Actually, the Confederacy had no intention of ever abolishing slavery

Warning: For obvious reasons, this post does not censor the offensive language out of the historical sources that it quotes from. To do so would be to obscure the truth about past racism and bigotry.

The Confederate Constitution shows that the South intended to prolong slavery

Even today, there are still some White Southerners who support slavery (although they are few), but most of them now disapprove of the institution, and the racial discrimination that was at the heart of it in these prior times. Perhaps because of this, there have been some White Southerners in recent years who have argued that the South would have abolished slavery anyway, and that it was inclined to do so at this time. (The fictional book “The Guns of the South” is one example of this trend, and I have encountered various other examples of this in some conversations that I have had with White Southerners over the years.)

I will show this with some relevant quotations from the Confederate Constitution

Because of this, it might be helpful to correct the record here, and show that the South had no intention of ever abolishing slavery. I will do this with some quotations from the so-called “Constitution of the Confederate States” (ratified 1862), which show how pro-slavery this wanna-be “Constitution” really was. In many ways, it was even more pro-slavery than the United States Constitution that it would have permanently replaced, which had a number of defects of its own with regards to slavery.

First page of the Confederate Constitution

A review of “Joseph Schumpeter and Dynamic Economic Change” (audiobook)

I recently finished listening to an audiobook about the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, who lived from 1883 to 1950. He eventually emigrated to the United States, and obtained U. S. citizenship. This was a good audiobook about him, and seemed to offer a good summation of his life's work. But I have somewhat mixed feelings about Joseph Schumpeter's ideas.

Funny communism jokes

Note: Some photos in this particular blog post may be anachronistic. They are intended only to enhance the humor, and are not intended to represent the particular periods under discussion here.

A funny story told by Ronald Reagan:

“It is said that Castro was making a speech to a large assembly, and he was going on at great length; and then a voice out in the crowd said: ‘Peanuts, popcorn, cracker jack?’

Fidel Castro, late dictator of communist Cuba

And he went on, speaking; and again the voice said: ‘Peanuts, popcorn, cracker jack?’

And about the fourth time this happened, he stopped in his regular speech and he said, ‘The next time he says that,’ he says, ‘I'm gonna find out who he is, and kick him all the way to Miami!’”

And everybody in the crowd says: ‘Peanuts, popcorn, cracker jack?’ ”

*****

A review of “Socrates” (audiobook)

“That’s the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly analogous to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive: but if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words: they seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you the same thing for ever.”

– Socrates, as recorded in Plato’s “Phaedrus”

Before listening to this audiobook, I had read all the primary sources about the trial of Socrates in the original Greek. Thus, I already knew much about that part of his life before listening to this audiobook. I had also gleaned some information about other parts of his life from some other sources. But I still learned a few things from this audiobook. In particular, I enjoyed their presentation of his life story, and what we know about it from the writings of that time.

A review of Ken Burns’ “The Congress” (PBS)

“One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.”

– John Adams

It’s hard to do justice to the history of Congress in an hour and a half …

“The Congress” is one of Ken Burns’ lesser-known films, perhaps partially because it was made before he became famous. “The Congress” was made in 1988, two years before his film “The Civil War” came out in 1990. Since “The Congress” is one of his earliest films, it did not have the budget granted to some of his later films (such as his World War II series). Perhaps partly because of this, it was only an hour and a half long. It’s hard to do justice to the history of Congress in an hour and a half, but I will grant that Ken Burns makes a good-faith effort to do so.

In defense of the documentary as an art form

When I was in high school, I got into a documentary for the first time in my life. The first documentary that I got into was Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” (shown on PBS). It would be the first of many for me. Since then, I have watched hundreds of documentaries (if not more), in a search for the special kind of storytelling that only a documentary can really offer. But what is it that documentaries provide? What advantages do they have over books? What advantages do they have over Hollywood movies? And how can they hold their own against other art forms that undertake to tell stories?

A review of “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross”

“They [African Americans] had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery … ”

– Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), possibly the most infamous decision in Supreme Court history, which created unfortunate barriers to both emancipation and racial equality

Black culture is “inextricably intertwined” with American culture

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. once said that “black culture is inextricably intertwined with American culture.” I tend to agree with this sentiment. It’s almost impossible to talk about the larger history of the United States without talking about black history in some depth. Unfortunately, chattel slavery was a prominent institution during the first 250 years or so of this country’s history. Compromises over slavery were written into the national Constitution (as I describe in this post) – although they were later amended – and the controversy over slavery was at the heart of our Civil War. We still grapple with the ripple effects of slavery today. The civil rights movement was spearheaded by African Americans, who were the most prominent victims of the racial discrimination against which this movement fought. In so many ways, black history is central to American history.

Slavery in Virginia on a tobacco plantation, 1670

It may be the most talked-about of any minority history that has transpired in this country

Because of this, their history is the most talked-about of any ethnic history that has transpired in this country, with the exception of white history. Of other ethnic minority histories, only Native American history seems to come close in this regard today. It is only natural that there should be a television history of the African American people, made by an African American named Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who has studied the subject in some detail. As Wikipedia noted, “It is the first documentary series to recount this history in its entirety since the nine-part History of the Negro People aired on National Educational Television in 1965, and the one-hour documentary Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed, narrated by Bill Cosby and broadcast in 1968.” (See their page on this series.) This series came out in 2013, and covers African American history from its beginnings, all the way through the election of Barack Obama in 2008 (very recent, at the time that I write this).

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the presenter of this series