American Jacobins

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Would not get read in the Articles sub-forum, so I'm posting it here - in the hope that somebody will read it:

http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/american-jacobins/

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting piece for sure.

[minionofmidas]

If there is one political movement that has claimed kinship with an American revolutionary tradition these past few years, it has been the Tea Party, with its tricorn hats and its fetish for the Founders. The American Revolution, or at least its orderly, legalistic reputation, is no doubt congenial to the Right and often held up as proof of Americans’ imperviousness to radical adventures. Whatever the historical facts, 1776 is remembered as a mere “political,” and not a social, revolt: the solemn replacement of an imperial constitution with a republican one.

The historical facts being of course rather different.

[Insula Dei]

RIP Alexander Cockburn, btw.

[SPC]

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

RIP Alexander Cockburn, btw.

Yes. This is important.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I don't know that the abolitionist movement really counts as "living memory".

[The Mikado]

Worth pointing out that the US (especially in New York City and other urban areas) had, in fact, a legitimate authentic Jacobin tradition in the 1790s-first years of the 1800s.  Urban artisans who loved Tom Paine (including The Age of Reason), wore cockades, made great show of addressing people as "citizen," looked with fondness at the events in France and with hostility at President Adams' hostility towards the French regime, etc.

[Zagg]

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

Such as suppressing armed rebellion?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

As opposed to the scrupulous preservation of rights and freedoms that would have been affected by allowing the South to secede and slavery to continue?

[SPC]

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

Such as suppressing armed rebellion?

Or declaring martial law, disbanding the Maryland legislature, imprisoning journalists, suspending habeus corpus by executive fiat, institution of conscription, waging war without consent of Congress, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and ignoring the Tenth Amendment, among other deeds. But, given that this advice comes from a magazine whose namesakes had much the same respect for individual liberty in France, I cannot say I'm surprised.

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

As opposed to the scrupulous preservation of rights and freedoms that would have been affected by allowing the South to secede and slavery to continue?

So any critic of the actions of "revolutionaries" must be a defender of the ancien regime? I suppose you would apply the same logic toward France, or perhaps Cambodia?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

As opposed to the scrupulous preservation of rights and freedoms that would have been affected by allowing the South to secede and slavery to continue?

So any critic of the actions of "revolutionaries" must be a defender of the ancien regime? I suppose you would apply the same logic toward France, or perhaps Cambodia?

No, but I'm curious as to what you would have done in that situation.

[SPC]

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

As opposed to the scrupulous preservation of rights and freedoms that would have been affected by allowing the South to secede and slavery to continue?

So any critic of the actions of "revolutionaries" must be a defender of the ancien regime? I suppose you would apply the same logic toward France, or perhaps Cambodia?

No, but I'm curious as to what you would have done in that situation.

Let them exercise their right to self-government, and watch them suffer the consequences as I look the other way toward fugitive slaves and John Brown copycats. Just because we never had the opportunity to see Garrisonian ideas implemented does not mean they would not have worked.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It conveniently glosses over the numerous violations of individual liberty committed by the Republican regime in the course of achieving abolitionist ends through political means.

As opposed to the scrupulous preservation of rights and freedoms that would have been affected by allowing the South to secede and slavery to continue?

So any critic of the actions of "revolutionaries" must be a defender of the ancien regime? I suppose you would apply the same logic toward France, or perhaps Cambodia?

No, but I'm curious as to what you would have done in that situation.

Let them exercise their right to self-government, and watch them suffer the consequences as I look the other way toward fugitive slaves and John Brown copycats. Just because we never had the opportunity to see Garrisonian ideas implemented does not mean they would not have worked.

Which of course does not mean they would have worked...

Remember we are dealing with a people who knowingly launched the most destructive war in your country's history purely on the principle of their right to own people and keep people in bondage, who supported legislation which in their interest was far more coercive than anything of Lincoln's and who even supported legal moves to change the definition of a 'person'. The idea that slavery would have vanished under an independent confederacy is one of the most ridiculous, ahistorical and blatant immoral arguments that are popular among libertarians on the internet (which is truly saying something). If you think porous borders and John Brown-a-likes would have ended an institution that, I repeat, a huge percentage of the American southern died to protect (and please, none of that 'war wasn't about slavery' b.s), then obviously never met the officers of the slave patrol (and all the other institutions an independent confederacy would have set up to minimize the damage to slavery - because that was reason the confederacy was created in the first place)

Criticize Lincoln all you want, uncritical hero worship is bad whoever it is, but please don't waste your time imagining away history to fit into your ideological prescriptions).

[SPC]

Remember we are dealing with a people who knowingly launched the most destructive war in your country's history purely on the principle of their right to own people and keep people in bondage, who supported legislation which in their interest was far more coercive than anything of Lincoln's and who even supported legal moves to change the definition of a 'person'.

To their own misfortune, since their secession would have meant the end of slave repatriation. Why would they have supported such legislation if they thought failure to do so wouldn't undermine their peculiar institution?

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That's why Brazil still has all those slaves, right?

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And the slaveholders in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia decided they didn't want to protect slavery, at least until the Union invaded? Additionally, you don't think that being invaded might have contributed to Southerners (the vast majority of whom were poor and not slaveholders) defending their country and its institutions?

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You do realize these institutions existed before the Confederacy, and fugitive slaves were still a problem?

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I don't understand what the issue is. I merely pointed out the unintended consequences and futility of using state power as a means for social change.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

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That's why Brazil still has all those slaves, right?

Brazil abolished slavery because Princess-Imperial Isabel was willing to sacrifice the existence of her family's dynasty to pass the Lei Aurea.

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You have a strange (and flagrantly wrongheaded) definition of 'futile'.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Remember we are dealing with a people who knowingly launched the most destructive war in your country's history purely on the principle of their right to own people and keep people in bondage, who supported legislation which in their interest was far more coercive than anything of Lincoln's and who even supported legal moves to change the definition of a 'person'.

To their own misfortune, since their secession would have meant the end of slave repatriation. Why would they have supported such legislation if they thought failure to do so wouldn't undermine their peculiar institution?

But they would have been allowed their own border police, their own institutional bodies free from Yankeeism. If you want another cause for the civil war apart from slavery, I've just given you one (though that too, obviously, links back to slavery).

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That's why Brazil still has all those slaves, right?[/Quote]

Not even close to a good comparison. The slave interest was not the dominant interest in Brazilian politics or economy during the Brazilian Empire, Brazil did not launch blatantly imperialist land grabs to benefit the slave interest. Sugar in Brazil was nowhere near as important as cotton was to the economy of not just one region of the country but to the country as a whole. And I should note here that one A. Lincoln was seen as a major inspiration behind all the later abolitionist movements in the Americas. Before the ACW, it was dubious to say that abolition was an inevitability in the Americas, in fact it was widely believed to be a failure especially in the British Caribbean (which was constant argument of pro-slavery partizans in the US South). Next...

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And the slaveholders in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia decided they didn't want to protect slavery, at least until the Union invaded? Additionally, you don't think that being invaded might have contributed to Southerners (the vast majority of whom were poor and not slaveholders) defending their country and its institutions?[/Quote]

Once the war started, it was clear that any sort of disruption would damage the cotton-based economy. This was why, for example, an insurgent/guerrilla strategy was ruled out from the start by the confederate leadership as it would make the countryside too difficult to control (and thus free a lot of slaves from their masters' supervision). As for your further comment, what about those whites of Northern Alabama and Eastern Tennessee who fought (not many, I admit, but they existed) guerrilla types actions against confederate forces. Were they not protecting their country and their institutions? Why not "county states" instead of "states rights"?

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You do realize these institutions existed before the Confederacy, and fugitive slaves were still a problem?[/Quote]

I see you missed my point. The confederacy was created to defend a particular way of life and economic system which was threatened by, as well as directly Lincoln and the Republican Party, industralization in the north and demographic changes in the United States (especially in the north). This way of life and economy was entirely dependent on slavery. Without slavery it could not, and did not in the end, exist. Removing themselves from the North was their way of consolidating themselves against these threats and creating a state which was more to their liking (and therefore much more in favour of slavery than hitherto).

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I don't understand what the issue is. I merely pointed out the unintended consequences and futility of using state power as a means for social change.
[/quote]

Yes. The 13th Amendment to the US constitution is a perfect example of such futility. Tell me again how slavery was going to 'just disappear' (clearly the confederate did not think likewise).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Bump.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The Occupiers used the rhetoric of Jacobins in their protest, but had no coherent ideology.

The abolitionists had an clearly defined institution they wanted to get rid of - slavery. They weren't seeking to overthrow the entire American order and could make common cause with wider Yankee concepts of economic freedom.   
I don't see how that experience is relevant to Occupy or to the Left in general.