The following is adapted from Gregory P. Down’s book, The Second American Revolution: The Civil War-Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic, reprinted with the permission of the University of North Carolina Press. It is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
Hmmmm. This is hardly a positive thought. Left to human means, I do not see a positive outcome. And I am not sure that the author is not doing his own wishfull thinking
This is a great piece, though surely the author would acknowledge that others have made a similar argument. Abraham Lincoln saw the Constitution as having at least partially failed, but not the ideals of the Founders, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. It was that document that Lincoln invoked in his Gettysburg Address–“Fourscore and seven years ago,” in 1863, had been 1776. Lincoln said the nation was built on the ideas of liberty and equality, and he said the nation needed “a new birth of freedom,” effectively a revolution. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were key components of a revolution that amended the Constitution but did not jettison it, in an effort to bring about non-racial citizenship and racial equality in all parts of the nation.
I’d find it helpful to confront the central lie of the Confederacy – told to a generation of poor white conscripts who didn’t own land and never had the possibility of accumulating wealth – that the so-called “equality” of at least not being black is a social order worthy of their blood and sweat. It isn’t, and we see millions of people even today who still believe it in one form or another.
Your statement is quite obvious and I don’t know how you get these people to give up their feelings of superiority based on racial background even though it would ultimately benefit them economically. A large percentage of US citizens suffer from serious psychological issues, which I feel was the major factor in voting for Trump. I don’t see them changing in any significant way and any solutions have to come from involvement of everyone else, particularly those who haven’t voted or gotten involved in the political process to date. If we aren’t able to change things at the Federal level, the split will continue to widen between blue and red states, which might ultimately lead to a secession of sorts. Whatever happens in the next few decades, it is going to challenging and messy.
Why did we need a second revolution?
For the same reason we keep arguing over race relations today: Because the founding fathers couldn’t bring themselves to solve the problem of slavery.
Jefferson had it right: “We had the wolf by the ears, and we could neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”
The same applies for all the hot button issues and congress. No one really addresses anything; they just kick it down the road, hoping it will “work out.”
It’s not really a good way to run a government.
I hope Prof. Downs will read these comments. Would love to have an expanded discussion.
While I admire his thesis, I think it will confuse people who presume that revolutionaries are the ones who START wars. It seems to me that a better switch would be to call the Revolution the “First Civil War.” It was basically a civil war to protect slavery, after all. Appreciate that, and a lot of the other pieces fall into place.
I was involved with CW studies and group tours for about 15 years.
I endured this right wing nut ball’s speeches and as one of our tour leaders. He has history with the Clinton’s in the 90’s, basically he was an asshole and they fought back and he went bat shit. I’ve also heard him say, “the gays are shoving their agenda down our throats”…(phrasing!)
Anyhoo, here is his spew on the Compact Theory that he’s been spreading around for years:
I am not sure we can preserve America in any semblance to how it was before the advent of this loathsome man who presently soils the White House.
There will be much clean up to be done when he is gone. And scars will remain.
He’s not advocating a new position. He’s advocating that we finally recognize the poisonous evil of the viewpoint invented by the post-reconstruction “Redeemers” and nationalized by an unholy alliance of Southern white supremacists and Hollywood white supremacists and return to the understanding of Lincoln and, to a large degree, the Radical Republicans.
Does the writing, posting, reading and discussion of our past failures and continuing racial issues mean we may begin to reckon with them? A starting point-Jefferson and Madison, two Virginians, used glossy words but set the framework for the Civil War. They were not going to address slavery. Would we have gotten the constitution if they had? More importantly, if they had refrained from using the “states rights” argument to provide a vehicle for its continuation, would we have found a way forward by addressing slavery sooner and peacefully? “States rights” today is the mantra and vehicle for racism.
There is the another way of looking at the war through the eyes of the then South.The Constitution did not change or require a second. To them, the North violated the Constitution and they could redress that violation by Secession, which was ruled unconstitutional by the SCOTUS Texas v. White decision.
The South was in search of a rationale and the founders handed it to them with “states’ rights”. Code for racism today.
Perhaps not as much as time and mortality pursues the bulk of 45’s base
This is true but the problem it reveals is how much we have surrendered the constitutional ideals of separation of powers and checks and balances. That was the heart and soul of the original document. It did not originally have a bill of rights, or the civil war amendments, both of which were needed and would come in time. It still lacks some important items such as a more representative Senate (which Madison wanted but did not get) or voting that takes advantage of modern capabilities and abandons the archaic electoral college. It instead focused on the issue of the day. We would not have a king. Anyone who leads will do so by consensus and several mechanisms were put in place to keep that power under control. It was a radical idea at the time. Our failures over the last 3 years (and really quite a few preluding it) is that we have surrendered or made ineffectual our ability to check a corrupt leader. Part of this is that we have allowed corrupt legislators to move into place. We have allowed money to enter politics so we have our own set of oligarchs (something the original document tried hard to prevent). But most of all we have allowed the wheels of correction to rust in place. Congress is afraid to act even in the face of overwhelming evidence and they have surrendered their tools to compel compliance as we see them drag out court arguments over subpoenas and meaninglessly hold people in contempt with no consequence.
Bottom line is our legislature must become much stronger, which is a return to the original Constitution, not a departure from it.
Very engaging and provocative piece. More of this please!
Part of what draws me to TPM is JM’s historical perspective, which is so often lacking in media coverage. I would love to see more perspectives from historians gathering here in the Cafe.
Americans might have to shed the sense that the Founders possess answers to our current predicaments or blame for our situation.
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They might retain their glamor — like José Martí in Cuba, Miguel Hidalgo in Mexico, even Toussaint-Louverture in Haiti — as emblems of romantic struggles that do not quite speak to the present political conditions.
ummmmmm
In fairness Jefferson tried. It was in the original wording of the declaration. His own personal shortcomings contradicted his high ideals, but we shouldn’t doubt he had those ideals, even if he failed to live up to them. The relationship of slavery and the founding was very complicated and many good book long discussions have been penned. But the general consensus among the founders was there was no way we could win against England without Virginia. The Carolinas and Georgia were also going to be important but Virginia was essential. Few thought slavery was a good thing but it was on its way out. Slavery had been on the decline for decades and everyone expected, like smoking in the modern US, that it would wither until it was finally just gone. After all that is basically what was happening in the North. Seven of the original 13 colonies prohibited slavery in the decades following the Revolution, most citing that it was out of line with the ideals of the founding. The Constitution put a hard stop on the date when the international slave trade could be stopped because even the South believed by then the problem would be mostly solved. All of that changed in 1793 with the introduction of the cotton gin. An invention that was expected to end the need for slavery since it did the work of a hundred men, backfired. Now suddenly there was almost unlimited money to be made because the efficiency of slaves was vastly multiplied and the demand for cotton was almost unlimited. That is when slavery had a rebrith and took us in the direction where greedy men mostly motivated by profit insisted that we needed slavery everywhere. To our credit we still ended international slave trade as soon as we had agreed to in the Constitution, but that just drove it underground. The western expansion became a battleground and the institution everyone thought we would grow out of became the biggest money maker around.
For one source see https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/cotton-gin-and-the-expansion-of-slavery
“The number of enslaved people rose with the increase in cotton production, from 700,000 in 1790 to over three million by 1850.”
There was F all “romantic” about the 1st 'Revolution". In fact Slaves trying to escape? Fled to British lines. The first Rev was all about wealthy land & slave owners garnering more profit “free” from the shackles of the British Government. The Founding Fathers are the ultimate historical con job. We can all ferret out quotes that make them seem prescient, brilliant and yet? The lives they led and actions they took are the reality: greedy & evil.
I do agree Thaddeus Stevens has been neglected and over looked for far too long. Kwame Ture called him one of the two white males worthy of respect/praise in the fight for civil rights, the other? John Brown.
We shouldn’t doubt them? Why not? Jefferson was a monster and I don’t care how idealistic you want him to be the reality is he raped Slaves. Put all the gloss on the veneer you wish, lift up that veneer and you see a soul less greedy bigot. So not only should we doubt Jefferson we should call him out. Tired of this BS romanticism that forms a protective skin around the Founding Fathers. They were not good people, at all. A few phrases in the twinge the sympathy strings department doesn’t change that.