Finding the Founding (Part IX): Institutional Formation, Identity and Multa de Multis

We are in a State of Nature …. The Distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers

 and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American. 

Patrick Henry, John Adams’ Notes on Debate

              From 1754-1763 the colonies were in the midst of a war for their lives. France and its Native allies were at war with Britain and its Native allies. The consequences imperiled the very survival of the colonies. As war dawned representatives of 11 colonies met in Albany, New York in July of 1754 to discuss the situation. At this Albany Congress Pennsylvania’s delegate, Benjamin Franklin, proposed a plan of union – a union of the colonies (or at least most of them) under a single institutional structure, with the power to make treaties, raise an army and most importantly, the ability to tax. The delegates at the Congress had their eyes on the existence of the whole of the American colonies and so they approved the plan, and sent it to the legislatures of the colonies for adoption. The colonial legislative assemblies rejected the plan.

            What is most important about this plan is the power to tax, therefore, the power to legislate, therefore, the power to have funds to act independently of the states. The important thing is real power. And the colonies had no conception of an entity unto itself, even that of Parliament in Britain, that could have, should have, real power over them, and therefore, colonial legislative assemblies rejected union – not just the plan. They rejected union because it was beyond what they could conceive the colonies being. But Britain could and Franklin’s plan had been kicked to the colonies by the British Board of Trade, a governing entity that helped with colonial management and, of course, imperial trade (which is why the colonies were formed in the first place from the perspective of the Empire).

            After the war Britain realized that the management of the colonies needed to be more complete, and most of all Parliament realized that colonies needed to pay for themselves. You see, as I have mentioned in other posts, the colonies expenses were mostly paid by taxpayers in England. Protection from Natives? Taxpayers in England. Protection from pirates? Taxpayers in England. Courts and administration? Taxpayers in England. When the colonists were asked to help pay for the war, the French and Indian War, they declined. So England decided that the tax system of the colonies, which had previously been neglected, needed to be changed. No more free rides. Contrary to what Americans have been taught, Parliament was not tyrannical, mashing their fingers together like C. Montgomery, but instead they were trying to credibly manage their empire of which the colonists were by birth, culture, language and identity (or at least the nearly 70% that were ethnically British) part of that empire.

Excellent

            And no, they were not Americans – a term which had geographical meaning but little else. They were British, but they didn’t want to pay to be British (that’s pretty American!). The problem was that they were an altered form of British, with several distinctive cultural, economic and social differences, not the least of which was slavery. African slavery didn’t exist in Britain itself, but 20 some percent of the colonial population was African and over 90% of those people were slaves. Most, as we know, were in the South, and though the south ran like Britain in the Middle Ages with Lords, the Planter Class, and peasants, the slaves, this situation, at best, was a drastic deviation from 18^thcentury England, which was transitioning into the industrial era. But in terms of identity the colonists still thought of themselves as Brits, colonial, but still Brits. And these colonials identified their relationship to Great Britain through the King (that they shared with England) by way of their individual colonies. Not a collective sense of “the colonies,” but through individual colonies.

            When the colonists in the various colonies heard of the new tax plan that ultimately included the Stamp Act (which ironically Ben Franklin asked Parliament if he could be the major tax collector for this act), they rioted in the streets and called for another Congress, like the one in Albany in 1754, to convene in New York City. The Stamp Act Congress gives a great clue as to when the Founding could possibly happen. The delegates drafted a number of petitions and declarations that all claimed how British they were and how their rights were their rights just as if they were born in England. Not because they were Americans who loved freedom and not against tyrants, but because they knew that the British, which they were, had rights. What this tells us is that there can’t be a Founding until these British colonists no longer think like British colonists. They may have changed some of their habits, and adopted bad habits that the British in England didn’t have (like slavery), but until they identified as something else and formed institutions that supported that new identity, there can be no Founding.

Perspective makes History

            Parliament repealed the Stamp Act and other measures and went back to the drawing board to find ways to have the colonists help pay for the benefits that came with Empire. But the Townshend Acts didn’t please the colonists either, but no Congress this time. Instead, they tried a boycott, which didn’t work. By 1773, however, Parliament had pealed away the Townshend Acts to only commit the colonists to a tax on tea. Yes, that act. And you know the party they threw. It’s consequences were the Coercive Acts, which triggered another Congress. This congress met in Carpenter’s Hall of Philadelphia in September of 1774. It was there in Carpenter’s Hall that Patrick Henry uttered his famous line of not being Virginian but being American. 

              Such a curious (and prophetic) line should have been a huge topic of discussion for the delegates just to figure out what it meant, but it wasn’t. The quote was recorded, but the delegates left little to no commentary on this monumental quote. Why? Either because it wasn’t actually said, or because it was ridiculous, or it was not meant to be what it seems, but since at least two delegates recorded it in their notes on the debate of Congress, I guess he said it. If you read James Duane’s account, it is out of place if it is really about being “American.” The whole context of the debate was about how Congress would vote and how each colony was to be represented, and in this, Patrick Henry was a Virginian. The question was whether each colony should have one vote, or whether there should be some sort of proportional scheme where large colonies, like Virginia, should have more votes than small colonies, like Rhode Island. Henry’s quote wasn’t about being American, it was a dramatic oration as to his desire for his colony to have more power. In their writings the whole First Congress stressed over and over how British they were, how their rights were British, how their King was British, because …. They were British, colonial British. More importantly, the Congress made a statement about being American, or at least united as one entity. They rejected it.

            More important than this mysterious quote was the motion made by Pennsylvania delegate Joseph Galloway regarding another plan for union. Galloway was the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly and an associate of Ben Franklin. Picking up on Franklin’s Albany Plan, Galloway proposed forming the colonies into a union under an American Parliament that would act as a subordinate wing of the British Parliament and handle the things (taxation) that the colonists found so vexing when the decisions on taxes to pay for the colonies were made in London. Agree to this and no revolution, no Founding. Interestingly enough, the King’s Prime Minister, Lord Frederick North, was about to embark on a Conciliatory Plan (arrived in the colonies in 1775), which gave a formal institutional structure offered by London that mirrored Galloway’s plan of union. The First Continental Congress voted Galloway’s Plan down, and Congress never considered Lord North’s Conciliatory Plan very conciliatory. They didn’t want union because they were not American, they were British, colonial British, whose identity was framed through being a colonist in a particular colony of the British Empire. No Founding.

Lord North: The most hated man who never
set foot in the Colonies. He tried to please.

            A year later, September of 1775, things had changed, but not colonial identity. They rejected Galloway’s Plan, they scoffed at North’s Plan, but then the King spoke. The King was done with conciliation, coddling and cooing to the colonists who rejected the need of the empire for them to pay their fair share for being in the Empire. So, he kicked them out of the Empire and made them independent …. So that British armies could conquer the colonies and bring them back into the empire on Parliament’s terms. (More on this in a previous AmericaHypothesis posted on July 2, 2018).

            To survive the colonies now had to form some sort of union, but being British colonists they formed a union that satisfied their identity as British colonists, not an identity based on being “American.”

            But how can that be said when the colonists declared their independence as Americans?

            Identity and culture are tricky things when it comes to figuring out how the human psyche internalizes them. In the Declaration of Independence, the document gives clues as to the confusion of the moment. Originally, it was written as the declaration of “united States” with each State named separately. Kind of means the identity focused on the colony which became a state (state meaning nation) and not the colonies uniting as one nation. The wording of the Declaration when it comes to naming who or what is becoming independent is ambiguous. Jefferson notes several references to “United Colonies,” to colonists, to states, but not to Americans and America. Why? Because it was not within his grasp to understand himself or those around him the way we do now as members of an entity known as the United States. Instead, looking at the institutional formation of these first states united shows us not an “American” conception of nation, but a colonial British conception – and that means looking at how the union was defined in the Articles of Confederation.

Had the Articles survived Dickinson would

be on the $1 bill.

            The Articles were first submitted from committee authored by John Dickinson in August of 1776 and then ratified by the Continental Congress in November of 1777. Over a year of seasoning. Most historians suggest that it was quickly thrown together because of the exigencies of war, but the contrary seems to be clear – and not because the ratification process in Congress was over a year but because of the institutional framework that the Articles established and the identity which the Articles validated. 

            The Articles established an institutional framework that supported every political claim made by British colonists since conflicting views on representation happened between the colonies and Parliament. Most importantly, the Articles did not establish one nation, but instead confirmed the establishment of 13 nations with a connecting institution, the Continental Congress. More important than that the Articles did not establish the Continental Congress as a government, and those Articles was not, strictly speaking, a constitution, but rather part of a constitutional construct which also included the separate state constitutions and colonial practice.

            When, for the last 200 some odd years, Americans have been taught to the contrary about the Articles, Congress, government, constitution, how can these claims be made? How can history be changed? Precisely because this isn’t changing history, it’s changing “heritage.” Heritage and History are often confused. One is the story we tell ourselves about who we want to believe we are and the other is a discipline devoted to interpreting evidence to try and understand who we were.  Our “Heritage” is that Americans, even before the Revolution loved freedom (and conversely the British hated freedom). We fought against tyranny, by fleeing the Old World for religious reasons, and settling in a well spring of freedom that called to us from across an ocean (unless you were African and then despotism and depravity called you). So “Heritage” also convinces us that “United States” has one meaning (our contemporary meaning of one nation indivisible), and that “Americans” were always what we think they are (our contemporary definition of a people, in a nation, with liberty and justice for all). We assume, because we define a thing a certain way and that thing was talked about 250 years ago that those who spoke of the thing we know to be true meant the very same thing. But they didn’t. British colonists did not know what it meant to be American, they had to invent that concept. And Inventing the Republicwas not as intuitive as we, and historians, and our “Heritage” have made it seem.

This book does in 9 chapters what this blog is trying to do

            The Articles merely parroted British colonial conceptions about institutional formation that the colonists had argued for over a decade. They had claimed loyalty to a King, but to a King that only had certain powers and prerogatives to handle, foreign policy, maintain the military and establish general parameters of colonial life. Not directly govern the colonies. They admitted that Parliament was owed “all due subordination,” but “due” meant that Parliament in England only had certain powers to regulate externalities of the colonies. Not directly govern the colonies, or directly tax, make law for, the inhabitants of the colonies. Only the colonial assemblies, they had argued since the Stamp Act Congress, could tax or make law for the internal policy of the colonies. Each colony controlled itself. Each colonial assembly with the support of the King, could govern the colonies. The British in England never understood this concept, in part, because the colonists claimed this was their British right, but Parliament knew that British rights extended to wherever Parliament wanted to go.  

             “But the colonists weren’t represented by Parliament.” I heard you. But you’re wrong. At least from the British perspective that the colonists claimed to have had. In the Empire, representation was not based on a Modern concept of choice, rational decision making through voting. Instead, it reflected Archaic patterns of connection through blood. Every colonist, just like every average person in England, was represented by the House of Commons because they had common blood. They didn’t vote for that blood and they needn’t vote to be represented by the Commons. Blood represented them, just as the noble blood represented those of noble birth in the House of Lords.

People were represented by their blood: noble or common

Representation in real British constitutional terms was by the fact of your birth, not by the act of your vote. The colonies, imperfectly British as they were, had developed a whole different constitutional understanding because representation in your local colonial assembly wasn’t tied to birth it was mostly tied to land ownership. So the British colonists got their Britishness wrong, or at least they got wrong what they thought it meant to be British. It was this concept of representation and who could make law that they incorporated into the Articles. It was this concept of institutional formation that tells us that they forming a system based not on being “American” but on being British colonists.

           Here’s part of the evidence and it can only come from looking at what the Articles actually conceived.

             The first article was just about the name – that the new confederation would be the United States of America, but the meaning of this is lost on a reader in the 21^stcentury who has a conception of the USA as a nation where state meant a province and province means a subordinate part of a greater whole. British colonists didn’t think that way. Why would they? They had always been separate, independent colonies and so state to them meant what we only term today as nation – but in the 18^thcentury state meant nation – a State.

Except for the Alt-Right, we don't look at the U.N. as government
because it can't make law, and it can't tax to survive on its own.
It is the nations of the world "in Congress assembled"

Besides putting this in context with thousands of other references which you don’t want to read, the Articles give us a clear indication by what the Delegates of Congress actually meant – they meant nation and wrote state:

Article II: Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. 

You may not see it, hell, 200 years of Historians have overlooked it (to serve Heritage instead of their calling), but it is there. Do you see something peculiar? No? Everything looks pretty constitutional, does it? Oh, except that last part, but that can’t mean much, can it? It can’t be important because you’ve never read it before and it sounds stupid anyway. But that phrase “in Congress assembled” is the key to understanding the whole article and why they wrote state but meant what we call nation. It’s easy to get if it wasn’t the USA. Each “state” is separate, and under its own power. If this was any other configuration, you would easily get that, but its hard because we think we know, and so in the past they must have known, just what America was. But they weren’t Americans, they were British Colonists who had lived in a framework where the empire, through the King, had unity, but their home colonies were all as separate as oil and vinegar.

I think it's rather obvious that this isn't used on salads

The only time they had unity of any sort was when and where their delegates met “in Congress assembled.” The only time the “states” as nations didn’t control everything about themselves was when their delegates met “in Congress assembled. There was no one nation. No E Pluribus Unum, out of many one, there was Multa de Multis, many out of many. 

            Most significantly, Congress was not a government. Instead, it took the place of the King as the symbol of their struggle together and a body in which they could find unity (in Congress assembled) to solve their collective problem of staying alive as the British were trying to conquer them. In no way does Congress possess legislative authority and most importantly, Congress, under the Articles, has no power to tax. They can ask for money, but they can’t require it. This conception was exactly what British Colonists had rebelled in favor of in the first place – Parliament (King, Lords and Commons in England) could not tax the colonies because the colonies had separate and independent governments (legislative assemblies) to do that. So what did they create? The Articles along with the state constitutions established a system where King, and England, was replaced by Congress, and only the states had power to govern the states. Thirteen nations and one form of unity, in Congress assembled, to organize mutual interests, like peace and war, weights and measures …. But not making law. Congress, like the King, was a sovereign, but the states possessed sovereignty, the power to make law. 

              And Power is what institutional frameworks are about. After 8 years of fighting for the independence of each of the nations of the continent, members of Contitnental Congress and the Continental Army realized that their conception of the America was not States in Congress assembled, but in a new configuration of one nation out of many. E Pluribus Unum drove the desire to form a more perfect union and develop institutions of power that got rid of states as nations and instead devised states as subordinate to a government of the whole. Americans had not initiated the American Revolution, British colonists did, and the Articles were not what we know of as the United States. That concept was founded in the development of the one nation framework of the Constitution of 1787. But even though I used the word “founded” the Framers, were not the Founders, because America is not about power, and therefore not founded strictly by the Constitution. So, believe it or not, we will not find the founding until, a very fitting, for those who know me, installment X

Finding the Founding (Part VIII): You Think Our Divisions Are Recent?

           In the 1940s, and more urgently in the 1960s (thanks to Castro), Costa Rica embarked on a series of agrarian reform measures, similar in spirit to those of the Gracchi, but without the grizzly murders of top political officials (see Finding the Founding VII). While these reforms did not create a paradise – 20% of Costa Ricans live in poverty while the USA stands at 16% – the country is the most stable (the only stable?) country in Central America. Costa Rica became better because the lives of more of its population had access to the means for wealth, ok, maybe not wealth the way we normally use the word, but at least the means to not living a life controlled by the 1%. The 1% still owns a sizeable portion of the land, but not all of it. There is a direct correlation between stability, democratic access and the realization of rights in countries, nations and republics where people have access to a material life where they can sustain themselves and not live cap in hand to the ruling class.  The Gracchi knew it, Costa Rica knows it and supposedly the founding ideology, according to the most influential historians of the American Revolution, like Gordon Wood, and Bernard Bailyn, was based on moving money (wealth) to support a middle class through taxation on wealth.

The Jesus Tree in Costa Rica: A place so miraculous 

that a tree grows out of the Pacific Ocean!

            Power in too few hands, means impoverishment in too many hands. Hah, the Founders knew that too much support to the “Job Creator” class creates a society of owners and peasants – or at least the historians of the ideology of the Revolution would have us believe that they, the Founders, believed that. But in looking for the Founding it is quite apparent that this was not the universal ideology of the Revolution.

            Colonial settlement patterns, which we hinted at in previous posts, suggests that a uniformity in ideology among the colonies would be highly unlikely. In fact at the dawn of independence, unity between the colonies, as we understand it, was not desired whatsoever. Instead their were cultural, economic and political divisions that made real union of the colonies into one country impossible.

            When it came to classical republican ideas and the support for a thriving and growing middle class as a means to secure freedom, only a few colonies could have really accepted such an ideology. The northern colonies had a middle class, or in the terms of the time, a “middling sort” who owned their own land (not much but enough) and could provide for themselves (not much but enough). Puritan Culture in New England had begun in the 1630s with a disdain for too much wealth accumulation by an individual because it meant they were serving “mammon” instead of “God.” The Quakers of New Jersey and Pennsylvania established those colonies in the 1680s with a similar view that the accumulation of too much wealth established a “cumber” (encumbrance) to “doing good in the world.” By the mid-1700s the religious overtones to these economic and cultural ideals was gone, but the idea that the community is served by a more even apportionment of wealth lived on. And so many were of the classical republican sort. But down South?

Hah. 

Down in the southern colonies there was no diversity of class or apportionment of wealth. There were two types of people and it wasn’t free and slave. There were those who had and those who had not. Those who “had” had everything and a monopoly on economic capital, political institutions, social and intellectual access and cultural standards. They were an oligarchy of the Planter class who sought one

Love this guy!

thing. More of what they had, and to simplify, they had power. Unlimited Power (oh, I already did the Palpatine thing). Could these people really buy into redistributive political policies to help stabilize a middle class and maximize freedom for more and more and more people? Yes, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. But did he really live those ideas? Jefferson was like most in the Planter Class, they could have an idea and use it for their gain, but really see it through? No.

            When it came to Classical Republicanism as a formal ideology it was in their minds as a philosophical whimsy, but as to practice? Plantation owners had a way of keeping the mind and body separate, or perhaps in more contemporary terms their ability to accept cognitive dissonance was off the charts. The Randolphs, Lees, Washingtons, Madisons and most of all Jeffersons would not, could not accept a society of wealth moving to the center in order to realize a better society. They believed in their status and that it entitled, no, that it demanded their absolute control over all they surveyed, not just slave but also free. They believed in Power and they knew that power of necessity stomped out Liberty … and they became informed about this power/liberty dialectic straight from the source, Cato. Not the ugly old man Roman Cato, but a duo of English Opposition writers, Trenchard and Gordon, the authors of Cato’s Letters.

Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Oh My!

            Taking on a Greek or Roman pseudonym was all the rage in 17^thand 18th British political writing (that means among the colonists as well). Why do you think the author of this blog is Cirrus Stratus? Even studying the ideological patterns of the Revolution makes you want to put on a classical hat, and those who donned Cato’s were probably the most famous to do so (I guess Publius, author of the Federalist Papers would beg to differ!). The author’s of Cato’s Letterswere part of a trend in early 18^thcentury British political thought often called by scholars The Commonwealth Men. Numerous writers, of which Cato’s authors Trenchard and Gordon were the most famous and important, espoused a republicanism that emphasized a Machiavellian rehashing of civic virtue, personal liberty and a government that was regulated, controlled and run by the people for the good of the people. According to many historians of the Revolution these writings were highly influential among the power groups of the colonies, especially the northern merchant class and the southern planter class. But given the historical context of these two regions, it is highly doubtful that the interpretation of “by the people, for the good of the people” would have been consistent among the two groups. Yeah, they spoke a similar political language, but the meaning of their words was drastically different.

            And the meaning had to be different based upon the biggest difference between these two groups – the extent of slavery as the driving cultural force in one of those regions.

              Both the south and the north had slavery. It was sanctioned by British law throughout the empire and especially in the colonies, but as a cultural entity it was different, if for no other reason than that in the northern colonies slaves were an insignificant percentage of the population. Outside of northern cities and ports there were less than 1% of the population held as slave, and in those cities the highest % was about 10 of the overall population. In the south almost half the population was held in chains in the 1770s. It was a constant of life in the south that some are free and some are slave and every aspect of culture was permeated by this self-evident truth.

            So what that means is that every political concept, civic virtue, liberty, equality, taxation, representation, and government “by the people, for the good of the people” was framed within a context of meaning directly related to whether slaves were in your midst.

               Cato, from Cato’s Letters, espoused the idea of power as an inhibitor, or more like the enemy, of liberty – and interestingly enough this Cato was not based upon the Grachi’s Cato, but his great grandson, Cato the Younger, who was an enemy of Julius Caesar. He was so against the swallowing of the Republican Roman state by Caesar that when it was apparent that Caesar had taken control of the state for himself, Cato committed suicide. Had he waited a couple of years he could have helped on the Ides of March, but I guess murder isn’t as strong a statement for how much you love your country as ripping your own guts out, which is what the Younger did. The meaning of this death, much like the 18^thcentury ideas associated with it, would not have been lost on colonial ruling classes that ultimately did not control their own government. Power from London was inhibiting “by the people, for the good of the people.” Power was endangering Liberty (even though to be British in the British Empire meant that you were among the freest (maybe the only free) persons on the planet). But the meaning of liberty was different when it came to northern merchants and southern planters, and so for that matter was the means by which power had to be checked in order to maintain liberty.

               By the 1770s historians estimate that most males in New England and the Middle colonies had some political access. Most families owned land and provided for themselves, and that had “republican” consequences as to how they conceived their changing relationship with Parliament in England. After a century of “salutary neglect” where Parliament rarely legislated for the colonies there was now a financial need to make the colonies pay for themselves, hence the need for all those taxes. The colonies had been an expense for the crown and for taxpayers in England – an expense that was worth it when Britain was involved in a century of warfare against rival France for global dominance. 

             When Britain moved ahead in that war (which really didn’t end until WWI and WWII brought the collapse of both empires and paved the way for the American Empire to achieve predominance throughout the world) Parliament decided to shift the burden of running the colonies, of protecting the colonies (but not governing the colonies) to the colonial taxpayers. Colonists in New England and the Middle colonies rebelled, because they were used to passing their own tax laws and these taxes (Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, you know the ones) were passed in London. The old English maxim that law and taxes could only be made by the consent of the governed meant that voters in the northern colonies had to have their representatives make the law. And most people voted, so most people believed that consent was tied to their representatives.

                 In the colonial south, however, hardly anyone voted. Hardly anyone owned land, and hardly anyone realized the independence of providing for yourself that went along with republicanism and the democratic sentiments of the northern colonies. Almost half the population was in real chains, and of the free population half of that population had no political, economic or social rights – meaning “free” women were in figurative chains. Most of the free male population in the south were dependent upon the only group that was truly free, the Planter Class. 

(But was the situation any different for women in the North? In ways that might not be meaningful to the 21^stcentury observer there were very important differences between the rights of women in North and South, and those differences were as significant as defining the Liberal and Conservative views to women’s rights in the 21^stcentury …. But that AmericaHypothesis is going to have to wait for another posting.)

Mary Wollstonecraft: The most important philosopher

of the last 250 years from the "Oh, her daughter wrote

Frankenstein?" Category. She defined the abuses of the 

"Politics of Pretty."

            The idea of representation in the south was not democratic. It couldn’t be. Nothing could be democratic or republican in a southern culture where raw power held by the few of a landed elite held other human beings as slaves. Well, they didn’t really think of them as fully human, is often the response I have heard to make apologies for the hypocrisy of Jefferson’s “created equal.” Right, they didn’t and they didn’t really think of free people outside of the Planter Class as really human either, at least not the created equal kind. And the Planter Class had no basis, along with anyone in southern culture for understanding equality of any kind, nor did they have the ability to comprehend government “by the people for the good of the people.” What they had was a cultural underpinning, not of Liberty, but of Power, where power entailed having rights and power was, for the most part, part of the birthright of the Planter Class. So when they objected to Parliament’s taxing laws, it was not for Cato’s reasons as the northern merchant understood by civic virtue, but by virtue of their birthright to wield power over all that they surveyed. And Washington was a surveyor for a time. So where is the Founding? We’ll find it in an X, the tenth and final installment, and it will be a bittersweet ending for all you GOT fans.

Independence Day: Why it wasn't June, or May, or April or any other Month

            Interestingly the dates and days are the same in 2018 as they were in 1776. On Friday, June 29 they received a courier with the news in the late afternoon. So they adjourned before acting. On Saturday, June 30, they pondered in the coffee shops in the morning and in the taverns that eve. On Sunday, July 1, they pondered in the churches in the morning and in … well the taverns were closed in Philadelphia that eve. On Monday, July 2, the first day of business since the news arrived they acted, because they had to do something to save their collective Congressional asses.

Independence Hall!

          We think of independence as a bold stroke, a patriotic moment, a courageous yet divisive decision, and in the historical abstract our mythology is correct. “Independance” did take courage by patriotic figures who knew that it would be praised and cursed, but the moment of July 4, 1776 really had nothing to do with these variables, at least not as we have been taught. Instead for the delegates in the Continental Congress it was a decision forced upon them, predicated upon a decision they had intended to put off but made immediate because of a monumental failure. And that scenario we are never taught.

            Much of what is to follow is based on an article I am working on but articles take so much time, and they are not nearly as fun as blogs, so here is the blog form.  Before we begin indulge me a little with a scenario of my own. Imagine, if you will, an adolescent who has recently made some very obstinate actions towards the authority of parents who had finally had enough of shenanigans. The teen lives at home under the protection of these parents, but due to that recent obstinance has been given an ultimatum that it is time to move out. The teen began making plans, looking for a place, looking for roommates, looking for some sympathy from friends, and though the teen was not allowed in the family home, the teen still regarded the house of his parents as home. Finally, several months later, after crashing the family car, this adolescent announced to the parents, “I am moving out, and you can’t do anything about it.” My question regards who actually made the decision for the teen to move out? The teen with a bold pronouncement? Or the parents with the demand months and months before?  According to the American History that you and I grew up with, it was the teen who claimed his own miraculous independence.

            In August and September of 1775, King George III of Great Britain, and therefore, of Britain’s North American Colonies, declared the colonies in rebellion and out of the empire.  Upon his word, the word of his majesty the King, the colonies were independent. Why did he do this? For legal reasons. 

           The colonies under British (English) law were colonies by settlement of British colonists and therefore those who lived in the colonies enjoyed the rights of participation in government (consent) as had been long standing practice in England and long developed legally as part of the British Constitution.  What this meant is that the colonies had the right to reject aspects of rightful, constitutional, Parliamentary rule (the rule of King, Lords, and Commons). And so they had done for a decade before these speeches by the King. But to the Crown and the government in London that had to end. After indulging the colonist’s refusal to be governed, the easiest way for the crown to get around the rights of free British subjects (their right to consent to government) was to make the legal basis of the colonies something other than that of colonies by “settlement.” The other type of colony under British law, colonies where the crown could impose whatever government it liked and establish rights of whatever whim it wanted, was colony by “conquest.” And now after the King’s speech, with the colonies no longer part of the empire, they were free to be conquered and imposed upon as Parliament in England saw fit.

Can you imagine this as your ruler? For no other reason than she was born to it?

Or is it better to make your accident by ballot than accident by birth?

That she would actually be photoed by a prop from a show that

totally depicts why blood based systems are horrific just shows how

messed up the concept of birthright monarchy is. Morrissey is at least right on that regard.

               If you think your internet lag is a problem, imagine getting news by sail boat across an ocean. It was not until late November and December that the colonists, and in particular the delegates of the Continental Congress, began getting the news of the change in their legal status. And they knew, they knew upon reading the text of this news that whether they liked it or not they were then and their “independent” of Great Britain.  All of the colonies, all of the colonists, were independent. There was no debate, there was no chance for reconciliation (so the play/movie 1776 is utter hogwash), there was only an independence forced upon them and they had better do something about it. And they did.

             They, the delegates of the Continental Congress, convened in January of 1776 and began meeting in secret to formulate a plan to secure their independence – to 1. Confederate into some form of disunited unity 2. Find allies (they hated the French because they were British but now that they weren’t British they thought they could rely on the French) and 3. Make a bold pronouncement as to the nature of what independence would mean or in other words declare their intentions to a candid world.

            What? You’re still stuck on colonist’s refusal to be governed? Why should they not refuse the tyranny of British tyrannical tyrants? Ugh. Ok. Short version. No tyranny. The English taxpayer paid the bills of the colonies, not the colonial taxpayer, and when the French invaded with their native allies, it was the English taxpayer who paid the expense for the armies that protected the colonies. Colonial courts? Paid by English taxpayers. Protection of colonial shipping from pirates? Paid by English taxpayers. Colonial administration? Paid by English taxpayers or at least a lion’s share of expenses throughout the colonies, not paid by colonists, but paid by English taxpayers. So that is where the Sugar Tax and Stamp Act came from. The colonists threw a fit and so the British repealed. That’s where the Townshend Acts came from. The colonists threw a fit and so the British repealed … except for the one on Tea which was necessary to save the English East India Company from going broke (they took this from Obama and his too big to fail doctrine (The Revolution was Obama’s fault!)). So when the Sons of Liberty destroyed the Tea, the British were the unreasonable ones? Independence and the values of the Revolution are indeed to be lauded, but to make the British in this case into tyrants is a historical absurdity. Now, can we proceed with the Congress?

            January and February they met in secret to develop the plan and plan other contingencies for a British-less future.  In March some more writing lagged aboard ship communication and brought word of Parliamentary Acts to conquer the colonies, and what that entailed – a huge army and the end of colonial merchant commerce as they knew it. The reaction of the delegates? We need to invade Canada! Ok, not quite because the invasion had already begun, but now it was more necessary than ever.

Oh Canada! My favorite view: Parish Island
at Charleston Lake, Ontario

          Trump was not the first to realize the threat of those polite and friendly people to the north of us, the Continental Congress realized it to – or at least they realized that Canada posed a strategic problem that had to be dealt with in the wars to come. With the formation of the Continental Army in the Summer of 1775 (a move that helped to precipitate the King’s speeches) it was not long after that colonial strategists realized that Canada provided close proximity to the colonies as a base of operations for Britain. In November a force was sent under the inferior command of Richard Montgomery whose best general officer was none other than Benedict Arnold, the traitor. But before he was a traitor, it turns out that Benedict was the most capable field officer in the Continental Army – in fact the great victory of Saratoga in 1777 that supposedly saved the Revolution was because of Benedict (who got no credit and promptly went back to being British). In 1776 Benedict also saved the Canadian invasion from total collapse and annihilation. So what does that have to do with independence? Return to Philadelphia and we’ll see.

          While the invasion was going on hundreds of miles from the delegates, they too had work to do, to secure independence and mostly to make sure that they didn’t fail in keeping their independence – because if the British come knocking at Independence Hall, they are going to hang all the delegates. It’s what you do to leaders of resistance when you conquer. On May 10, 1776 the delegates voted a resolution that further demonstrates that they knew they were independent. The resolution which was sent to every colonial legislature stated that each colony should from that day forward base their authority, not on the authority of the King, but on the authority of the people of the colony. Seems pretty definitive in spite of what the Broadway play would have us believe, that there was some big question, some trepidation, some outrage – nope. They all knew they were independent and they were developing the legal corpus to gain the support of the population so that their corpus was not hung from London Bridge.

Hey, in its day this was high speed fiber optic cable, baby!

            And then the news came, Friday, June 29. The Canadian Invasion had collapsed and was an utter failure. Confederation was still in committee, as the old colonies/new states had some things to iron out. Negotiations with France were getting underway, so the colonies had no official allies. The delegates needed to do something, but it was late on a Friday and it was time to get their drink on. So they adjourned. Surprising given the urgency of the moment, but it was a different time, when things moved more slowly (three months to google anything). Besides, they only had one thing left to do. Can’t unveil the Confederation Plan of Union or let your fellow colonists know that now we fight with the French. No, only one thing left to do and that can wait until Monday.

             On Saturday, June 30, they pondered in the coffee shops in the morning and in the taverns that eve. On Sunday, July 1, they pondered in the churches in the morning and in … well the taverns were closed in Philadelphia that eve. On Monday, July 2, the first day of business since the news arrived they acted, and ratified a declaration to be announced to the colonists to rally them to their cause – their cause being one of the delegates staying alive. The Founders knew they needed a rip roaring indictment of Britain and the British King to excite the masses (most of whom were British/English by birth, language, culture and choice) and get them on the side of independence, hence this was a military not an ideological decision. The Founders knew that if they could not get support that all the “I’m sorry” in the world would not save them from the wrath of empire and the illing pain that comes from losing your head. The Founders knew that in spite of being legally on their own for nearly a year, it was time for them to let the parents know, “I am moving out, and you can’t do anything about it.”

Happy Independence Day.

Finding the Founding (Part VII): Grachs, Romans, Democracy and Classical Republicans

           My favorite work on the American Revolution is by Edmund Morgan, Inventing the People, but by far the most astounding, challenging and awe inspiring is the monumental book by J.G.A. Pocock from 1975 entitled The Machiavellian Moment, and what a moment it was.

Machiavelli: He looks ill

            Pocock’s work is not flawless – a lot of Lockean scholars picked him apart because his hypothesis was to distance the Revolution from Locke and move it to another set of theorists and writers who stood in opposition to power in England and followed a technically non-Lockean Liberal ideology termed classical republicanism. More on CR (classical Republicanism) in a bit, but Pocock deserves a little more time. The book is very difficult – you need to be conversant in law, in philosophy and in history or at least two of the three! To not spend over 500 pages like Pocock, suffice to say he connects political concepts from antiquity through time to the pen of Thomas Jefferson, and the ink that marks the words of TJ is provided by the mind and ideas of none other than one of history’s most sinister figures, by literary reputation, Niccoli Machiavelli – yes, that Machiavelli who is known to most people only as the author of The Prince, the dictator’s guide to power. Certainly, it was all I knew about Mach when I read his moment and so I was caught off guard that evil Machiavelli could play a role in establishing virtuous liberty and justice for all (or for some (or for a few)).

 The Machiavelli that Pocock claimed became the font of eventual democratic ideals, however, was not merely the author of “the ends justify the means (Palpatine laughing).” Oh no, and to most of the founding generation and their English republican ancestors The Prince was the least of their Machiavellian reading. Mostly it was his Discourses which centered on Republican theory and the means of what we would call a democratic state where people, regular people, had the potential for controlling their own destiny and therefore living in a community where they had rights and the ability to defend those rights. Those ideas on Liberty, according to Pocock, were picked up by 17^thand 18^thcentury political writers in England, most notably, a not so very notable, James Harrington, author of Oceana, and John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, authors of Cato’s Letters. Unlike what you learn in political science (hack discipline that it is) where you learn that ideologically the American Revolution is based on the social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes, (really? Did they actually even bother to read Leviathan?) who we can confidently state is the founder of democratic totalitarianism (I made that up, but it is apt!) and John Locke whose Second Treatise on Governmentis the founding document of Liberalism (the ideology on which the United States is based, with or without a Lockean connection), Pocock is part of the ascendant line of scholarship that gives most of the ideological gravitas of the American Revolution to Harrington (and other CR authors) and Trenchard and Gordon. Pocock’s crowning innovation to this paradigm is to reveal Machiavelli was behind the intellectual curtain of all of this thought, and his prints (see what I did there?) can be seen all over the pens of the founders.  Ok, great. A lot of egghead soup there that really doesn’t link up much with the economic underpinnings I have laid down in the previous parts of Finding the Founding. So how does it connect? Well it might be easier if we went back to the time that Pocock did, but instead of law and philosophy, look at politics in action and some really messed up stuff. So goodbye to Pocock.

Rome. Republican Rome. In part, we can find the Founder’s there (in the same sort of way that the world of Islam initiated the Founding through development of sugar mass production in the western world, see previous blog posting on the origins of the Modern Economy). And we get to look at the dawn of Rome’s own Revolution ended with Augustus seizing power and destroying the Roman Republic and began with our focus, The Gracchi.

The Roman Constitution had several moving parts,

but they would have cringed being styled as a

Pentagon, which is Greek?

I love the Gracchi and envisioned their grizzly political deaths to be something that my older brother and I would someday follow …. when I was a kid of course. Oh, spoiler. Things don’t work out so good for our heros. 

            Now when Americans read about Republican Rome we think we know what it was like politically – because it was a Republic and we live in a Republic, so of course we know what that is. No, we don’t. Rome was a republic in that it wasn’t a kingdom and therefore had balances of power spread across parts of the population – mostly it was a tribal (insert really long word ending with archy). But Rome, despite having a senate and a number of popular assembly’s which added to the legislative basis of the state, was not a democracy, and certainly not a democracy based on self-definition and self-determination as is the United States under Liberalism (or at least it’s supposed to be that, but as we all know, we often fall short of that and in the era of Trump, we’re not even standing). The Roman Republic was ruled by clans, not the Klan, clans. Stay with me, this is Rome, not Trumpland. 

Powerful blood relationships defined who you were and your access to power in ancient Rome. Powerful familial groups and groups of related families, clans, sought power and influence and fought with each other to get it. Rome’s constitution of having multiple institutions of power, an executive separate from the legislative and a Senate which acted as a sort of Supreme Court, insured some stability in the state because no one clan could really take over all of the reigns (tee hee) of power, at least not until Augustus did it for the powerful Julian clan. A distant ancestor of the Julians were the Sempronii from which came two brothers named Tiberius and Gaius. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Gaius Sempronius Gracchus – first name was your personal name, second name your Clan name (kind of akin to our last names) and then the third name the particular family line from whence you came. So Sempronius is the important political affiliation for our boys.

            If all that was a bit boring, it gets better – about 1,000 stabs better. Contemporary historians love to compare the Gracchi (Tiberius and Gaius) to the Kennedy’s and not merely because it ended badly as it did likewise for John and Robert, but also because the Gracchi were dreamy eyed reformers who wanted something better for their people (but then weren’t all ancient Romans hot – I mean, from what I’ve seen from the statues, both male and female had rock hard abs). Now, I don’t know if the Kennedy’s really wanted to make things better for regular people, but their legacy certainly says they did, and the Gracchi likewise have the same political rep.

I have no idea what this is
but I pray it has nothing to do
with the Kennedys

            The Sempronii were not one of the Patrician clans who dominated Rome but they were one of the Plebian families who had entered into power – kind of like the Kennedy’s being immigrants and then moving into power positions thanks to Papa Joe. Well, Tiberius had a papa named Tiberius who was a commander of Roman armies and a consul of Rome – kind of akin to their chief executive. The boys’ mother was, however, a well heeled Patrician and the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage and the Roman who defeated Hannibal (arguably the greatest general of all-time). Cornelia was a member of one of the innovative clans in Rome who sought out wisdom and culture from Rome’s imperial conquests – so the boys learned Greek politics, or so the story goes, because this made them keenly interested in what was good for the people. And the rule of the people in Greek, rule=cracy, people=demos – Democracy. My sneaking suspicion, however, is the boys didn’t get their impulse from Greece and instead they got their “populares” leaning from another place, serving Rome and serving with average Romans.

The enemies of the populares also had a famous ancestor who was the rival of Scipio Africanus, Cato the Elder. Cato detested foreign ways and foreigners, and thought all the world had to offer outside of Rome was decadence. He was a rather sober cuss, but I doubt his political followers were. Instead they probably used the rhetoric of upholding “Roman Family Values” of virtue (service to the state and denial of individual importance) and a spartan lifestyle (nice Greek play on words, take that Cato!) as an excuse to justify their un-gods-ly wealth and the meager existence of the poor as most Conservatives like Cato do.

Poor Cato lived a good life and was still miserable

Certainly, by the time of the younger Gracchi entering politics towards the end of the second century b.c.e. Cato’s crowd (he was already dead) had monopolized most of the Italian country side. Why was this important? Because in the world before industrialization (mass production to lead to mass consumption) owning, possessing, having land was the way most people stayed alive by farming that land. If you don’t own, possess or have land then you have to work for the dregs that the landowners give you. You may as well be a slave, and many were, and even those who weren’t, like Rome’s veteran soldiers basically lived a material condition like slaves.

Enter the Gracchi

You can see in this image why the Gracchi get compared to JFK and RFK

            Or at first enter the oldest brother in 133 b.c.e., Tiberius. That year he became one of the other executive officers of the Roman state, a Tribune of the People, who administered one of Rome’s legislative bodies. Rome had several and by this time several bodies could make law for Rome. The Tribunes oversaw legislation that emanated from what had traditionally been the Plebian legislative body. According to ancient sources, Tiberius reflected hard on the starving veterans and growing poor population of Rome – He realized that a Republic can not be the Rule (res) of the Public (publica) very long if most of the public were destitute. How could they access their Roman rights, Roman freedom, Roman Liberty! Let alone Roman virtue without the material means to make it meaningful. Tiberius’ answer was that they could not. So … in classical Republican style he took measures to limit the landholdings of the wealthy and enable the poor, the marginalized, the regular Romans a chance to indulge in owning, possessing and having land: A chance for a better life.

            Just like in our time most of the Republicans in power in Rome were the same Romans who had previously owned all the land and had created shitty jobs for the poor – which is what job creators do, they monopolize sources of wealth and use that to dominate everyone else by doling out crumbs from which originated the Latin phrase, “take this job and shove et tu.”

For his efforts Tiberius’ enemies killed him.

Tiberius getting Whacked and Whacked

It’s hard to get into the mind of historical figures. Gaius got into politics a decade later. Was he motivated by vengeance against the Senatorial Patrician Conservatives? He certainly did seem to have an animus against the clans that sprang from Cato’s ideological loins. Or was he like his brother, a real reformer who wanted to protect the public of the Republic by giving them the problem of real control over their own lives? Was he a democratic reformer? 

            Gaius’ first reforms were over the judicial system, making it less a function of Senatorial (Patrician/Catonic) whim. Oh, the Senate no like that. He continued and added to Tiberius’ land reforms. Oh, the Senate no like that. He passed food laws, increasing the caloric intake of the average Roman, he extended roads and made communication better and he extended the possibility of citizenship to more people …. Oh, the Senate really no like that. And for his last straw and those of you who want a hypothesis on left and right in politics connecting with liberal (populares) and conservative (not-so-populares) he started facing left instead of right (towards the Senate) when giving a speech in the public Forum. That’s almost like kneeling!

For his efforts Gaius and his followers were all killed ....

Though technically when the Senatorial forces were closing in on Gaius he committed suicide. Tiberius was actually clubbed to death by a mob of slaves sent by the Senate to get him that was actually led by his cousin. Ouch!

            What the Gracchi realized and what was absorbed into Machiavelli’s Renaissance work on republics was that for a people to be free, to understand liberty and obtain virtue (which Mach altered from the Roman denunciation of the self and glorification of the state towards a more modern self-defining quality of virtue) they had to have stuff. They couldn’t be slaves. They couldn’t work for pitiful wages. To be somebody you have to be somebody and that means you have to have stuff, or in the case of Classical Republicanism, land.

            If more people have the substance to control their own lives, in pre-modern times access to land, they can be free and live in a republic, res publica. What Machiavelli transferred to the Modern era of English politics was the idea that wealth at the top had to be inhibited so that society could invest in a middle class, neither rich or poor, but self-sustaining. Self sustaining is the key to achieving self-definition and self-determination which is the very definition of what we, in 2018 United States of America, mean by the term freedom; the power to own, possess, have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Classical Republicanism taxes wealth to redistribute that wealth to a broader section of a free population. Otherwise we’re just a bunch of owners and slaves. The Gracchi didn’t want that for Rome and according to Pocock, the Founders didn’t want that for America.

Next time we’ll take a peak at how Classical Republicanism, the Founders’ Ideology, worked its way into the colonial situation, and we’ll get to know another, better Cato.

The Snapper of Garland County

            Sitting there watching the clock on the wall in front of me, I wanted to escape ... escape the foulness in the air, the apparent lack of anything worth living for.  Where had everything gone wrong? But then that’s why I had come here -- because everything had gone wrong, and nothing mattered except to somehow get things right.

12:06

            I had just gotten off the bus from Jackson Mississippi, it seems the bus was about to throw a rod and wouldn’t make it all the way to Chicago.  Chicago, it seemed a world away.  Spending the summer, this summer -- what was it they were calling it?  The "Summer of Love?"  I guess nobody stopped to inform the white population of Mississippi -- yeah, spending this summer in the South which had been nearly four years long since I first came here in ‘64 to help register colored citizens to vote. Sometimes the hate was so thick -- no, nothing could cut it.

            It’s not so bad for me at least these days.  I suppose I look old enough now to pass for a northern businessman -- they don’t resent carpetbaggers so much, but it’s the scalawag I used to be they really hated.  “Just one of those commie northern college boys come down to stir up our good negras.”  Yeah, I heard that a lot back then, but how bad could it really get?  Sure I got beat up a few times -- and God, that’s where the hate really came through.  I think they didn’t beat me so hard because I was white though.  Traitor, that’s what they’d say, but I could see them hold back, but the black man next to me -- Him?  They never held back.  It was thick alright, but this had to change and I wouldn’t let anything interfere.

            The clock ticked, pinching out moments in a timeless game.

The torch has been passed to a new generation -- ask not what your country ...”

            Because if we don’t act now what good is tomorrow?  What could it mean to live in the land of the free?  That’s what I was thinking anyway.  

It seemed my stop over in Little Rock was going to be a few hours.  They had to send to Fort Smith for another bus -- wherever that was.  I hoped it was in Arkansas.  And then he sat down in the row of chairs in front of me.

            The picture before me was almost comical.  He sat there, a gold tinted tuft of hair peaking up and out of place, bronzed skin worn by the sweat of long days out in the field, scarred blue overalls and mud gathered field boots.  A quintessential cracker; I even thought for a second a piping of straw hung down from his mouth.

            But there was no straw, he was smiling and his pale blue eyes were shadowing my thoughts.  

            People milled about, nebulously plotting the points of the desperate struggle to get to where they were going -- only to begin worrying how they were going to get back.  A man shouted, “12:15 to St. Louis, now boarding.”  Who ever heard of angry revolutionaries swinging their feet together with their oppressor in lily pad park pools?  No, no, we are not satisfied.

            “You one of those civil rights workers ain’t you.”  He was looking right at me.  I didn’t know whether to be frightened or ignorant.  I just looked at him.  “You know it’s getting harder to tell now-a-days.  Ya’ll ain’t in collidge no more, not quite a’fresh faced.  And ya don’t always got them ties on.  But I can tell -- you know how?”  I was curious, I wanted to know, but I just sat there trapped by walls of apprehension. I moved forward in my seat hoping his voice would ebb as I drew closer.  “You can see it in your eyes.  It’s that glowy kind of righteous look, as if ya can’t do nothin' else ‘cept save the whole damn world.”  His profanity was soft and I somehow felt as though he was not there to start trouble, at least not in any physical way.

            “Oh, that’s alright by me.  I guess you doin’ the right thing. Don’t make me no never mind if the coloreds vote.  It’s not like that’s gonna really change folks anywho.  Oh, and I know the change you want.  I know how you northern boys think.”  He was in his fifties I would guess, but it was hard to tell.  The sun stroked wrinkles on his face made him look much older, but youthful vigor grew robust in the muscles of his arms.  They looked as hard and tight as any man of thirty. “Yeah, I think it’s high time they done somethin’, but I guess my views ain’t so pop’lar ‘round here.  Makes me wonder, people actually give a damn enough to go around ‘n dress like some pointy headed ghost rider and burn the cross o’Jesus -- just cause he’s mad about somebody gettin’ a’part uh what he’s always taken fer granted.  Don’t that beat it?”  Yes it does, but someday the work will be done and life can go back to what it should be. But until then those pointy hats, as he so aptly called them, have got to be addressed.

            “Ya know, I think one-a-my distant cousins is one of the grand wizards, dirt dumb, between you and me, his wife now, she’s sharp as a tack. Bitter hateful woman, but sharp as a tack -- You don’t talk much do ya?  Usually you civil rights boys don’t mind talkin’ to me.  Yeah, I met a bunch of ‘em, and they all got the glow. Nothin’ else, jes save the world ... what is it?  Peace, justice and the Merican way?”

            “Truth.”

            “What was that -- so you do talk.  Truth is it?  I should watch more tel’vision I reckon, just always got somethin’ better to do.  You know what I like best of all Mr. Truth, I guess I’ll have to call you that on account I don’t rightly know if’n you can say anythin’ else.”

            “No, I’m sorry, I guess I was just preoccupied.”

            “Too much to say hello?”

            “I know, it’s just that, well you know -- my name’s James, James Tracey.  I’m a lawyer from Chicago, and you’re right I was down in Mississippi registering people to vote.  So what is it that you like best of all?”  I cracked a smile at him suggesting my embarrassment and noting my passive interest.  His eyes grew wide with excitement and his face glowed as he revealed just what it was he liked best of all.

            “Snappin’.”  Snappin’? He saw the quizzical look on my face, and his own expression reflected my attitude almost as if he was equally surprised that I had no idea what Snappin’ was.

12:21

            He slowly moved to his feet and waded over to the chair next to me, throwing my discarded newspaper over to the next seat.  

            I repeated back to him in a questioning tone, Snappin’?”

            “Yeah, Snappin’, folks used to say I was snappin’ fore I ever came outta my Momma’s womb.  Justa snappin’, about the snappinest, well, I guess the snappinest dude thay ever was.”

            My tone became a struggle for understanding, almost declaratory to emphasize my need for clarification.  “Snappin’.”

            “Yeah, Snappin’,” his voice droned up an octave and moved higher up the scale with each repetition.  “Snappin’ ... Snaaappin’ ... SNAAAAPPIIIIN’.”  Exasperated he lunged to his feet and stood out in the aisle barely drawing the attention of two elderly ladies in white gloves and netted hats sitting three seats to my left.  “Boy, you big city northern folks amaze me.  You don’t know ‘bout snappin’?  Just how does you’ens live?”  My eyebrows raised as if I too was as flabbergasted that I didn’t know Snappin’.  How could I possibly have lived?

            He turned to an angle in front of me, rigid in form and utterly motionless.  His right hand extended outward, slowly rising to a ninety degree angle with his body. Palm side down and then slowly twisted palm side up.  He extended his index finger outward and with the rest of his digits made a fist.  Then the thumb rotated over to make a pointing gun with his hand ... and then he snapped and the fingers rolled to create that first clicking sound followed by two more in melodic succession * **.  His previously rigid arm moved rhythmically with the snaps until his body bent and contorted with the sounds of staccato clicking * ** *** ** *    *   **   *  **  *      * soon the tongue joined in audible smack accompaniment ** < <  <  * * < * < * < ** until the whole of his body -- joints, fingers, tongue, nails, all moved and mashed to create a cricketed chorus of taps and smacks and clicks of all sorts * <*< **   <*> >*< >> *** << ++ ## ^^ < > < _ + # # ** * * >< ** > <> <> ÿ § <><> <** ÿ * ÿ and then rigidity returned with the right arm again extended, the snaps slowly ebbing in their course * *** * * *** ** * * * and then with a brief pause the final sounds, *      *       *       *         !  The final sound was a hollow thump emanating from the depths of his shoulder, loud, corrosive and hauntingly grotesque.

            He stood there in front of me quite still, sweat pouring down that windswept face.  His right arm was limp at his side, and with his left he pulled a red kerchief from his pocket to sweep across the brow of that saddle worn skin.  Then he smiled.

            “That last one was my real show stopper, hurts to throw my shoulder outta socket now’days, but back in my prime it was nothin’, and oh the sound, much clearer then.”  He sat back down beside me and gave a little grunt while he apparently thrust his shoulder back into place.  “Now that’s Snappin’, Jimmy.”  I just sat there and nodded my head.  I didn’t know whether to applaud or laugh.  This was the sort of hillbilly fare you can only dream of, but could never really believe that such hokey nonsense might ever actually occur.  

            “It was different back in my day though, used to be the biggest attraction ‘round these parts.  Well, I guess not so much here in Little Rock, city folk gotta way a’puttin on airs, and seein’ how this is the cap-i-tull and all.”  He sat back and took a minute to settle down.  His chest eased in and out and for a moment things were quiet.

            A woman over in the corner of the terminal watched her son as he ran circles around her baby’s carriage.  She grabbed him by the arm and swat down towards his face.  The child laughed.  She had missed.  With the second swing there was no laughter, only the red of her print against his white pained skin.  Three black youths stood knee-propped against the far wall to the right, their hands placed proudly on their crotches.  Three white teenagers stood knee-propped against the far wall to the left, their hands placed proudly on their crotches.  A mirror image, a world apart.  And the clocked ticked on.

What then must be done? We voted for a man who knew the words to our hymns, but not the numbers on our paychecks.  

1:03

            The display hardly seemed to faze anyone in the terminal, but then it reminded me of some wino at the train station in Chicago dancing for a dime, and nobody ever seemed to notice that either. Then he began again.

            “Back in my day things was differ’nt from what they is now, a lot more simple.  Folks then didn’t even much care about this whole civil rights business neither, black or white.  And just what is this black power ... is that some kinda magic?  See, if the country went through the Great Depression in the thirties, I reckon we always had the Bad Depression here.  People were so poor they found they own ways a’amusin’ themselves. They used to come from miles around to see Snappin’ shows.  I guess you’d prolly call it a tournament or somethin’ fancy like that.  But this was more like a fair, which I guess it was since most times it happened at county fairs and the like. Yeah, back in the day things was simple.”  He had a look of melancholy nostalgia on his shaking head, but this was more than mere fond remembering.  You could see a sense of disappointment on his face, not that the times were gone, perse, but that they were forgotten.

            “I’ll skip the in between, but let me tell ya‘bout the Great Snap Off of ‘32."  He smiled and grinned, eagerly waiting for a nod to suggest it was time to begin his story. "It seems that was the only thing folks was talkin’ ‘bout that year.  It was to be held here in Little Rock at the Fair Grounds on the first weekend in November.  Ya, that’s all folks talked about all Summer and Fall, who’s gonna be what’s doin’ how’s to who.  All that jabberin’, folks don’t much jabber ‘bout ‘portant stuff like that no more.”

            “Now by Snappin’ standards I was still pretty green, only been in a few snap offs down home.  You know they’s just small time events, but my Pa, he knew, he knew alright, saw it right away, and he knew jes what I could do if’n I put my mind to it. Like I said, folks used to say I was Snappin’ before I came outta my Momma’s womb.  That year the quality of Snappers was ne’er to be duplicated. Poppy Calloway who had won just about everythin’ for the last twenty years or so before that was there, and so was Louisiana Pops, who was really from Mississip’.  But then that’s another story.”  He gave a hint of a chuckle and then proceeded.

            “See this was also ‘fore ever’body got all up in arms about the coloreds too, so Davis “Snap” Jackson was there.  I reckon he won just ‘bout everything else that Poppy didn’t. He was from Northern Arkansas and rarely ventured out of the hills.  I spose he’d heard bout all the doin’s and what not, and jest had to be a part. Course only a few folks heard ‘bout me, but those what knowed me, they knowed they was somethin’ special there. Not like I’s braggin’ or nothin’ but that’s jest how it was, like I said Snappin’ before I ever came outta my Momma’s womb.  I was jesta Snappin’.”  His tale went on and I began to wonder if this was just a spinning ball of yarn for the benefit of a less than knowledgeable Northerner, or if such ridiculous events really took place.

            It seems he was about sixteen or so at the time of this snapping event.  I thought it rather ironic that the biggest event of 1932 was a Snap Off, as opposed to the most pivotal election of the 20th century.  He was, if anything, a born story teller.  

            Snappers, he explained, could use any audible noise the body could make except tapping of feet.  “Nope, can't do that -- that’s dancin’.  I thought you city boys was smart?”  But the most important rule was that a snap had to occur at least half the time. “And that’s pretty hard if you crack too many knuckles, gotta keep count and keep snappin’.”  He seemed entranced by the complexity of the rules and became agitated at some of my naive suggestions.  “Clappin’?  That’d be stupid.  Folks what clap only do so because they can’t make no better noise .... Clappin’? Where’d you say you’ens from, cause seems sometimes like it’s the moon.  Clappin’.”  His lips blew out the sound of disgust but then rolled into a smile before he began again.

            The event opened with each contestant standing on the stage performing a compulsory exercise of something akin to snapping Simon Says. An older expert not in competition would sound out a routine of snaps, some complex and some simple, but those who did not mark the specific cadence were out.  The judges sat right in front eyeing each contestant watching for a missed cue.  “Then behind them was a sea a’faces that stretched out to what seemed like Oklahoma, but a’course it was prolly only a few thousand or so, and microphones not bein’ so much in them days you had to keep an awful quiet to hear anythin’ in the back.  Likeways, if’n you was gonna use a finger pop, or elbow snap, you’d better be good enough to make the sound travel.  But you gotta realize, they’s death silence round and that helped.  Nobody said a word, after all this was about Snappin’, not talkin’.”

            “The first to go down was one o’them Texans -- they can’t snap anyhow, alls I remember is this guy’s big ol’ ears.”  After the initial round ten were left and there was a brief recess.  “Then the Snappin’ Queen came out.  She was so purty, golden hair strung down in a braid on her back.  Bluest eyes I’d ever seen and a mouth full of shiny white teeth.  She was wearin’ a blue satin dress which back in those days was somethin’ only a princess, or in this case a Queen, coulda weared.”  He gave a playful wink at his royal pun.  “I was instantly in love.  I thought if only I win she’ll fall fer me.  I had to win -- you understand -- I was already in agony and I’d only just seen her for the first time not jest a’second before.”  The Queen officially recognized the remaining contestants, reading their accomplishments as if it were a resume to apply for a vice-presidency in a securities firm.

            “Till a’course she got to me.  She’d knowed all the rest if by nothin’ else than by reputation, but me, she stopped and turned backwards as I moved forward when my name was read off. She just looked back and stared for a second.  I jest stood froze in my overall’s, white go-to-meetin’ shirt and black Sunday boots what Pa give me that very same day.”  And then the miracle happened.  “Gall darned if she didn’t smile at me ... if the others had knowed the fact that had on me, I spose they’d cried foul.  I knew right then she loved me too.”

            The contestants drew lots to see what order they would proceed for the final Snap Off.  Three towners, as they were called, drew the first slots.  They were local boys from Little Rock who always entered but were never quite good enough to win, probably due to their urban insensitivity to the real intricacies of Snappin’.  The final three were named:  third from last Poppy Calloway, second from last Snap Jackson and finally, “lucky I guess, I was last.”

1:20

            One after the other proceeded on to the stage, the fixated collective eye of the audience anticipating there first move.  “Some guys’ould come out and try to wow people with flashy costume and some kinda silly routine, gyratin’ and gesticulatin’ all around.  That’s how you could kinda weed out the good from the bad. See if you really got the snap, you ain’t gotta have all the flash.  You jest Snap.  They say I used to snap in my Momma’s womb, fore I’s born even!”

            The first snapper came out obviously nervous.  He practically stumbled out to the center of the stage.  A short man in his mid-thirties, he was a towner in a gray pinstripe suit whose pants were a full four inches from the ground.  “Didn’t matter though, in those days people wore their pants a bit higher. Not like today with those hippy kids wearin’ sailor pants which flop all over their legs.”  He swathed a sweaty palm across a sweated brow taking a long last second to scan the crowd.  Slowly the sound came forth * ** *** slow and tedious, devoid of inspiration.  The crowd gave a low groan as he finished, mopping his flowing brow again as he crept off the stage.

            One after the other, locals and foreign competitors came and went, and this year there had even been a Yankee.  He was ironically from Chicago, “jes’ like you.  You know I been to Chicago.  Yeah ever once in a while we go up to Wrigley Field when the Cubs is playin’ the Cardinals.  See we ain’t got no real Southern baseball teams, ‘ceptin’ those carpetbaggers what moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee, so ever’body roots for the Cardinals. Course they was good back in my day jest like now, and this was before the colored players started.  I like that one kid they got, Gibson, somethin’ fierce in that boy.  And I never did see a player what could run like Lou Brock, but then the Birds ain’t been the same since Stan the Man re-tired.”  The Yankee strode out from the side shadows.  He was dressed in a modest black suit, black thinly striped red and blue tie, and pointy, shiny shoes.  He stretched out his right leg and silently slid it back into his body seemingly sending a shiver out to a waving finger *.  Then he proceeded to duplicate the feat with his left side. Slide and wave * before both legs ebbed out, and with a turn of his whole body the display began.  ** *  * * ** ** a percussion of sounds soon commenced, * ÿÿ * *** * ÿ # ÿ # *** # # ** ÿ * *** * ÿ *** ÿ, but as ambitious as it was, “it was still jest a’Yankee.”

            The crowds responded with their approval, but it paled with the swelling roar that soon spoke up.  Heads turned on stage and off, until the deafening claps silently crawled away.  A vaunted figure moved slowly, as befit both his age and stature, towards the stage. Only the echoes of tiny black crickets and hidden Katie-dids remained.  Grey tufts waved under the spot lights glow, broad shoulders extended out from an aging silk collar, extending down towards the tails of an ancient tuxedo.  “Jeans a’course, he was wearin’ jeans and shiny black cowboy boots underneath. There ain’t enough o’s in smooth to describe it though.”  He was like the great warrior called into battle one last time to save his country, Cincinnatus, recalled from ancient glory.  He stopped slightly left of center stage and bowed to the throngs of awe struck faces and toothless grins.  He moved slightly to the right of center stage and bowed to an equally awed and begging crowd.  “Beggin’ cause he was the best, he was the reason they were all there, and he was the closest thing to God any of them would ever know.  Ya see, most of them city folks was Reformed, and that just ain’t gonna get it done.”  Another wink came as I realized this was a joke, and I had to assume he was of another more selective denomination, but of this wit I remained witless.  

            * * * * *   ** ****  * * *    * **    * **** * * ** *** A heavy drop of fingers, a splashing display of two united hands crafting a melody in monotone clicks.  Beat upon beat, pounding faster, poking at the air.  “It was Snappin’.”  ** ** ** *** *** *** * *   *  *   ** ** *.  Again and again in almost a fidgety rapture until hearts seemed to break at the ease with which the sound came.  And then just as the seizure began to take hold, sounds of all sorts poured from the body, <> * * === *** ** > ^ #ÿ#   * * * ** ÿ **** *** ÿÿÿ  ** ** ** ÿÿÿÿ *** ÿÿ ** ÿÿ ÿ *** ÿ Ç ** ÿÿÿÿ ÿ * ÿÿ ** ÿÿ ÿÿÿ“ ** ÿ ÿ ÿ ** ** ÿ ÿÿ ÿ* * * ÿ* +ÿ +ÿ* **)( *** ^%((*#(*** ** * ^*^ *((* ÇÓÇ *** çç ** ÿÿ ÿ ** çƒç ** ÿ ** ÿ ** ¥ÿ * ÿÿÿ ** • ** confusing the mind with an array of seeming machine gun fire, a point of madness to endure and go beyond until slowly ebbing to the methodical melody and grace that began with a simple *.  “My heart sunk when I heard it, I had never heard Snappin’ like that, and for the first time I was ashamed of what I did, all the times I used to entertain the old boys what hung out at the barbershop, playin’ for Momma whilst she cooked, snappin’ so’s my baby sister ‘ould fall to sleep.  But out of that shame grew another feelin’.  Poppy Calloway bowed to the audience and I heard what sounded like thunder, and suddenly I was proud again.  He looked at me and darned if he didn’t wink.”

            Jackson came up next.  By this time the people were on their feet buzzing from what they had just heard.  “And folks knew that if anyone could come close to ol’Poppy it was Snap Jackson.  I mean they didn’t call him Snap for nothin’. I looked at him as he moved out on stage, right before he went up the first step he was met by Poppy.  They both looked at each other for a sec’, and then gave a smile and a chuckle slappin’ at the other’s hands.  They had been through quite a few tussles in their day. Sometimes it was Snap, sometimes Pops, but each time I reckon they figured the other was the better one.  I guess it’s because they’s both the best, but totally diff’ernt.  It was respect, real respect.”

            Jackson was seemingly liquid as he walked out to the stage. Fluid and graceful, an altogether different grace, however, than his rival.  And he made the most of body gestures to enhance his peculiar artistry. Slowly beginning with echoed sounds * * * * ) ) ) * * * ( ( ( * ( * ( * ) * ) * ) ) ) * * * < < * * > > * * ( ( ** ** ) ) until a blend was achieved *(<>) *** (( <<*>> )) **** ((( <)***(>))) * < * <* < *** < * < * > * > *** > * > * > * and the sound could progress along a new line. * ÿÿ * ÿÿ *** < ^^ << *** >^^ >> **<^>**  < ~> ** * * ** *  < <         *** ***   *   ^^ ^^ ** ** ~~~~~-- ** - *** -~-~- **** -** _- * -_- **- ** till such a flurry was achieved that it ended with a total combination.  The crowd at once “jumped and death silence took hold.  All of a sudden they begun to cheer, screamin’, cryin’ crazy shameless cheers.  It was almost teeth pullin’ crazy.  I was desperate.  I couldn’t think.  This was it, and I was licked before I even started.  I looked around for somethin’, for somethin’ to break me away from what I’d jest seen.  It was all too much ... until she again caught my eye.  She was jest standin’ in back a’the judges, sittin’ purty in the regal robes what you get for bein’ the Snappin’ Queen.  Her face was all lit up in the fluster of the moment, just smackin’ away at a piece a’gum an’ grinnin’ from ear t’ear.  And as I watched the sparkle in her eyes, I jest knew what I had to do.”  

            “Now ya see, any sort of foreign object to produce a sound is illegal.  That’s why they ain’t no foot stompin’llowed.  So here’s what I did.

2:21

            He waded out mischievously into the middle of the stage, and while the time for snappin’ was closely monitored to less than three minutes, that time did not commence until the first snap. So that gave plenty of leeway for setting atmosphere, an all too important aspect of Snappin’.  Once there, he drove his hand menacingly into the front pocket of his overalls and made as if he pulled something out. Unwrapping it, he shoved it into his mouth; and all this without a sound.  “Now to those way t’the back they musta thought I’d gone crazy and took out some gum or candy.  Most people in the front even had half a’gasp on they faces.  Some was jest grinnin’ at the new kid makin’ a fool mistake.”  He gently opened his mouth, noticeably gesturing and extending his beginning ( and then down * opening ( and down again *       ( * )   ( * )  ( * ) (*) (*) * until the plot was known and a roar of muffled laughter went shrill into the air.  The hands extended outward, flailing a suprised motion ** *** ** *** ** * * )()( * ** ** * ()() and blowing outward, rattling in the breeze * * *** ^^ ** () ** )( ^ * ^ )( ** ** << * << a whole orchestra of sounds ÿ * * ç ** ** ÿ *µ * ÿ* * ÿ* ÷**÷ ÿ ** ÿ ** ÿ *ÿ* ¢ **** *ÿ§* *•* ÿÿÿ *** ˆ ** ¥ ** ´´ ** ˆ * ˆ *¨¨* ¥** **¥ *ÿ* to a deafening roar ÿÿ** ÿ **ÿÿ *** ÿÿ˜ *** ÿ* ÿ * ÿ * ÿÿ ** ÿÿ ** ÿÿÿ ***ÿ*** *çÿ *çÿ *çÿ *çÿ and a heightened pitch * * * ( ** ) ** ÿ ÿ *  ¨ **  ÿ*ÿ*ÿ ÿ ÿ ÿ *** * * ÿ * *ÿ * * ÿ ¥**¥ ** )( *ÿ ÿÿ *ˆ ˆ ¥* ¥** ¥*** ¥** + **¥ *)*+*(*until bent and furious with sweat he stepped forward towards the crowd, and there renewed with only the snap of blinding fingers  * *   * *** ** * ** ***   * * * ** * * ** **** **** ***             * *** **** *** **      * * *       ** ** *   **** ** ** *** ** **    ** ** * * ** * *** *** *** * * * * *** ** ** ** **** ** ** ** * * * *****   ** then with a jerk to his right !and a jerk to his left !sockets and fingers flashed and ground in front of bewildered faces  !*! !* !* **** *!  !!* *!! * **   *! *!  *! !*! !* !* !  *! !* *!   !* !* *! *!  !* !*  * ***!! *!! *! *  *** !*! !* !*!*!    * ! * ! * ! * ! ** !!! *** !! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! * ! *

            “It was the first time ever I throwed my shoulders out before, but it seemed just as natural as anythin’ I’d ever done, just like snappin’.  They say I used to snap before I ever came out a’my Momma’s womb.”  With that, a wry bashful smile showered over his face.  “I leapt off the stage and ran to my clappin’ Daisy, that was the Queen’s name.  I knew I was never gonna let her outta my sight again.  We were married three years later, and about three years after that little Wilson was born; went to Harvard, that’s right, that’s where she went to school.  Then Junior was born ‘bout two years later.  Never saw a more beautiful sight.  He came out with his fingers crossed.  I thought I heard him snappin’ on his way into the world.  But with that gift I lost Daisy, not that I’m bitter though, I got two reminders of her and six more from them.”  His face for a second seemed doused in sorrow, his eyes became wet and heavy.  He moved his hand around his back, where I thought he was going to pull out his handkerchief, but instead he removed his wallet.  “Ya, they’s everythin’ to me. You got anybody?”  I moved my eyes away from him back up to the clock on the wall.

4:23

            I could see the faint smile of a face reflecting in the glass. She had not wanted me to go. She said she wouldn’t be waiting when I returned as she had always done, not this time.  But I went anyway.  I was always putting her off for something else, some long far away cause, she said, when there was so much that could be done right there at home. Not this time, but I went anyway. 

            I really missed that smile.  

            A feeling of a firm hand gripped my distracted forearm. “Here see, take a look, these is my kids and they kids.”  I silently gleaned over the portraits.  “Yeah I been alot’a places, though I guess you’d never gather that.  I jest always returned here.  I learnt a’long time ago -- maybe that’s what I learned from that time with Poppy and Snap -- they’s lots a’stuff in the world, but so little of it really means much.  This here is what life is to me,” he flipped the wallet to expose a grinning Queen, “the rest is jest Snappin’.”

            I wandered out to find my bus, they had just made the final boarding call.  He walked out with me, almost as if he were a relative waiting until I departed to say good-bye.

            “Well Sir, it has been quite interesting getting to know you.”

            “You jest hear what I say and have a good life, Jimmy.”

            “By the way, I never did get your name.”

            “Why ever’body jest calls me the Snapper, the Snapper of Garland County.”  With that he smiled, turned around and walked back into the terminal.  He stopped at the doorway waving as he yelled back, “See ya, Jimmy.”

            I entered the bus and sat down towards the rear for the ride home.  The world seemed somehow different, though I didn’t hardly know if the Snapper had “jest” been pulling my leg.  I realized that there was a world there worth saving as well.

            The doors of the bus opened and I hailed a cab to take me home. I moved to the doorway and opened the lock.  Standing behind the open door, there she was, something really worth living for and right there in front of me all the time. I never let that out of my sight again. Tick, tick, tick ….

            I have a Dream.  By any means necessary.