Subject:
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Re: Santorum Fails In His Effort To Pervert The Constitution
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 27 Jul 2004 14:04:46 GMT
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Viewed:
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2435 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler wrote:
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I think it’s more accurate to say that our founding fathers believed rights
to be inherent to some people,
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Careful, don’t fall into the trap of thinking they were of one mind on
everything. I fall into this trap a lot myself. The D of I, the articles of
confederation and the constitution are held by many to be compromise
documents, particularly in the area of slavery. Not all northern FFs liked
slavery but they did feel they needed to include the slave colonies in the
Union to be viable so they compromised.
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That’s true, of course--they were distinct individuals with distinct ideas.
My intent, though, was to show that the document they brought to the table
allowed the denial of rights to certain groups for the most mundane and
terrestrial of reasons: politics.
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Agreed. Although I do go into “FF worship mode” here from time to time (no,
really??), they certainly had feet of clay just like everyone else.
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You could argue they should not have done so. That would be an interesting
Alternate History to write...
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Jeez, that’s a good question. Would the DOI and Constitution ever have been
signed if the forward-thinking FF had demanded the abolition of slavery? And
what would have happened to the infant US economy in the wake of this demand?
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Good question in turn. Taking that a bit further, what would have happened in
Britain? Would the industrial revolution taken a different turn or been
significantly delayed because cotton was more expensive?
That’s an assumption that might not be valid either but it has been argued that
both cheap labor and the cotton gin were necessary preconditions to cheap
cotton, which in turn was a necessary precondition to the rise of the cloth
mills in Britain, which it has been argued, vastly accelerated the pace of
mechanical innovation, as well as generating significant new wealth via a new
mechanism (manufacturing it, rather than taking it away from serfs or indigenous
peoples by force or chicanery)..
That wealth allegedly in turn had two knock-on effects: Money to be spent on new
manufactured goods of other sorts (by the owners dependents, by workers and
their dependents) and things like investing in transport and other sorts of
manufacturing concerns (by the owners themselves after they made piles of
profit), and strengthening the idea that one could get ahead via trade rather
than force of arms.
Lots of “it is alleged”s there but interesting questions.
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