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gravitascivics · 4 years ago

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MAY THE SETTLERS FLOWER IN A NEW LAND

This blog is in the midst of telling a story – it began with the last posting and the reader is invited to go back and catch the first segment of this tale. It has to do with the Puritanical origins of this nation. And the story goes back to the disappointment Europeans felt over the discovery of the Americas. During the 1500s, Europeans invested in western voyages so as to find a shortcut to the lucrative markets of the Far East. No such route was found, but those voyages began the tumbling of various streams of “dominoes” that are still toppling today.

The last posting kept the reader in Europe, actually England, and this posting has a few more developments to relate emanating from that nation. The previous posting left off with Elizabeth I’s (1533-1603) trying to handle the religious strife that befell her country. Mainly there was the ongoing battle with Catholics who wanted to regain their prominence and that conflict even included an attempted foreign invasion from Spain – the Spanish Armada.

This religious strife began before she was queen and was particularly intense during her predecessor’s reign, that of “Bloody Mary.” Back then, religious disagreements could and were bloody indeed, and in those earlier years Catholics had a supportive queen, Mary I and her husband, Philip. Her aim was to reestablish Catholic dominance after her father, Henry VIII, split with the Roman church and made the Anglican Church dominant. Mary died in 1558 after a relatively short reign of about five years. What one needs to remember, religion and political leadership of a country were highly interwoven with each other at that time.

After Mary died and Elizabeth became queen, she, Elizabeth, established the Anglican Church as official and barred open membership to other religions; and that included not only Catholics, but other upstart Protestant sects such as the Calvinists. The sanctions against the Calvinists were mostly mild but starting in the early 1600s, more radical forms of that religion’s beliefs (the last posting reviews its tenets) began to be promulgated.

Eventually, and this transcends Elizabeth’s reign, the more ardent, radical Congregationalists or extreme Puritans made their presence known. They took the Calvinist beliefs in the unconditional election; that is, humans are subject to God’s determination as to who is saved and who is not, and irresistible grace; that is, once chosen, a person will not reject God’s grace (the “U” and “I” of the acronym TULIP) up several notches.

They, according to Guelzo, “… wanted membership in the[ir] church limited to only those who could give testimony and evidence of having received God’s grace, even if that meant separating … from the rest of England’s presumably impure society.”[1] And the split with the crown grew after Elizabeth’s death in 1603. Her successor, James of Scotland, intensified the government’s crackdown on these radicals.

With his and his successor’s policies, the Congregationalists or Puritans started to look for escape from the island nation. And one group of them first sought refuse in the Puritanical Netherlands. Donald S. Lutz,[2] described these people’s experiences before getting to their eventual destination, the New England coastline.

He has extensively analyzed the connection between these Puritans and original constitutional formulations in American development by studying how early American settlers from England and then Holland went about organizing themselves. Starting with the Puritans who landed at Plymouth in 1620, certain federalist elements were established.

Lutz points out that the Puritans (this group specifically known as the Pilgrims) were interested in simplifying the religious practices of the English churches. Being persecuted in England, they sought to “create a new city of God – a society run according to the dictates of the Bible.”[3]

Adopting the notion of a covenant, originally from Hebraic tradition and law of the Old Testament, the Puritans established a society and a “politick” on the following elements: a bonding between the members of the covenant, a calling upon God to witness the bonding, and the consent of each member to join the resulting communal union. This latter element is a basic component; each member was free to bond and did so of his own volition.

Of course, all of this was accomplished by the drawing up and signing of the Mayflower Compact. He writes,

During the 1600s, over 100 other founding documents similar to the Mayflower Compact would be written by American colonists. Some of these agreements would create single settlements, while others (such as the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut) would join several existing covenanted communities into a broader association. In each case the people created by the agreement would be identified by those who signed the document. It is a peculiarly American trait that founding documents like the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution have signatures at the end. This expectation is part of the legacy of early agreements like the Mayflower Compact; just as “We the People” is derived from “We the undersigned.”[4]

And the Mayflower Compact introduced several other important ideas basic to the nation's political perspective.

First, it established the principle of adding or admitting new members to a covenant. Not all the signers of the Mayflower Compact were Puritans. A non-Puritan, though, was not given subordinate status. A new addition was awarded equal status with every individual of the original group.

This provision was the beginning of a standard that led to the constitutional provision that all new states, as they joined the national union, would be granted equal status with the original thirteen states (as demonstrated, for example, by equal representation in the Senate and extends to new citizens as well).

The second significant aspect of the Mayflower Compact was its Lockean logic. Before John Locke ever wrote a word, Puritans in America were living out his prescriptions by creating a society first and then creating a “politick” to govern it. “On the Mayflower we find the colonists doing essentially everything that Locke would later recommend.”[5]

One last contribution of the Mayflower Compact was its clear statement of political values which included commitments to justice, equality, respect for law, and community. Not mentioned was individualism. Instead, the following language dominates the document:

… these Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and of one another, convenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid … for the General good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience.[6]

Defined in religious contexts, the Puritans brought with them strongly felt values and principles that would evolve in the formative, colonial years and provide the basis of future bills of rights principles.

This covenant did not present a model for governmental structure. As such, it was not the first formal constitution in America. That distinction belongs to the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639. But it did contain important elements; they are the forming a union based on consent a priori to actual governance, formulation of a formal agreement based on a covenant (a promise which called on God as witness to the agreement), and an integral commitment to equality – which, by the way, appears before any commitment to individuality or individual rights.

But before this tale totally shifts to North America, there are still some important developments to relate that took place in England. More would happen there that prompted further exodus from that nation to North America. The events also affected the formal format by which these early settlers departed England and helped determine the formal arrangements the settlers had with the mother country.

[1] Allen C. Guelzo, The American Mind, Part I – transcript books – (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company/The Great Courses, 2005), 25. In the original, this quote begins with “The Separatists …” indicating the other term used to identify these believers.

[2]Donald S. Lutz, “The Mayflower Compact, 1620,” in Roots of the Republic: American Founding Documents Interpreted,” ed. Stephen L. Schechter (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1990), 17-23. What this posting includes is an edited rendition of what this blog posted earlier in this blog. See Robert Gutierrez, “At the Beginning: Mayflower Compact,” Gravitas: A Voice for Civics (January 13, 2012), accessed March 4, 2021, https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/preview/1954479639890698872/7769498729070174796 .

[3]Ibid., p. 18.

[4]Ibid., 19.

[5]Ibid., 21.

[6] Eric Bruun and Jay Crosby, “Combine Ourselves into a Civil Body Politick: The Mayflower compact,” in Our Nation's Archive: The history of the United States in Documents (New York, NY: Tess Press, 1999/1620), 46-47, 47.

#Puritans #Pilgrims #Allen Guelzo #Donald S. Lutz #Mayflower Compact #covenants #civics education #social studies

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ruminativerabbi · 8 years ago

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Breaching the Wall Between Church and State

A case currently before the Supreme Court is one that Jewish citizens should take very seriously…despite the fact that it appears to have nothing to do with Jews at all.

The case has to do with Lutherans, and specifically with a church in Missouri, the Trinity Lutheran Church in the town of Columbia. At first blush, the whole issue seems wholly unremarkable. The church operates a daycare center and a preschool on its premises, and maintains a playground in which the children can play outdoors. But the playground has a surface that could be dangerous if a child falls, and so the church had the idea of replacing the hard surface with a rubber one. That sounded like a sensible plan forward and so, upon hearing that the State of Missouri was actually offering grants to playground operators to make that specific improvement using the rubber salvaged from recycled tires, the church applied for one…only to be turned down cold because the state’s constitution specifically prohibits the state from spending any public funds “directly or indirectly in the aid of any church.”

This understandably irritated the church leadership and prompted them to sue the State of Missouri on the grounds that the state’s prohibition was in violation both of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. To a non-lawyer like myself, neither argument feels too compelling. The First Amendment forbids Congress from “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion, but that feels like quite the stretch here: the State of Missouri is not forbidding the church from having a rubberized surface in its playground, just declining to pay for it. Nor is it obvious in what sense having one or another sort of playground could be described as the “exercise of religion” in the first place. Moving along, the Equal Protection Clause argument prohibits any state from denying “to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” which means that the law must always be enforced evenly and fairly, and specifically that the rights and freedoms enshrined in our laws cannot be imagined to apply to some citizens but not to others. But bringing the Fourteenth Amendment to bear in this context too feels a bit tenuous: to say that the State of Missouri is denying equal protection under the law to the members of the Trinity Lutheran Church by declining to buy them something sounds like weak argument to me! And then, just to muddy the waters a bit more, the Governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens, announced last week that Missouri will no longer discriminate against religious organizations in the evaluation of grant applications, including applications for improvements like the resurfacing of outdoor playgrounds. That sounds as though it obviates the need for a court decision, since the change in policy has in effect decided the matter in the church’s favor. But neither side apparently wishes for the Supreme Court not to reach a ruling, the one side fearing a change back to the earlier policy under some future administration, and the other side—in effect defending a state policy that no longer exists—feeling themselves nobly fighting to maintain the traditional separation between church and state. This, is, however, hardly a question just for Missourians to worry over.

To understand the larger picture here, it’s necessary to know something about the so-called Blaine Amendment. This goes back a long ways. In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant called for a constitutional amendment that would formally prohibit the federal government from using public money to fund “sectarian schools,” by which expression he meant non-public schools run by religious organizations. Shortly after that, Congressman James G. Blaine, a Republican from Maine, proposed just such an amendment. It was, to say the least, contentious. Congress, in fact, was split: the bill passed in the House of Representatives by a whopping 173 votes, but failed to clear the two-thirds majority in the Senate necessary for a proposed amendment to be sent to the states for ratification. There is, therefore, no specific constitutional amendment that prohibits the use of public money to fund religious schools.

But on the state level, things were and are different. In the wake of the failure of the Blaine Amendment on the federal level, all but ten of the states approved similar amendments to their own state constitutions. (For the record, the ten are Arkansas, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia.) And most of those amendments remain in effect to this day. An effort to get rid of the “Blaine” amendment in Florida in 2012, for example, failed, as have similar efforts over the years in New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Massachusetts. Only one state, Louisiana, had such an amendment once but doesn’t now, but that didn’t come about as the result of a successful effort to repeal the law but rather by the adoption in 1974 of an entirely new state constitution. As far as the Missouri playground goes, then, it is in a state that has a “Blaine” amendment in its constitution and that theoretically prohibits the state from approving the expenditure of public funds for improvements to religious institutions, including schools.

Judging the matter from where I personally sit and look out at the world is complicated.

On the one hand, the children who attend the preschool in the Trinity Lutheran Church are citizens of Missouri whose parents pay the taxes that fund the government’s initiatives on behalf of the state’s citizenry, including its children. So, you could argue, why shouldn’t they benefit from a program designed neither to foster religion in general nor to promote any specific kind of religious observance, but merely to make some of Missouri’s children a bit safer when they play outdoors? When put that way, it sounds more than reasonable for the church to get its grant! On the other hand, though, the arguments against using public money to redo the surface of that playground also sound cogent to me: by not extending grant money to churches even when they operate in a way that does not specifically promote religion, Missouri is—or, rather, was—guaranteeing that none of its citizens would end up indirectly breaching the traditional war between church and state by being forced to see their tax money funneled to religious institutions that are traditionally supposed in our country not to rely on public funds. It’s also interesting to me that none of the authors of any of the essays and articles I’ve read in the last week about this topic appears to know much about preschools…or at least not enough to wonder out loud if it is conceivable that a preschool or a daycare run by a church does not teach religion to the children enrolled there. We have a preschool at Shelter Rock and we certainly do our best to teach the boys and girls about our festivals, our rituals, and the basic tenets of our faith as part of the educational program we offer. Are we supposed to imagine that the programming at the church’s preschool does not teach, thus promote, Christianity at all? Not a single Bible story? Not a tiny Christmas tree? I don’t think so!

Related to all of this—and not even in a particularly subtle way—is the whole question of parochial school vouchers.

For all the years Joan and I lived in British Columbia, we found it natural for the province—the Canadian equivalent of the state—to pay for the secular education of children in Jewish day schools and other parochial settings, thus leaving their parents’ tuition payments to cover the costs connected with the specifically religious instruction also offered by the school. This arrangement is not at all contentious: British Columbians are all used to the idea that it only makes sense that the children of all citizens who pay their taxes receive the benefit of a free secular education, not just those who send their kids to schools run by the province and not by religious societies. (Why this only applies in some provinces is one of the mysteries of Canadian life, one with roots in the original efforts of the nation’s founders to bring Quebec into the original confederation in 1867. Perhaps I’ll write about that some other time.) And it’s not a bad arrangement at all: all children are served, all taxpayers receive some bang for their buck, and the province plays no role in the religious education of the children in parochial schools.

Here, on the other hand, the wall between church and state is supposed to be impenetrable and fully opaque. The siren call of tuition vouchers—in effect, the imposition of the Canadian system on the American one—is more than seductive…surely, we would all like nothing more than for day school education to cost less, ideally dramatically less, and thus become accessible to larger numbers of children! Could it be possible for the government to underwrite the cost of children’s secular education without breaching the wall between church and state? That, and not whether there should be such a wall in the first place, is the right question for our Jewish community to be asking.

I know from first-hand experience that such an arrangement can and does work in B.C. But it is also true that, at least in my opinion, no good can ever come to the Jewish community from any effort to breach the wall meant by our Founders to keep the spiritual and religious lives of Americans completely away from government control. We have all made our peace with the petty chinks in that wall that characterize American life at its least inclusive: a calendar of federal holidays that specifically includes Christian festivals, the almost universal presence of Christian symbols in post offices and other governmental venues in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the apparently annual White House seder (I’ll write about my strongly negative feelings in that regard on some other occasion), federal postage stamps celebrating the religious holidays of some faiths (including our own) but not others, and the use of Bibles as part of the oath-taking ceremony in court and in public investiture ceremonies, including the presidential inauguration. (To be fair, not every president has taken the oath of office with his hand resting on a Bible. But only John Quincy Adams, Franklin Pierce, and Theodore Roosevelt chose not to do so.) We can and do live with all of that. But diverting public funds to underwrite church-run schools, daycare centers, youth groups, senior centers, etc., is in a different category entirely and is not something to which we should quietly acquiesce.

The Canadian system may well be something we could and should consider. But, in the end, the question is whether that could be done without weakening the wall our founders erected between church and state, which consequence will never be in our best interests. We are a tiny people who constitute less than 2% of the population in these United States. There are ten times as many American Catholics, and almost twenty-five times as many American Protestants, as there are American Jews. It’s true that we occupy a much larger place in the American psyche than our numbers would appear to justify. But, in the end, we are a small minority that flourishes precisely because the government keeps out of religious affairs and leaves us to chart our own course forward as we see fit. It will always be in our best interests to maintain that specific aspect of the status quo. The Supreme Court should not work at cross-purposes with our founders’ clear vision of not only a division between church and state, but an ironclad wall between the two.

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asecondspinonpolitics · 3 years ago

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“Separation of church and state”-when defined the way it sometimes is, can’t exist

“Separation of church and state”, as it is often defined, not necessarily as it was originally intended, has become an assumed fabric of our public debates. It is assumed that the Constitution supports what is called “separation of church and state”, and so therefore laws with any basis in any religious teaching or belief must be unconstitutional. (I use quotes for a reason. This is because I will explain the terms common usage. The original term originated from a late 18th-century treaty, and was a first attempt at usage of the establishment clause).

Mike Huckabee said it best when he said that “Politics are totally directed by worldview. That’s why when people say, ‘We ought to separate politics from religion,’ I say to separate the two is absolutely impossible.”

I’m not saying we should disregard the Constitution. The establishment clause was added to the U.S. Constitution for very good reasons. Our ancestors came here to escape being persecuted and even killed for belonging to the wrong church. Before the Constitution was written, members of certain religious sects were not allowed to practice their faith or hold public office. This was active discrimination, and the First Amendment was a very progressive step taken to end it. Now, in the 21st century, however, and the establishment clause is often taken too far away from its intended purpose. It was added to guarantee all citizens basic civil rights regardless of their religious beliefs, as well as freedom of religion. In recent times, however, the First Amendment is being distorted to try to take away one form of freedom of religion that should never be taken away.

What is this freedom? The freedom to vote based on faith. The establishment clause often it is used out of context to promote what many refer to as “separation of church and state”. This separation is defined as keeping religious beliefs from having any influence in political debates or lawmaking. The Supreme Court has also used the phrase in certain cases, but using a more Constitutional definition. The implied definition of common usage attempts to completely separate religion from politics and is something else entirely.

What does the establishment clause actually say, anyway? The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. How would a law “respect an establishment of religion”? When originally written, it was clear that the clause was not added to keep religion entirely out of politics, but to ensure that organized religious institutions or sects did not have official federal power and were not able to deny citizens basic rights based on religious affiliation. The clause specifically stated “an establishment of religion”, not religion in general. In fact, many of the Founding Fathers actually wanted religious beliefs to play an active role in the political atmosphere of the new nation!

I find it unlikely it would be their intention, as it is entirely impracticable. It expects a significant portion of our country to separate something that shapes their perspective on every other aspect of their lives from their political perspective. It is almost impossible to do: if someone’s entire worldview is shaped by religious belief, how can that person completely alter their view and filter out their belief from their political view? Think of it this way: Imagine that you believe in justice as a philosophical tenet fundamental to all human interaction? Would you be able to filter that out in a debate about the death penalty, or criminal justice reform?

The counter argument arising from this seems to be obvious, however. Even if not un-Constitutional, doesn’t such a separation seem necessary and self-evident for a functioning democracy? America is a very pluralistic society, so the argument does, and so a democracy for all people should contain laws applicable to all people. Americans have a wide variety of religious beliefs, and some do not have any at all, so citizens should keep their beliefs private and not bring them into the public arena. Based upon this, it is argued that no laws should be passed that have a basis in religious belief, as it will never be shared by all. Instead, for general practicality, reasoning and argument that would be evident to all should be used as underpinning for policy.

Let us challenge the assumption underpinning this, namely that there is one framework of belief upon which we would otherwise be able to base debate on. At the heart of many issues is both personal and moral or ethical belief. The practice of law applied universally has it its foundation the premise that ethics are universal. Yet not only are our religious beliefs pluralistic, so are moral beliefs! Democracy is not based upon finding unanimous and uncontroversial consensus. Voters have different personal and moral beliefs surrounding abortion, gay marriage, the death penalty, war, drug legalization, and a variety of other issues for both religious and non-religious reasons. Politics by nature is controversial, and many laws are an imposition of personal or moral belief not shared by all.

Many recent debates have involved differing beliefs on ethics or values. Some do not consider it immoral for a business to deny performance of a service at a same-sex marriage ceremony. Some do not consider it immoral for Catholic organizations, or businesses in general, to not provide birth control as a part of their health care packages to employees. Some do not consider it immoral for drug stores to not provide Plan B morning-after pills (as they may be required to by law, despite their personal beliefs). These have all been recent debates. Curiously, also, in these particular examples, a secular morality is actually imposed on the religious! It is the religious arguing that beliefs they do not share are being imposed on their lives!

Those who promote that separation approach it from their own perspective, that religious belief is not necessary or binding, or at least not seen as objective truth. The examples that probably come to mind of why “separation of church and state” should apply would probably be laws such as: It being deemed illegal to purchase non-Kosher goods. Laws requiring businesses to remain closed on Sunday. Illegality of the depiction of the prophet Mohammad. These laws may not seem applicable to us, primarily because they are (often) beliefs that we don’t personally see reason for, even if we grant others the option to follow them.

However, someone could argue for laws that do not seem to make sense on entirely different grounds. It could be argued that the color blue should be outlawed! This could be argued for entirely non-religious reasons. Yet it shows how we see some religious beliefs, and one reason why it is argued that religion cannot have place in politics. If we were honest, is it because we may see religious belief, as opposed to other belief systems, as not making sense to us or as sometimes containing arbitrary rules?

Another way of challenging this view would be if we changed the image we have of religious belief. What about the belief that God cares for the poor, and so we should have a social safety net because of it? Or that God is a god of mercy, and so suspected terrorists should be granted Constitutional rights and given trial? Would those beliefs have merit for public policy? Can we see how religious belief can be universally applicable?

If someone were to argue to me that kosher goods should be made illegal, I would argue against that. I would not argue that the ideas espoused by these movements should not be heard. The argument of “separation of church and statement” often is a means of silence. It intends to silence any mention of religion in politics (which is actually an imposition in many ways). I would argue against the imposition of the law, again, based on my own moral beliefs that it is acceptable to eat non-Kosher food, or at least a practice that should be allowed. As I would with a law I disagreed with that had purely secular reasoning behind it. I would not argue against it, however, purely on the basis that it had a basis in religious belief.

Lastly, if someone with a political stance that has at least some basis in religion wishes to convince a secular audience, it makes sense to also use secular arguments. This may for practical purposes be the best approach. However, it is impossible for many in our nation to have solely secular reasons behind their arguments.

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yesweweresoldiers · 5 years ago

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What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup 4

Every summer, TeachingAmericanHistory brings together scholars and teachers from around the nation to our campus in Ashland to enjoy week-long seminars on focused topics in American history and government. These courses can be taken for graduate credit, or simply for your personal enrichment — some participants describe the experience as an “intellectual retreat” where they can enjoy both conversation and collegiality.

If you aren’t able to join us in person this summer, we hope you’ll consider joining us in spirit by checking out some of the myriad texts we’ll be discussing. If you’re reading along, we invite you to join the conversation using #TAHreading to share your thoughts!

Lucas Morel, GREAT AMERICAN TEXTS: RALPH ELLISON

My Ralph Ellison course will focus on his novel Invisible Man as a great American text. Although I supplement discussion of the novel with several of his essays and interviews, the course begins with discussion of one of his short stories, “In a Strange Country.” Published in 1944, eight years before the publication of Invisible Man, the story illustrates some elements that will Ellison will employ in his great novel: irony, music, and interior monologue to name a few. More importantly, the plot raises questions about race, diversity, humanity, inclusion, and the meaning of America, in general, that Ellison will return to not only in his novel but throughout the rest of his writing career. The story involves a black American named Mr. Parker, who is on shore leave in Wales during World War II. The plot thickens quickly when he is mugged by a group of bigoted white American servicemen and rescued by a Welshman, who takes him to a pub to recover. They eventually spend the rest of the evening at the Welshman’s private singing club.�� The harmony of the diverse Welshmen as they sing a variety of songs impresses Mr. Parker, who then is surprised and befuddled as they launch into the American national anthem, as they expect him to help them along. The story closes with his musing about “The Star-Spangled Banner,” thoughts and feelings reeling, as he notes, “For the first time in your whole life, he thought with dreamlike wonder, the words are not ironic.” What is the “strange land” of the story’s title: Wales or America? For racial minorities, or any numerical minority, is an imperfect America worth fighting for? How can diversity be a strength rather than a weakness of a free society? These and other questions come readily to mind, demonstrating Ellison’s close observations of American social and political life. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

William Atto and Thomas Bruscino, THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR

Thomas Bruscino: My recommendation is General Orders No. 100, Lieber’s Code, 1863. It seems so banal–just a list of 157 articles, published with little fanfare and no preamble in 1863. Perhaps that is why General Orders No. 100 is not more well known. But a closer look at the code, written by Francis Lieber and issued by President Abraham Lincoln to govern armies in the field, reveals a document of remarkable importance and reach. General Orders No. 100 is one of the key documents in the laws of war, but more than that, it is the original American counterinsurgency manual, a wartime manifestation of the opposition to slavery built into the constitution, a guide to American principles of justice and fairness, and the fundamental expression of the American mind for war. As such, Lieber’s Code is one of the most important documents in American and world history. It deserves careful reading, study, and deliberation. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Sarah Beth V. Kitch, RACE AND EQUALITY IN AMERICA

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972), a philosopher and political actor, observes that many persons regard care for justice as someone else’s task. Some persons, however, share in suffering in a way that moves them to awaken their communities to injustice. Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) invites her audience to experience the pain of racial injustice in her account, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Her account makes fresh a phenomenon that familiarity sometimes render abstract.

An invitation to ethical sensitivity, the narrative highlights the phenomenon of what Heschel would later call indifference to evil. Specifically, she reveals how Americans have accepted as part of their political order the oppression of some persons on the basis of race. Through thoughtful storytelling, Jacobs summons readers to name practices that degrade persons. “These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend.” She then shows the reader how an order contrived on racial inequality protects persons who commit sexual violence, breach her motherhood, and attack her practices of conscience and faith. The narrative creates a ringing awareness of the human capacity, whether consciously harsh or unconsciously habituated, to tolerate evil.

Jacobs concludes that the injustices she and others have experienced dehumanize both those who commit harm and those who suffer. As she unveils slavery, Jacobs beckons the reader with to consider its legacy in American political life today. She leaves the reader with a reminder of our common need for home along with a challenge to thoughtful action. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

Jeremy Bailey and Marc Landy, THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY II: JOHNSON TO THE PRESENT

Jeremy Bailey: My serious recommendation is easy. I was just on the American Political Science Association American Political Thought organized section book award committee. And the best was Jonathan Gienapp’s Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution (Harvard University Press:2o18) shows how the Constitution became “fixed” in the 1790’s and regarded as a settled agreement with its own authority. Allen Guelzo’s short Reconstruction (Oxford University Press: 2018) is also very good, as well as Daniel R’ Rodger’s history of the city on hill speech in As a City on a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon (Princeton).

My summer-y recommendation is Mark Synnott’s The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life (Dutton), which gives a very good account of the free solo climb in the context of American climbing culture in the last several decades. For more recommendations on modern American politics, check out what we’ll be reading in class on the syllabus.

Jason Jividen, THE PROGRESSIVES (online)

Charles E. Merriam (1874-1953) was a professor at the University of Chicago and an early leader in the twentieth century discipline of political science. He was also an influential public intellectual in the Progressive Movement. Often cited as one of the founders of the “behavioral approach” to political science, he argued against the usefulness of “mere” theory or formal law and institutions in understanding politics. Rather, Merriam claimed, political scientists ought to derive data from the behavior of political actors and subject these things to quantitative analysis. For Merriam, if it is to be in any way useful, political science also ought to help citizens, politicians, and administrators realize progressive social, economic, and political reform.

In his 1903 book, A History of American Political Theories, Merriam surveyed the historical development of American political principles and ideologies, and he saw this history as setting the stage for the Progressive Movement. In the eighth chapter, Merriam examined “recent tendencies” in contemporary social science research. Among these recent tendencies was the willingness of progressive scholars to reject many of the theoretical principles associated with the American Founding, e.g. the state of nature, natural rights, social contract theory, limited government, and separation of powers. Few standalone pieces highlight so succinctly the basic tenets of Progressivism and its critique of America’s Founding principles. This piece is regularly taught across several sections of AHG 505 (The Progressive Movement).

Ken Masugi, THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES (online)

My favorite Abraham Lincoln speech to teach (next to the Gettysburg Address) is his Temperance Address. With our current increase in caustic political exchanges, its penetrating (and witty) reflections on social and political extremism are most instructive.

The Temperance Address was delivered on February 22, 1842 in a church at a meeting of the Washingtonian Society, a recently organized group of reformed alcoholics. Lincoln used the occasion of Washington’s Birthday to praise the Washingtonians for their rational persuasion in gaining members. He reminds a greater audience that such rhetoric is essential for self-government. In moving citizens toward a candidate or policies, persuasive speech, which appeals to self-interest, is the alternative to force. Hellfire and damnation preaching promotes civil war.

Throughout his political career Lincoln would use the rhetorical principles of the Temperance Address to teach supporters of noble causes, such as the abolition of slavery, how best to advance them. In its argument and the action Lincoln sobers us up for the duty of self-government. Among the moral and political vices, being drunk on power is possibly the worse.

I will teach this speech in my late August course on the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. See more of what we’ll be reading on the class syllabus.

The post What We’re Talking About: A MAHG Reading Roundup 4 appeared first on Teaching American History.

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susannastoddard-blog · 7 years ago

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the-gullible-and-citizens-u-blog · 7 years ago

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