#anti-jacksonianism

[radiofreederry]

I’m starting Whigblr

#whiggism #whig #whig party #william henry harrison #whh #tippecanoe and tyler too #1840 #whigs #will harrison #henry clay #the american system #internal improvements #anti-jacksonianism #parliamentism #tariff policy #protective tariffs #my post

[yr-obedt-cicero]

Rank the hamkids in order of best option for the US Presidency to least!

Honestly, it would be either James or Alex Jr. In terms of agreeable politics, I tend to lean towards Alex more. But in all likelihood, James would have been the closest to ever becoming president — as he was the one to get the highest in power compared to the rest of his siblings, which was his position as acting-Secretary-of-State. Although James's politics is just yikes-worthy, and he was a super loyal Jacksonian (How disappointed Hamilton would have been). Although later in life he wasn't too terrible.

After them, John stands higher than William. William spent a very minor amount of his life actually dedicated to politics, and failed an election; so I don't see him even wanting to be president, let alone a good one. He preferred his private wilderness life much more, and he was too anti-aristocrat to actually even get a decent following or voted. And still, John also didn't seem interested in presidency, but he was a very politically-active man and seemed to support Van Buren.

And last on the list is Phil II, because Phil was much more interested in law and his work as an attorney and judge to even really participate in politics. He seemed similar to William, and just preferred living a more quiet life.

Side note though, because this doesn't really count but it's for a piece of mind; I'm pretty sure Philip, the first, would have at least tried. He was already getting involved into politics at a young age, and with all his education and tutoring there is no doubt he would have become a successful politician besides being a lawyer. Especially when his whole life was dedicated and purposed to carrying on Hamilton's legacy. That is to assume he wouldn't have become a despised and mouthy figure like his father though. It's all up to interpretation since he died so young, and I wouldn't include this as part of the list just because considering how much his brother's politics were a shit-show, there isn't any reason to assume his wouldn't be either. So it's unclear to determine how successful he would be in this subject.

With all that being said; Eliza Hamilton Holly for president.

#amrev #american history #jackson era #james alexander hamilton #alexander hamilton jr #william s hamilton #william stephen hamilton #john church hamilton #philip hamilton ii #philip hamilton #eliza hamilton holly #eliza hamilton #history #hamilchildren #hamilton family #hamilton kids #hamilkids #hamilton children #queries #sincerely anonymous #cicero's history lessons

[mqandil]

The Changing Scene of US Politics Throughout History

Introduction To PoliticsThe Birth of a Nation: Founding Fathers and the ConstitutionThe Rise of Political Parties: Federalists vs. Anti-FederalistsThe Era of Jacksonian Democracy: Expansion of Suffrage and PopulismThe Civil War and Reconstruction: Divisions and ReunificationProgressive Era: Social Reforms and the Expansion of GovernmentThe New Deal and the Great Depression: Government…

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[raystakes]

On The Re-Nomination of a Failed Candidate

This is an interesting historical oddity- that of the re-nomination of a (in this case, presidential) nominee that had ran once, failed, but was chosen a second time by their party.

The first example (we are not going to count the messes that were created by the original loser-becomes-VP thing) is Charles Pinckney, who ran against Thomas Jefferson in 1804 as the nominee of the Federalists- and then after being slaughtered in the electoral college, was re-nominated again in 1808 just in time for a (albeit significantly less so) second ass-beating in the EC. In both elections he was crushed in the popular vote, winning a paltry 27% in 1804 and 32% in 1808.

1824's election was inconclusive, and the results were split over 4 main candidates, with 3 of the 4 (excluding William Crawford) would run again in future elections, with eventual winner in 1824 John Quincy Adams becoming eventual loser in 1828, and stubborn loser Andrew Jackson becoming stubborn winner in 1828. Henry Clay, known by his moniker "The Great Compromiser", would run again several times- we'll get back to him.

After JQA's loss in 1828, Henry Clay would win the National Republican (sometimes referred to as the Anti-Jacksonian Republicans, to differentiate them from the Republican Party of today) ticket, but would lose to Jackson, whose nativist, nationalist populism had struck a chord with the voters (white men).

After Jackson's ally and successor Martin Van Buren served one term (1836-1840), and the political establishment was shaken by the sudden death of newly-elected William Henry Harrison in 1841 and the following disputes and incivility of the presidency of John Tyler, who finished out Harrison's term, Clay was nominated once again in 1844, this time as a Whig (a party born out of a merger between the National Republicans and the Anti-Masonic Parties.) He would once again lose, albeit by an incredibly slim measure of less than 40,000 votes. Clay would die in 1852. It was the end of an era for those who had loved "The Great Compromiser"- it would become clear over the following years that there was to be no compromise on the issue of Slavery.

I'll split this into two parts.

#history #presidency #politics

[historicaldeepdive]

Daily Fact About Each U.S. Vice-President

Day 21: Thomas Andrew Hendricks

Thomas Hendricks was named after his uncle who was an Anti-Jacksonian member of the U.S. Senate. Side note, the Hendricks family is one of the largest political families in Indiana.

#Thomas Andrew Hendricks #Named #Indiana

[the13colonies]

are the democratic-republicans more like modern republicans or democrats? i'm so confused on that. i agree with most of their opinions and i want to equal it to modern politics. (also i know more about then than now so shoot me)

So I actually answered this one! It’s a long and complicated story so I’ll try to explain it

Here is a (very rough and simplified) timeline on party changes that have the SAME ideals

Federalists -> wigs -> republicans -> democrats

Anti federalists -> democratic-republicans -> democrats -> republicans

So. Let’s unpack this. Disclaimer: this is a very simple overview, and political parties are aligned in ‘phases’ or ‘systems’ based on beliefs at the time. Please note that the specifics change every phase. To make things simple: we are putting the words “big government” and “small government” in front of these parties to represent their beliefs. This is VERY overgeneralized; these political platforms are very complicated and have many beliefs which I suggest looking up for yourself on what they are specifically

So, first up, federalists v anti federalists, which changes to democratic republicans. This system was put in place from the constitutional convention in 1789-about Jacksonian democracy, in the late 1820s. This system was essentially big government federalists VS small government DRs. Hamilton and Jefferson are an excellent example of these ideals being put in play

Second phase, whigs v democrats, was in place from Jacksonian democracy to before the civil war, around 1850s. This was mainly anti-slavery big government whigs VS pro-slavery small government democrats, pretty much build on Jackson, but founded by Van Buren. The example of use here is Henry Clay the wig, and John C. Calhoun the Democrat

Third phase (which is actually multiple phases on its own but we are merging into one for simplicity) is finally big government republicans v small government democrats, lasting from the civil war until about the 1960s. I don’t have an example of people, but I can hear people asking about FDR, since he was a democrat from the “small government” party. Simple answer: it was war, no one was really gonna call him out on it, and what he did worked. He got plenty of opposition. This is when the party shift really started to happen rather than the 1960s, but that’s alright we can put a soft barrier on it

Time to switch it up cause why not American politics! Make my life harder

Finally, we got the modern set up, the big government democrats and the small government republicans. So Before the civil rights movement, the democrats were primarily southern, and the republicans northern. However, LBJ happened! He signed the civil rights act into law, and boom, his fellow racist democrats, “dixicrats” did NOT like it. So, they switched to the republicans and then they resided more in the south. Now, African Americans up north switched to the democratic side, because they found loyalty with their politics that have been changing since WWII and boom, democrats are now up north. This brings us to today

Keep in mind, I skipped a LOT for the purpose of simplicity. If any of this is incorrect then please let me know so I can made edits

Thanks for the ask! I hope this helped!

[grandhotelabyss]

—Andrew Hoberek, Considering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, Politics (2014)

This sophisticated critique is not only the institutional left’s reading of Watchmen, it’s the institutional left’s reading of all the vital literary work from, let’s say, May 1968 to September 2001, the so-called postmodern period. (Walter Benn Michaels is the locus classicus.) Periodizing is inherently leveling: figures as distinct as Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare come to seem equally “Elizabethan” somehow, the way writers like Emerson or Thoreau or even Douglass, who might have spit at the sound of Jackson’s name, come in retrospect to typify Jacksonian individualism. So too does Alan Moore sound in the end like his arch-nemesis Margaret Thatcher, and other critics of the late 20th century have likewise found even Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon distinctly Reaganesque. 

I criticize the critics, but I’ve made the same charge. It’s the easiest thing in the world to show how the “non-communist left” (phrase courtesy of our friends in Langley) isn’t communist. It does leave this left at a slight disadvantage, as witness the meagerness of Pynchon’s counterforce at the end of Gravity’s Rainbow—not a lot better than a Dickens denouement, with a small, good, familial community subsisting in the interstices of a still-corrupt, still-oppressive society, just the way, come to think of it, that Beloved ends too. 

Yet the critique ultimately fails, and not only because mere intellection is always washed away by creative works as powerful as Beloved, Watchmen, and Gravity’s Rainbow. 

First, why conflate neoliberalism’s sale pitch with its reality? Like any fraudulent ideology, it preys on legitimate values and real hopes. Neoliberals were entirely right to object to totalizing centralized systems that traduced both the individual and the smaller-scale and more organic community, the same way that communists were right to assail the industrial machinery that sometimes literally crushed the working class. But neoliberals, like communists before them, exploited these justifiable concerns to erect their own crushing and totalizing system, in this case, global corporate control. This doesn’t mean that global corporate control is the ultimate political content of late-20th-century novels sufficiently chastened by mid-20th-century totalitarianism to hesitate before suggesting newly absolute systems as the answer to extant systems’ failures. There are excellent reasons, as well as dubious ones, not to be a communist. 

Second, there is the reliable misfit between art and institution, no matter the ideology of either institution or artist. Art takes shape under the creator’s hand even as the hand shapes it, an ungovernable mix of the rational and the intuitive. An artistic genius is not an especially commanding individual, someone uniquely able to realize an overwhelming intention, but rather a person supremely open to influence by ambient currents, an Aeolian harp. The institution, however, knows only rules and procedures, and judges spontaneity a threat. This is not some bias of the crypto-neoliberal hippie, but the actual difference between two situations: free individual or communal creation and procedural social maintenance. 

Watchmen illustrates this schism better than most works given its clockwork formalist structure, meant by Moore to signal comics’ aesthetic seriousness to legitimating authorities, therefore art’s own internal institutionalization of one of its possibilities as governing procedure. These structural gears are abraded by the vagina dentata that erupts at the narrative’s climax, a figuration not for nature-as-fatal-woman, as I’d mistakenly assumed in my earlier readings, but rather for a rival artwork, the neoliberal leftist Ozymandias’s harnessing of wild aesthetic chaos to his own excessively systemic political end. Watchmen, therefore, its own form too cold, its climactic content (not to mention the bloodletting throughout) too hot, and both in service to power, incorporates a two-sided autocritique of irrational art’s assimilation to rational authority, of the institution’s desire to manipulate for its own end what seems its absolute exterior, even if that institution is art itself. Yet what one remembers from the book, what I remember anyway, are the looks on the characters’ faces and the work’s whole tone, emergent from but irreducible to its structure.

So the institutions batten on art, complaining all the while that it’s too anti-social, not a good fit, in violation of protocol. Fine for the rest of us, who are not looking for utopia’s floor-plan and HR handbook but only images, however fleeting, of intensity or beauty, transcendence or grace.

Further reading: essays from me on Watchmen, Beloved, and Gravity’s Rainbow.

#alan moore #literary criticism #literary theory #postmodernism

[gravitascivics]

MORTEM AND POSTMORTEM

As the last posting indicates, the final days of the Whig Party were being counted down after the 1852 election.  That posting describes that in addition to a trouncing in that election, the political landscape was not conducive for the party to pursue its established policy positions.  That included a pro tariff stance that did not match the conditions of a prosperous economy.  

The reason for a tariff, beyond securing funding for the central government, was to protect domestic manufacturers.  All that could be seen among the electorate was that the tariff added to the prices of imported goods – making domesticated produced goods relatively cheaper – but increasing overall prices that Americans paid.  Apparently, during the mid-nineteenth century period, domestic producers were not so dependent on such help.  So, with overall high employment rates and rosy economic expectations, the Whig message lost much of its appeal.

1853-1856

         With the new Franklin Pierce Administration in place (minus its deceased vice president, William R. King), the first national issue was the debate over what will become the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  At stake were the last remnants of the Missouri Compromise.  That compromise prohibited the expansion of slavery in the newly created western states (initially attained through the Louisiana Purchase) that fell north of Missouri’s southern border line (36ﹾ30’ N), with the exception of Missouri, as it extended to the Pacific shore.  

With the enactment of the newer law, slavery could be instituted if a northern state legislature decided to allow the practice within that state’s borders. This law created a new political environment.[1]  How? In the North, a new allegiance arose among “anti-Nebraska Act” Democrats, Free-Soil advocates, and Whigs. In Wisconsin and Michigan, these advocates adopted the name, Republican Party.  Its initial aim was not to abolish slavery but prevent its expansion.

Adding to the complexity, the Know-Nothing movement took hold among people who were antagonistic to Catholics or non-Anglican immigrants.  Eventually this group organized itself as the American Party. They saw themselves as picking up the Whig identity, but the Know-Nothings were preoccupied with mass immigration the nation was experiencing and bought into the belief that there was a Catholic conspiracy.  The parochial nature among many Americans excluded these other Western European immigrants as being welcome.

On the other hand, Republicans were concerned with Slave Power – the perceived political hold Southern slaveholders had over the federal government in the years leading up to the Civil War.  Already enjoying their control over their respective state governments, the slaveholders wanted to secure  at least their veto power over federal policy – assuming an equal number of senators between slave and free states in the US Senate – if not an inordinate influence over what the US Congress decided to enact.  In other words, this small minority was exercising or seeking power way beyond its numbers.

While unusual, this divided anti-Democratic Party coalition proved effective in the 1854 mid-term election.  The Democrats suffered significant loses.  And regardless of a few exceptions, the winners of those individual congressional contests did not identify as Whigs.  Instead they ran independently or took up association with one of the other identified groupings – such as the Know-Nothings.  Northern and southern Whigs were beyond reconciliation to form a national presence and so leaders from the two regions of the country simply abandoned the party.  

For example, former Whig president, Millard Fillmore joined the Know-Nothing partisans even though he openly disagreed with that group’s xenophobic notions and he encouraged others to follow his lead into that movement.  That happened in 1855.  A big move occurred when in that same year New York senator, William H. Seward, encouraged a good number of Whigs to follow him into the Republican Party.  

And with that one can consider these developments as being the death knell of the Whig Party.  That set up, in effect, a three-way race in the 1856 presidential election:  the Democrats, the Know-Nothings, and the Republicans.  The Know-Nothings, at its convention, nominated the ill-fitting Fillmore (who would also be nominated by a scarcely attended Whig party convention) and promoted a less than cohesive platform but that generally decided to downplay slavery as an issue.  The Republicans nominated John C. Fremont.  This party, at this point, was mostly a northern phenomenon and was helped by defecting northern Know-Nothings.  

In the confusing campaign that followed – for example, while the Know-Nothing candidate, Fillmore mostly ignored that party’s nativism and really ran to reenergize whatever remained of Whig support – the result was that the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan, won.  He received 45 percent of the popular vote (174 electoral votes).  Fremont took 33 percent (114 electoral votes), and Fillmore garnered 22 percent (8 electoral votes).  All and all, one can judge the Whig party was dead although former Whigs attempted a run for president in 1860.

Addendum, 1860

         A postmortem note can be added by describing the remnants of the party and how they went about their dealings in 1860.  Led by Senator John J. Crittenden, a group of Whig unionists, conservatives, formed the Constitutional Union Party and it nominated John Bell, a long-time Whig, who was anointed as the “ghost of the old Whig Party” by a Southern newspaper.[2]  While not taking a stand on slavery, this unionist “party” ran on a preserving the union platform.  The party won pluralities in three states.

         And with that election, this timeline ends.  What follows in this blog will be a rundown of what the Whig Party stood for and how it affected America’s development.  Of primary concern in this blog is the way the party operated within the espoused values of federalism.  Generally, federalism is a governmental/political construct which holds that a polity should be organized and maintained by a federated populous – one that defines its shared citizenship as a partnership.

While the US Constitution sets up structurally and legally such an arrangement, it does not guarantee that the nation’s people will hold to it emotionally or cognitively.  Again, this blog’s claim is that the Whig Party along with its competing entities – other parties and organized interest groups – held as dominate a cultural bias for a version of federalism.  

That version is called, by this blogger, the parochial/traditional version and in its most simplistic terms holds that only Western European descents should be allowed to enter that partnership.  But, as this posting indicates, the level of parochialism could be more exclusive.  For some Americans, these newer immigrants – for example Irish immigrants – were illegitimate and unwelcomed.[3]

[1] Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1999).

[2] Jack P. Maddex, Jr., The Virginia Conservatives, 1867-1879:  A Study in Reconstruction Politics (Chapel Hill, NC:  2018).  Quoted phrase found on p. 13.

[3] This level of exclusivity is depicted dramatically in the feature film, Gangs of New York. See Martin Scorsese (director), Gangs of New York (Buena Vista Pictures, 2002).

#Whig Party #Franklin Pierce #federalism #Kansas-Nebraska Act #slavery #civics education #American history #social studies

[robertreich]

Presidential Primaries: What You Need to Know

Every four years, our country holds a general election to decide who will be our next president. Before that happens, though, each party must choose its candidate through primary elections. But our system of primaries can be a bit confusing. So here’s a quick primer on the upcoming primaries, containing the most important things you need to know based on the most frequently asked questions: Are primaries, caucuses, and conventions written into the Constitution? No. The Constitution says nothing about primaries or caucuses. Or about political parties. So where did primaries and caucuses come from? From the parties themselves. The first major political party convention was held in 1831 by the National Republican Party (also known as the Anti-Jacksonian Party). The first Democratic National Convention was held in 1832. Who decides how primaries are run? It’s all up to the parties at the state level. Political parties can even decide not to hold a primary. This year, five states have decided not to hold Republican presidential primaries and caucuses, a move designed to stop Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers. Can state laws override party decisions? No. In 1981, the Supreme Court held that the Democratic Party wasn’t required to admit Wisconsin delegates to its national convention since they hadn’t been selected in accordance with Democratic Party rules. The court said that a political party is protected by the First Amendment to come up with its own rules. Why  did we start holding primaries? In the 19th century, the process for deciding on a party’s nominee was controlled by party bosses, who chose the delegates to the party conventions. In the early 20th century, some states began to hold primaries to choose delegates for party nominating conventions. Although the outcomes of those primaries weren’t binding, they sent a message about how a candidate might do in a general election. In 1960, for example, John F. Kennedy’s victory in the West Virginia primary [archival footage] was viewed by Democratic Party leaders as a strong sign that a Catholic like Kennedy could win the votes of Protestants. As recently as 1968, a candidate could still become the Democratic nominee without participating in any primaries, as Hubert Humphrey did that year. But since then, both parties have changed their rules so their presidential nominees depend on the outcomes of primaries and caucuses. They made these changes to better ensure their candidates would succeed in the general election. What’s the difference between a caucus and a primary? States that hold primaries allow voters to cast secret ballots in support of candidates. States that hold caucuses rely instead on local in-person gatherings at a particular time and place -- maybe in a high school gym or a library -- where voters who turn up openly decide which candidates to support. Here are the states that will have Democratic primaries in 2020 and those that will have caucuses: Iowa, Nevada, Kansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Maine. What’s the advantage of one over the other? Primaries are the easiest way to vote. Caucuses are more difficult to participate in, so the people who turn out for them are usually the most enthusiastic and engaged voters. In caucuses for the 2008 and 2016 Democratic nominations, for example, Hillary Clinton lost to Barack Obama and then to Bernie Sanders. Fewer than 5 percent of pledged delegates will be awarded by caucuses in the upcoming Democratic primary, down from 14 percent in 2016. Are Democratic and Republican primaries the same? No. One of the biggest differences is in how delegates are allocated. In the Democratic Party delegates are allocated proportionally -- so that, for example, a candidate who wins 40 percent of a state’s vote in the Democratic primary will win 40 percent of that state’s delegates. The Republican Party allows each individual state to choose how its delegates are allocated, with some states allocating delegates proportionally and some giving all their delegates to the winner of the primary. Another difference involves what are known as “superdelegates” -- typically elected officials and prominent party members like former presidents or congressional leaders. These superdelegates are automatically seated at the party’s national convention and can vote however they like. Superdelegates are still used by the Democratic Party but the Republican Party eliminated superdelegates in 2012. In 2018, the Democratic Party reduced the power of superdelegates, allowing them to vote only in contested conventions, when no candidate has a majority of votes going into the convention. What’s the difference between an open, semi-closed, and closed primary? Some states have closed primaries, where the only people who can participate are those that have registered as members of a political party. Independents and members of another party are not eligible. Other states have semi-closed primaries, in which both registered party members and Independents can vote. Different states also have different rules about when voters must choose which primary they wish to vote in -- for example, registering with a party on the day of the primary or even at the time of voting. In open-primary states, any registered voter can participate in which ever party’s primary they choose. Why is Iowa first? Why is New Hampshire second? How is that order determined? It may seem odd that the first two primaries occur in tiny overwhelmingly white rural states -- and it is. But hey, here we are. Iowa’s caucus is first, by tradition. New Hampshire’s primary must occur at least seven days before any other primary, according to New Hampshire state law. Originally held in March of a presidential election year, the New Hampshire primary has repeatedly been moved forward in order to maintain its status as the first primary. What’s “Super Tuesday?” That’s the Tuesday during primary season when the greatest number of states hold primary elections. This year, Super Tuesday will be March 3 -- coming after the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary, the Nevada Democratic caucus, and the South Carolina Democratic primary. And Super Tuesday will be really super because two huge states with lots of delegates -- California and Texas -- have both moved their primaries to March 3. All told, 9 states will hold primaries that day, including 6 of the most-populous -- meaning almost 29 percent of the U.S. population will have a chance to get in on picking the presidential candidates that day. So once a state’s voters have decided on their candidates, how are the specific delegates to a party convention chosen? The national parties have left that up to their state parties, so it varies from state to state. Delegates are typically party activists or insiders who have been supporters of the candidate they’re chosen to represent at the national party convention. Do delegates to a national party convention have to vote for the candidate they've pledged to support? Both parties’ rules require that they do, at least on the first ballot. What’s a contested convention? A contested convention is one where no candidate has a majority of delegates going into the convention. When was the last contested convention? A while back, but we could see one again this year. In 1984, Vice President Walter Mondale entered the Democratic convention only a few delegates short of a majority. In 1976 Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan competed for the Republican nomination, and at the start of the convention neither had a majority.   What’s a brokered convention? A brokered convention occurs when, after the first round of voting, still no candidate has a majority of delegates. If that happens, delegates are then free to vote for whomever they want. When was the last brokered convention? You have to go all the way back to 1952 to find a brokered convention. That year both conventions were brokered. Adlai Stevenson finally emerged as the Democratic nominee and Dwight Eisenhower, the Republican. But here again, it might happen in 2020. Which party’s convention comes first? And when and where? By tradition, the party that holds the White House holds its nominating convention after the party that seeks the White House. So this year, the Democratic National Convention will be July 13 through 16 in Milwaukee. The Republican National Convention will be August 24 to August 27, in Charlotte. Are vice presidential candidates chosen or announced at the convention? Not necessarily. Presidential nominees often announce their choice of running mates in the days or weeks leading up to the nominating conventions. So what do we do? Make sure you’re registered and be sure to vote -- in your state primaries or caucuses, and in the general election November 3!

#video #videos

[botchedandecstatic]

Books Read/Reread, November/December 2020

Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of American Consensus Donald E. Reynolds, Texas Terror: The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1860 and the Secession of the Lower South Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right Linda Gordon, The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan and the American Political Tradition* Moyra Davey, Index Cards Lenora Warren, Fire on the Water: Sailors, Slaves, and Insurrection in Early American Literature, 1789-1886 Cristina Rivera Garza, Grieving: Dispatches from a Wounded Country Helen McDonald, Vesper Flights Marian Engel, Bear* Nathalie Léger, Exposition Rachel Eisendrath, Gallery of Clouds Mary Cappello, Lecture Leonard L. Richards, “Gentlemen of Property and Standing”: Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America David Brion Davis, The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style Steven A. Channing, Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina Andrew Delbanco, The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War Eric Foner, Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad C. W. Leadbetter, Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites H. Paul Jeffers, Freemasons: Inside the World’s Oldest Secret Society Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard Megan Rosenbloom, Dark Archives: a Librarian’s Investigations Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin Eula Biss, On Having and Being Had Chelsea G. Summers, A Certain Hunger Michael William Pfau, The Political Style of Conspiracy: Chase, Summer, and Lincoln Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformations of American Politics D. J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War W. Kirk MacNulty, Freemasonry: A Journey Through Ritual and Symbol James Stevens Curl, The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry

* = reread

[arcticdementor]

Is America disintegrating into anarchy and civil war among races, religions, and regions? Is the country more divided than ever before? The answer is no. The social and economic divides among white Northerners and white Southerners, Blacks and whites, Catholics and Protestants and Jews were much more intense in 1920 than they are today in 2020. What has happened is that the formerly unified, mostly Northern mainline Protestant American establishment has—perhaps temporarily—broken down, allowing the actual diversity of interests and opinions in the United States to be expressed rather than suppressed. If the emerging woke national establishment has its way, however, that diversity of viewpoints and values will soon be suppressed once again, in favor of an intolerant and exclusive doctrine that greatly resembles the old-time Social Gospel from which it is derived.

With the exceptions of Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson, every American president between 1861 and 1933 was a Republican mainline Protestant from the North or Midwest. The Republican Party, still the Lincoln coalition of Northern industrialists and Yankee Protestants, dominated Congress in the same era. Industry and finance were in the hands of a small number of Northeastern financiers, many of them old-stock Northeastern Protestants like J.P. Morgan. While there were some important Jewish financiers, Jews along with Catholics were kept out of many snobbish Wall Street firms until well after World War II.

…

The Democratic Party that dominated the United States between the 1930s and the 1980s had a few Yankee progressive members, but it was essentially the old Jacksonian alliance of white Southerners and non-British “white ethnics” in the North. If Harry Truman is understood correctly as a cultural Southerner from Missouri, then with one exception every Democratic president between Roosevelt and Obama was a white Southerner—Truman, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton. The one exception was John F. Kennedy, from the other wing of the Jacksonian anti-Yankee alliance of Southerners and Irish Americans. Meanwhile, the Solid South combined with the seniority system ensured that Southerners, many of them segregationists, dominated Congress and the Senate throughout the New Deal era.

…

Driven from the White House for half a century after 1932, marginalized in Congress and circumvented by federal state capitalism, the Northern mainline Protestant elite managed to preserve its dominance in three areas: The “Deep State,” the major nonprofit foundations, and elite prep schools and universities. In the movie The Good Shepherd (2007), Joe Pesci’s Mafioso says to Matt Damon’s WASP CIA agent: “You know, we Italians have our families and the church, the Irish have the homeland, the Jews their tradition, the [Blacks] their music. What do you guys have?” Damon’s character replies: “We have the United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.”

In addition to the “Deep State,” other national institutions that the neo-Jacksonians of the New Deal coalition never conquered in their revolution against Yankeedom include the major nonprofit foundations like Ford and Rockefeller and the Ivy League universities. The culture of what might be called the NGO-academic-spook complex remained deeply rooted in the Social Gospel wing of Northern mainline Protestantism of the early 1900s.

The Social Gospel progressivism these institutions have long embraced is a Janus-faced tradition. One face is technocratic, holding that social and global conflicts, rather than reflecting the tragic nature of human existence, are “problems” which can be “solved” by nonpartisan experts guided by something called “social science.” The other face of Social Gospelism is irrational, and rooted in post-millennial Protestant theology convinced that we are on the verge of a world of peace and prosperity, if only wicked people at home and wicked regimes abroad can be crushed once and for all.

This mentality with its bizarre synthesis of science-inspired technocracy and millenniarian zeal, was shared by many turn-of-the-century Progressives, including Woodrow Wilson, a Southern-born Northern transplant. As Dorothy Ross points out in The Origins of American Social Science (1990), Wilson, like many leading American Progressives, was the child of a mainline Protestant minister.

Shedding its specifically Northern mainline Protestant cultural attributes, a version of Social Gospel Protestantism has mutated into the secular religion of wokeness, the orthodoxy of the universities and the increasingly important nonprofit sector. Its converts include many of the affluent white secular children and grandchildren of members of mainline Protestant denominations like the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists, which are hemorrhaging membership to the category of religious “nones.”

By evolving from an ethnoregional culture into a crusading secular creed disseminated by the universities, the public school system, the corporate media, and corporate HR departments, post-Protestant wokeness is capable of assimilating anyone, of any race or ethnicity, native-born or immigrant, who is willing to conform to its weird rituals and snobbish etiquette. The Long Island lockjaw accent has been replaced by the constantly updated “woke” dialect of the emerging American elite as a status marker. You may have an Asian or Spanish surname, but if you know what “nonbinary” means and say “Latinx” (a term rejected by the overwhelming majority of Americans of Latin American origin) then you are potentially eligible for membership in the new national ruling class.

…

Although the woke managerial culture in the United States has lost most of the vestiges of its Yankee mainline Protestant origins, the emerging American national oligarchy has the same enemies as the old New England-Midwestern WASP oligarchy: white Southerners, Catholic white ethnics and observant Jews. This became clear in the summer of 2020. The woke left not only demanded the removal of statues of Confederate traitors—a perfectly reasonable demand—but also targeted Columbus, the icon of Italian Americans, and Spanish Catholic saints and conquistadors. Democratic liberals warned, in the tones of 19th-century Yankee Protestant nativists, that papists were taking over the Supreme Court. At the same time, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, Italian American by ancestry but woke by culture, exhibited a striking double standard when it came to public gatherings by left-wing protesters on the one hand and, on the other, Orthodox and Hasidic Jews.

…

What we are witnessing is a power grab carried out chiefly by some white Americans against other white Americans. The goal of the new woke national establishment, the successor to the old Northeastern mainline Protestant establishment that was temporarily displaced by the neo-Jacksonian New Deal Democratic coalition, is to stigmatize, humiliate and disempower recalcitrant Southern, Catholic, and Jewish whites, along with members of ethnic and racial minorities who refuse to be assimilated into the new national orthodoxy disseminated from New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and the prestigious private universities of New England. Properly understood, the Great Awokening is the revenge of the Yankees.

#tablet magazine #history #michael lind #puritan hypothesis #read the whole thing

[gostaks]

purimgifts letter in progress

Hello Purimgifts creator! Thank you so much for writing/creating for me :D

My AO3 is gostaks

Do not wants:

body horror

porn without plot—anything that can reasonably be tagged ‘Mature’ is fine

mind control

canon-atypical child abuse

If you’re not sure whether something is a dnw/it’s borderline, you can assume it’s okay. I’m really only concerned about obvious examples.

Okay, if you’re just here for DNWs you can tap out now! Everything from here on out is entirely ‘optional details are optional’

Likes

Tone: Anything from tooth-rotting fluff to despair-filled angst is welcome. I love stories that juxtapose content and tone, or that are very different in tone than their source material. Also, puns, terrible jokes, and crackfic are very welcome.

Crossovers: Crossovers are possibly the best thing to have come out of fandom, uh, ever. I would love to receive crossovers between any requested fandoms, or with any fandom I’ve written/bookmarked/you feel reasonably sure I’ve heard of.

Stuff I’d love to see in general:

Slice-of-life

Focus on minor characters

Worldbuilding, especially worldbuilding focused on how governments or big systems of people function

Stories set in the far future or distant past

Challenges, should you choose to accept them:

Retell the story of Esther and Haman using the characters and/or setting from a requested fandom, or use the original work slot to take the original story to a different setting. 

Write a gift entirely in verse.

Find an image, then write a story inspired by it.

Prompts!

If you already have an idea you’re psyched about please write that for me! I wanna see what you think is fun to write :D What follows are prompts, in case you’d like something to get you started. I’ve focused on calling out a few faves for each source, but please feel free to write characters even if I didn’t mention them! 

If you’re looking for even more, here’s every exchange prompt I’ve ever given (requested fandoms in doc: Imperial Radch, Machineries of Empire)

Brief Table of Contents

The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher

Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie

Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold

The Strange Case of Starship Iris (Podcast)

Original Work

The Dresden Files

I am going to drop an immediate disclaimer here that you are absolutely welcome to ignore any and all canon details in the Dresden Files. I’m up to date, the details just suck. 

(ETA: you know, it occurs to me that I phrased this poorly. So, take 2: I love the Dresden Files. It’s a concept I find incredibly compelling and a world I love to see people play around in. It also has some big fails in its depiction of women and Jewish characters. If you’d like to stick to Jim Butcher’s canon, please feel free, but I also would love to see a version of the Dresden Files where the author is more sensitive to marginalized groups.)

Molly! Molly is probably my favorite Dresden Files character. I love how her magic works so differently to Harry’s, and how that forces her to approach problems differently. I’d love to see some of Molly’s earliest attempts at magic, or slice-of-life during the time she’s Harry’s apprentice, or your take on how her life as Winter Lady works (canon short stories? What short stories)

Butters! I love Butters’ outside view on magic. I particularly like the way he interacts with magic in the earlier books—he’s an outsider, but he’s also instantly willing to embrace what he’s seeing and experiencing, and almost as quick to dive in and try to understand what’s going on. I’d love to see some of Butters’ experimentation with magic both before and after he acquires Bob, or to get a glimpse into the functioning of the Paranet when wizards aren’t around. Also, if you’d like to take on the ending of Skin Game, go for it.

Maggie interacting with the magical world! I’d especially love to see Maggie as a wizard, or Maggie not being a wizard and having emotions about that.

Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie

Does Anaander Mianaai count as an evil vizier? Also, because no one in this series is strictly a woman, I’m going to assume everyone counts :D

Anaander Mianaai! There’s something really interesting about such a large percentage of a corrupt system being a single corrupt person. If you’re interested in biotech worldbuilding, I’d love to get a look at the infrastructure that allows her to function, and how it is similar and different from ancillary tech. I’d also love to see Anaander Mianaai slice-of-life, whatever that means for her.

Justice of Toren! Breq obviously gets a lot of love, but I’d love to see some pre-canon JoT or One Esk. Show me previous annexations, or how JoT as a whole feels about One Esk, or some favorite officers through the years. 

Sirix Odela! Sirix is really fascinating to me because she’s an example of the Radchaai system working. She was trouble, she was reeducated, now she’s not trouble. And, critically, the process from her end sucked. I’d love to see a look at the reeducation system, or a glimpse of Sirix before she was reeducated.

Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold

Alys Vorpatril! I love Alys, and I love seeing glimpses of her in her element and as one of the most powerful people on Barrayar. I’d love to see more of the women’s culture of Vorbarr Sultana and the way they interact with male politics, or Alys’s relationship with Illyan, or Alys and Cordelia’s interactions and the way they work together.

Taura! We see so little of Taura as just a normal part of the Dendarii. I’d love to see her interacting with her squad, or the process of her adjusting to the Dendarii and the Dendarii adjusting to her, or her continued explorations of identity and femininity.

Lily Durona and the clone squad! The Durona Group is such an unusual structure for a family, and they a lot of very interesting work. I’d love to see more of their day-to-day life, either on Jackson’s Whole or Escobar. Now that they’re not owned by a Jacksonian House, have any of the clones decided to go off and make their own way in the world? What interesting projects are the Duronas working on now?

The Strange Case of Starship Iris (Podcast)

Violet! I love how perceptive Violet is, and how quickly she updates her beliefs based on evidence. I’d love to see her relationship with the Rumor crew, or Arkady specifically, or her time as a paramedic, or any of the events of the podcast from inside her head.

The real other Violet Liu! Obviously, other Violet has a lot of stuff going on. Tell me about her work. How did she get involved with anti-regime work? What’s her relationship with Thazia? Or, write me the recruitment pitch that she sent the crew of the Rumor.

Sana Tripathi! I love how much Captain Tripathi cares about her crew, and how willing she is to show it. I’d love to see her backstory, particularly what she was doing before Cresswin’s Landing, or more of her relationship with Arkady. I’d also love to see how the Rumor crew came together or any of the previous jobs they’ve done.

Original Work

Let’s be real, you wouldn’t have offered this if you didn’t have a story in your head. I want to read it.

On the off chance that you don’t, I would love to see:

something high fantasy in space

anthropomorfic about a piece of infrastructure (Golden Gate Bridge/Bay Bridge, anyone?)

a story about someone doing your day job in an alternate universe where something is very different

#shut up alan #realtime #text #dear creator letter

[emblem-333]

In Retrospect, Henry Clay and the Election of 1844

Clay’s final dance happened in 1844. The formation of the Whigs’ party, while his creation, did not want to nominate a two-time loser in Clay. In 1836 they ran multiple native-son candidates in a futile attempt to throw the election to the House of Representatives and cut a deal. Interesting men, William Henry Harrison (OH), Hugh Lawson White (TN), Daniel Webster (MA), and William P. Magnum (NC). The Whigs would have been better served running somebody from Pennsylvania Harrison fell just a little over two-percent short of the grand plan succeeding. Four-years later, 1840 the Whigs re-ran Harrison over Clay and fellow general Winfield Scott.

1844 proved to be one of the most crucial in the history of the young United States. Outgoing President John Tyler, formally of the Democratic Party switched allegiances to the opposition Whigs after falling out with the all mighty Andrew Jackson. Disowned not only by the Democrats, Tyler had little support amongst his new allies. Initially the irrelevant running mate on the Whig ticket of the 1840 election of general William Henry Harrison. This sentiment even came across through the campaign’s slogan “Tippacanoe... and Tyler Too.”

Harrison won the election, unseating Jackson’s handpick successor Martin Van Buren. The Whigs rode Jackson’s anti-bank policies directly responsible for the Panic of 1837 to not only the White House, but also gaining control of the House and Senate. The Whigs were the majority entering 1841, poised to reshape America away from the Jacksonian mold and into one of economic centralized strength.

Party leader, Kentucky senator Henry Clay held bitterness towards Harrison and the Whigs he played a role in birthing. Clay had ran for president twice before, losing in 1824, coming in fourth, and in 1832 to Jackson in a landslide. Seen as the candidate of big business, Clay did little to inspire support elsewhere besides industrial hubs in the northeast, Clay wasn’t seen as a formidable candidate even in those territories. Losing New York and Pennsylvania in 1832 to Jackson.

Clay ran for the nomination in 1840 and lead significantly over Harrison and fellow general Winfield Scott after five ballots. Ultimately, party leaders eager to stop Clay managed to combine Harrison and Scott’s delegates together and cinch the nomination for the 68-year-old Harrison.

The Whigs chose Harrison over Scott primarily for the formers’ lack of history in politics, never holding a formal opinion on any issue prior to his nomination. Scott held anti-slavery sentiments and risked alienating southern Whigs. The Whigs were a big tent party. Disorganized to a fault, the only thing they could agree on was they collectively despised Jackson and rebuked his presidency. Some Whigs, like Hugh Lawson White, were more conservative supporting much of Jackson’s policies, even the controversial Indian Removal Act of 1832. Others, such as New Jersey senator Theodore Frelinghuysen spoke passionately against the bill. Speaking on the senate floor for six-hours decrying it in the name of his Christian religion. His party’s nominee, however Harrison, earned his nickname “Tippecanoe” solely because of his victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe in the War of 1812, over Tecumseh’s Confederacy, an alliance of Native American tribes in the Great Lakes reign of the United States.

Still, the Whigs, despite their disunity on a great many issues overcame it all to defeat Van Buren. The Golden Age of the Whigs’ Party seemed immanent. Harrison had promised during his inaugural address to reestablish the bank of the United States, curtail his executive power, which Whigs have felt Jackson overused, and abide by the laws enacted by Congress. Much of this is what Clay had hoped to do as president, including instituting paper money as the national currency, Harrison also expressed a willingness to accomplish. Coming around to the idea that being the puppet master to Harrison was the second best thing to actually being president, Clay was eager to enact his “American System.”

Unfortunately, Harrison grew ill and died just 30-days into his presidency. His successor, the aforementioned Tyler, wasn’t even a Whig, vetoed the creation of a third national bank and infrastructural projects. This angered those in his party, Tyler spent the bulk of his presidency earning the cold shoulder from both sides. A new candidate was to be put forth for 1844, a crucial, if not more so than the election of 1840, as their party leader Clay took up the mantle and aspired for the office that’s alluded him his entire 67-year life numerous times before.

Inside the party, Whigs hoped to run against the unpopular Tyler, but he hadn’t curried any favor from the Democrats. Their second best case scenario was Van Buren. The Democrats didn’t have much of a farm system after losing in 1840 and it looked likely the party would trot out a retread. Then, Dark Horse candidate James K. Polk appeared and with the backing of the mythical Jackson secured the nomination and the race was on. The fresh face of Polk, a proud Jackson disciple versus one of his sworn, long time enemies. For it was Clay in 1824, while not victorious in his election bid, as Speaker of the House maneuvered votes around to give the presidency to John Quincy Adams. Even after Jackson won handily in the popular vote and elector college, it was Adams who strolled into the Oval Office thanks to Clay.

Clay had already paid a steep price for crossing Jackson. Was he to pay an additional charge for conducting what became known as “The Corrupt Bargain,” which ended the “Era of Good Feelings,” brought the rise of the Democratic Party and the tyrant Jackson to dominate the country from 1829 to 1845? Clay could only hope not.

While Polk bolstered a almost jovial embrace of Manifest Destiny, wrapped up in his catchy “54-40 or Fight” motto, in contrast Clay’s slogan for his campaign read like a sneer “Who is James K. Polk?” brought laughs among those already in Clay’s support. Many were enamored with Polk and felt he was the one to succeed Jackson as the protector of the lowly, white farmer. Despite his policies directly leading to the Panic of 1837, many at the time did not blame Jackson for the economic strife, rather his successor. Van Buren intended to get involved and deliver aide to the downtrodden people after the crash occurred, but Jackson urged his protégée to remain firm and let his plan work itself out. It didn’t. And Van Buren’s presidency was sunk just months into it beginning.

Clay lost a great many legislative battles against Jackson and would suffer from defeat at the hands of Tyler. Tyler’s laissez-faire approach did not jive with Clay’s hands on approach to the government.

For Clay, his campaign was about to be centered upon domestic issues. He spoke little about the issue of slavery, the growing push to expand the practice in new territories, and kept the issue of Texas annexation on the back burners. Even as the Liberty Party’s nominee, James G. Birney, am abolitionist surged in the polls in states like New York, Massachusetts and Illinois, Clay did not elect to take a definitive stance on either annexation or the expansion of slavery.

But what-if he did and the people liked it?

Quite a bit, actually. No annexation of Texas through the bloody Mexican-American War. Sweeping under the rug the Compromise of 1850 which strengthened the Fugitive Slave Laws and further agitated the north. Expansion would be halted, the U.S eventually would reach the pacific but through complicated land deals.

How William McKinley desperately tried to avoid conflict with the Spanish in the prelude of the Spanish-America War in Cuba, exhausting every available alternative to fighting a war that’ll only ruin the delicate balance between the two regions. Clay wasn’t as territory hungry as Polk, who seriously considered pushing further into Mexico before stopping after Texas.

You don’t get Texas, you don’t get California and you don’t get Oregon until later, pushing the American Civil War further down the road.

If Clay wins re-election his presidency wouldn’t go down as anything other than the cheery on top of an already impressive sundae. However, if Democratic challenger Lewis Cass manages to unseat Clay then all that transpired under Polk does with Cass - only Taylor isn’t around as he likely to still buy the farm in 1850.

It wasn’t until the election of Abraham Lincoln did the executive branch commit such a power grab after Jackson left the scene. The presidency didn’t have the powers it currently enjoys today. The states and the lower houses were far more important, the president merely acted as an overseer of progress.

Henry Clay did far more as a representative of Kentucky than he could have possibly done as President. Quite possibly, the greatest gift Clay could have given to his party and their voters is the survival of the Whigs’ Party and the prevention of the disastrous presidencies of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.

#free coinage of silver #Henry Clay #james k polk #bank war #panic of 1837 #whigs party

[ssshadowpppreacher]

Davis’s fun was facilitated by his employment as a paid  Washington  correspondent for the New York Courier and Enquirer and the London Times during the 1830s, under the pseudonyms “The Spy in Washington” and “A Genevese Traveller.”  Though written from an anti-Jacksonian perspective, Davis’s columns were generally dispassionate, and received wide praise for the volume of inside information and accurate analysis that they contained. 

Nothing special. Just thought these two pseudonyms are funny. Looks like a typical Burrite thing.

#Aaron Burr #Matthew L. Davis

[digitalpresidentsproject]

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams

Basic Info

b. July 11, 1767 – d. February 23, 1848

Party: Democratic-Republican & National-Republican

From Massachusetts

Served from 1825-1829

Vice President: John C. Calhoun

Won from being chosen by the House of Representatives against Andrew Jackson, he grew up in the world of government as his father was the second president of the US. With a background from Harvard and years of experience in politics. He was once the Secretary of State under James Monroe, which he exceeded with his high diplomatic skills. He was seen as one of the most prepared people to become president and his presidency was shaped by dealing with foreign relations and domestic affairs as smoothly and neutrally as possible in order to preserve the union.

Inaugural Speech Points (Link)

Copied the preamble of the Constitution, making sure he didn’t want to be dragged into controversy.

The causes of dissensions vary, but the Great Experiment (crowned with success from founders) must be preserved.

The two great political parties have both contributed greatly to our nation. Both were loyal, had integrity, and were patriotic

Blamed the nation’s problems on European revolutions taking place to dissuade people from the US controversy

Encouraging people to let go of the party animosity because what really matters is the Union.

Main Points of Conflict

Improvements for transportation infrastructure

Lenient Native American Policies

Approval of Smithsonian Institution

Tariffs of Abomination

Media

https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/presidential/john-quincy-adams-the-trait-that-broke-a-presidency/

Presidential Commentary

Regarded to many historians as a superb diplomat that was a symbol of modernity, John Q. Adams had many important decisions made during his one term presidency and even before it, as he was one of the people that helped in instrumenting the Monroe Doctrine. Like his father, he only served one term but that one term was enough to influence the nation and its policies.

One of the most distinct features of Adams was his push towards neutrality. His aim towards keeping the peace was often marred by the Jacksonian Democrats and those wishing for more expansionist policies. First, Adams was known for his policy being the most enlightened towards the Native Americans. For example, his threats against Georgia for the Treaty of Indian Springs were never followed through because of opposition from those pushing towards the western frontier. Afraid of starting a civil war, Adams eased off. Although he eased off on this issue, the issue of slavery remained. He was passionate about anti-slavery advocacy and even anticipated the Emancipation Proclamation when he mentioned that if it came to it, the President could do away with slavery through war powers – which Abraham Lincoln did.

Another distinct part of Adams’ presidency was the notorious political method of Vice President Calhoun called the “Tariff of Abomination” that imposed incredibly high tariffs to help support expansionism. This caused outrage and ruined his chances of reelection, even though he was not the one that distinctly created it. Both northern industrialists and citizens of the south were fed up with the cuts in their financial lives and sealed the fate of the presidential election of 1828. If a more lenient policy were created towards the south, and a smaller percentage of the northerner’s industrial revenue perhaps there would be a better chance of Adams winning a second term.

One of the most interesting parts of Adams’ character is his appreciation for modernity which can be seen as his push towards improving the US internally such as roads, ports, canals, and trying to establish a national university. His acceptance and creation of the Smithsonian still impacts the US today in terms of preserving public history which, during the time, was not as valued as it could have been. The establishment of the other improvements were one of the many steps towards an even bigger infrastructure improvement in the future. The connection of the Great Lakes to the Ohio River system, creation of canals, and many other events helped to rapidly develop the midwestern cities such as Cincinnati and Cleveland for example. Without the focus that Adams had on the infrastructure at the time, there is no telling how the creation of the highway and other national roads would have looked like today.

His legacy continued after his defeat by Jackson as he was one of the only presidents served congress for 9 terms in the House of Representatives after being president. His dedication to the improvement of the nation is seen in his work and his policies, although not many, impacted the politics and government of the US.

Citations/Links:

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/qadams.asp

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-early-republic/politics-society-early-19th-c/a/the-presidency-of-john-quincy-adams

https://millercenter.org/president/john-quincy-adams/key-events

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/The-Tariff-of-Abominations/

#jqa #john quincy adams #johnquincyadams #presidents

[conza]

Radical Abolitionists

“...Perhaps the word that best defines our distinction is "radical." Radical in the sense of being in total, root-and-branch opposition to the existing political system and to the State itself. Radical in the sense of having integrated intellectual opposition to the State with a gut hatred of its pervasive and organized system of crime and injustice. Radical in the sense of a deep commitment to the spirit of liberty and antistatism that integrates reason and emotion, heart and soul.

Furthermore, in contrast to what seems to be true nowadays, you don't have to be an anarchist to be radical in our sense, just as you can be an anarchist while missing the radical spark. I can think of hardly a single limited governmentalist of the present day who is radical — a truly amazing phenomenon, when we think of our classical-liberal forbears who were genuinely radical, who hated statism and the States of their day with a beautifully integrated passion: the Levellers, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine, Joseph Priestley, the Jacksonians, Richard Cobden, and on and on, a veritable roll call of the greats of the past. Tom Paine's radical hatred of the State and statism was and is far more important to the cause of liberty than the fact that he never crossed the divide between laissez-faire and anarchism.

And closer to our own day, such early influences on me as Albert Jay Nock, H.L. Mencken, and Frank Chodorov were magnificently and superbly radical. Hatred of "Our Enemy, the State" (Nock's title) and all of its works shone through all of their writings like a beacon star. So what if they never quite made it all the way to explicit anarchism? Far better one Albert Nock than a hundred anarcho-capitalists who are all too comfortable with the existing status quo.

Where are the Paines and Cobdens and Nocks of today? Why are almost all of our laissez-faire limited governmentalists, plonky conservatives, and patriots? If the opposite of "radical" is "conservative," where are our radical laissez-fairists? If our limited statists were truly radical, there would be virtually no splits between us. What divides the movement now, the true division, is not anarchist vs. minarchist, but radical vs. conservative. Lord, give us radicals, be they anarchists or no.

To carry our analysis further, radical anti-statists are extremely valuable even if they could scarcely be considered libertarians in any comprehensive sense. Thus, many people admire the work of columnists Mike Royko and Nick von Hoffman because they consider these men libertarian sympathizers and fellow-travelers. That they are, but this does not begin to comprehend their true importance. For throughout the writings of Royko and von Hoffman, as inconsistent as they undoubtedly are, there runs an all-pervasive hatred of the State, of all politicians, bureaucrats, and their clients which, in its genuine radicalism, is far truer to the underlying spirit of liberty than someone who will coolly go along with the letter of every syllogism and every lemma down to the "model" of competing courts...”

          — Murray Rothbard, Do You Hate the State?

#Rothbard #Statism #Radical #Abolitionism #Abolitionist #Murray Rothbard #Paine #Albert Jay Nock #Anarchy #Thomas Paine #Chodorov #Anarcho capitalism