forth the notions of individual liberty and rights to one’s own labor — and over time, those rights would be perfected in the United States, not through centralized government, but through good people struggling to bring about change through blood and sacrifice and persuasion.</blockquote><p>
In the United States, not only was slavery ended, but the right to own property and the right to vote was extended to citizens of all races; in the world today, there are other nations which allow only some people to vote, and not others. In the United States, a person of any race can be a citizen; in other nations, only people of certain races can be citizens.<p>
In the U.S., women as well as men can vote; in other nations in the world today, women are deprived of full suffrage and not allowed to vote as men vote.<p>
In the U.S., a citizen’s vote is counted as equal to the vote of any other citizen, regardless of wealth. In other nations today, only the wealthy are allowed to vote.<p>
In the words of Ben Shapiro, there is a collection of ideas which constitute “the system upon which our freedoms and prosperity is based.” In addition to the ideas mentioned above, there are ideas like popular sovereignty — the idea that the legitimacy of the government is found in the consent of the governed; a government is valid only if those who are governed by it give their consent to be so governed.<p>
Another foundational principle in the United States is the idea of majority rule. Because the U.S. allows citizens to vote equally, regardless of gender, race, religion, or wealth, it is the majority of ordinary people who can decide major questions of government.<p>
Around the world, the U.S. has served as an example of a nation-state governed by freely-elected representatives. Political revolutionaries and political reformers in other countries have studied the U.S. carefully, and worked to replicate its success. “The truth is, America, while certainly not perfect, has long been a beacon of hope,” as Ben Shapiro notes. “America’s founding principles and documents have allowed it to become a model of freedom and democracy for the world.”<p>
Even those nations which are harshly critical of the United States, even those which firmly oppose the United States, still copy the principles which were first articulated and put into action during the American Revolution of 1776.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-68377871804909722162021-09-08T15:37:00.002-04:002021-09-08T15:37:19.014-04:00How Jefferson Davis Escaped the Death Penalty: Why the Leader of the Confederacy was Never ExecutedAfter the U.S. Civil War ended, the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, was considered to be a wanted criminal, guilty of treason, as historian Ronald Shafter writes:<p>
<blockquote>The Confederate leader’s prospects were grim in April 1865 after the South surrendered and President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The new president, Johnson, ordered a $100,000 reward — equal to about $1.8 million now — for the capture of Davis, who was fleeing into the South.</blockquote><p>
After a manhunt by the Union Army, he was captured in Georgia in May 1865. It was widely assumed that he would be convicted of treason and sentenced to death.<p>
Jefferson Davis sat in jail for nearly two years before he was allowed to post bail and await his eventual trial.<p>
President Andrew Johnson, who’d taken office upon the death of Lincoln, began his administration by at first demanding stern justice for the leaders of the Confederacy. As time went on, however, President Johnson began to feel more sympathy for the Confederate officials, who were after all part of the same Democratic Party as Johnson himself.<p>
Eventually, Johnson went so far as to bring<p>
<blockquote>Southern white supremacists back into the government while resisting new rights for black citizens. After Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the House impeached Johnson, and his trial in the Senate was scheduled for March 1868 — the same month as Davis’s trial.</blockquote><p>
The trial of President Johnson was protracted, and absorbed so much political energy and public attention, that the trial of Jefferson Davis was delayed again and again. Johnson was eventually acquitted and allowed to remain as president.<p>
Even the Republicans, who’d unswervingly opposed slavery, began to point out that it was unjust to deny a speedy trial. In December 1868, President Johnson issued a pardon to his fellow Democrat Jefferson Davis. Johnson left office to spend a few years away from politics, but was eventually elected to the U.S. Senate.<p>
Jefferson Davis worked in several different businesses after being pardoned by Johnson, eventually becoming the president of an insurance company. He outlived Johnson and “died in 1889 at age 81, unrepentant.” He never expressed any regret for defending slavery, for the rebellion, or for the war.<p>
As the leader of the rebellion, Davis was prevented from engaging in the political process or running for elected office, but his connection to various leaders in the Democratic Party continued until his death. Nearly a century later, it would be a Democratic president who paid the final honor to Jefferson Davis:<p>
<blockquote>In 1978, President Jimmy Carter went one up on Johnson, signing a bill restoring Davis’s full U.S. citizenship rights to bring a close to “the long process of reconciliation” after the Civil War.</blockquote><p>
It was Andrew Johnson who inadvertently ended up saving Davis’s life: had Johnson’s impeachment trial not exhausted the nation, Davis would have gotten a speedy trial, and most probably executed quickly thereafter.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-59272036189098023872021-07-22T09:59:00.003-04:002021-07-22T09:59:55.798-04:00Bringing Music to America: Marian AndersonMarian Anderson was born in 1897 in Philadelphia, and even as a child, her musical talent was obvious. She was an excellent vocalist, and sang in the choir at the Union Baptist Church.<p>
As a young adult, she travelled to Europe to get classical voice training and thereby put the finishing touches on her musical education. She was able to work with significant composers, performers, and conductors. It was also easier in Europe for her, as a Black woman, to have access to high-level specialists in the field of vocal music.<p>
Anderson was involved with music at an advanced degree, as historian Kira Thurman writes:<p>
<blockquote>Anderson spent much of the 1930s living in German-speaking Europe, where she studied and performed the music of German composers such as Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf.</blockquote><p>
In 1957, President Eisenhower invited her to sing at his second inauguration. It was the first time an African American had performed at a presidential inauguration. Eisenhower invited Marian Anderson to sing at the White House on several different occasions.<p>
In that same year, Eisenhower appointed her to be goodwill ambassador for the United States; in that capacity, she toured a number of countries. Eisenhower then appointed her to be a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.<p>
The next year, in 1958 Eisenhower named Marian Anderson to be a full delegate to the United Nations.<p>
Although known as an American artist, Marian Anderson’s career began in Europe, as Kira Thurman notes:<p>
<blockquote>She had actually become an international sensation much earlier: in 1935 at the Salzburg Festival in Austria. There, the conductor Arturo Toscanini told Anderson that she had a voice “heard once every hundred years.”</blockquote><p>
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan invited Marian Anderson to the White House, where he awarded her the National Medal of Arts.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-30762978735599674192021-06-30T14:27:00.004-04:002021-06-30T14:27:47.229-04:00The Spies and the Evidence: Soviet Operatives and the Venona ProjectThe Cold War, as commonly understood, lasted approximately from 1946 to 1990. But the history of Soviet espionage networks inside the United States goes back much further. One key element of those networks was the Communist Party in the U.S. (CPUSA).<p>
Far from being a political party, taking positions on issues and nominating candidates for elections, the CPUSA was organized to steal military and diplomatic secrets, to influence American government decision-making, and to keep ready a sabotage organization. The CPUSA was prepared to use violence if the moment came for an armed revolution inside the United States.<p>
The U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service was aware of the CPUSA’s activities. Sophisticated mathematics and technology were coordinated in the Venona Project, which confirmed “the involvement of American Communists with Soviet espionage during World War II,” in the words of Maurice Isserman.<p>
The Venona project intercepted and decrypted messages to Moscow from operatives inside the U.S. These messages, directed to intelligence agencies in the Soviet Union, revealed details “about the involvement of several score (perhaps as many as 300) American Communists as accomplices of Soviet espionage during World War II.”<p>
The Soviet Socialst government had a collection of intelligence agencies, with names like NKVD. The famous KGB wasn’t formed until 1954.<p>
Although the Venona Project began yielding data as early as 1943, it was not made public until many years later. Even within the U.S. government, very few people knew about Venona. It was imperative to keep it secret, so that the Soviet Socialists didn’t know that Americans were able to intercept their communications, as Maurice Isserman writes:<p>
<blockquote>“Venona” was the code name assigned a top-secret National Security Agency operation, whose existence was revealed to historians and the public only in 1995. During World War II, codebreakers from the United States Army’s Signal Intelligence Service (a precursor to the National Security Agency) began decrypting thousands of intercepted telegraphic cables sent from the Soviet Embassy and consulates in the United States to Moscow. Among the first decoded Venona cables was conclusive evidence that Soviet spies had managed to penetrate America’s most closely guarded wartime secret, the Manhattan Project. Later decoded messages helped lead F.B.I. agents to an American involved in atomic espionage.</blockquote><p>
Among other spies, Julius Rosenberg and his wife Ethel were discovered by the Venona Project. The Rosenbergs transmitted secret information about nuclear weapons to the Soviet. These transmissions enabled the Soviets to develop their own arsenal of highly destructive weapons. Small and large nations were hesitant to oppose or resist Soviet takeovers of weaker countries. Thus the Rosenbergs were complicit in the deaths of millions of people who died under these Soviet-sponsored dictatorships.<p>
The Venona Project, which lasted in various forms until 1980, revealed not only contemporaneous Soviet espionage, but also earlier spy activity. Cases going back to the 1930s were uncovered:<p>
<blockquote>From small beginnings in the 30’s, Soviet espionage efforts in the United States increased exponentially during the war years. Pro-Soviet Americans, many of them secret members of the Communist Party, working within such sensitive agencies as the State Department, the Treasury Department and the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the C.I.A., provided K.G.B. agents with reams of useful information, ranging from well-informed political comments to purloined classified documents. Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White are among those whose long-suspected involvement in such activities seems to be confirmed by the Venona cables.</blockquote><p>
Some individuals, confronted with evidence from the Venona Project, quickly “defected” and began working for the Americans, and were able to provide even more information about the Soviet Socialist spy network inside the U.S. One such individual was “Elizabeth Bentley, the notorious ‘spy queen’ who gathered information for transmission to Moscow from dozens of Federal employees.”<p>
Other Soviet agents did not cooperate with the U.S. government after their crimes were discovered. They were dealt with, but in low-profile ways, so as not to attract attention and alert the Soviets to the fact the the Americans were able to intercept their communications:<p>
<blockquote>Some of those compromised by their activities during the war left Government service voluntarily; others departed under suspicion and pressure. A few, most notably Hiss, suffered legal consequences. One of the ironies of the Venona Project was that while it helped the F.B.I. detect spies, it did little to enable their prosecution by the Justice Department; the last thing American intelligence services wanted to see at the height of the cold war was a lengthy courtroom discussion of the means by which they were able to ferret out the opposition's agents.</blockquote><p>
So even after being discovered by the U.S. intelligence agencies, the “hidden landscape of Soviet espionage in the United States in the 30’s and 40’s” remained largely unknown. Only a few specialists inside the U.S. government knew about the Soviet spies, their activities, and how the Americans eventually discovered and deactivated them.<p>
Most of these spies did not do their work because they needed money, or because the Soviets were blackmailing them, although both of those scenarios did occasionally occur. Most of them did it because they embraced the Soviet ideology. Whether they understood what the Soviets were really doing, or whether they were under the illusion of an idealized version of Soviet Socialism, is difficult to discern. Maurice Isserman writes:<p>
<blockquote>Many of them, of course, understood perfectly well the real purpose of the persistent inquiries from Bentley and the other American go-betweens who came by trolling for information. Looking back at their actions and the consequences of those actions, knowing what we now know about the horrific character of the Soviet Union in the Stalin years, knowing also the ultimate fate of the Communist system and ideology, I find it difficult to make the imaginative leap necessary to understand why they did it.</blockquote><p>
In any case, the danger from Soviet Socialist espionage, from the 1930s up to the 1980s, was greater than most Americans knew. Happily, the heroism of American cryptographers during those years was also greater than most people knew.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-86460815399058626872021-06-11T07:51:00.000-04:002021-06-11T07:51:12.512-04:00The Early American Militia: The Structure of Democracy and FreedomThe early settlers of the Thirteen Colonies, i.e., the settlers of the region that would become the United States, were faced with questions about how to provide for their own defense. Each colony, and each village within each colony, formed a militia unit. A ‘militia’ unit is a group of trained and armed citizens who are not professional soldiers, who are not paid, and who are not part of the army.<p>
Members of a militia are ordinary people who have regular jobs: lawyers, farmers, teachers, nurses, cooks, etc. When there is a need for defensive action, they meet their fellow militia members as a military unit. When the action is over, they return to their everyday lives.<p>
During the 1600s and 1700s, the militia was the primary defensive force in British North America. The British army was present, but proved to be less effective, and more expensive, than the militia groups. Residents of the Thirteen Colonies resented the fact that they had to pay taxes to pay for this useless presence. As historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write,<p>
<blockquote>The most important response to the dangerous military realities was the creation of a militia system in each colony. The British military heritage, the all-pervasive sense of military insecurity, and the inability of the economically poor colonies to maintain an expensive professional army all combined to guarantee that the Elizabethan militia would be transplanted to the North American wilderness. No colonial institution was more complex than the militia. In many respects it was static and homogeneous, varying little from colony to colony and from generation to generation. Yet the militia was also evolutionary and heterogeneous, as diverse as the thirteen colonies and ever-changing within individual colonies.</blockquote><p>
The concept of the militia was shaped by democracy and equality. Rich or poor, men were equally obliged to serve in the militia, and served side-by-side. The militia was an expression of the community, and the people spoke of “our” militia.<p>
The soldiers in the army, on the other hand, were not part of the community. They were from far away. They had no affection for, or loyalty to, the local villages. Quite the opposite: such soldiers were often problems for the neighborhood residents.<p>
<blockquote>At the heart of the militia was the principle of universal military obligation for all able-bodied males. Colonial laws regularly declared that all able-bodied men between certain ages automatically belonged to the militia. Yet within the context of this immutable principle, variations abounded. While the normal age limits were from 16 to 60, this was not universal practice. Connecticut, for example, began with an upper age limit of 60 but gradually reduced it to 45. Sometimes the lower age limit was 18 or even 21. Each colony also established occupational exemptions from militia training. Invariably the exemption list began small but grew to become a seemingly endless list that reduced the militia's theoretical strength.</blockquote><p>
The community spirit grew as most families contributed in one way or another to the shared work of defending the land. The feeling of equality grew as elite men and ordinary men served together. The sense of democracy grew as the people of the village made decisions together.<p>
The dangers to the settlers varied from decade to decade: Indians (“Native Amerians”), French, Spanish, and other forces attacked from time to time. Millett and Maslowski explain:<p>
<blockquote>If a man was in the militia, he participated in periodic musters, or training days, with the other members of his unit. Attendance at musters was compulsory; militia laws levied fines for nonattendance. During the initial years of settlement, when dangers seemed particularly acute, musters were frequent. However, as the Indian threat receded, the trend was toward fewer muster days, and by the early 1700s most colonies had decided that four peacetime musters per year were sufficient.</blockquote><p>
The main weapons were muskets, hatchets, and swords. Gradually, the rifle replaced the musket.<p>
Almost every home had a firearm anyway, because hunting was a fundamental way of providing food for families.<P>
<blockquote>Militiamen had to provide and maintain their own weapons. Militia laws detailed the required weaponry, which underwent a rapid evolution in the New World. Initially a militiaman was armed much like a European soldier, laden with armor, equipped with either a pike or matchlock musket, and carrying a sword. But Indian warfare was not European warfare, and most of this weaponry proved of limited value. By the mid-1670s colonial armaments had been revolutionized. Armor, which made it difficult to traverse rugged terrain and pursue Indians, disappeared. Pikes were equally cumbersome and of little use against Indians, who neither stood their ground when assaulted nor made massed charges. At times the matchlock was superior to Indian bows and arrows, but its disadvantages were many. It took two minutes to load, and misfired approximately three times in every ten shots. The weapon discharged when a slow-burning match came in contact with the priming powder, but keeping the match lit on rainy or windy days was difficult, and the combination of a burning match and gunpowder in close proximity often resulted in serious accidents. The flintlock musket replaced the matchlock. Depending on flint scraping against steel for discharge, flintlocks could be loaded in thirty seconds and misfired less often. Swords remained common weapons, but colonists increasingly preferred hatchets for close-quarter combat. Although both weapons were valuable in a melee, hatchets were also useful for a variety of domestic purposes.</blockquote><p>
Almost everyone in the community contributed to the task of defense in some way. Those who weren’t directly in the militia could, e.g., provide materials and supplies for the militiamen, or tend to the house and land of a militiaman who was away from home on militia work.<p>
Those with little money received equipment from the community. Those who weren’t actively part of the militia were sometimes still required to maintain weapons ready in their homes, as Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski note:<p>
<blockquote>Militia laws emphasized the importance of a well-armed citizenry in numerous ways. To ensure that each man had the requisite weapons and accoutrements, colonies instituted a review of arms, imposing the duty. of conducting it on militia officers, muster masters, or other specially appointed officials. Every colony's law detailed how destitute citizens could be armed at public expense, and legislatures provided for public arsenals to supplement individually owned armaments. Colonies also required that even men exempted from attending musters should be completely armed and equipped.</blockquote><p>
To participate in the community’s militia was a duty and even an obligation, as Adam Winkler writes:<p>
<blockquote>A 1792 federal law mandated every eligible man to purchase a military-style gun and ammunition for his service in the citizen militia. Such men had to report for frequent musters — where their guns would be inspected.</blockquote><p>
Although the militia was a military concept, it shaped civilian culture and society, promoting a sense of mutuality and equality, and instilling a sense of duty, responsibility, and obligation into the individual citizens as they provided for their own defense, and participated in that defense, at the local level, not entrusting it to some far off imperial capital.<p>
Originally instituted to protect the colonies from outside dangers, i.e., to keep the colonies safely a part of the empire, the militias would then be used to gain independence from the empire.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-66230588516751358082021-06-08T12:19:00.004-04:002021-06-11T07:16:43.444-04:00George Washington Visits a Synagogue: Religious Liberty in ActionAs president of the United States, George Washington had a consistent, intentional, and long-lasting relationship with the Jewish people in the new country. He understood that not only the Americans, but also the rest of the world, would be watching to see if this new country would live up to the ideals stated in its founding documents.<p>
At that time, the United States was unique in the world as a nation founded, not on the hereditary right of a dynastic family to rule, but rather on a set of concepts, as historian Yaari Nadav Tal writes:<p>
<blockquote>President George Washington captured the new path his young nation was taking in his 1790 letter to the Jews of Newport. Unlike Europe, which still imposed liabilities based on religion and regulated the public expression of faith, the United States guaranteed people irrespective of their faith the equal enjoyment of religious freedom: “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.” The United States secured religious freedom not grudgingly but graciously: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”</blockquote><p>
Jews in America were keenly aware of the fact that in England, and in some parts of Europe, Jewish people were not able to attain the status of a full citizen and that their civil rights were limited. Many of them had come to North America to seek full religious freedom and at the same time the right to participate fully in civic government.<p>
To underscore the promise of America to these Jewish citizens, Washington not only wrote warmly to them, but also visited their synagogue. The act of the U.S. president setting foot into a synagogue was dramatic and radical.<p>
Most heads of state in Europe or Great Britain didn’t do such things. The integrity of a nation founded on concepts is based on the consistency and honesty with which it applies those concepts to concrete specific situations. Washington understood that, at the very beginning of United States history, it was important for him to take such actions, as Yaari Nadav Tal explains:<p>
<blockquote>On August 18, 1790, congregants of the Touro Synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island, warmly welcomed George Washington to both their place of worship and their city. Washington’s letter of response to the synagogue, delivered on the same day, has become famous for reinforcing the ideal of religious liberty in American life. Washington promised the synagogue more than mere religious tolerance, explaining that "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." The letter continued with the promise that "the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”</blockquote><p>
Washington understood that it was not despite his own firm religious beliefs that he could work to ensure the freedom for various other religions to be practiced, but rather that it was precisely because of his own beliefs that he was motivated to guarantee religious liberty to religions which differed from his own.<p>
Washington was a Christian, and more specifically, he was an Anglican or Episcopalian. He was more than a mere member or attender of church. He was a vestryman and churchwarden, dedicating time and energy to his faith community.<p>
The belief system to which he was committed demanded that he honor the religious liberties of other people, and the strength of his commitment was the force which drove him to ensure those freedoms for other faiths.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-63636988769384366552021-06-04T13:02:00.001-04:002021-06-07T07:46:26.573-04:00The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the Monument Honoring its MenQuickly after President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the first military unit composed of African Americans was formed. Many other units would be organized soon thereafter.<p>
The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment became famous during and after the U.S. Civil War. To honor the 54th’s soldiers, a monument was built in Boston, the city where the unit was organized. Philip Marcelo describes the carving: “Black men, rifles to their shoulders, march resolutely,” depicted in bronze, “on their way to battle.”<p>
<blockquote>The towering bronze relief in downtown Boston captures the stirring call to arms answered by Black soldiers who served in the state’s famed Civil War fighting unit, which was popularized in the 1989 Oscar-winning movie “Glory.”</blockquote><p>
The monument was unveiled in 1897. The artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens had worked on it for fourteen years. Encouragement and funding for the cenotaph came from both Black and White citizen of Boston:<p>
<blockquote>The creation of the memorial in the aftermath of the Civil War was championed by prominent Black Bostonians of the day.</blockquote><p>
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was the commander of the regiment. His family was dedicated to the cause of ending slavery. They championed the 54th during the war, and cherished its memory afterward.<p>
“The colonel’s family, a wealthy Boston” family, wanted to ensure that the monument would recognize the Black soldiers. The Shaw family, “strongly opposed to slavery, requested that” the monument “also honor the Black men who served and died” bravely and with committed perseverance “during their famed charge on Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863.”<p>
<blockquote>The monument is also significant because it’s the nation’s first honoring Black soldiers, said Elizabeth Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden, a group helping pay for a $3 million restoration of the monument, which started in earnest in May.<p>
Saint-Gaudens spent 14 years creating a richly detailed bas relief, using Black men of different ages as models for his realistic soldiers. After it was unveiled to fanfare in 1897, American author Henry James declared the work “real perfection,” according to the National Park Service.<p>
“This was a radical piece of art,” Vizza said. “It was not lost on people back then.”</blockquote><p>
For over a century, the monument has been a symbol and an inspiration to African Americans and their advancement toward civil rights. Philip Marcello continues:<p>
<blockquote>Roughly half the regiment’s 600 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured or presumed dead following the failed assault on Fort Wagner, and their heroism inspired tens of thousands of Black men and others to sign up for the Union Army, helping turn the tide of the war.<p>
Sgt. William Carney became the first Black man awarded the Medal of Honor for saving the regiment’s flag from capture. Two sons of prominent Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who had pushed Lincoln to allow Blacks to serve in the war, also fought at Fort Wagner.</blockquote><p>
The powerful and uplifting monument, created to “recognize the achievements of the Black soldiers” is located prominently in one of Boston’s more important neighborhoods — a neighborhood called Beacon Hill.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-71416748589037827272021-06-03T16:04:00.002-04:002021-06-04T12:20:01.917-04:00A Moral Conflict: To Use Federal Troops in an American CityIt is generally a bad thing for the leader of a country, and especially the leader of a free country, to command troops into action inside the borders of his own land. Such behavior is usually associated with the worst types of dictators.<p>
But are there times when it’s right or necessary?<p>
President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was faced with this question in 1957. He’d appointed Earl Warren to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Warren had presided over the famous <i>Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka</i> ruling. The decision had led to changes in the operation of various public school systems around the country.<p>
Those changes met with fierce opposition in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas.<p>
When the Democatic Party made Orval Faubus governor of that state, and when he complied by refusing to allow African American students to attend Little Rock Central High School, Eisenhower was faced with an instance of a local official directly and defiantly refusing to comply with a Supreme Court decision.<p>
As a military leader with substantial experience, Ike knew that he could not allow this to continue. After discussions with Faubus and the consideration of various alternatives, Ike ordered the legendary 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. If the Democratic Party would not allow the school to be desegregated and integrated, then the U.S. Army would do the job.<p>
The soldiers of the 101st Airborne protected the Black students who wanted to attend school. The soldiers escorted the students into, and out of, school, and made sure that they were safe before, during, and after school.<p>
It was an agonizing decision for Eisenhower. He knew that these students had the legal right to attend school, but he also knew that he was treading on thin ice to use troops inside the borders of the United States. He decided to go ahead with the action, saying that it was “a matter of justice.”<p>
As historian Kasey Pipes explains:<p>
<blockquote>The Little Rock crisis was the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War. Eisenhower’s actions were watched by many, including Senator John F. Kennedy. At the time, JFK was somewhat critical of Ike’s handling of the crisis. Five years later, in 1962, in a deliberate effort to avoid what he viewed as Ike’s overreaction at Little Rock, President Kennedy sent only U.S. Marshals into Ole Miss during the integration crisis there. When the mobs overwhelmed the Marshals, Kennedy relented and sent federal troops. He even instructed his aides to draw up the executive order based on the Eisenhower order at Little Rock.</blockquote><p>
Ike not only fixed the situation in Little Rock, but he laid the foundation for JFK’s actions at the University of Mississippi.<p>
Still, it was a painful moment for the nation. No country wants to see its own army required to enforce a court ruling.<p>
<blockquote>No president relishes the thought of sending soldiers into an American city. Eisenhower agonized over it. The day after the 101st Airborne arrived in Little Rock, Ike told a friend it had been a painful decision, as difficult as ordering the D-Day invasion. Ike’s deliberation is a measure of his leadership.</blockquote><p>
Eisenhower expressed his determination to do the right thing in a televised address to the nation. His military training and composure allowed him to express his thoughts clearly and without passion. He was focused on implementing what others later called a matter of justice.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-24229293834467847192021-06-03T11:53:00.001-04:002021-06-03T11:53:15.976-04:00The IRS and Payroll Withholding: Taking People’s Money When They’re Not AwareIn 1942, Congress imposed the first major income tax increase in many years, and one of the harshest. Many people had never paid income tax before. Prior to that time, it was imposed on only the wealthiest people. The taxes were to be paid on March 15, 1943.<p>
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) realized that millions of people didn’t understand that they had to pay. They didn’t understand how much they had to pay, and that they’d need to save up all year long to make such a big payment all at once. The new tax law was creating a disaster. What would happen when the day came, and people weren’t able to pay?<p>
The IRS is part of the Treasury Department and is responsible for collecting taxes.<p>
The government didn’t want to file charges against millions of taxpayers. It wouldn’t have even been possible to do so, because there were so many people involved. The legal fees in many cases would have been greater than the anticipated tax revenue.<p>
Hurriedly, the IRS hoped to make people aware of what they had to do, as historian Amity Shlaes writes:<p>
<blockquote>The Treasury nervously launched a huge public relations campaign to remind Americans of their new duties. A Treasury Department poster exhorted citizens: “You are one of 50,000,000 Americans who must fill out an income tax form by March 15. DO IT NOW!” For wartime theatergoers, Disney had prepared an animated short film featuring citizen Donald Duck laboring over his tax return beside a bottle of aspirin. Donald claimed exemptions and dependent credits for Huey, Dewey, and Louie.</blockquote><p>
The eventual solution to the problem was the invention and implementation of the payroll withholding system. Invented by Beardsley Ruml, this system collected taxes all year long, taking a percentage of an employee’s pay before the employee received his pay. The beauty of this system is that people don’t have to worry about accidentally forgetting to save up to pay a massive, once-a-year tax bill. It’s automatically saved for them.<p>
Ruml’s system was put into practice in mid 1943, and has been operating ever since.<p>
This system was and is highly successful. Everyone who gets paid, with a few exceptions, has a bit of her or his pay confiscated every week or every month, and that confiscated money is saved up to pay that person’s annual tax bill. The government has reliable access to people’s money.<p>
There is, however, a problem with this system. It has been in place nearly a century, so long that people often forget that it exists. Workers can forget that the government is taking their money on a regular basis. When employees feel that their pay is too small, they don’t realize that a significant percentage of their wages are being confiscated by the government.<p>
If hourly workers were allowed to receive their full hourly wage, and if salaried workers were allowed to receive their full annual salary, they would suddenly experience a massive increase in disposable income.<p>
The problem has been compounded by the fact that most of the fifty states, and a few cities, have also implemented payroll withholding programs. The government often takes 10%, 20%, or even 30% of a worker’s wages.<p>
The payroll withholding system has not only allowed the government to take huge amounts of people’s money, but also to take it in a way that causes people to forget, or not to realize, that it’s being taken.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8763127536258964627.post-66022138403875644122021-05-28T13:53:00.005-04:002021-05-28T14:55:12.528-04:00The Past Explains the Future: Hope and Optimism from America’s FoundingMajor turning points in history often arise from a worldview which sees time as linear, not circular: a worldview which sees the world’s social and political trajectory as capable of changing, not as repetitive or rigid.<p>
The revolutionary independence movement which appeared and expanded in North America in the 1750s was a forward-looking movement. Rather than envisioning an inevitable repetition of the status quo, the revolutionaries envisioned the self-conscious development of society and government. America’s revolutionary movement is and was hopeful.<p>
As historian Stephen Tootle writes, America’s “political history is the fundamental basis of what makes America a land of hope.”<p>
<blockquote>As Calvin Coolidge once explained, any act of truth-telling is an act of patriotism, because our system of government is based on a true understanding of human relationships. Truth and freedom were and are inseparable.</blockquote><p>
This forward-looking optimism is based on a sober realism: on a clear-eyed reading of history, which reveals humanity’s failures and crimes as well as humanity’s achievements and genius. “If the Founders correctly identified how human beings could govern themselves in a system of ordered liberty (and they did), then” citizens “should never have a reason to fear the true story of America.” The citizens of America know that America is not perfect, but they also know that America has offered hope and opportunity, justice and prosperity, freedom and peace — and offered it in larger quantities and offered it more reliably than any of the nations which preceded it on the face of the earth.<p>
The narrative of the United States is a narrative of increasing freedom, justice, peace, and prosperity: continuous forward motion. Slaves gained their freedom. Women gained full access to the political process. Poor immigrants found a better standard of living.<p>
“Searching self-criticism” is foundational, and in its proper context it is a hopeful exercise. National self-examination is part of the American process, because our constitutional system is not only capable of amendments and adjustments, but rather it is also based on them.<p>
It is the adaptability of the United States which fosters hope and optimism. Unforeseen events, technological developments, and worldwide trends create a constantly changing environment onto which the timeless principles of the American Revolution can be applied. Citizens can be confident that these principles will find application in the future, and will benefit humanity when applied.<p>
<blockquote>The Founders organized themselves and fought out of hope. They did not create slavery but laid the foundation for ending it. Subsequent generations immigrated here out of hope. Americans fought and died in wars out of hope. As Lincoln understood, “liberty to all” and the “promise of something better” drove people to work and unleash their creative energies, whereas nobody would fight or strive over a “mere change of masters.”</blockquote><p>
The American Revolution began in 1775. The United States was created as a sovereign entity in 1776. The Constitution was ratified and implemented in 1788. In a span of 13 years, American had created the world’s highest levels of personal political liberty, and the only country based on the concept of freedom. It was also the only country governed by an assembly of freely-elected representatives.<p>
But America didn’t stop there. In less than a century, slavery was abolished. Women began voting in federal, state, and local elections in 1869. Already the freest nation on earth, the United States continued to increase its levels of freedom.<p>
“Citizenship bestows both privileges and responsibilities,” adds Stephen Tootle. It is the responsibility of citizens to be familiar with America’s founding principles, and to transmit the essence of those principles to future generations.<p>
A nation which preserves property rights and free markets preserves hope. Such a nation offers its citizens something which no other nation can offer: the opportunity for peace, justice, liberty, and prosperity.Mr. Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17280848451156970355noreply@blogger.com