“If I had my life to live over, I would do it all again, but this time I would be nastier.” -Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, took her seat in 1917, two years before the passage of the 19th Amendment.

There Will Be Blood

By Scott Lipkowitz

Aboard the Drommedaris en route to Table Bay on the southwestern tip of Africa, Dutch Commander Jan Van Riebeeck had ample time to consider the orders handed to him by his employers, the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or Dutch United East India Company. These instructions, drafted and agreed upon by the VOC's Council of 17 some nine months before Riebeeck set sail from The Netherlands on December 24, 1651, tasked him and his men with the establishment of an outpost on the Cape Peninsula. This base, constructed near the slopes of Table Mountain, would provide a port where company ships "may safely touch...and obtain meat vegetables water and other necessities."

The Cape Peninsula, or the Cape of Good Hope as it was named in the late 1400's by Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias, was an important strategic way-station for European trading vessels and warships. As naval and navigational technology improved throughout the 16th and 17th century, so too did the reach of European trading networks; placing a premium on the creation of strategic bases of operation at which vessels could shelter, refit, and resupply. In the 1650's the journey from Holland to the Cape took the better part of four months, and that was only a fraction of the distance Dutch merchant vessels would have to travel before reaching trading ports in India and making the return journey to Europe. Long voyages at sea meant limited access to fresh water and the produce necessary to stave off disease, most notably scurvy. And if the sailors needed to keep the ships moving were unable to do so because of ill-health, the goods necessary to keep the money moving would fail to reach their final destinations. The Cape, with its Mediterranean climate and freedom from tropical diseases, was a supremely desirable location.

However, as in all human migrations, the European commercial expansion ran into a significant problem: other humans. The Cape Peninsula was not devoid of indigenous occupants - the San and Khoikhoi had occupied the region for millennia - and the directors of the VOC were well aware of this fact. Immediately following their instructions to Riebeeck for the creation of a shipping station, the Council of 17 presented him with their appraisal of the local population and what he should do about them: "go ashore with a portion of your men, taking with you as much material as you require for a temporary defense against the natives, who are a very rough lot." Riebeeck was inclined to agree, stating in a letter sent to the VOC as an offer of his services, "they [the local population] are not to be trusted, being a brutal gang, living without any conscience." Riebeeck argued for the construction of a stronger, highly defensive fortification commanding the ascent of the neighboring Lion's Head hill, warning his potential VOC employers that he had "heard from many who had been there and were trustworthy, that our people have been killed without any cause."

This sentiment put Riebeeck in direct opposition to that espoused by two VOC employees, Proot and Jansen, who had spent more than a year residing in the Cape. In their 1649 report to the Council of 17, they urged the creation of an outpost on the Cape, propounding upon its benefits, and seeking to sooth the fears of those who believed the natives to be "brutal and cannibals, from whom no good could be expected." While they could not "deny that [the Khoikhoi] live without laws or police...nor that some boatsmen and soldiers had been killed by them," Proot and Jansen nevertheless believed that "the cause [for such behavior] is generally not stated by our people in order to excuse themselves." In other words, if you knew what we had done to them, you would not find their behavior at all surprising or alarming. Where Riebeeck believed the Dutch to be wholly without sin, Proot and Jansen were unconvinced.

The Khoikhoi with whom the Dutch initially interacted were pastoralists, driving their cattle herds between seasonal areas of forage. In the decades before Riebeeck's arrival, the Khoikhoi regularly traded with passing European vessels, but such commercial ventures were not always fairly entered into. Cattle were regularly taken without recompense, leading to often violent retaliation. All of this seemed reasonable to Proot and Jansen. "We are quite convinced" they stated, "that the peasants of this country [Holland], in case their cattle are shot down or taken away without payment, would not be a hair better than these natives if they had not to fear the law." Without the specter of big brother, in this case the monarch and his legal apparatus, the people of Holland would also be engaged in an endless revenge cycle against those who wronged them or stole their property. At the core, the Dutch and the Khoikhoi were essentially the same: they both would not be too keen on someone else taking their possessions and their resources without receiving something in return.

This is not to suggest however that Proot and Jansen viewed the Khoikhoi as equals - the Dutch after all had 'civilization.' Instead their assertion merely implies that if stripped of the supposed civilizing influence of the law, the Dutch would be prone to the same levels of savagery as the Khoikhoi. What Proot and Jansen were arguing, was that by using this understanding - that violent attacks were merely reprisals for unfair dealings - the Khoikhoi could be kept at bay. The methodology used to counter the Khoikhoi was where the difference of opinion could be found. While Riebeeck wanted to use the stick, Proot and Jansen saw that carrots could be as effective, if not more so, in achieving the company's objective.

That objective was nothing less than the maintenance of the literal bone and sinew which moved the vast machinery that made the VOC's profits. In relation to this, all else, including the Khoikhoi, were merely obstacles to be overcome, no matter what the cost. In the same breath that he condemned the character of the Khoikhoi, Riebeeck also reminded his employers that strong fortifications would also protect the vital station from "the English, French, Danes and especially the Portugese, who are jealous of the enlargement and prosperity of the Company, and let no opportunity pass to hinder it as much as possible." The Khoikhoi were just one more opposing tribe whom the Dutch must out-compete.

A Sea Anchor

On April 5, 1652 the Drommedaris sighted Table Mountain. Shots were fired to signal her sister ships, their echoing cannonade marking the beginning of the tense history of Dutch - African relations.

Riebeeck wasted no time putting his instructions into action. He and his men constructed a fort, set out the arrangements for a Company garden, erected a hospital, and constructed a shelter for cattle and sheep. Vegetables, milk, fresh water, and medical care was provided for passing Company ships. Meat from Company livestock filled their larders, but it was not enough to satisfy demand. Khoikhoi herds made up for the shortfall, and Reibeeck attempted to take the stance of Proot and Jansen in his dealings with them. Older histories insist on an almost extreme benevolence towards the Khoikhoi, no doubt to set up a fictitious European blamelessness for what would eventually transpire; but, at least in the initial years of the Cape settlement's existence, a perhaps tense peace seemed to exist between the two groups.

All of that would take a turn for the worse as the settlement's financial burden began to outweigh its benefit. Despite offering a much needed respite for weary merchant crews, the Cape settlement was a monetary sea-anchor on the VOC. Five years into the enterprise, Riebeeck's outpost was yet to achieve self-sufficiency. In an attempt to cut their losses and increase production the VOC acquiesced to Riebeeck's request to expand the limits of the station. According to historian Martin Meredith, writing in The Fortunes of Africa, the VOC, in 1657 released "thirty-nine of its employees from their contracts and [placed] them on thirty-acre landholdings...six miles from the fort." Over the next two years further company employees were settled in the adjoining area as "free-burghers" or boers (farmers), who despite their designation, were subject to company authority. By 1659, what had started as a small enclave beneath the western slopes of Table Mountain had grown into a proto-colony, usurping the ancestral grazing lands of the neighboring Khoikhoi.

Conflict, as Proot and Jansen had correctly observed, was now inevitable. Pushing back against the continued encroachment, the Khoikhoi retook farmland on the eastern slopes stating, according to a history produced by an English clerk in the 1880's, that their aim was "to 'dishearten the colonists by taking away their cattle, and if that did not produce the effect, then to burn their houses and corn until they were forced to go away.'" Whether or not this was actually expressed as such - and once again this comes from a British colonial official writing for an audience predisposed to viewing the  Khoikhoi as savages worthy of contempt, so take it with a grain of salt- the Khoikhoi nonetheless carried it out. Months of subsequent conflict resulted only in stalemate. Riebeeck decided to meet at the negotiating table.

If We Go To Holland

The ensuing exchange between Riebeeck and the leaders of the Khoikhoi tribes was recorded in the Dutch commander's journal. He, and the rest of Europe, may have believed the indigenous populations of the continents they subdued were mindless brutes and savages, devoid of civilization; but the arguments with which the Khoikhoi confronted him were anything but mindless or uncivilized. The Khoikhoi grasped the gravity of their situation, and presented logical counterarguments to the unjust actions of their would-be neighbors.

"They dwelt long on our taking every day for our own use more of the land," Riebeeck records, "which had belonged to them from all ages and on which they were accustomed to depasture their cattle." The Khoikhoi pointed out that the settlement of company boers on their land had been done without so much as a consultation. Happy to trade with the Dutch when they remained within the confines of the Cape settlement, the Khoikhoi were now expected to simply abandon the best pasture land. What were they supposed to do when confronted with such blatant disregard? Access to the land had to be restored they asserted, to which Riebeeck retorted "that there was not grass enough for [Khoikhoi] cattle, and for [Dutch] also." While Riebeeck may have assumed such an argument would throw the Khoikhoi leadership for a loop, they would not be so easily assailed. " 'Have we then no cause to prevent you from procuring any cattle?," the Khoikhoi replied, "'For if you get many cattle, you come and occupy our pasture with them, and then say the land is not wide enough for us both. Who then can be required, with the greatest degree of justice, to give way, the natural owner or the foreign invaders?'" Perhaps most pointedly the Khoikhoi desired to know of Riebeeck "whether, if they were to come into Holland, they would be permitted to act in a similar manner [?]"

Such penetrating questions make plain the Khoikhoi's sober and pragmatic assessment of what had caused the conflict and their realization of the simple truth that if the tables were turned, the Dutch would not act any differently. Riebeek's inability or refusal to straightforwardly answer this last remark speaks volumes about its truth. Ultimately he fell back upon a weak defense of Dutch actions, informing the Khoikhoi leaders that "they had now lost the land in war and therefore could only expect to be henceforth entirely deprived of it."  Riebeeck invited them to try and expel the Dutch, commandeer the fort, and return things to the way they were, "if they had the courage." If such an attempt were made however, the Khoikhoi "would become, by virtue of the same right [conquest] owners of the Fort...for as long as they could hold it," but if the Khoikhoi "were disposed to try that, we [the Dutch] should consider of what we must do." For the Khoikhoi leadership who so soberly and logically argued their case, such a veiled threat of further violence would not be overlooked. Riebeeck's might-makes-right answer to their rational appeals for justice, while appalling to us, only reinforced what the Khoikhoi already understood. While they still fought with bow and arrow, the Dutch had cannon and light firearms; against such a threat their options were severely limited.

Peace between the two parties was reinstated in 1660. The Khoikhoi retained possession of the cattle they had taken from Dutch boers and were absolved of any war time reparations. Yet, despite the Khoikhoi's reasoned and nuanced argumentation, their eventual flattening by the steam-roller of colonial expansion was now all but guaranteed. The Khoikhoi recognized VOC sovereignty over the land settled by the Boers, opening up the door to further conquest "by the sword." Though certainly well aware of the precedent they were setting, without comparable arms and numbers, all the Khoikhoi could do was resist until their strength had been exhausted.

Carrots and Sticks

Riebeeck's description of his negotiations with the Khoikhoi seems to betray a sense of incredulity at their insistence of their rights to the land which had been the home of their ancestors. Deftly parrying every straw-man argument Riebeeck threw at them, the Khoikhoi attempted to appeal to some higher moral code or sense of justice. However, Riebeeck's own words demonstrate that such appeals, though well grounded, would have never swayed his actions or decisions. Having taken the land from the Khoikhoi, Riebeeck wrote, "it was our intention to retain it."

In those few words the whole of human land conflict is succinctly summed up. Having tried the carrots of Proot and Jansen, and employing the stick of land appropriation and eventual violence, Riebeeck was determined that his tribe, the Dutch, and more specifically the VOC, would come out on top. Nothing would dissuade him from that goal. If the Khoikhoi are guilty of anything in this exchange, it is perhaps attempting too high-minded an appeal against the base irrationality of profit and commercialism. Furthermore, the record of this meeting unequivocally demonstrates the consistency of the human spirit; the "essential essence of water" as historian Victor Davis Hansen put it. The same forces which over-ran the Khoikhoi are still in operation today, from the Amazon to the badlands of North Dakota. If the ghosts of the Khoikhoi, and the message their words yell out to us from across the centuries tells us anything, it is perhaps this: that when resources are the object of humanity's contention, it may be too much to hope that there will not be blood.

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Notes:

Meredith, Martin. The Fortunes of Africa: A 5,000 -Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor. Public Affairs. 2014.

"Instructions for the Officers of the Expedition Fitted Out for the Cape of Good Hope to found a Fort and Garden There." Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope, Volume 5. W.A. Richards & Sons. 1896. https://archive.org/details/precisarchivesc03riebgoog

Jansen and Proot. "A Short Exposition of the Advantages to be Derived by the Company from a Fort and Garden at the Cape of Good Hope." Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope, Volume 5. W.A. Richards & Sons. 1896. https://archive.org/details/precisarchivesc03riebgoog

van Riebeeck, Jan Anthony. "Report of Van Riebeeck on the Above 'Remonstrance' Addressed to the Directors of the General Company."  Precis of the Archives of the Cape of Good Hope, Volume 5. W.A. Richards & Sons. 1896. https://archive.org/details/precisarchivesc03riebgoog

Noble, John. Official Handbook: History, Productions and Resources of the Cape of Good Hope. Colonial and Indian Exhibition Committee. 1886. https://books.google.com/booksid=mpOqZVuCrlIC&dq=they+alsOfficial%20Handbook:%20History,%20Productions%20and%20Resources%20of%20the%20Cape%20of%20Good%20Hopeo+asked+whether,+if+they+were+to+come+to+holland,+they+would+be+permitted+to+act+in+a+similar+manner&source=gbs_navlinks_s

van Riebeeck, Jan Anthony. Translated by H.B. Thom. Journal of Jan van Riebeeck Volume III 1659 - 1662. A.A. Balkema, publisher. 1958.

Theodore Roosevelt read 2-3 books a day, authored 45 during his lifetime, and had this to say on the virtue of reading. From his 1916 publication “A Book-lover’s Holidays In the Open”

The Wildlife Division

By Scott Lipkowitz

The National Parks present a singular challenge, one expressed by naturalist and Park Service employee George Melendez Wright in his 1932 publication Fauna No I. "The unique feature of the case," Wright asserted, "is that the perpetuation of natural conditions will have to be forever reconciled with the presence of large numbers of people on the scene, a seeming anomaly. A situation of parallel circumstances has never existed before. Therefore, the solution can not be sought in precedent."

For the entirety of human existence, nature had merely been something to conquer, to utilize for human benefit, or to overcome. When human groups occupied a new territory they simply adapted and modified it according to their wants and needs - the thought of preserving landscape and wildlife was not one that commonly occurred. All of this changed however in the mid-19th century with the setting aside of the Yosemite Valley in 1864, and the establishment of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. For the first time an area was designated, not for economic development or profit, but as a protected zone, off-limits to the usual activities of human enterprise.

Yet this did not mean that these wilderness areas were safe. Cattle grazing, hunting, trapping, logging, mining, and exploitative tourism all continued in the newly created park system. Even as the ink dried on the 1916 Organic Act, establishing the National Park Service "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same"; the parks which the Service inherited were subjugated to the economic and political needs of the nation. With one stroke of the pen President Wilson committed a federal agency to safe-guarding America's natural and historical treasures in perpetuity; with another, he bowed to the demands of the United States' involvement in the First World War, halving the size of Mount Olympus National Monument (now Olympic National Park in Washington) to open it up for timber production. There was even talk of slaughtering park bison and elk to provide canned meat for the troops. This reality presented Stephen Mather, the Park Service's first director, with an existential problem. If the Parks and their natural resources were to be made off-limits to the economic interests of the nation, then some other justification for their existence had to be made.

The Park Service's charter listed "enjoyment" as the primary public benefit of the National Parks; and in order to convince Congress to support and protect the park system from external threats, Mather and other Park Service officials had to show that the public was enjoying them. This meant putting people in the parks, by whatever means necessary. It also meant that increased human activity in the parks would bring Wright's assessment of the precarious balance between preserving the natural world and conceding to human demands, sharply into focus.

Never Too Many Tourists

Stephen Mather was an advertising prodigy. Marketing and selling "20 Mule Team Borax" (a type of soap still available today) to the housewives of late 19th and early 20th century America had made him a wealthy man; and he approached the problem of attracting people to the National Parks as one of marketing and publicity. Mather partnered with the railroads to promote a "See America First" campaign, wined and dined influential businessmen and politicians, brought his wealthy acquaintances on hiking and camping trips, hired the editor of the New York Herald, Robert Sterling Yard, to publish articles promoting the parks, and made a passionate embrace of the newest harbinger of individual freedom - the automobile.  

Cars had the power to put the citizenry right in the heart of America's scenic places. In 1918 Yosemite saw a seven to one difference between those who visited by car and those who arrived via the rails. As car ownership increased in the early 20's, and "auto camping" became a popular past time, the National Parks received over one million visitors. Mather engaged with national and local automobile clubs, lobbied for more and better roads, and advocated for a "National Parks Highway" connecting the western parks. The more citizens who came, the safer the parks would be. Horace Albright, Mather's assistant recalled "There could never be too many tourists for Stephen Mather." The automobile was the Park Service's ticket to success.

By 1928 Park attendance had topped 3 million and Congress had taken notice, doubling the Park Service's annual appropriation with an emphasis on spending capital for road construction. Mather envisioned a major scenic roadway running through each of the Parks, but in order to ensure the preservation of the scenery, insisted that landscape architects be put in control so that the routes would conform to, and highlight, the natural vistas. Yet, while much attention was paid to the preservation of mountain passes and alluvial valleys, little if any thought was paid to the welfare of the living organisms who called those scenic highlights home.

In the 1922 Superintendents Resolution on Overdevelopment, park superintendents stated unanimously "that over-development of any national park, or any portion of a national park, is undesirable and should be avoided. Certain areas should be reserved in each park, with a minimum amount of development, in order that animals, forest, flowers and all native life shall be preserved under natural conditions." The resolution continued, at length, with barely a further mention of the impact of Park development on "animals, forest flowers and all native life." The superintendents intent was "to make the chief scenic features of each park accessible to the average visitor, but to set aside certain regions of each park, which will not be traversed by automobile roads, and will have only such trails or other development as will be necessary for their protection." Simply setting aside portions of the parks as road-free zones however, is not the same as making them human free zones. Citizens and wildlife would inevitably come into contact; and for the park's wild inhabitants, such interactions were often a zero-sum game.  One of the key deficiencies in early Park Service thinking was the failure to perceive the parks as wild habitat for living organisms. This oversight, coupled with an emphasis on drawing in crowds, offered only two possible human attitudes towards their wild cousins: pest or spectacle.

Attitudes Towards Nature

These options formed the dual faces of an abysmal coin. On the one side, golf courses and grazing lands - condoned by Mather -  pushed aside those species that competed for access to the land and its resources. On the flip side, Bison herds were stampeded by Crow Indians and cowboys for the benefit of onlookers, or corralled in pens in Service sanctioned zoos. In Untold Stories From America's National Parks, Susan Shumaker sums up the Park Service's position in regards to wildlife: the "Service had done little to protect the animal and birdlife in the system...The policies of the Service focused on natural resource manipulation, aimed not so much at preserving wildlife as at preserving and presenting to the public idealized versions of nature." When George Melendez Wright joined the Park Service in 1927 as an assistant Park Naturalist at Yellowstone, he determined that such an attitude had to be altered.

The son of a wealthy El Salvadoran mother and an American merchant mariner, Wright studied biology with the widely influential Joseph Grinnell at the University of California, Berkley. Grinnell emphasized his now cornerstone theory of the "ecological niche," which intimately tied species to their environments, and imparted upon Wright the need for the scientific management and understanding of the National Parks. Wright assisted Grinnell in the field, undertook scientific surveys of flora and fauna; and absorbed Grinnell's belief that ecological processes should be free from human interference.  

Wright began his Park Service career just as the parks were receiving record numbers of visitors. In order to document their impact and ultimately reverse the pest or spectacle mentality, he would have to implement a scientific understanding of the parks as habitat. To do that, he would have to conduct surveys in the field and convince Park Service leadership to support them. In 1929 Wright proposed to his superiors that surveys be carried out, and by generously offering to fund the research with a portion of his own inheritance, was able to convince Horace Albright, Mather's assistant and eventual successor, to endorse the venture. One year later, Wright and two colleagues outfitted the first biological survey of the western parks.

Wild-life Problems

Over the course of three seasons in the field, Wright and his team made annual circuits covering over 11,000 miles of western park habitat. What they saw was not encouraging. Ben Thompson, Wright's colleague, summed up what they faced: "predatory animal control and corralling the ungulates so the public could see some of them, like the buffalo, and feeding the elk so they would concentrate for viewing, and feeding the bears at feeding stations, and making a big show of it." Rangers told them of the dynamiting of badger holes, extermination of coyotes and predatory birds, and the hunting of elk to free up pasture land for sheep and cattle. In Yellowstone, Wright documented the destruction of American White Pelicans, carried out because they "interfered" with the catches of recreational fisherman, resulting in the "reduction of the colony from about 600 to 250." Over the course of 8 years, beginning in 1923, eggs and adolescent pelicans had been systematically exterminated by park staff, with an estimated "175 killed each year." Wright saw to it that the practice was quietly ended.

Bears, perhaps more than any other species, came to embody the pest or spectacle view of nature. In Yellowstone, Wright observed "two grizzly cubs [who became] tame and were fed by hand around Old Faithful." In an effort to provide an entertaining version of nature, Park Service employees encouraged the feeding of bears, both black and grizzly, either at garbage dumps near developed areas, or by the tourists themselves. However, when the bears eventually raided campsites and vehicles, or simply would not desist in their search for free meals, visitors and rangers alike grew frustrated with them; assuming that the fault rested with the bears, and not with their actions. Wright commented on the situation in 1936:

It takes time to teach the visitors to our national parks that they are the ones who are short- sighted in feeding candy to a bear. After all, the average citizen expects more intelligence for a bear than he, as an educated person, has any right to expect. He goes on the assumption that if he feeds a bear two sticks of candy and does not want to give it a third, he is the one to say, "No, no." And he believes that the bear is to be accused of an unforgivable breach of etiquette and lack of appreciation for this piece of candy if it takes all the candy out of his hand and takes the hand with it, perhaps.

"Recognition that there are wild-life problems is admission that unnatural, man made conditions exist," Wright would state. And those unnatural conditions demanded that action be taken.

Remedies

Wright published his team's findings, his diagnosis of the problems, and his suggested course of action for returning the parks to a natural state of wild habitation in two works, Fauna No I and Fauna No 2. Putting an end to predator destruction, to the feeding of wild animals, the practice of corralling bison and other ungulates, and actively removing invasive foreign species from park habitats were just a few of the many actions Wright sought to have implemented. Ironically, the key to reversing the negative impacts of human intervention was further intervention; and Wright recognized that this too had the potential to lead to further trouble. "Due care must be taken," Wright emphasized, "that management does not create an even more artificial condition in place of the one it would correct." Unless an area was to be designated as true wilderness, an area completely off limits to humans - and the National Parks were never designed as such - active, rather than passive, scientifically grounded management and control would be required.

Horace Albright, and his successor Arno Cammerer, were the first two Park Service directors to become converts to Wright's plan. The Wildlife Division, headed by Wright and eventually employing 27 field biologists, was officially established by Albright on July 1, 1933 - no longer would Wright have to fund the activities of the Division out of his own pocket. Albright even went so far as to publish a memorandum calling for the complete end to predator destruction. Cammerer, in 1934, adopted Fauna No. I and its prescriptions for park management as official Park Service policy, and engaged Wright in a survey of potential "recreation areas" geared towards the leisure needs of the public. Such areas might, Cammerer hoped, help to relieve some of the pressure on wild-life.

Wright's policies were the beginnings of a paradigm shift. Susan Shumaker, writing in Untold Stories From The National Parks, summed up the effect: "For the first time, the preservation and restoration of resources was adopted by a government bureau and applied to an entire system of public lands. The recommendations of Fauna No. I, in their scope and their widespread impact, were almost immediate, and were unprecedented in the history of American public land management."

The shift, however, would prove to be short lived. Less than three years after the Wildlife Division's creation, Wright was killed on U.S. Highway 80 near Deming, New Mexico. He was 31 years old.

Without Wright's leadership, the influence of the Wildlife Division began to wain, and the old ways of catering solely to the needs and desires of park patrons returned. In 1939, 400 landscape architects were added to the Park Service's staff. That same year the number of biologists employed by the Division dropped to only nine. New Deal works projects such as the Civilian Conservation Corps broke ground on increased park development, and soldiers on leave from the Second World War were brought into the parks in ever increasing numbers as a way to help them deal with the traumatic experiences of battle. Wright's division tirelessly labored on, but its efforts were met with little consideration - putting people in the parks was once again the primary concern.

The Unique Feature

Today, one hundred years after the Park Service's founding, Wright's scientific approach to park management is at the forefront of Park Service policy; forming the cornerstone principle around which all else is built. However, the struggle to come to terms with the "unique feature" continues unabated. We may imagine that over the past century Wright's ideas have become firmly entrenched in the public's mind, or that the pest or spectacle outlook no longer exists; but such thinking is folly. Animals are regularly snatched or grabbed for the benefit of 'selfies', or taken into personal vehicles during cold winter days - the result of human ignorance. Subjugating the natural world for human enjoyment or self-aggrandizement, and the woeful misunderstanding of natural processes poses an ever-present threat to the preservation of the National Parks.

"Among the more important national resources," Wright stated, "perhaps none is more susceptible to the destructive influences of civilization than wildlife." The National Parks are unique, not because they are areas of natural beauty or the habitat for the flora and fauna of the United States. The parks are unique because they are the one area in which humanity strives to balance with, and not merely over-run, that which is wild. It is a balancing act with which we still struggle to find equilibrium. The desire to carve out a position for the parks as areas which are not true wilderness, yet not demolished by civilization, has been hard to fulfill. Historically we have not been exceedingly successful at it, and our reach often extends farther than we perceive. On this day, the centennial of the National Parks Service's creation, we must take pause to reflect upon this unique relationship, and upon the work of George Melendez Wright, who fought to bring it to the forefront of our consciousness.

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Notes:

Shumaker, Susan. Untold Stories From America's National Parks: George Melendez Wright. http://www-tc.pbs.org/nationalparks/media/pdfs/tnp-abi-untold-stories-pt-09-wright.pdf

Burns, Ken. The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Online resources. http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/history/

America's National Park System: The Critical Documents. Superintendent's Resolution on Overdevelopment, 1922. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anps/anps_2b.htm

America's National Park System: The Critical Documents. National Park Service Predator Policy, 1931. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/anps/anps_2g.htm

In a world conditioned to only think in 140 characters, it matters what those 140 characters say. In that vain, and to get you some more frequent history content, we'll be posting quotes from history for your thinking pleasure. To kick it off here's one from the maestro of quotes himself, Winston Churchill.

Smashing the Glass Ceiling

By Scott Lipkowitz

 1848 was a year of revolution. In France, republicans deposed King Louis Philippe and declared the Second Republic. Nationalist tri-colors flew freely in Sicily and Prussia; and in Austria, new constitutions were promised to the many nationalities subject to its rule. In almost every European nation, democratic fervor took hold, with varying degrees of success. Though divided by language, culture, and nationality, one demand was held in common: universal male suffrage, and an end to the authoritarian rule of monarchs. Suffrage was also one of the issues on the minds of revolutionaries in the United States that year. These American revolutionaries however, did not bear colorful flags, or have princes at the head of their cause; nor did they call for the overthrow of the government of the United States. Instead, these American revolutionaries were demanding the overthrow of something much larger; a world order that had existed for almost 10,000 years. Their demand: the equality of rights for women.

  On July 14th, the 59th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in France, an American cry for liberty and equality appeared in the Seneca County Courier. It announced a "Women's Rights Convention - A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious rights of women," and encouraged all women able to attend to gather at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York on the 19th and 20th of July. Among all those who would address the convention, only Lucretia Mott was prominently advertised. Mott was the daughter of a New England whaler, born on Nantucket island in 1793. A Quaker in her religious persuasions, Mott became a teacher on the mainland, eventually meeting and marrying James Mott while employed at the Nine Partners Boarding School in New York. The Motts eventually resettled in Philadelphia where, at the age of twenty-eight, Lucretia was ordained a minister by her fellow Quakers, providing her with a public outlet for her oratory. Both Lucretia and James became fervent abolitionists, operating a station on the Underground Railroad from their home, while Lucretia played a prominent role in the founding of the first Female Anti-Slavery Society. Though described as gentle and soft, her moral fortitude, ministry, and activity within the abolitionist movement elevated her into the public eye.

   As a result of her status as a public figure, Mott found herself in the summer of 1840 in London; part of an American delegation to the World Anti-Slavery Convention. While the theme of the Convention may have been an end to the bondage of one man to another, the notion that the bondage of woman to man should also be abolished was anathema: female delegates were barred from being seated. As Stanton would later recount, "after going three thousand miles to attend a World's Convention, it was discovered that women formed no part of the constituent elements of the moral world." The American delegation objected, but to no avail: Mott and her fellow female abolitionists would be relegated to the spectator's gallery. There, as a passive observer of a movement she had done so much to advocate for, Mott was introduced to fellow American Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton was born in 1815 in Johnstown, New York, the daughter of a judge, in whose office she learned of the plight of American women. Many of those who came before her father's court were the wives and daughters of rural farmers seeking restitution for lost funds, property, or progeny. However, granted no rights under common law as a result of their sex, almost all of these female petitioners were sent away without any hope of justice. It was a lesson Stanton would not forget as she pursued an education at the Troy Female Seminary outside of Albany. In London, Stanton would watch as her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton, a prominent leader of the abolitionist movement, participated on the convention floor.

   The hypocrisy of a convention dedicated to ending enslavement, discriminating against another portion of the population on account of their sex was blatantly apparent to both Mott and Stanton. They soon began to commiserate, and, returning to the States, continued their correspondence. Working together they helped to shepherd the Married Woman's Property Bill through the New York State Assembly, seeing it become law in early 1848; a small victory in the struggle to establish universal legal rights for women. The high of victory, however, would be dampened by Stanton's personal struggles. When her growing family relocated to Seneca Falls, New York, the rigors of domesticity shook Stanton to despair. "The general discontent I felt with woman's portion as wife, mother, house keeper, and spiritual guide," she stated, "...and the wearied, anxious look of the majority of women, impressed me with the strong feeling that some active measures should be taken to remedy the wrongs of society in general, and of women in particular." A woman of intellect and action, Stanton felt stifled by the limited role offered to her as a housewife and mother. "All I had read of the legal status of women, and the oppression I saw everywhere, together swept across my soul, intensified now by many personal experiences."

   Stanton would have the opportunity to vent her frustrations when, at the beginning of July, 1848 Lucretia Mott and her husband visited the nearby town of Waterloo, New York. There, in the home of Jane Hunt, Stanton, Mott, and women's rights activists Martha Wright and Mary McClintock, resolved to call a meeting to discuss the legal and moral plight of American women, posting the notice of their intent in the Courier. Taking the Declaration of Independence as their blue print, the five women restructured the nation's ideological foundation paragraph by paragraph, denouncing not the dominion of a foreign monarch and his many trespasses, but rather the dominion and trespasses of American men over their sisters, mothers, wives, and daughters, stating:

  We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...

  The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.

  Chief among those injuries and usurpations was the denial by man of a woman's "inalienable right to the elective franchise." In no state were women allowed to vote, yet they were forced "to submit to laws, in the formation of which [they] had no voice." And those laws, drafted by and voted upon by men "in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man...[gave] all power into his hands." Fourteen years earlier, when petitions were submitted to Congress by the Female Anti-Slavery Societies, their very right to be heard at all was called into question by Congressman Howard of Maryland, who felt that women could best influence politics, morality, and the national character through their duty to their fathers, husbands, and sons. Laws at both the state and federal level were construed to deny married women the ability to own property, to obtain custody of their children in the event of divorce, or to obtain admittance to the halls of higher education. As industrialization spread throughout the United States in the early 19th century, many women were employed as laborers, and as teachers for an ever expanding population; but for their work they received "but a scanty remuneration." Everywhere that Stanton, Mott, and others looked they saw, and rightly so, a world founded upon "a false public sentiment" which gave "to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated, but deemed of little account in man." Stanton and Mott's Declaration of Principles would be a battle cry against a society which aimed to "destroy [a woman's] confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life." Their Declaration called for universal suffrage, and vowed to use the power of the press, of protest, of the pulpit, and of petition, to obtain the "immediate admission to all rights and privileges which belong to [women] as citizens of the United States."

  Stanton was tasked with creating the final draft of the Declaration in the days before the convention. Henry Stanton, however, was less than enthusiastic; threatening to abandon his home if the clause calling for votes for women was presented to the convention - a threat he made good on. Yet, despite Henry Stanton's hostility, and a worry by Mott that turnout would be low, the convention opened on July 19th to a packed church sanctuary. In total more than 300 women and men crowded into the pews; among them Frederick Douglas, former slave and abolitionist, who lent his considerable weight to the equal rights cause; "Right is of no sex, truth is of no color," being one of his most firmly held beliefs. Although Mott would be the convention's keynote speaker, it was Stanton, delivering her first public address and playing a prominent role in leading the convention, who would emerge as one of the movement's national figures. The clause calling for women's suffrage was passed, though not unanimously as had every other; and in the end the Declaration of Sentiment was adopted and signed by 68 women and 32 men.

  The convention's proceedings and aims were publicized by Douglas, who used his printing press at the office of his paper, the North Star, to issue a report on the meeting. News of the Declaration's adoption would be derided in the popular press; but its force and implications began to galvanize a growing women's equality movement. Over the following years Stanton began a partnership with Susan B. Anthony, organized subsequent conventions across the northeast, and wrote articles on temperance, divorce, and the legal obstacles to women's rights and equality. During the Civil War, in 1863, Mott, Stanton and others petitioned for the immediate passage of the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery, and suspended the annual meetings of their convention in deference to the war effort. When the battlefields had cleared and the war ended, Stanton, Anthony, and others created the first national women's rights organization the American Equal Rights Association; hoping that in the new political climate of racial equality, rights and suffrage would also be extended to women. The passage of the 15th Amendment in 1865 dashed any such hopes, eliminating voting restrictions due to race, but not sex. Undeterred, Stanton and her organization pushed for voting rights on the national level, and when, in 1878 an Amendment was put before Congress, Stanton was there to testify on its behalf. Again she was met with opposition. The Declaration of Principles, it seemed, was destined to fight a longer war than the Declaration of Independence.

  On the state level, the Equal Rights Association appeared to have equality only in their inability to amend state constitutions. 480 campaigns were launched between 1870 and 1910 in 33 states; the results of which were a mere 17 referendums put before voters. Only two, Idaho and Colorado, achieved their objective. Colorado's adoption was a significant victory. There male voters, for the first time in the nation's history, voted in favor of enfranchising women. Slowly but surely, the cause was achieving victories, no matter how small they may have been. Further ballot initiatives achieved success, while the new states of Wyoming and Utah were admitted to the Union with universal suffrage as part of their constitutions. The goal of a Constitutional Amendment, and the attainment of one of the Declaration of Principle's core objectives, however, remained elusive. The Women's Suffrage Amendment was proposed every year following 1878; but for more than a decade following 1893 it failed to receive a favorable report in Congressional committee. Year after year Stanton and other Equal Right's leaders would testify before the House and the Senate, pushing and campaigning for the Amendment's adoption. Victory would finally be achieved on August 18, 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which stated that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." It was a victory that only one of the signers of the Declaration of Principles would live to see. Stanton died in 1902 in New York City, Mott 22 years earlier in 1880; but one woman, Charlotte Woodward, who had heard the revolutionary call of 1848 and had, as a nineteen year old, attended the very first Women's Rights Convention, cast her vote in the presidential election of 1920.

   Suffrage however, was only a part of the Declaration's list of goals. Struggle to attain full equality under the law, of compensation, and of access to education and resources continues even to this day. It is tempting to view the nomination of Hillary Clinton for the presidential office by a major political party as the penultimate crack in the "glass ceiling", and certainly Stanton and Mott would have been proud to see a world in which women had no say in the government which presided over them transformed into a world in which a woman's voice lead the way, but the true promise of their vision has yet to be fully realized. Unlike the European revolutionaries of 1848 who were eventually subdued by a return to monarchy and arbitrary rule, Stanton, Mott, and the other leaders of the Equal Rights movement did not abandon the fight; making good on their battle cry's final impetus to carry the struggle to every corner of the nation. Their unyielding fight for equality reminds us that progress is not demarcated by a single accomplishment, beyond which vigilance may be relinquished. Rather, only through constant pressure, toil, and dedication, can progress be achieved and maintained.

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Notes:

The Revolutions of 1848. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. https://www.britannica.com/event/Revolutions-of-1848

Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Women's Rights Movement in the United States. Atheneum. New York. 1973.

Declaration of Sentiments. 1848. https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/rightsforwomen/DeclarationofSentiments.html

Women's Rights National Historical Park. Essays on the Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglas. https://www.nps.gov/wori/index.htm

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joselyn Gage, eds., History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. 1 (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1881), 53-54, 61-62.

The Man of the People: Part VI - Trust Busting

By Scott Lipkowitz

  History is usually considered to have two main purposes: to teach us how stuff works, and to teach us where we've come from. Over the past five posts I have attempted, through the use of snapshots of key moments in United States presidential history, to explain how the presidency was conceived, how election to the office was detailed, and how, in response to the different electoral crises these first two conditions created, national parties, conventions, primaries, and super-delegates came into being. Those first five posts have succeeded - I hope - in answering, however incompletely, the how and the where. Yet, there are several other purposes behind the study of history which are of equal relevance to the how and the where; one of the most important being history as natural experiment. 

  Now of course before we can apply any hypothesis or draw any conclusion from the preceding natural experiments, the limitations of what I have presented to you must be acknowledged. The political, economic, social, and cultural contexts are far more complex and nuanced, and the characters more interesting, more multi-dimensional, than any brief, blog-length description can do them credit. However, there are important observations which we can draw; and which might prove beneficial if we ever want to get off the merry-go-round we seem to be trapped on. Here then, heavily seasoned with my own opinions, are some questions we should be asking, and some outcomes we should be seeking.

  First and foremost is the question of whether or not the President truly is, as John Dickinson wanted he or she to be, a "man of the people." I would argue that it is hard to answer that in the affirmative. Even from the start -whether it was for cynical reasons, or considerations of the technologically and geographically induced ignorance of the body politic - the average citizen's ability to sway the selection of the President was considerably small. Not only was the option of having their voices heard left up to the states to decide; but much of the original intent of the electoral college was to remove the burden of choice from the citizenry almost entirely. Even where the citizenry could vote for electors, it was assumed that they were voting for knowledgeable men who could, from their better vantage point, make a well informed decision about who was fit to serve as chief executive on the behalf of the general population. The average citizen was expected to bow to the wisdom of more learned men. 

  Ultimately the founders opted for this seemingly convoluted system because, unlike our history textbooks make them out to be, they were humans, faced with real world problems. Ideology may have eventually underpinned the Revolution; but pragmatism, and a sober reflection of both the internal and external situation drove the creation of the federal government, and shaped the presidency and its selection process. Article II and the Electoral College were part of a plan that was born out of the political climate of the late 18th century; but, as World War I German general Helmut von Moltke once said, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy." The enemy in this case was the actual implementation of Article II and its provisions. As we have discussed at length, everything that followed was the result of political problem solving by humans bent on maintaining, securing, or acquiring the power of the presidential office; all because the original plan did not stand up to political, and human realities.

  What then does this tell us about humans seeking power in a republic? One conclusion to draw is that those seeking power will try to find whatever means necessary to obtain it; highlighting the rule of the people or discarding it as the current political moment necessitates. As we have seen, popular movements for increased citizen participation in the selection of presidential candidates were driven by the needs of individual politicians, or parties, to maintain or obtain the presidency; not out of some zeal for democratic values - despite what Theodore Roosevelt and others might have proclaimed in public. This does not mean, however, that there is some vast political conspiracy to tell the public one thing while doing the complete opposite. All of us look out for our own interests, and take actions, whether consciously or not, to further those interests; it makes no difference if we are a farmer, baker, operative of a political party, or presidential candidate. 

  Once we begin to take on board the fact that the problems of our presidential nominating process - like all of our problems really - are the result of the way in which humans respond to varying situations and problems, we might be able to tailor our institutions to control for the more negative consequences. The founders were intimately concerned with this fact, the entire Constitution is a compromise aimed at maintaining stability in the face of human foibles and conflicts of interest; and while they tried to build a system to contain the influences of factions, collusion, and patronage, they were realistic in their acknowledgment that they probably would not be able to predict every possible dire consequence of their actions. This why, in Article V of the Constitution, a system for making changes to, or amending, the Constitution was built in. 

  Aside from explicitly prohibiting any Amendment from removing the equality of Senatorial representation from any state, Article V does not limit what Amendments or changes may be made. In the aftermath of the first real presidential election crisis of 1800, the Twelfth Amendment was adopted in an attempt to remedy the unforeseen problem resulting from an unclear delineation between presidential and vice-presidential candidates. A total of 27 Amendments have been implemented - the most recent in 1992 - of which several deal with the presidency. None, however, deal with the mode of presidential nomination. If we, the public, so desired, we could push for changes to the Constitution that would, unlike internal party rules, be legally binding, and which might place the presidential nominating process once and for all in the hands of the general public. Of course there is one extreme speed break on constitutional reform: the two major political parties. 

  Founders such as Madison and Hamilton may have been kept awake at night by the destructive potential and horrific inevitability of factions, but it seemed that only Eldridge Gerry, out of all the assembled delegates to the Constitutional Convention, was able to foresee the terrible potential for national political organizations to game, and then control, the system. As we have seen, the major parties became the political equivalent of the late 19th and early 20th century monopolies which the progressive era tried to unravel. What Gerry correctly saw as their ultimate insidious advantage was their ability to create a broad loyalty that transcended the common good while at the same time positioning themselves as the ultimate protectors of the common welfare. The fact that today, when asked about voting for a third party, most voters will either say that they can not because it is not legal (false) or, more likely, that they would be "throwing their vote away," is evidence of just how thorough the two political parties have ingrained the aforementioned idea into our minds. While the parties are not the government, in that they are not required by its founding documents, they have managed to place a stranglehold on its levers and institutions; including at the state level, where any hope of reforming the presidential primary system would have to gain traction. 

  This is why any notion that holding open primaries - where all eligible voters, and not just those affiliated with a political party, may vote in a primary - is not a viable solution.  Democrats and Republicans control the state legislatures who help craft primary election laws, and like any good monopoly, they're not interested in relinquishing their control of the market. Every step they have taken has been out of political necessity, not ideology, and even if every state held an open primary, tools such as super delegates would continue to be implemented in novel ways in order to ensure that the party's prime objective, winning, is not overshadowed by the "will of the people." Again, not a conspiracy, simply they way in which humans react to obstacles in their path.

  A potential beneficial lesson we might draw then, would be to support a diversity of political parties and opinions so that no one or two parties could monopolize the system. Just as Standard Oil and U.S. Steel were broken up, and occasional monopoly suits are brought against the likes of Apple or Microsoft, so too do the political parties need to be exposed to the competition of the free-market. After all, what is more American than that? We would riot if we only had a choice of two breakfast cereals, why then are we content with only two choices for president? Voting for the 3rd, 4th, 5th parties, etc. will not end the problem of machine politics - every party will inevitably have a centralized machine structure - but it would force them to compete on the open market of political ideas; and if one of those ideas was the adoption of a Constitutional amendment to overhaul the primary and convention systems so that no party machinery could outweigh the voice of the individual citizen, then it might stand a decent chance of sneaking past the gatekeepers. 

  Finally, there is one last issue with our presidential nominating system that has less to do with the political parties, primaries, or super delegates, and more to do with the fact that the way in which we view the presidency and its role has dramatically changed since George Washington first took the oath of office in 1789. Initially intended to simply be the long arm of Congressional will, the modern presidency looks more like an elected monarch with a parliament waiting to give or deny its consent. We now look to the President, and not, as the framers initially intended, to Congress for domestic and international leadership. Of course this may be the legacy of thousands of years of monarchical rule, that members of complex human societies inevitably drift towards the guiding hand of a single powerful individual; but it might also be symptomatic of a deeper problem. Life is complex and the issues which face us are no less complicated that they were thousands of years ago. It may be no wonder then that we yearn for a strong man or woman who will remove from us the burden of having to grapple with these issues. Modern Americans seem prone to this sort of thinking - from weight loss pills to solving every economic hardship through tax cuts - and perhaps the growth of the elected monarch that is the presidency is to be expected. Certainly some founders, Benjamin Franklin being one of them, believed it would be the nation's ultimate destiny. Allowing this sort of thinking to continue however, is to abdicate our responsibilities as citizens living under a participatory government.

  The preamble of the Constitution describes its intent as the formation of a "more perfect union." This is what, as a nation, we have been striving for since inception, and must continue to do so now. Humans have achieved a dominance on this planet because we are generalists, adapting whatever tools we have at hand to serve whatever problem or situation we find ourselves in. The Constitution is merely a political tool, and while some of its adaptations and offshoot inventions have not always worked for the common benefit, that does not mean that it can not be made to do so in the future. Baron de Montesquieu, the French philosopher of the 18th century, whose work The Spirit of the Laws heavily influenced the framers of the Constitution, believed that there was no "right" answer to government, that each form of government and its laws should be "adapted 'to the people for whom they are framed.'" The current presidential primary and election cycle has brought this issue to the fore. Our institutions may no longer be adapted to the people over which they rule. Armed with the knowledge of the history of their creation, perhaps it is time to actively alter and change them. Perhaps it is time for the innovations of political machines to be undone by the innovations of the citizens of this republic.

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Notes:

The United States Constitution.1787. https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/constitution/

Berkin, Carol. A Brilliant Solution (Inventing the American Constitution). Mariner Books. 2002.

Bok, Hilary, "Baron de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta

The Man of the People: Part V - Super Delegates

by Scott Lipkowitz

 In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond points out that for every beneficial advance in technology there are accompanying negative side effects, many of which are unanticipated. Cars are a great example. So is the internet. Blow-back from novel inventions is not limited to the realm of technology, however. Cultural, economic, and political innovations also carry the same potential for negative consequences as do Toyotas and Facebook. This fact is writ large across the entire history of presidential creation, selection, and election.

Right from the start, the founders attempted to anticipate every pitfall, every problematic avenue that could arise from the establishment of an independent executive. They came up with a solution, and that solution, given time and the inconsistencies and ambitions of human beings, created further problems. Those problems - of Congressional deal-making, bickering, and animosity - lead to further solutions - the national party system and party conventions - which in turn created new problems - the control of candidate selection by party bosses, to the exclusion of the average citizen. Beginning in 1900 the pendulum would once again swing toward a solution to this newest of problems: the preferential primary. However, zeal for the preferential primary began to wane in the aftermath of Theodore Roosevelt's defeat in 1912. The Great Depression and the U.S. involvement in two world wars helped to further draw attention away from the preferential primary; and thus, by mid-century, the tally of states allowing party voters to directly influence the selection of delegates to the presidential nominating conventions was barely into double digits: a mere 17 out of 50 by 1968.

 That year, it would be the turn of the Democrats to experience major internal convulsions. Lyndon Johnson, after assuming the presidency in the aftermath of John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, won re-election the following year by the largest popular vote margin in United States history; eclipsing Franklin Delano Roosevelt's previous landslide record in the election of 1936. That popularity would prove short-lived however. Johnson had barely been sworn in, and his successful Civil Rights package enacted, when race riots that began in Los Angeles spread to other major cities. Compounding that volatility was Johnson's decision to double-down on a stalled military effort in Vietnam which had begun under Kennedy. Public disillusion with the ruling party, rancor over a deteriorating domestic security situation, resistance to military involvement in Vietnam, and the desire for a sweeping change to the entire system would ferment into outright opposition to Johnson and the Democrats by 1968.  

Johnson appeared weak and out of touch with popular sentiment; and many of his Democratic colleagues smelled blood. Chief among them was Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. McCarthy declared his intent to challenge Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination in November 1967; citing the administration's "evident intention to intensify the war in Vietnam" as his main reason for doing so. McCarthy's anti-war position was a popular one, and while he was narrowly defeated by Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson saw the writing on the wall. In the aftermath of Johnson's close shave, Robert F. Kennedy threw his hat into the ring, and the President, despairing of his ability to secure the nomination, announced that he would not seek re-election shortly thereafter. Yet, New Hampshire didn't have to be Johnson's death knell. The vast majority of the states still held closed door party caucuses and were controlled by Democratic party officials. Had he not contested any primary, the Democratic establishment would have returned to Johnson the nomination; despite McCarthy and Kennedy's popular support.

 It was this exact strategy which Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's Vice President, now sought to implement. Humphrey differed very little from Johnson in terms of policy, but he was a party insider, and familiar with the operations of the national machine. A portion of the Democratic base may have been united in opposition to his policies; but Democratic bosses certainly were not. While McCarthy fought it out in the few preferential primaries with Robert F. Kennedy, Humphrey chose not to enter a single one; opting instead to hunt for delegates in the overwhelming majority of states where the rank and file were not given a say. Before the Democratic National Convention even convened, Humphrey had secured a majority of the delegates needed to win the nomination; and not a single Democratic rank and file vote had been cast for him. Numerous groups planned to protest outside the Convention and to contest its proceedings from within. Clashes between protestors - angry at the possibility of continuing the status quo with a Humphrey nomination - and police were broadcast on live television. Inside the hall, a bitter debate over Vietnam policy raged. Everywhere, the image of a Democratic Party hopelessly battling itself, divided, and confused, contrasted with the relative ease with which the Republicans had solidified their support for Richard Nixon.

  Blood, sweat, and brick-bats, however, would not be enough to deter the party establishment. Just as in 1912, the operation of the machine proved hard to overcome. Nixon began to position himself as a "law and order" candidate; one who could both quell the domestic unrest and deliver results in Vietnam. No matter what a bunch of "peaceniks" may have desired, Eugene McCarthy, in the eyes of the party establishment, did not seem capable of returning the Democrats to power against such an adversary. Winning, and not popular will, was, again, the prime objective. In the end the Democrats endorsed a platform of continued military operations in Vietnam and Hubert Humphrey as their standard bearer. For Haynes Johnson, political commentator and author, the 1968 Democratic Convention was a "lacerating event...[eclipsing] any other such convention in American history, destroying faith in politicians, in the political system, in the country and in its institutions. No one who was there, or who watched it on television, could escape the memory of what took place before their eyes."

Had any of those who were watching been even somewhat familiar with the history of presidential nominations from 1832 on, they might not have been so shocked by the 1968 Democratic Convention results. Party bosses had once again succeeded in thwarting the perceived will of the people, as they had been doing for well over a century. Yet, that sense of dire hopelessness so evident in Haynes Johnson's description of what happened did cause some of the political elite to sit up and take notice; especially once Humphrey had been defeated by Nixon. Nixon had not defeated Humphrey by a large margin, at least in the popular vote; but to Democratic leadership the lesson was clear: blatantly ignoring the popular will, small as it may have been, might have been an underlying cause of Humphrey's defeat. The long floor fight and televised violence on the Chicago streets certainly added to public dissatisfaction with the Democrats, and so, responding to the political pendulum swing, new party rules were adopted for the election cycle of 1972.  

Following rule changes implemented by the McGovern/Fraser committee, two-thirds of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention were chosen through preferential primaries held in 23 states. This time, a popularly selected nominee, George McGovern - the same McGovern who chaired the rule changing committee - would run against Nixon; but, despite the increase in rank and file input into his selection, McGovern too would come up short in the November election. Yet, this did not slow the pace of primary adoption. During the following election, in 1976, more than thirty states held primaries, and Jimmy Carter, another popularly supported candidate received the Democratic nomination. The power of party bosses seemed to have been negated; but looks may be deceiving. The McGovern/Fraser committee had changed the Democratic Party Rules; but that does not mean that they changed any laws. This is because, where internal party decisions are concerned, for all intents and purposes, there are no federal laws or statues governing what they can or cannot do. If we return to our corporate structure analogy from the previous post, changing the rules to allow for more delegate selection through primaries is essentially Apple asking consumers to take a survey on what features the new iPhone should have, and then implementing the most popular choices. Apple doesn't need to hold such a survey, but they can if they want to, and they can just ask quickly go back to the non-survey mode of iPhone creation whenever they so choose. The parties can change their internal rules whenever they like, and to suit whatever purpose the party functionaries so desire. Just take the decision of Colorado Republicans to not hold a primary this year, as further evidence of this fact.

The McGovern/Fraser reforms were the response to a political problem, and they created, as one would expect, yet another political problem: McGovern and Carter didn't win in the general elections. Yes, Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976; but Ford was tarnished by Nixon's criminal activity, and was never perceived as a strong President. When the Republican's fired back in the 1980 election with Ronald Reagan, Carter - who, for various complex reasons we won't get into here, was painted as being soft and un-American - suffered a crushing defeat, both popularly and electorally.  Reducing the influence of party bosses clearly did not work for the Democrats; and like any good corporation facing a loss in market share, they decided that a new rule change was needed to allow them to, in the words of Governor James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina, get back to "the business of winning again." Thus, the Hunt Commission - chaired by the very frank Governor Hunt - convened in the aftermath of the 1980 Democratic electoral flop, to rewrite the McGovern/Fraser reforms, and place the interests of the party back on top.

Enter the much despised super-delegates. Testifying before the Hunt Commission, Congressman Gillis Long, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, asked that 2/3 of the House Democratic membership be sent as unpledged delegates to the 1984 nominating convention, because, as Gillis put it, the Democratic leadership were the "last vestige of of Democratic Control at the national level." Gillis believed that as party officials, the House members had a "special responsibility to develop new innovative approaches to respond to our Party's constituencies." In other words, the party bosses had a responsibility to ensure the party had as a good a chance as possible of winning. The party's "constituencies" he refers to are not "we the people"; but rather party members eager to maintain their positions of power and the legions of outside interests dependent upon that continuation of power. Governor Hunt was inclined to agree with Gillis' assessment, stating, "We must also give our convention more flexibility to respond to changing circumstances and, in cases where the voters’ mandate is less than clear, to make a reasoned choice ... [an] important step would be to permit a substantial number of party leader and elected official delegates to be selected without requiring a prior declaration of preference. We would then return a measure of decision-making power and discretion to the organized party and increase the incentive it has to offer elected officials for serious involvement.” "Without requiring a prior declaration of preference" means a delegate who can declare for any candidate without being bound by the will of party voters - a "super-delegate."

 One of those outside interests keen to see a continuation of Democratic power was the AFL-CIO, which joined with Hunt and the Democratic State Chairs' Association, to call for 30% of the 1984 convention delegates to be composed of these super delegates, chosen from the party's establishment members. Though this proposal had wide support initially, objections were made - but not out of any appeal to democratic principles one might expect - and ultimately, under the Ferraro Proposal, put forth by Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the total number of super delegates selected by the party was set at 14%; where it still roughly rests today.

This years' primaries, especially the Democratic contests between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, brought the issue of super-delegates to national attention; creating a deep sense of outrage among the voting public; especially when it seemed as though unelected delegates would decide the nomination in favor of a party stalwart over a popularly supported opposition candidate. However, those paying attention to history, and viewing the parties as what they really are - corporations whose product is the running of government - were not so shocked by this apparently sudden revelation. Super delegates are nothing more than a pendulum swing back toward the rule of party bosses that dominated the nomination process from 1832 until the 1970's. They are not new; nor are they some violation of the law, because, as we have repeated over and over again, the party's are not the government and thus are not bound by the Constitution or its amendments. Everything the parties have done, from their very institution as national organizations to their implementation of super-delegates as a means of reasserting their control has been done to solve political problems, some of them arising directly from the vacillating opinions and allegiances of the general voting public. Yet, no matter what the underlying cause of these novel political inventions, their end goal is always the same: to win, to maintain the hold on power.

 In an article from 2008, entitled A Brief History of Super Delegates, the Daily Kos argues that in reality super delegates are beneficial to the nominating process, in that they actually serve to uphold democracy, while at the same time protecting the interests of the party. This may be so; but only when upholding democracy and the interests of the party happen to dovetail perfectly. As we have seen, whenever these two competing needs have come into conflict, the parties will change whatever rules they have to in order to ensure that the latter concern is always secured; even if it means jettisoning the former. Public anger at the super delegate revelation may provoke a change in direction, in much the same way that 1968 and 1980 produced procedural shifts; but whatever solution the parties employ will undoubtedly spawn unforeseen political problems at some point in the future, which, in turn, will lead to more novel solutions, and on, and on. Of course understanding this reality and its quintessentially human causes is only helpful if we learn from it; if we take the lessons of history and try to apply them to the here and now. We'll attempt to do just that in the sixth and final part of The Man of the People.

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Notes:

Diamond, Jared. 2011. Collapse. Revised Edition. Penguin Books.

United States Presidential Election of 1968. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1968

Johnson, Haynes. 1968 Democratic Convention (The Bosses Strike Back). Smithsonian Magazine. 2008. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1968-democratic-convention-931079/?page=2

Stark, Leonard P. The Presidential Primary and Caucus Schedule: A Role For Federal Regulation? Yale Law & Policy Review, Volume 15, Issue 1. 1996. http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1320&context=ylpr

Marlow, James. McCarthy Is Unlikely To Alter LBJ Policy. Kentucky New Era. 1967.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lesrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=amcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3484%2C5130197

Press Conference of Senator Eugene J. McCarthy. Senate Caucus Room, Washington D.C., November 30, 1967. http://www.4president.org/speeches/mccarthy1968announcement.htm

Election Results, Presidential Election of 1980. 270toWin. http://www.270towin.com/1980_Election/

Kamarck, Elaine. A History of 'Super-Delegates' in the Democratic Party. Harvard Kennedy School. https://www.hks.harvard.edu/news-events/news/news-archive/history-of-superdelegates

Clymer, Adam. Democrats Argue 1984 Campaign Rules. The New York Times. September 25, 1981. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/25/us/democrats-argue-1984-campaign-rules.html

Poblano. A Brief History of Superdelegates. The Daily Kos. 2008. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/15/457181/-

The Man of the People: Part IV - Bull Moose vs. The Machine

By Scott Lipkowitz

On September 8, 1892, an item of interest to every citizen of the United States appeared in the pages of The Youth's Companion: a proposed pledge of allegiance. It read, "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Amended in 1924, adopted in 1948, and legislated to include "under God" in 1952, the Pledge of Allegiance was meant to foster loyalty and commitment to the republic of the United States. Yet, by the year of the Pledge's initial publication, the national party organizations were making the United States look less like a republic and more like an oligarchy. Political machines such as the infamous Tammany Hall of New York (which controlled the entirety of the state's Democratic political appointments by the late 1800's), and the Republican machine which controlled Philadelphia at the turn of the 20th century, seemed to be the nightmare of Elbridge Gerry made flesh. The web of control these party machines had created through the use of patronage extended from the smallest municipality to the floor of each party's National Convention, where presidential candidates were chosen by party officials and their beneficiaries. Any candidate so chosen could hardly be "the man of the people" John Dickinson insisted they must be.

Fortunately, by the 1890's, a counter-force to machine control was also gaining momentum: progressivism. During the century immediately following the adoption of the Constitution, industrialization and urbanization began to transform the largely agrarian United States into a developing market economy. These trends increased following the Civil War and Reconstruction; and by the beginning of the 20th century, large corporate monopolies found themselves in control of great masses of urbanized workers living in crowded and dangerous cities. Across the globe, politicians and social activists were beginning to awaken to the fact that industrial society posed new and challenging problems; many of which could only be solved through the intervention of national governments. In the United States, investigative journalists such as Jacob Riis, who published a photo expose of impoverished city life entitled How The Other Half Lives, and Upton Sinclair, whose work The Jungle, exposed the horrid conditions in which industrial food was processed and packaged, helped to spur on public demand for reform and regulation. The public had seen the true face of unfettered capitalism, and it did not like what it saw.

 Avarice and corruption were not limited to the economic sphere however; they spilled over into the political arena as well. This included the presidential nominating process. Party conventions - which over the course of the 19th century became extensions of the local and state machines - seemed to many political observers at the turn of the 20th century to be no better than the trusts and monopolies which dominated economic life. Both served to limit choice - one in the economic marketplace, the other in the political. While President Theodore Roosevelt was building his progressive credentials using the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act to go after monopolies, setting aside wilderness for conservation, and arguing for the "Square Deal"; progressives within both the Democratic and Republican parties pushed for the opening up of presidential nominating conventions to the voice of the rank and file voters through the use of preferential primaries.

Preferential primaries are essentially what most states that hold primaries today implement. Voters - usually only those affiliated with a particular political party - vote their preference for presidential candidate, and the delegates selected to go to the national convention are bound to vote in direct proportion to the popular vote for the various candidates. The winner of the popular vote will get the most delegate votes, and thus, in theory, the will of the people will have been expressed in the selection of a presidential candidate, and the power of the political elite will have been mitigated. To modern Americans - who fancy themselves citizens of a democracy - this seems like a no brainer; and the violation of this seemingly simple principle is the cause of infinite frustration among the modern electorate. However, to belabor the point, the parties and the national systems, tools, and rules they create are NOT the government; they are the end result of a private solution to a constitutional and political problem. What matters to the party and its functionaries is winning; not the advancement of democracy. If a party loses office, it loses the power, clout, and influence that goes along with it. In this light it is easy to see why so few states and so few party bosses were willing to adopt the preferential primary in the early 1900's.

Allowing the rank and file to vote, even if they are loyal party members is ludicrous if you are a party official. The average voter might vote for the candidate who would do what's in the voter's or the country's best interest; and that might not dovetail with the party's ambitions or interest. A well intention-ed candidate who could not compete in the general election, but who held policies popular with the electorate, could end a party's hold on power. Only party bosses and those with a vested interest in the party's long term success could ensure the selection of an appropriate candidate. Another way to think about the nominating process, the conventions, and the relation of the parties to the average citizen is to envision them as a company, for instance Apple. Party officials and functionaries are the equivalent of CEOs and board members. They decide what products Apple will put out into the marketplace - in this case a presidential candidate. This is essentially the system that held sway in every state from the 1830's until the turn of the 20th century. A preferential primary, then, would be tantamount to Apple allowing its smaller shareholders (the rank and file party members) to also have a say, though less influential and somewhat diluted, in which products Apple will create. Again, it is important to note, that preferential primaries were only open to party members, NOT all eligible voters as some open primaries are today. The average citizen/voter (who may have no party affiliation) only gets one chance to decide on Apple's product; and that is in the market place, by either buying it (or voting for the chosen candidate) or not buying it; but no matter what the average citizen chooses to do, the choice of what product (or presidential candidate) the citizens will have the opportunity to consider, has already been determined.

By 1912, only 6 states had laws allowing for direct preferential primaries - California, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Oregon. In the remaining 42,  machine politicians controlled the state conventions and the delegate selection process. This would play a significant role in the lead up to that year's election. Roosevelt, after completing seven relatively progressive years in the White House, hand picked his successor, William Howard Taft; ushering him to victory in the 1908 presidential contest. While Taft had professed support of Roosevelt's agenda, and promised to continue his progressive work once in office, he lacked Roosevelt's force and vigor and soon allowed a return to business as usual. By the end of the four years of the Taft administration's first term, most of Roosevelt's reforms had been dealt heavy blows. If any chance at salvaging Roosevelt's accomplishments and vision for the nation existed, it would necessitate Roosevelt himself jumping back into the ring and challenging Taft for the Republican nomination. In early 1912 this is exactly what he did.

Roosevelt's decision to challenge the sitting President for his party's nomination was met with open hostility. Taft, appalled, raged privately against "the hypocrisy, the insincerity, the selfishness, [and] monumental egotism...that possess Theodore Roosevelt." Yet, Roosevelt was still immensely popular. National polls at the outset of the campaign had him leading Taft by more than 66 percent; but that would not be enough. Machine politics still reigned in the majority of the country, and Taft, not Roosevelt, controlled the Republican machine. "Probably Taft will be nominated" Roosevelt conceded in a letter to a friend. Without more preferential primaries, Roosevelt's hopes of securing the nomination seemed bleak. Senator Joseph Dixon, chairman of Roosevelt's campaign hoped to do just that: persuade as many states as possible to amend their laws in favor of a preferential primary. Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Ohio all seemed to be leaning in that direction. With the combined efforts of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, preferential primaries might be secured in these seven additional states, where Roosevelt's popularity would hand him delegate victories, and perhaps, demonstrate that he was the Republican's ticket to continued power. Of those six, only Georgia could not be persuaded; but New York, Roosevelt's home state, eventually replaced it. In all, only 13 out of a total of 48 states would hold preferential primaries; and they would overwhelmingly go for Roosevelt.

New York would prove one of the few exceptions. When voters went to the polls on March 26, they were, in the words of historian and Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris "frustrated by mysterious equipment failures and closings. Others had been handed preposterously long ballots folded like concertinas, with up to three feet of blank space separating the Roosevelt ticket from its emblem." Some voters "tore off what they thought was waste paper, then found themselves unable to vote" for Roosevelt. When the day was done Taft emerged victorious, garnering 83 delegates to Roosevelt's measly 7. "They are stealing the primary elections from us", Roosevelt protested. Yet even as Roosevelt urged voters in Illinois to demand a preferential primary, and declared loudly that "I cannot and will not stand by while the opinion of the people is being thwarted", his own campaign was playing the game of machine politics as deftly as his adversary. Two of Roosevelt's top campaign lieutenants were themselves professional party bosses: William L. Ward of New York and William "Big Bill" Flinn of Pennsylvania who seemed determined to oust his home states' current Republican machine. Whether Roosevelt approved of it or not, his campaign relied upon their knowledge of political manipulation at the local and state levels to attempt to secure Roosevelt victories in the thirty-five states where state conventions still determined delegate allocation. Twelve days before the New York primary was "stolen" from Roosevelt, a progressive supporter of the Roosevelt campaign held the Oklahoma state convention chairman at gun point until a Roosevelt victory was secured. Bribery, patronage, and intimidation were implemented throughout the non-primary states; despite Roosevelt's many public appeals for the moral high ground.

 By late April Taft had a commanding lead in the delegate count, 432 to 208 - he needed 540 to win. Taft's majority, however, came almost entirely from states where the machine controlled conventions still determined who the delegates would support. Roosevelt, with victories in the primary states of Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oregon, and Illinois (where progressive Republicans had secured a preferential primary), appeared to have the overwhelming support of the rank and file. In Massachusetts, also a primary state, Taft won a narrow majority; however lost the delegate count when eight delegates at large (unpledged ) declared for Roosevelt. This did not cast a benevolent light upon a candidate who claimed to be fighting for "the right of the people to rule"; and Roosevelt, eager to maintain that persona, instructed the eight delegates to switch their votes in favor of Taft. In early May Roosevelt won the Maryland primary, and edged out Taft in the machine controlled state conventions of Kansas and Minnesota. California overwhelmingly went for Roosevelt, and Arkansas - whose Republican party was deeply divided - fielded two opposing delegations; one for Roosevelt and one for Taft. Ohio, another primary state and Taft's home, humiliatingly went to Roosevelt. When the dust had settled on the 1912 Republican primary and convention season, Roosevelt had soundly trounced Taft in the popular vote, 1,214,969 to 865,835; and had, by hook or by crook, robbed Taft of the machine convention nominations on many of the states which Taft theoretically controlled the process. With popular and convention victories in hand, Roosevelt's bid to contest Taft for the Republican presidential nomination seemed a foregone conclusion. All that remained was to seal the deal at the convention.

Corporations, however, usually fight to turn a profit on their product, and while Roosevelt may have had a strong case, he certainly was not good for business, both figuratively and literally. Little that Roosevelt had achieved in his lengthy political career sat well with the party bosses; he had even decried their very existence in a 1910 speech given in Saratoga, New York, stating, "The rule of the boss is the negation of democracy." Taft, on the other hand, was easily manipulated and happy to go along with the status quo. If re-elected he would not pose a threat to the machine's continued operation. Now you may be asking yourself, why, even despite Roosevelt's progressive, anti-party establishment leanings, would the Republicans not want to have him as their nominee? He did have a commanding lead in the popular vote, and had even swung some of the state conventions in his favor. Surely he would do better than Taft in the general election?

Such a victory was not guaranteed. Several months of Republican infighting had soured many to the idea of either candidate for president, prompting the New York World to run the headline: "FOR PRESIDENT - WOODROW WILSON." Wilson, the progressive Democratic governor of New Jersey, did not seem like a far stretch for those who supported Roosevelt's policies, but were tired of the playground squabble gripping the Republicans. Charges that Roosevelt was a drunk and a megalomaniac abounded in the press, and his very desire to hold a third term in office - breaking the two term precedent set by Washington and adhered to ever since - smacked of vainglory. Wilson, the quiet former Princeton professor, presented a tempting alternative to either of the Republican candidates. This would have been especially worrying to the Republican establishment. If they put out an almost identical product to the Democrats, but their product was slightly more temperamental and viewed as an egotistical liability, would their product really stand a chance of defeating the Democrats on the open market? That answer might be no. Better then to renominate Taft, who at least presented a marked difference that could be used to battle Wilson in the general election.

Before any of that could happen, however, the Republicans needed to get through their national convention. Both Roosevelt and Taft laid claim to the 540 delegates needed to win the nomination, guaranteeing a long and contested proceeding.   Roosevelt's ultimate hope lay in seating those delegates - some 240 by his campaign's count - not earned in the primary states. It was an empty hope. Even before the convention opened, the Republican National Committee began undermining his position. The opposition Roosevelt delegates from Arkansas, along with the main Roosevelt delegates from Alabama and Georgia were barred from joining the convention. A subsequent 100 Roosevelt delegates were ruled ineligible, causing Roosevelt to chafe at the "theft" of his support in such a "cold-blooded, premeditated, and deliberate" manner. Yet, many newspapers were quick to point out that those 100 delegates were the product of just as much patronage, corruption, and intimidation as any of Taft's. Roosevelt may have painted himself as being above the fray, but his operatives certainly were not. When the convention opened in Chicago on June 18th, the deck already appeared to be stacked against Roosevelt; but his progressive supporters were never-the-less spoiling for a fight.

 On the convention's first day, Governor Herbert S. Hadley of Missouri rose to contest the RNC's approved list of delegates, arguing that those Roosevelt delegates who had been refused seats, and not those who supported Taft, were the true legitimate delegates. Cries of support for Hadley rang out over the convention hall, but they did not stop Taft's personal representative James E. Watson of Indiana from forcefully objecting. A convention chairman had not been chosen, Watson argued, and thus no other business could be conducted. Even in the selection of the convention chairman, Roosevelt would be dealt a significant blow. Elihu Root, Roosevelt's former Secretary of War and confidant, was eventually appointed to the position; and, despite his ties to Roosevelt, was a company man, having been tasked by the Republican leadership with guaranteeing the nomination of Taft. Once Root had taken up his gavel he allowed further debate on Hadley's proposal to seat Roosevelt's delegates. After hours of debate both Hadley and Watson were forced to concede that the issue of contested delegates had brought the entire party to a deadlock. Compromise was needed. Hadley suggested that an as-yet-unassembled credentials committee be allowed to determine the fate of the 72 contested delegates, and Watson agreed. There was just one caveat: Hadley insisted that none of the delegates whose seats were contested be allowed to cast a vote for the credential committee's members. Delegates seeking to retain or obtain their seat could hardly be trusted to impartially decide who among their colleagues should serve on the very committee tasked with deciding their fate. Chairman Root, however, disagreed. Certainly no delegate could vote on his own legitimacy, but that did not prevent that same delegate from voting upon the legitimacy of others. If Hadley's caveat were allowed to stand then no seat in the convention could be beyond dispute Root argued, "and there would be no convention at all, as nobody would be entitled to participate." The caveat was denied, and Taft's hold over the entire Republican apparatus was confirmed when, two days later, the credentials committee's report on delegates gave the sitting President a commanding 605 delegate majority.

Roosevelt's delegates would not be seated, the machine politicians had regained control of the convention, and the progressive Republican minority could only watch in anger. Realizing that despite all of his best efforts throughout the buildup to the convention and during it, he would be, in his mind at least, unjustly denied the nomination, Roosevelt authorized Henry J. Allen of Kansas to read a statement to the assembled delegates. "The convention [is] in no proper sense any longer a Republican convention representing the real Republican Party", Roosevelt wrote, "Therefore, I hope the men elected as Roosevelt delegates will now decline to vote on any matter before the convention." If the convention would not decide in his favor, perhaps, by urging his supporters to inaction, he could bring the convention to a halt and force a favorable compromise. In all, 343 progressive delegates, including Allen, refused to vote or participate in any convention business, including the final roll call vote for the presidential nomination. As each state delegation was called, those loyal to Roosevelt declined to speak up in his favor - just as they had been instructed to do - but it served little purpose. When two of Roosevelt's Massachusetts delegates declined to vote, Root simply recognized two alternates known to be for Taft, and counted their votes. When the roll call eventually came to an end, Taft, and not Roosevelt, had emerged victorious. It appeared as though nothing could defeat the machine once it had begun its operation.

 If all of this has struck a cord with you - the denial of a popularly supported candidate in favor of the establishment candidate, the control of the entire process by a party machine, and the ultimate nomination of a candidate unpalatable to much of the citizenry - that's because very little has changed since the national party system began in the 1830's. Parties want to win. Period. And just as a corporation will do whatever it thinks necessary to maintain its market share, so too do the political parties make decisions based on what will most likely help them maintain power. This doesn't make them part of some conspiracy from the 5th dimension; it merely makes them subject to the same human frailties and concerns we are all too familiar with. Ultimately, Roosevelt and his progressive supporters would break from the Republican Party, forming their own Progressive Party (better known as the Bull Moose Party). This split has thrown blame for Wislon's eventual victory in the 1912 election at Roosevelt's feet ever since; but it is a grossly unfair assertion. Wilson crushed both Roosevelt and Taft in the electoral college, receiving 435 votes to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's laughable 8. Even without Roosevelt splitting the Republicans, Taft's incredible lack of popular support would have sealed his fate. As for Roosevelt's Progressive Party, it would not prove to be a lasting presence on the political stage. By 1916, support for the party had all but dried up, and the Bull Moose passed quietly into extinction. With it went the progressive movement and the push for nation wide preferential primaries. Two world wars and a depression helped to further push the call for more voter participation in the presidential nominating process to the back burner. Not until the 1970's would a preferential primary or caucus be held in all 50 states of the union; with disastrous results for the corporate party interests.

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Notes:

Jones, Jeffrey Owen. The Man Who Wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. Smithsonian Magazine. 2003. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-man-who-wrote-the-pledge-of-allegiance-93907224/

Cherney, Robert W. The Jungle and the Progressive Era. The Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/politics-reform/essays/jungle-and-progressive-era

O'Toole, Patricia. The Spectacles of 1912. The Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/politics-reform/essays/spectacles-1912

Morris, Edmund. Colonel Roosevelt. Random House, New York. 2010.

1912 Election Results. 270towin.com http://www.270towin.com/historical-presidential-elections/timeline/

Shafer, Byron E. Bifurcated Politics, Evolution and Reform in the National Party Convention. Harvard University Press. 1988.

The Man of the People: Part III - Birth of the National Party System

By Scott Lipkowitz

On February 4, 1789 the system of presidential selection set up by the Constitution's electoral college would pass from the realm of political hypothesis into the realm of cold, hard reality. On that day, electors from ten states (Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet ratified the Constitution; New York failed to select electors) cast their votes for President. To no one's surprise, George Washington was unanimously elected. It appeared that the system designed to create harmony among the thirteen individual states was going to be a success. The election saw no campaigning, no electioneering, and perhaps most importantly, no political parties. This too was no surprise. The government was new, its initial success demanded unity, and Washington was a trusted and venerated popular figure. The office of the President was also new; still an idea on parchment lacking the breath of life which only the office's occupant could endow it with. All of this was on Washington's mind as he prepared to take the oath of office. He understood, and rightly so, that any action he took while in office would set a precedent for all future presidents. In his first inaugural, Washington acknowledged the fragile peace created by the Constitution, which held back the regional, political, and economic factions stewing beneath the surface. Addressing the assembled members of Congress, Washington reminded them of his confidence that they would "carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an United and effective Government." He then went on to define his role as President in the same manner which the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had envisioned - a disinterested executive, faithfully executing the laws enacted by the 'people's legislature.' Even though the Constitution "made the duty of the President 'to recommend to [Congress'] consideration, such measures as he shall judge necessary and proper'; Washington believed that his position as the first chief executive, "[would] acquit [him] from entering into that subject." The Constitution, and not a single individual, "designates the objects to which [Congress'] attention is to be given."  Washington sought to be a unifying figure, and to do so by rejecting any concentration of power in his hands. Unity, and presidential timidity, however, would prove short lived.

Three key factors ensured the inevitability of a breakdown: renewed regional animosity, the rise of political parties, and Washington himself. Once the shine had worn off, the actual details of governing soon renewed inter-state animosities. Divisions which had existed prior to the Constitution's creation and adoption still remained. Hamilton and Madison, once united by their support for the new federal government and their abhorrence of the dangers of factions, would eventually come to lead opposing political parties; becoming bitter rivals in the process. Conflict between merchants and farmers, Anglophiles and Francophiles, debtors and creditors, and between those who favored a strong interpretation of the Constitution (the Federalists) and those who favored a weak one (the Democratic-Republicans), ensured that strife, and not unity, would be the guiding principle of the day. All of this would spill over into the realm of Presidential elections, and would be exacerbated by the third factor, Washington.

Washington's influence over all future Presidential elections was two fold. First, Washington's national appeal was a singular occurrence. Those such as Roger Sherman, who argued at the Constitutional Convention that there were few, if any, national figures behind whom the nation as a whole could rally, were not wrong. Once Washington had exited the scene, very few individuals, even among the revolutionary generation, had the reputation and public profile necessary to secure a majority of electoral votes. A fact which meant that, according to the Constitution, Presidential elections would inevitably be decided in the House of Representatives. This, as you will recall, was initially favored by many of the founders; but it also carried with it a high potential for graft, corruption, and tyranny. The other way in which Washington would influence subsequent elections was more subtle. While Washington initially tried to act only as an executive, and nothing more, circumstances would eventually thrust him, and the presidency, to the fore. Carrying out the law evenly across the whole of the nation required the creation of an executive apparatus with its fingers in every state; creating the very "trail of dependents" which George Mason felt would lead to corruption. Washington, at Hamilton's insistence, helped create the Bank of the United States, and with it the Department of the Treasury; expanding the executive's reach into the financial sector. To avoid a second conflict with Britain - who at the time was at war with the French Republic - Washington negotiated the Jay Treaty in 1794; but rather than simply submitting it for Senatorial approval, or disapproval, Washington insisted that the Senate ratify. Gone was the Washington who did not deign to set a course for the country; here was a President using the power of his office to influence national policy. All of this added up to a slow but steady accumulation of power in the office of the President, an increase which has continued to this day, and which has helped to transform the presidential election process into a fiercely contested exercise.

Washington would step down after serving two terms, retiring from public life in 1796. The subsequent election seemed to be as straightforward as the previous two. John Adams, the Federalist candidate and Washington's Vice President, succeeded him in the executive office. Though it was close, a majority of electoral votes had gone to Adams in another seeming victory for the electoral college system. However, there are two important factors of the 1796 election which should be noted because they will have disastrous consequences for the election of 1800. At the time, there was no separate election for Vice-President; whoever came in second in the vote count was appointed to the job. This would result in Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, being appointed as Adams' Vice-President. More importantly, the election of 1796 was the first presidential election to involve "parties." I say "parties" because they were not really parties in the modern sense. There was no national apparatus or party machinery as there is today. Electioneering - the process of mobilizing voters and ensuring their votes - was done via surrogates at the local level, shilling for their candidate. Newspapers were one avenue through which this was done; but even they were a relatively new outlet for politics on the national stage. Candidates did not campaign throughout the states; the pitfalls of 18th century travel being among the many reasons why they chose not to. Perhaps most importantly, the members of these "parties" were only loosely held together by ideology. More often than not they were driven by state allegiances, regional concerns, or personal economic situations than by any sense of loyalty to a national organization. Caucuses held by the two major political "parties" were not the stage managed displays of unity that party conventions are today. They were intended solely as a way to put forth potential presidential candidates, not to solidify party support for a single individual. It must also be stressed that the United States and its Constitution were still new, its political union still fragile, and the potential for its complete collapse very real; all of which permeated the politics of the day; greatly influencing individual political leanings.

By 1800, these realities would take a heavy toll on the presidential electoral process; ultimately placing the election's outcome upon the shifting loyalty of a single Delaware Representative. Four candidates were put forth: incumbent President John Adams and South Carolinian Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for the Federalists, and Virginian Thomas Jefferson and New Yorker Aaron Burr for the Democratic-Republicans. Infighting between Adams and his fellow Federalist leader Alexander Hamilton helped to ensure a poor showing for the Federalist ticket, with both Adams and Pinckney failing to receive a majority of the electoral vote. Neither of their opponents, however, fared much better: both Jefferson and Burr each received 73 votes. According to Article II, Section I of the Constitution, the event of a tie immediately turned the election over to a decision in the House, where each state delegation would cast one vote. Deal making and strategic calculus would now determine who would hold the executive office. Six days and thirty-six ballots later, Thomas Jefferson was named the President; but only after a Federalist, James Bayard of Delaware, jettisoned any notions of party loyalty, and instead voted in the interest of his home state.

Bayard was the lone Delaware Representative, and as such was responsible for the state's one vote. He shared the North's sectional animosity towards the South, and considered himself an ardent Federalist; but the deadlock in the House touched a nerve with his identity as a citizen of Delaware. Delaware was a small state with few economic resources of its own. The federal government ensured its independent existence, and kept it safe from the economic tyranny it had previously suffered at the hands of larger states such as Virginia. However, Bayard's party, the Federalists, who at the time controlled the House, were divided over the possibility of handing power to Jefferson, the leader of their political opposition. To Bayard, Federalist resistance to confirming Jefferson as President threatened the very existence of the federal government. "Representing the smallest State in the Union without resources which could furnish the means of self protection" Bayard would later explain,  "I was compelled by the obligation of a sacred duty so to act as not to hazard the constitution upon which the political existence of the State depends." Ultimately, the election was decided by one man, whose fear for his home state trumped his party affiliation. While this may have been good for the continued existence of the nation as a whole, and for Delaware, it did not seem a very reliable or stable way in which to decide who should wield the power of the presidency. Thanks to the one state, one vote rule of the Constitution, the single member of Delaware's delegation wielded as much power as the larger delegations from New York and Virginia. Perhaps most troubling, from the perspective of those who had debated the dangers of giving Congress any say in the matter, Bayard, had he been a more ambitious man, might have tried to extort favor or patronage from either Jefferson or his Congressional colleagues in return for his vote.

In the end, the election of 1800 was hailed as a triumph of republican virtues - one party had peacefully handed over power to its rivals - but in reality, it had exposed the instability and uncertainty inherent in the electoral college system. Congress believed they had a fix. In 1804, the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted, altering the language of Article II, Section I, providing a separate vote for the Vice-President. Electors in 1800 were torn between their desire to have either Jefferson or Burr serve as President; if a separate vote for Vice-President delineated which candidate was supposed to be considered for which office, a future tie might be avoided. The Twelfth Amendment would also alter the number of candidates whom Congress could consider in the event that they were once again required to decide. Instead of the top five, as was originally stated in the Constitution, the Twelfth Amendment narrowed the field down to the top three; a point which would not have helped in the case of the election of 1800; but which would have consequences in the future. Ultimately, while it meant well, this patch to the system did little to fix the ultimate cause of the 1800 debacle: Congress would still decide in the event that no one candidate received a majority of electoral votes - starting the clock yet again on a countdown to electoral strife.

That countdown would run out during the election of 1824. By that time, fear of the union's eminent dissolution had somewhat diminished; but regional and state animosities were as alive and well as they had always been. Jefferson and his successors - James Madison and James Monroe - had continued to increase the power, authority, and reach of the Presidency. Several mid-western territories, each with their own political baggage had been admitted as new states; and in the aftermath of 1800, the Federalists, lacking any real national unity, had faded out of existence. For all intents and purposes, the United States was under the one party rule of the Democratic-Republicans. One would imagine that with only one party, unanimity would be easy to obtain for a single presidential candidate; but one would be mistaken. All of the limitations on the definition of a national "party" still remained; and while outwardly the political classes presented a united front of republicanism, the unavoidable factional divisions still seethed beneath the surface. The 1824 election made this all too apparent. Instead of fielding one candidate, who presumably would be guaranteed an electoral victory, the Democratic Republicans instead fielded four major contenders: John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, William Crawford of Georgia, and Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.

Jackson was a war hero of the 1812-14 conflict with the British, and had served as governor of the Florida territory, as a representative in the House, and in 1824, served as a U.S. Senator. Crawford, an ardent proponent of states' rights, and fearful of the federal government, had none-the-less served as Treasury Secretary under President Monroe. The Georgian was of ill health in 1824, but insisted on standing as a presidential candidate. John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was without a doubt the most qualified of the candidates. Adams was a principle architect of the Treaty of Ghent which ended the War of 1812, served as U.S. minister to Russia, and played a substantial role in the creation of the Monroe Doctrine as President Monroe's Secretary of State. Lastly, Henry Clay served as Speaker of the House; a position which meant that he could potentially play the role of king-maker; crowning himself even, if circumstances called for it.

When the polls closed and electors were chosen - in six states, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont, they were appointed by the state legislatures - Andrew Jackson came out on top; receiving 152,901 popular votes and 99 electoral votes. (Remember, only the electoral votes count; popular votes determine who the electors will be. A majority of the popular vote does not guarantee a candidate overall victory.) Despite this impressive showing, Jackson failed to receive the Constitutionally required majority of electoral votes needed to secure the presidency. Though he had soundly defeated his opponents - Adams received 84 electoral votes, Crawford 41, and Clay 37 - it was still not enough. Crucially, Clay's poor performance ruled him out from consideration in the ensuing House vote - he failed to make the top 3- but his position as Speaker would still provide him with some degree of influence over the proceedings. Months of lobbying followed. Supporters of each of the three candidates attempted to make deals and to secure the support of state delegations. Clay publicly threw his weight behind Adams - his dislike for Jackson certainly playing a role - and eventually helped to broker an alliance between mid-western and northern states to hand Adams the presidency, which they did, by a 13 to 7 vote, on February 9, 1825. Rumors implying that Clay and Adams had struck a secret bargain seemed to be confirmed when Adams appointed Clay as his Secretary of State. In response, Jackson described Clay as "the Judas of the West"; decrying his apparent disregard for both the will of the people and the electors.

Twice in the less than 50 year history of the United States, the President had been selected by Congress. In each instance the entire Constitutional system had teetered precariously on the edge of corruption. The twelfth amendment, which purported to solve the problem, clearly failed to do so. Three solutions - to a modern observer at least - would seem to be available to those, like Jackson and his supporters, who saw these issues as a roadblock on their path to the presidency: further Constitutional Amendments, abolition of the electoral college, or the creation of a true national party organization. Further amendments and the abolition of the electoral college were not viable options. More amendments would take time and political capital, not optimal for someone who wanted to secure the presidency now. Nor would they guarantee a water-tight fix. Abolishing the electoral college in favor of popular vote certainly would have given Jackson a victory, but the issue of large vs. small states would once again become an issue, making any change politically impossible. All that remained then was the formation of a truly national party apparatus of the kind which Elbridge Gerry fearfully warned against in 1787; and it is precisely what Jackson and his supporters - most notably Martin Van Buren - would create.

Van Buren, a native of New York, had spent a career deftly maneuvering through the tense Democratic-Republican landscape, organizing and unifying a portion of the party's state apparatus; turning it into a veritable political machine, called by his detractors the "Albany Regency." The same infighting and factional divisions which characterized the national political arena also characterized New York state during Van Buren's rise to power in the early 1800s. He saw the bickering among the members of the Democratic-Republicans as a guarantee of Federalist supremacy over the state government - even though the Federalists were just as divided - and believed that only by fostering loyalty to the party and its principles could the Democratic-Republicans effectively compete for state offices. By 1821, Van Buren's efforts at unification and party loyalty had paid off, and he was able to wrest control of the Democratic-Republicans from his primary opponent, DeWitt Clinton. That same year, sitting atop a state wide political machine, Van Buren would be elected, by the members of the NY state legislature, to the U.S. Senate. When the 1824 election descended into political bickering and intra-party conflict, Van Buren saw the opportunity to bring his ability for creating organizational unity and allegiance to the national stage.

Of course the unity which Van Buren intended to create was not the same kind of unity envisioned by the Constitution and its Electoral College system. As in New York, Van Buren sought to create loyalty to the party and its ideals; not to engender notions of allegiance to the United States as a whole, or to republican principles of government. Reality consistently indicated that the latter two were not possible; nor were they necessary to achieving the ultimate goal - putting Jackson in the White House. If the example of New York could be broadened to encompass the nation as a whole; Jackson and his supporters would hold a significant advantage over their still fractious opponents. Party loyalty was the key. Only when voters, electors, and party officials viewed themselves as members of the party first, and as Virginians, merchants, farmers, or laborers second, could the animosity which divided them be bridged.

Building allegiance to the party as a stand alone entity was only a piece of the puzzle. Finding a way to build national consensus around a single candidate before the electoral process began was the other. To do this the Democrats would follow the lead of the Anti-Mason Party and, in 1832,  hold a convention. This convention would nominate Andrew Jackson to serve for a second term and nominate Van Buren to serve as Vice-President (he had already previously served as Jackson's Secretary of State -  a great bit of patronage if ever there was one); but it's true significance was that it rallied and solidified support for those candidates prior to the election. This meant that instead of candidates being put forth and then coalitions built around them after the fact - as was the case in previous elections - all of the haggling, deal making, and infighting were done before a single electoral vote was cast; the end result of which was consensus and support for a single candidate and his running mate. A united national party significantly reduced the chances of an electoral stalemate and the possibility that Congress would once again decide the winner; which in fact has not happened since 1824. Coupled with Jackson's novel approach of nation-wide campaigning, it seemed that the national party system was indeed the method through which securing the presidency could be reliably accomplished without the need for further constitutional revision. Over the following decades, conventions would become the norm for all of the major political parties, with state parties holding conventions to nominate delegates to the national conventions; and party platforms - agreed upon sets of beliefs or policies which party members were supposed to adhere to - becoming the norm in the 1840s.

The crisis surrounding the Electoral College seemed to have been overcome. With candidates chosen in the lead up to the election, and a unified national machine to back them, the dangers of Congressional decision would theoretically fade into the background. Lone representatives would not be in a position to determine the national leader; and would-be presidential candidates would not be able to broker deals advantageous to their personal ambitions. Candidates would enjoy the broad national support only Washington had previously achieved; and in the end, the 'will of the people' would be placed firmly back on top of the political process. Certainly the former was true; but was the latter? Did Van Buren, Jackson, and all of those who followed their lead, create a national party system to safeguard the will of the people? I would argue that they did not. Van Buren saw a problem, identified the causes, and then created a solution which involved no alteration of law or of constitutional principle.  He simply found a way to beat the system and achieve his desired result: the attainment of political power. While the parties certainly want the electorate to believe that they are the guardians of republicanism and inseparable from the government and its institutions, this could not be further from the truth. Political parties are not required by the Constitution, and were actively opposed by its framers in page after page of both Federalist and Anti-Federalist writings. Once the presidency became a center of national power, it became an object coveted by those with lofty aspirations. Organized national parties were a result of those aspirations, not of the desire to ensure that the choice of President was retained by the people. This is why, throughout the remainder of the 19th century, party conventions remained decidedly undemocratic. The average voter or even party member was not given a say in who the party's nominee for president would be. Party officials determined the candidates behind the convention's closed doors - a candidate's potential to win being the party's only concern. Not until the beginning of the 20th century would any movement to open up the party convention system to the popular will gain any traction; and even then, the power of the party machine would prove hard to overcome.

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Notes:

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press. 1992.

Berkin, Carol. A Brilliant Solution (Inventing the American Constitution). Mariner Books. 2002.

The United States Constitution.1787. https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/constitution/

Election of 1800: Electoral College Results. http://www.270towin.com/1800_Election/

Freeman, Joanne B. The Presidential Election of 1800: A Story of Crisis, Controversy, and Change. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/early-republic/essays/presidential-election-1800-story-crisis-controversy-and-change

Amendment XII. Election of President and Vice President.  http://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendments/amendment-xii

Lengel, Edward G. Adams v. Jackson: The Election of 1824. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/age-jackson/essays/adams-v-jackson-election-1824#_ftn4

Remini, Robert V. The Life of Andrew Jackson. Harper & Row. 1988.

Martin Van Buren: Life before the Presidency. Miller Center. http://millercenter.org/president/biography/vanburen-life-before-the-presidency

Shafer, Byron E. Bifurcated Politics, Evolution and Reform in the National Party Convention. Harvard University Press. 1988.

The Man of the People: Part II - Electors of Electors

By Scott Lipkowitz

 Deciding the scope of executive power was only part of the founders' effort to hold back the flood waters of tyranny. The checks which the founders placed upon the President's authority, and the severely limited nature of that authority, would, they hoped, prevent whomever held the executive office from becoming a nascent king; but these safeguards only worked once someone had assumed the Presidency. Before that point an executive had to be chosen, and the process of choosing provided ample cracks in our hypothetical dam through which tyranny could flow. Making the selection of the President even more problematic was the fact that the President would be the one and only true 'national' official in a nation composed of thirteen individual, and often antagonistic, states. If the selection process in any way favored one region, state, or interest, the chief executive would become a fulcrum of instability around which the tenuous union of the states would disintegrate.

  It is hard to overstate the importance of these inter-state divisions, and perhaps equally as hard for modern Americans to truly wrap their minds around it. Sure there are still regional animosities and religious, political, and economic divisions; but very few Americans could realistically envision a future in which these divides could actually lead to the dissolution of the country as a whole. Instead, imagine that there is a proposal to create a 'United States of Europe', and that this new super-nation will be headed by a chief executive. Choosing a 'European president' would present several major problems. For one, the populations of each European state vary in size; Germany has roughly 85 million, while France has only 30 million. Any election based entirely on popular vote would therefore give more populous nations an advantage in choosing an executive more likely to represent their nation and its interests. And those interests themselves are widely varied. Germany might want an executive willing to give preference to enforcing laws protecting its strong manufacturing sector, while Greece, Italy, and France might seek an executive who would curb the influx of refugees and migrants. The British might favor an executive willing to defer to the desires of the constituent nations, while the Poles might seek out an executive willing to confront an ever resurgent Russia. Then there is the issue of a consensus candidate; someone who could appeal to the broadest base of Europeans - a heavy lift given the long history of ethnic, religious, and national animosities. Finally, any European president would wield incredible authority, no matter how limited it might be, and thus, the mode of selecting said President would need to guard against the possibility that it could encourage the chief executive to entertain pretensions to dictatorial power. Now, given all of this in our hypothetical 'United States of Europe', devise a system of electing a chief executive in which all of these issues are balanced, no one nation or interest unduly benefits, and in which the chances of corruption, collusion, and potential despotism are mitigated. This is the problem which presented itself to the delegates of the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787.

 Weeks of endless debate over the issue eventually yielded four major solutions, which James Madison, eager to cut through the stalemate, succinctly summarized. Congress, already the primary branch of government and at least in part directly elected by the will of the people, could appoint the chief executive. Or the decision could be left to the state legislatures, whose members would be more familiar to their constituents and in whom many of the delegates to the Convention believed the true safeguard of the people's liberty was to be found. If neither of those options were appealing, then the citizens could be made to vote for a smaller body of individuals- electors - who would then vote for President. And lastly, the citizens of the nation could directly vote for President themselves.  

  Allowing the Congress to appoint the President was initially the preferred method of a majority of the delegates - indeed it was the initial proposal put forth by Madison's Virginia Plan, presented at the start of the Constitutional Convention. However, allowing the Congress to appoint the chief executive did little to curtail the potential for tyranny.  If chosen by the popularly elected house, regional and state divisions would weigh heavily upon the President, making it unlikely that whoever held the office would be able to see past their regional or state allegiances in favor of the broader national interest. Larger states, having a greater number of representatives, would be able to push their agenda through the chief executive, to the continued dismay of smaller states such as Delaware and New Jersey. Allowing the Senate - in which all states maintained equal representation - to appoint the President still did not alleviate the potential for the abuse of power. No matter which house did the choosing, the most likely outcome was a chief executive bound to some small group of powerful legislators, not to the nation as a whole, resulting in the concentration of supreme power in the hands of an oligarchy - an outcome just as undesirable as the possibility of instituting an American monarchy.

  Though the delegates were fearful of an all-powerful executive; they were equally weary of too much power in the hands of the legislature. If Congress was to act as the speed break on Presidential power, who then would act as the speed break on theirs? A President elected by Congress could not reasonably be expected to police them; nor could Congress, if allowed to appoint the chief executive, be expected to reasonably police an officer who was eternally indebted to them - especially since the idea of limiting the President to one long term had been discarded. Congress had been given the authority to investigate the President and to remove him from office if evidence of "high crimes and misdemeanors" or "treason and bribery" were brought to light. But how could Congress be trusted to investigate someone they had placed in office? The very same crimes and misdemeanors committed by the President may have been sanctioned or encouraged by Congress. Perhaps in such an event, Congress would turn a blind eye and allow the chief executive to remain in office indefinitely, so long as their policies were continued. Or perhaps, having caught the President abusing his position, Congress could choose not to remove him from office, and instead use the threat of exposing his crimes as a means to control him throughout his tenure. Conversely, factions other than those which appointed the President might one day rise to power and unjustly remove a perfectly law abiding executive in order to place a new President beholden to them in office. The President needed to faithfully execute the laws passed by Congress, but the executive also needed to be independent of Congressional intrigue if any real checks on tyranny were to be maintained. Allowing Congress to appoint the President would be, in the words of Gouvernor Morris, "the work of intrigue, of cabal, and of faction."

  Allowing the state legislatures to elect the chief executive would engender the same problems as allowing Congress to decide. Regional and state tensions would play just as much a role in the decision making process; not to mention the sheer impossibility of trusting the very same states who had refused to surrender their autonomy under the Articles of Confederation, to be able to come to any kind of consensus on a national executive. Some delegates to the Constitutional Convention viewed the States as the natural check on Congress' authority, and allowing them to elect the President was one further way in which this could be achieved. However, to fierce nationalists like Hamilton and Madison, this would in no way alleviate the problems encountered by the Articles, and thus little real consideration was given to this idea.

  If neither state or national legislatures could be trusted to elect the President, then the most obvious choice - at least to modern minds - is direct election by the citizens themselves. Indeed John Dickinson would implore his fellow delegates to consider this option. Aware of the great, though limited, powers which the President would employ, Dickinson believed that the national executive's legitimacy could only be achieved through direct election. "The only true and safe principle on which these powers could be committed to an individual", Dickinson stated, was the notion that the President "should be in a strict sense of the expression, The Man of the People..." Yet this option also raised the most vocal opposition, and not only as a result of upper class disdain for the lower class farmers and workmen who had helped to secure the independence of the nation the founders now sought to govern.

 Chief among the delegates' concerns was, according to Roger Sherman of Connecticut, that the average citizen would "never be sufficiently informed of characters" to make a prudent choice. George Mason of Virginia echoed Sherman's sentiments, stating "it would be unnatural to refer the choice of a proper character for chief Magistrate to the people, as it would, to refer a trial of colours to a blind man." Many of the delegates shared Sherman and Mason's dismal appraisal of popular vote; but they did so for more practical rather than cynical reasons. In the age of Facebook, Twitter, and the 24 hour news cycle it is easy to forget that information in the late 18th century was not so free flowing. Few national newspapers existed, and even where they did, their readership was mostly confined to large urban centers such as New York and Boston. In the south, where Charleston, South Carolina was the only hub approaching a major city, the flow of information was even more sparse. Books, the next best source of information were financially beyond the reach of most citizens; pamphlets, such as Common Sense, enjoyed wide circulation primarily because they were relatively inexpensive. Very few average citizens ever left the area surrounding the town or place of their birth and were thus often not plugged into the happenings within their own state, much less across the country. There were no railroads or long distance carriage roads on which news could be carried, again limiting the hubs of information to urban ports where merchant vessels periodically transited through, bringing with them reports from other parts of the country. All of this meant that the average citizen was, by virtue of geography and the limits of technology, woefully ill-informed about the nation in which they lived. As historian Carol Berkin points out, "cataclysmic events in New England might pass unnoticed by farmers in western Virginia or central Pennsylvania." This dearth of information also worked against any potential candidates. Few citizens of the United States, including the majority of the delegates themselves had a reputation which reached beyond the borders of their home states. The abysmal state of transportation, and its subservience to the weather, ensured that few, if any, ever would. To many of the delegates, this general level of ignorance meant that any informed decision regarding who should wield the national powers granted to the President, was beyond the scope of the average citizen.

  Additionally, this lack of informed opinion was yet another crack through which tyranny could seep. The average citizen's knowledge passed from town to county to state, barely, if at all, making it to the level of national awareness; practically ensuring  that their choice for chief executive would be heavily biased towards a candidate from their state or region. Either thirteen separate Presidents - each elected by their state of residence - would be the outcome of popular vote; or, if by some chance one candidate did receive a majority of the popular vote, it would most likely be the result of regional alliances, placing the President once again in the position of favoring one section of the nation above the whole. Ignorance would also enable the general population to be lead by the force of strong willed or ambitions individuals - a fear Madison expounded in the Federalist 10 - especially if such individuals hailed from their home state. Elbridge Gerry, whose work to secure better pay and equipment for soldiers during the war had earned him the nick-name "Soldiers' Friend", expounded upon Madison's fears. If the average citizens were ill-informed by virtue of their geographic isolation from one another, it stood to reason that any national organization, sufficiently equipped and popular with the people over a wide geographic range would be able to guide their decisions and place the true power of the Presidency in said organization's hands. Gerry had the Order of the Cincinati - a national fraternal order of military officers, of which George Washington was a member - in mind when voicing these concerns; but in reality any national group, be it trade guild or religious institution could potentially exercise such influence. This observation also foreshadowed the rise of political parties - the dreaded factions of Madison and Hamilton's Federalist Papers - which, if turned into national machines could create further divisions and allegiances among the general population, overshadowing any sense of national identity which many of the founders sought to create.

  Ignorance among the general populace - and its many pitfalls - could potentially be circumvented by the use of electors. Theoretically, electors would be known to the citizens of each state and would simultaneously have enough knowledge of current affairs and qualified individuals for the executive office to make an informed decision on behalf of the citizens. In reality, such high expectations could not be assured. Wealth and privilege were no guarantee that an individual had a broad understanding of the problems of the day, or that they had any thorough knowledge of the character of any individual running for the office of President. The same problems of geographic and technologically induced ignorance which made popular election so unpalatable, did the same for the use of electors. Even if electors were selected, they would, one would imagine, have to gather together in order to vote; and such a gathering might smack of cabal and conspiracy. Deals among the electors could be struck in exchange for the support of this or that candidate, placing the chief executive in the debt of who-knows-what special interests. This was no way to safeguard against tyranny.

  No matter what method they examined, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention saw tyranny bursting through the cracks; and although they consistently voted in favor of having Congress appoint the President, many, like Gouvernor Morris, were not convinced. Still at an impasse after further debate, a Committee on Postponed Matters was convened to come up with a final proposal to put forth before the entire Convention. Composed of one member from each state delegation, the Committee eventually put forth what we today refer to as the Electoral College, even though it is not explicitly called by that name within the Constitution itself. In it's final form, it provided for indirect election of the President through the use of electors. State legislatures were endowed with the authority to determine how those electors would be chosen (perhaps under the assumption that among the legislators, some would have a wide ranging knowledge, and thus be able to pick electors up to the task); and if the legislatures so decided, the people themselves would be able to vote directly for the electors. But, as Republicus pointed out in his criticism of this system in the Anit-Federalist 72, this most likely meant that the state legislatures would simply choose the electors themselves in order "to save trouble"; which is what most state legislatures in fact did.

  To ensure that the electors could not unduly advocate for their particular state they would be required to cast one of their two votes - the electoral college compromise created the office of Vice President - for someone who was not a resident of their home state. In theory this would ensure that the President and Vice President (who for want of any real job was eventually made president of the Senate) would not both hail from the same state and thus not be unjustly biased. Countering the threat of a conspiracy of electors making back-room deals, the electors themselves would not meet in person, but would instead transmit their votes to Congress, where they would be counted and a winner declared. No member of the United States government would be allowed to serve as an elector; a further precaution against abuse or tyranny.

  The Electoral College, for lack of an official title, was eventually adopted, after much violent push back; and even then only on the heels of the persuasive arguments of John Dickinson and Gouvernor Morris; but it did little to address the problem regarding the lack of national figures for whom the electors could vote. In the event that no candidate achieved a majority of electoral votes, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, whose shorter terms and direct election by the citizenry was believed by the founders to be a safeguard against possible collusion with any one presidential candidate. Yet, with a limited pool of national personalities, it seemed fairly certain that the majority of Presidential elections would be determined, not by the electors, but by the House, where regional, state, and even personal enmity would certainly play a role. In that event, all of the aforementioned drawbacks of having the legislature decide would suddenly come back into play.

  It seems almost incredible that the very same delegates, who had meticulously attempted to design a system of government with the sole purpose of avoiding sectionalism and the warring of opposing factions, would not see that this electoral compromise would eventually give rise to the very things they were afraid of - especially when many of them correctly saw the potential traps and pitfalls. Perhaps a reason for this, in so far as it concerns the election of the President, was that so many of the delegates wore George Washington blinders. Washington was the most famous man in America, hero general of the Revolution, a true consensus candidate, and someone in whom they believed they could trust to execute his duties without hint of corruption or avarice. While most of this may have been true, they seemed to exercise little thought to what would happen the day after Washington exited public life. Maybe they assumed that there would be others among the Revolutionary generation - Thomas Jefferson or John Adams for instance- who could similarly fill the role of consensus candidate, and thus thought little of what would happen after that generation had exited the national stage. Or perhaps, though they were quick to recognize the frailty and susceptibility to faction in others, the founders viewed themselves as enlightened men who could rise above the fray of the common rabble. Whatever the reason, the faith the Constitution seemed to place in electors and in the House of Representatives, would barely last four years following Washington's two terms as President.

  Though not perfect, the Electoral College was a compromise designed to balance the various interests of the individual states against the ever present fissures through which tyranny and abuse might be unleashed. Decisions are made with what you have on hand - and what the founders had on hand was tantamount to the creation of a 'United States of Europe' today. Yet, by building into the system of Presidential election the very real possibility that Congress could decide who the chief executive would be, the breach leading to Congressional abuse and deal-making would eventually be burst wide open. And once irreparably damaged, this structural flaw would make Elbridge Gerry's fears of national institutions monopolizing Presidential politics a reality. By the election of 1824, any chance that such a future could be averted would be buried alongside Washington.

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Notes:

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press. 1992.

Berkin, Carol. A Brilliant Solution (Inventing the American Constitution). Mariner Books. 2002.

Clinton, George. Anti-Federalist 67. The New York Journal. 1787. http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/antifederalist-paper-67

Grayson, William. Anti-Federalist 68. 1788. http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/antifederalist-paper-68

"REPUBLICUS". Anti-Federalist 72. The Kentucky Gazette. 1788. http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/antifederalist-paper-72

Madison, James. Federalist 10. The New York Packet. 1787. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp

The United States Constitution.1787. https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/constitution/

Articles of Confederation. 1777. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=3

The Man of the People: Part I - Cracks in the Dam 

By Scott Lipkowitz

  Citizens of the United States do not actually vote - at least not in the direct democracy sense - for President. At each step in the process their preferences are filtered through delegates and then electors, until the 'will of the people' seems more like an over-glorified game of telephone than it does democracy. Very rarely, if at all, does the electorate seem to reflect upon this; but in a Presidential race overflowing with allegations of corruption, super-delegates, and party implosions, it seems impossible to ignore. Thus, as the anonymous writer of the Anti-Federalist 72, "Republicus", we too question the wisdom "that the sacred rights of mankind should thus dwindle down to Electors of electors, and those again electors of other electors." To modern sensibilities, choosing a President should be a straightforward task: you cast a vote for a specific individual, and if that individual receives a majority of the vote, they become President - no filters or gatekeepers required. 

     But this modern thinking about Presidential elections, and about the Constitution as a whole, is a by-product of the myth of America's creation. We like to believe that the thirteen colonies were a united force, boldly fighting for the ideals of democracy and liberty - after all they stated as much in the Declaration of Independence - and that in the war's aftermath, these very same ideals motivated the creation of the American government and of the office of the President.  In reality - as in so many other revolutions - the leaders of the American Revolution had put little thought into what would come to be should the war prove successful. Even independence from Britain was not a strategic goal from the outset; it, along with most of what has transpired over the course of our history, came about only as circumstances presented themselves. Once independence had been achieved, the one thing of which Americans were sure, was that they did not want to give it up, under any circumstance, or to any group or institution.

  This included any form of national executive; and it is why, in the first attempt by the newly independent states at unified government, a national executive was deliberately left out. Even the initial Continental Congress, first convened in 1774, was essentially a war time expedient - necessary for coordination of the war effort - but its creation did not mean that the individual states desired to substitute the rule of remote British authority for that of remote Congressional Authority. Few, if any, of the new citizens of the so-called United States (and perhaps just as few even today) thought, as Alexander Hamilton desired, "continentally." During the war, in the midst of the fighting, George Washington himself would run into the narrow, state-based thinking which had been the wont of the states prior to the Revolution. During his command of the Continental Army, Washington asked militia members from New Jersey to swear allegiance to the United States; receiving back the statement, "New Jersey is our country" by way of a reply. Such thinking was not uncommon among the thirteen states, who were, in essence more akin to proto-nations, each having a different founding charter, principle, ideals, economies, and interests. 

  Once their common enemy had been removed, the states sought to safeguard their liberty by holding it firmly within their borders. The Articles of Confederation and the Continental Congress were maintained as a way to establish the "close friendship" of the states and to theoretically provide for their "common defense." The war may have concluded, but it did not mean that the British had been expelled from North America. They still maintained garrisons along the American western frontier, and controlled all of Canada to the north. During the war the French had provided naval assistance to the Continental Army; but in its aftermath, no such protection was guaranteed. To the south, Spain controlled Florida and Cuba, and though anti-British during the war, they were by no means pro-American either. And along all of the western frontier, Native American tribes hostile to the states' westward ambitions, threatened violence. In this tenuous strategic situation it was necessary to maintain some method of dealing with external threats; but the Articles did little to protect the states from each other. 

  Larger states such as New York and Virginia placed trade barriers and import taxes on goods brought in through their ports and destined for smaller states such as New Jersey and Delaware. New Jersey, trapped between Pennsylvania and New York would be described by James Madison as "a cask tapped at both ends." Each state issued its own unique currency, making inter-state trade a nightmare. Lacking any desire to help one another maintain order, rebellions in one state - such as Shays' Rebellion - were viewed in other states with understandable apprehension; but without any real possibility of lending support. The same Articles which created a "firm league of friendship" also allowed for each state to "retain its sovereignty, freedom, and independence." These two statements proved to be mutually exclusive, as each state viewed the others almost as potential enemies, plotting to place the yolk around the neck of their supposed countrymen if given half a chance.

  Eventually, something would have to give. With all real power tied to the state legislatures, the Continental Congress was impotent; it could only do what the states allowed it to; and even then there was little uniformity or direction of purpose. The lack of a national executive did not help. When Spain closed the port of New Orleans to American merchants, Congress was powerless to resolve the situation. No longer protected by the British Navy, American merchants were harassed in the Mediterranean off the African coast and were barred from entering the West Indies. In the south, conflict with Native American tribes loomed; but lacking the ability to raise funds for military intervention, the Continental Congress was forced to remain on the sidelines as the governments of Georgia and North Carolina negotiated independent treaties to secure the peace. As a means of providing for the common defense and for mutual friendship, the Articles of Confederation were an abysmal failure. If the states were to survive on the international stage, or at all, they would need to subjugate their individual independence to a stronger national government - a notion which struck many as merely enabling a return to the authoritarian and tyrannical rule of the British Parliament and King. 

  When Edmund Randolph stood before the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 to present the Virginia Plan for a stronger national government, consisting of an independent legislature, judiciary, and executive, it seemed that the fears of many prominent Americans were justified. An independent legislature already existed under the Articles, and while the newly proposed Congress would have greater authority to regulate trade, monetary policy, law, and taxation, it would none-the-less be a body representative of the entire nation. An independent executive, on the contrary, smacked of monarchy, and would later be described by the very same Edmund Randolph who first rose to propose its creation as "the feotus of monarchy." (Though to be fair to Edmund Randolph, the Virginia Plan was, in truth, the work of James Madison.) If allowed to gestate, opportunity, greed, and the lust for power would allow this fetus to become the harbinger of tyranny. 

  Yet, Madison, Hamilton, and others who supported the institution of a strong national executive shared just as dismal a view of human nature as those who argued against it. Both Hamilton and Madison were fearful of the factions and divisions which put humans in opposition to one another and feared that "different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power" would be able to sway the various factions, or even whole states and regions, to their banner, and thus become king in all but name. The great power with which any national executive would necessarily be entrusted was again liable to corrupt and to produce the potential for dictatorial rule, but both Madison and Hamilton placed their faith in the balance of power arrangement their proposed federal government would enact to reign in any such tendencies. To the delegates debating the creation of the President, the tyranny induced by concentrated power was akin to water seeping through the cracks of an aging dam - many potential pathways, all ending in the same result. Thus, the proposals eventually codified in Article II of the Constitution were designed to plug as many of those cracks as possible, both by narrowly defining the executive and its powers; and by attempting to control the flood waters of tyranny and corruption inherent in the chief executive's selection.

  The primary method employed by the Constitution to place a speed break on the President's march toward monarchy was to center the primary focus of power and of the people's will in the hands of the legislature. Congress, and not the President, takes top billing. The founders envisioned a chief executive who would simply do what the title suggests: execute the laws, ordinances, and statutes enacted by Congress. The executive would be independent, but it would not be the primary organ of government. Connecticut's Roger Sherman affirmed this view of the office of the executive as "nothing more than an institution for carrying the will of the Legislature into effect." Congress was the "depository of the supreme will of the Society", he would continue, and as such, the powers of any executive authority would be strictly limited. This is of course in sharp contrast to how we view the President's role today; but it is without a doubt that the 'imperial' nature of the modern presidency would strike deep at the fears expressed by the founders.

  Military force was also of prime concern to the delegates, and the Constitution gave its control and direction to the office of the President.  But this again created a potential crack through which tyranny could seep. How many men, from Caesar to Cromwell, had used their control of the military apparatus to rise to power? Would placing the loyalty of the armed forces in the hands of a single individual lead to anything other than the establishment of a king? During the tensions leading up to the outbreak of the Revolution, George III had used the British army to strip Massachusetts of its right to self government, garrisoned troops in the homes of its citizens, and placed the entire colony under the rule of a military governor. A President at the head of an army could do the same to the entire nation. In order to avert such an outcome, Congress, and not the President, was vested with the authority to declare war; and most importantly, the 'power of the purse'. Congress, and Congress alone, would be able to raise the funds necessary to supply, arm, and pay the members of the military, thus choking off, theoretically, any loyalty the armed forces might feel to the President, and instead ensuring it remained where it belonged: with the will of 'the people'.

 This same logic behind the power of money to control the ambitions of a would-be despot would also be employed in the area of the President's salary. While this may seem like a trivial matter, Benjamin Franklin would point out that "the love of power, and the love of money" would inspire anyone to "move heaven and earth to obtain it." If the national executive's salary was limited and fixed during his tenure in office, it would prevent the possibility that an individual's lust for power could grow out of hand. There was again colonial example which spoke to the logic of this. Prior to the mid-1770's, colonial legislatures raised the funds to pay their royal governors, enabling them to exert some degree of control over the governors who otherwise would have been solely at the command of the king. When Parliament removed that ability from the colonial legislatures with the colloquially named 'Intolerable Acts', the royal governors became yet another joint in the long arm of royal tyranny. Controlling the President's recompense was just as important to controlling the funds which backed the military he would command. 

 To remedy the United States' horrific diplomatic record, the executive would be empowered to enter into diplomatic arrangements with foreign powers; but even this had to be severely limited to prevent the possibility of tyranny. The United States was a new player on a potentially deadly world stage. Still surrounded by threatening powers, the potential for any President to negotiate away the nation's sovereignty in return for reward and self-aggrandizement certainly would be present. In the preceding century, both the War of Austrian Succession and the War of Spanish Succession saw the great powers fight for the control of their European neighbors through the influence of their sovereigns. The same could happen to the United States. To head this danger off, the Senate would be given the final vote of approval over any treaty or international agreement entered into by the President. 

  Congress would also be given final say over who the President could appoint to staff the various departments of the executive branch. As the only truly national officer, the President would quickly come to occupy the center of a national web of bureaucrats and officials all looking to him for direction. Any apparatus that enabled the "deposit of vast trusts in the hands of a single magistrate" would, according to Virginia delegate George Mason, "[enable] him in their exercise to create a numerous train of dependents." In that event, it would not be long before an American monarch and a supporting aristocracy challenged the liberties of every day citizens. Placing the authority to confirm or deny the appointment of the President's support staff in the hands of the Senate might not completely keep this from happening; but it would at least give 'the people' some degree of control. (It should be noted that in its initial incarnation the Senate was appointed by the state legislatures, and not through the direct election of the citizenry).

  Other potential cracks were identified and mended, such as the need to limit the length of the President's term in office. Allowing the President to serve for life, along the lines of a Cromwell as Lord Protector of the English Commonwealth, would not suffice to prevent monarchy. Nor would limiting the term to one, seven year period, as advocated by George Mason. Instead of a lifetime of potential cruelty, a seven year term could still doom the nation to an extended period of it, and worse still, it would both prevent the continuation of good governance when it arose and make the removal of incompetence that much harder. Eventually Mason would change his mind, stating:

"It is remarked by Montesquieu, in treating of republics, that in all magistracies, the greatness of the power must be compensated by the brevity of the duration, and that a longer time than a year would be dangerous. It is, therefore, obvious to the least intelligent mind to account why great power in the hands of a magistrate, and that power connected with considerable duration, may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic."

The President's term would thus be limited to four years, with the option to serve again. As a final check, the Congress would be empowered to police the executive and to remove any executive whose time in office began to smell of "high crimes and misdemeanors" or of "treason and bribery." 

  All was done to anticipate every possible weakness in the creation of the national executive, every avenue down which the corruption and avarice of humanity could go, and to seal the cracks in that dam which held them all back. A return to monarchy could not be an option. The founders wanted to uncouple the worst of human nature from the person who occupied the President's office; and sought to do so by accepting the stark realities of human temptation and ambition. They aimed to create an executive who would not lead; but who instead would be a tool through which the decrees of Congress could be faithfully and justly applied throughout the nation as a whole. Yet while they had filled the cracks by boxing in the scope of Presidential authority, an equally as dangerous crack still remained. State and regional animosities lingered, and as the only national officer, the President would naturally be drawn from among the citizens of a particular state and region. In all likelihood, the President would bring with them to the national stage their state allegiances and regional biases.  If said executive thought of themselves more as a 'Virginian' or a 'New Yorker', than it might not be possible for them to benevolently and fairly execute the laws and statutes enacted by the Congress. The only way the founders saw to remedy this problem was through the method in which the President was selected. And as we shall see in Part II, even this would prove to be fraught with the potential for corruption and tyranny. 

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Notes:

Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Harvard University Press. 1992.

Berkin, Carol. A Brilliant Solution (Inventing the American Constitution). Mariner Books. 2002.

Clinton, George. Anti-Federalist 67. The New York Journal. 1787. http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/antifederalist-paper-67

 Grayson, William. Anti-Federalist 68. 1788. http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/antifederalist-paper-68

"REPUBLICUS". Anti-Federalist 72. The Kentucky Gazette. 1788. http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/antifederalist-paper-72

Madison, James. Federalist 10. The New York Packet. 1787. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp

The United States Constitution.1787. https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/constitution/

 Articles of Confederation. 1777. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=3

"This is Not the Language of Thomas Paine"

By Scott Lipkowitz   

   "This is not the language of Thomas Paine". Such was the response of Thuriot, Deputy to the National Convention of Revolutionary France, upon hearing that his fellow deputy, and British-born American citizen, Thomas Paine, did not support the execution of the deposed king, Louis XVI. Deputy Marat, echoing Thuriot's incredulity, accused Paine's interpreter, Deputy Bancal, of misinterpreting his words, of providing an "untrue translation." Yet Paine, who did not speak French himself, had not been misrepresented; he opposed the execution from both "moral motives and motives of public policy" and provided the National Convention with a lengthy explanation of his reasoning. Still, Marat, Thuriot and others, could not believe that anyone, much less a vocal opponent of monarchy and hereditary power such as Thomas Paine, could be against the seemingly obvious 'justice' of executing the French king. The object of their disbelief -- the emotional desire for, and satisfaction from, vengeance -- and Paine's reasoned opposition to it, are an instructive example of one of the pitfalls of human nature.  

   Thomas Paine found himself defending leniency for Louis XVI in the National Convention in January 1793 as the result of a life-long commitment to, and participation in, democratic and republican revolution. The son of a Quaker sail manufacturer from Thetford, England, Paine made his first foray into politics working for the British government as an Excise officer, petitioning Parliament on the behalf of his colleagues for better pay and working conditions. Although this effort would be denied, a meeting between Paine and Benjamin Franklin in London would place him in a position of much greater influence. Arriving in Philadelphia in late 1774, Paine soon found employment with the printer, Robert Aitken, and by 1775 had risen to become the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, publishing articles on the abomination of slavery and supporting the ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft - considered by many to be the first advocate of the women's rights movement. When conflict between Britain and her American colonies erupted later that year, Paine saw his pen as a formidable weapon for democracy, independence, and for the overthrow of the despised form of government that was monarchy.  

   The result was Common Sense, perhaps the most influential work of the American Revolution, and a work which would solidify Paine's place not only as a Founding Father, but as a life long opponent of hereditary forms of government embodied by an aristocracy and tyrannical monarchy. "How a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or misery to mankind." To a man who viewed humanity as "being originally equals in the order of creation", the answer to whether or not the rule of despots and monarchs was a blessing or a curse was decidedly the latter. "In short", Paine would write, "monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes."  

   Paine would continue his efforts to further the ideology of the American Revolution, authoring multiple parts of The American Crisis, throughout the conflict. His influential writings would prove to be a cornerstone of the Revolution's success and would reach a readership that went beyond the borders of the United States. Many in France, the major ally of the colonies during their struggle for independence - the result of support from a monarch no less - had read many of Paine's pamphlets, and so were heartened by his defense of their own revolution of 1789 in his 1791 treaties The Rights of Man Part I and II. Penned as a response to the Englishman Edmund Burke's derision of the French Revolution and it's goal of replacing Louis XVI with a form of republican government similar to that instituted in the United States. In France, as everywhere else that kings and aristocracy ruled, there exists, Paine writes, "hidden from the eye of common observation, a mass of wretchedness, that has scarcely any other chance, than to expire in poverty or infamy.” As America was justified in throwing off the chains of such oppression, so too were the people of France. Having contributed much to the cause of the Revolution, to the  Declaration of the Rights of Man, and having received the key to the Bastille -the symbol of Louis XVI's oppression- from the Marquis de Lafayette as a gift for George Washington, Paine was viewed by many French Revolutionaries as a true friend and brethren. Under these auspices Paine was elected to represent Calais, Oise, Somme, and Puy de Dome in the National Convention in the fall of 1792.  

   Thus the stage was set for Paine's confrontation with Thuriot and Marat in January of 1793. It is important to note that Paine was one of nine deputies tasked with drafting a new constitution for the French Republic, that he had plastered the streets of Paris with  a denunciation of the rule of kings when he heard that some sought to restore Louis XVI to the throne with limited powers, and that he publicly defended these notions in a letter to the Abbe Sieyes. No one, in light of all of his work, could accuse him of not seeking justice for the common man.  

   However, Paine was an astute observer of the realities of human nature and its many shortcomings. By seeking the execution of Louis XVI, Paine saw, the National Convention was not seeking justice, but vengeance.Now some might question the difference between the two, stating that the one is merely a form of the other. However, this could not be further from the truth. Whereas justice is tempered by reason, the latter is grounded in emotion. Humans are, thanks to our evolutionary heritage, emotional beings. We lead complex emotional lives which often serve us well, and which most certainly facilitated our survival as a social species. Yet we also understand that not all emotions are positive, and that others may drive us to actions which in the moment may seem satisfying, but in hindsight are less than honorable. Vengeance is just such a negative emotion; seeking the righting of wrongs no matter the cost to those on the receiving end or to those seeking to carry it out. Justice, on the contrary, is the reasoned search for the same redress against the ingrained human tendency toward the immediate emotional satisfaction of vengeance. Paine, ever a man of reason, saw the conflict between the two, and realized that the drive towards vengeance and away from justice could be exacerbated by fear and by human ambitions to power. Revolutionary France was fertile ground for both.  

   What had begun in 1789 as a movement to remove the king and replace him with a more republican form of government, had, by 1793, descended into factional violence as the Jacobins of Robespierre and the Girondists jockeyed for control. Mob violence and political killings were beginning to become the norm. Beyond France's borders Louis XVI, who had fled in exile, attempted to build a coalition of European monarchies to put down the ambitions of his former subjects. France was a fledgling Republic surrounded by monarchs, all of whom viewed the popular uprising as a potential threat to their rule should similar movements develop within their kingdoms. It was in their interests to rally to Louis' cause and to prepare for war against the French Republic. Though Louis himself would eventually be apprehended and brought to trial for conspiring against the welfare of his people - the end result of which was the demand for his execution in the National Convention - the existential threat posed to the new Republic by the monarchies of its neighbors did not dissipate. Fours years after the storming of the Bastille, France was being pushed and pulled by the machinations of her would-be rulers and by a very real fear of her enemies both within her borders and without.  

   To Marat and Thuriot, the execution of the king would be an act of catharsis; an undoing of centuries of hierarchical oppression; a closure for the people of France to the era of kings and lords. For Paine it was indicative merely of the last leg of a passage from one age of oppression to another. Writing in his pamphlet Preserving the Life of Louis Capet, Paine stated:

"Monarchial Governments have trained the Human race, and inured it to the      sanguinary arts and refinements of punishment; and it is exactly the same          punishment, which so long shocked the sight, and tormented the patience  of the People, that now, in their turn, they practise in revenge on their oppressors."

If the National Convention voted to execute Louis XVI it would not begin with a clean break from the past, but would instead drown the new Republic in the same old blood. Underlying this observation is the understanding that it is not the institution of monarchy, or of any specific societal structure for that matter, which creates the conditions necessary for violence and oppression. Rather it is a fact of our very nature that those who have been on the receiving end of violence will often return it in kind given the opportunity, and will often believe that such actions embody justice. Rather than laying down the tools of the monarchy, executing the king to satisfy an emotional need for closure - for vengeance - would only further place those tools in the hands of the people to be wielded against one another. Paine understood that this was happening, and hoped that by choosing a different path and setting a different example, the National Convention could try to contain or abolish it.  

   "I know that the public mind of France...has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which they have been exposed", Paine stated, "but could we carry our thoughts into the future, when the dangers are ended and the irritations forgotten, what today seems an act of justice may then appear an act of vengeance." Once any human, or any society, gives into the irrationality of vengeance what is to stop it from committing further atrocities? Picking up the sword where the king had let it fall and then using it to repay violence with violence would push the French people away from the enlightened Republicans they viewed themselves to be. And once they had been pushed too far in that direction, could they ever come back? This concern was not a new one. Thucydides, in his history of the Peloponnesian War, also wondered what a society loses when it crosses into the abyss of moral ambiguity when he described the lawlessness and depravity that accompanied the Athenian plague of 430 BC. He questioned whether or not that slide from a society based upon the rule of law and limitations, brought on by the uncertainty of the plague, in any way contributed to the atrocities the Athenians would later visit on other city states during the course of the war. Thucydides would argue that this one act forced them to lose their moral compass. Paine echoed such a sentiment, believing that killing Louis XVI would result in a similar outcome for Revolutionary France.

   Paine was arguing for the very spirit and image of the French nation. Yes he understood that there were threats, dangers, and fears; but he also understood that unless the fledgling Republic rejected the emotional, immediate response to them, in favor of the reasoned one, the potential for a dark future was immense. Would future generations look back in horror at what the French Republic had done; or would they be so changed by it that they would hardly seem to care? Thus, Paine urged the National Convention to allow the 'dust to settle' so to speak; to not take drastic action until the fear and anxiety had diminished; and to "abolish the Punishment of Death, and to find out a milder and more effectual substitute."  

   Paine placed his hope for such an outcome in his observation of the nature of humanity.  "My language has always been that of liberty and [his emphasis] humanity," And while he recognized that "monarchy, whatever form it may assume, arbitrary or otherwise, becomes necessarily a centre, round which are united every species of corruption", he was still "inclined to believe, that if Louis Capet [XVI] had been born in an obscure condition, [and] had he lived within the circle of an amiable and respectable neighborhood" that there was little likelihood that he would "have shewn himself destitute of social virtues." Had he been born a pauper, perhaps none would feel ill against him. Or perhaps he himself would be among those in the National Convention outraged at Paine's objection to execution. Underlying this observation is the understanding that it is not the institution of monarchy, or of any specific societal structure for that matter, which creates the conditions necessary for violence and oppression. Instead it is the burden of our very natures. Anyone, placed in the same situation, under the same conditions, would act as the king and all his predecessors had done. Indeed, the leaders of the National Convention appeared to act in just such a way now that it was they who held the reigns of power.  And the very same sense of vengeance with which they now took aim might one day in the future be pointed at them. This principle of the equality of all men - and by reason, their potential circumstances in life- was codified in the Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man, which read: "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights."  

   Unfortunately, vengeance would win the day. Louis XVI would be executed on January 21, 1793. The political violence, present at some level since 1789, would expand into the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins, who, under Robespierre, ascended to power, quickly declared war on England and Holland, rounded up and executed 'enemies of the Revolution', and imprisoned Paine himself in the Luxembourg prison for almost a year (he would narrowly escape execution due to a mistake made by his jailers). It would seem that Paine's astute observations of human nature were born out by all that followed. Marat himself would become a casualty of the Reign of Terror in the short term increase in violence which Paine warned against. Over the coming decades the long term repercussions of the National Assembly's actions would also prove Paine right. The growing turmoil and outside threats of war would pave the way for Napoleon Bonaparte, for total war, and the spread of the French army across Europe, often bringing with it horrible atrocities (for instance those in Spain, captured by Francisco Goya in his Disasters of War etchings). It would take France the better part of a century to fully recover from the mistakes of the National Convention. Napoleon would eventually be replaced by the return of the Monarchy in the form of Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis- Philipe I; who would, in his turn, in 1848, be replaced by a second French Republic, which would itself give way to the second empire of Napoleon III. Not until 1871 would the Third Republic be formed, and with it some of the ghosts of the 1790's laid to rest. While the execution of Louis XVI can not solely be blamed for all the horrors that would follow, Paine was none-the-less correct to challenge the emotional appeal of vengeance in the hopes that such a challenge might present a different path for the people of France.  

   Though he may not have been heeded by the likes of Marat and Thuriot, Paine's desire not to follow in the footsteps of tyranny and oppression make his objection to the execution of Louis XVI worthy of reflection. The conflict between the reason of justice and the emotion of vengeance are still with us today. We are still fundamentally the same people. Our thirst for vengeance has not abated; nor has our tendency to be blinded by fear.  Post 9/11 America posses a siege mentality not unlike that of Revolutionary France, afraid of enemies both at home and abroad. And in our desire to exact revenge upon those who have injured us, we neglected to pause and contemplate whether or not our actions conformed with who we view ourselves to be; or whether engaging in torture, mass surveillance, and domestic militarization would be actions we could walk back from. Our present political climate - with presidential candidates promising more of these moral ambiguities- seems to indicate that we can not. Future generations, looking back on what we have done in the so called 'war-on-terror', might not look upon our deeds as justifiable. However, if we continue as we are, it seems more likely that future generations will be so changed by the precedent we have set, that the ideal of America we currently hold will seem alien to them.  

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Notes:

Paine, Thomas. 1793. Shall Louis XVI. Have Respite?

Paine, Thomas. 1793. Reasons for Wishing to Preserve the Life of Louis Capet.

Paine, Thomas. 1791. To the Abbe Sieyes.

Foner's Introduction to the Collected Works. Thomas Paine National Historical Association. http://thomaspaine.org/aboutpaine/foner-s-introduction-to-the-collected-works.html

Cools, Amy. Paine on Basic Income and Human Rights. Thomas Paine National HistoricalAssociation. http://thomaspaine.org/paine-on-basic-income-and-human-rights.html

Chiu, Frances. Modern Prometheus: Thomas Paine and Our New American Revolution. L.A. Progressive. https://www.laprogressive.com/thomas-paine-common-sense/

Declaration of the Rights of Man. 1789

Hanson, Victor Davis. 2011. A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans fought the Peloponnesian War. Kindle Edition. Random House.

The Divine Wright

by Scott Lipkowitz

   It only lasted a meager 12 seconds, but when the Wright Flyer's first flight came to an end, 120 feet from its starting point on a sandy beach near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, history had been made. Humans had achieved powered flight. The repercussions of that initial transit through the atmosphere, on December 17, 1903, would be far reaching. War, commerce, and travel would all be changed by the airplane over the course of the coming century. In the United States there was a justifiable feeling of pride at being the first to take to the skies; but there was also a notion that the airplane could only have been invented there, by Americans - a notion which still lingers to this day. Pulitzer prize winning historian David McCullough, when asked if the Wrights could have accomplished what they did in any other country replied, "Well, they might have done something in France, but I doubt it." For McCullough there was something about "the atmosphere of America at that time" - something presumably unique to the United States and its people - which enabled the Wrights to seemingly invent the airplane, if you'll pardon the pun, out of thin air. Transformed by this view, the Wrights have come to embody the arch-type of American 'exceptionalism' - singular geniuses who changed the world in ways that only Americans can. Certainly the Wright brothers possessed many admirable qualities - they were not motivated by monetary gain, they were studious, well read, and scientifically minded - but they did not invent the airplane out of whole cloth.   

   Humans have probably been dreaming of flight since the dawn of our species some 200,000 years ago. The dream of manned flight appears in the myths of many cultures, from the Inca to the Greeks; and during  the Renaissance, many - including Leonardo DaVinci - envisioned flying machines that, while fantastical, were not practical. The first inkling of what we today would recognize as an airplane came from the mind of an 18th century Englishman: Sir George Cayley When Cayley first represented his idea for a flying machine on a silver disc in 1799, humans had already taken to the air - in the form of hot-air and hydrogen balloons - but they had yet to achieve flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle. Most early thinkers on the problem of heavier-than-air flight used the most obvious natural source of observable information: birds. But whereas great thinkers such as DaVinci focused on the flapping of wings as the key to powered flight - envisioning ornithopters - Cayley, similarly observing the flight of birds, came to a different conclusion. Noting that many birds remain airborne for extended periods without flapping their wings, Cayley came to the realization that flight was possible with fixed wings - a realization without which the modern airplane would not be possible. Bird wings provide both forward propulsion and generate lift (the differential between air pressure on the top and bottom of the wing's surface resulting in the wing being pushed up into the air) - flapping provides propulsion, the rigid wing provides the lift. Cayley's great insight was to separate both of these functions- assigning lift to a rigid wing, and propulsion to an as-yet not invented propulsive device.  

   At the time, steam power was just beginning to come to the fore, but it would never be powerful or light enough to propel Cayley's vision into reality. However, these technical limitations did not prevent Cayley from identifying the main forces involved in powered flight - gravity, lift, drag, and thrust - or from sketching a craft that anyone today would not recognize as an airplane. His design included two fixed wings, a rudimentary "cabin" for the pilot, and a tail with both horizontal and vertical surfaces. Cayley also contributed ideas about the shape these wings should take, the beginnings of control surfaces for directed flight, and conducted various tests on gliders and other models in order to produce observable data. All of this he publish in 1809-10 in a three-part treatise called On Aerial Navigation; and none of the Wright's work would have been possible without this first initial vision.   

   Cayley's breakthroughs would inspire many other European would-be aviators, including fellow Briton Willaim S. Hensen. Hensen would go on to design the flawed Aerial Steam Carriage - think car with wings powered by a boiler - but he would also tackle the engineering problems inherent in fixed wings. According to the thinking of the time wings had to be thin in order to both be light and to generate lift - a bird's wings appear thin after all. However, constructing such thin wings with the materials of the 19th century posed a real challenge. (Aluminum had not yet been developed as a building material, and there were no light weight composites).The wings would have to be cantilevered off of the main body of the craft, and at the same time would have to resist the forces of flight which could cause them to deform. Hensen - again, limited by the materials and construction techniques of the age - gave his Aerial Steam Carriage steel cables anchored to the fuselage as a way to brace the wings; a feature that many early mono-planes would later employ - including the successful WWI fighter the Fokker Eindecker. Cable braces running the length of the wings in a configuration similar to a cable-stay bridge create a lot of drag however, decreasing the aircraft's overall performance. How then to construct a light, thin, yet sturdy wing while at the same time not limiting the wing's capabilities?  The solution would be found in Australia, in the box kites of Lawrence Hargrave.  

   Hargrave began his career in the 1870's as a maritime engineer, spending 6 years on various vessels exploring the coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea. Like Cayley, however, his true passion was flight. Settling down in a suburb of Sydney, Hargrave too turned to the study of bird flight to inform his investigations; independently discovering a principle of wing shape which Cayley had identified earlier that century; the principle of wing camber. Camber simply refers to the curve or bend of the wing when viewed in cross section. A curved surface forces the flow of air over it to travel faster than the air flow below it, causing the air below to be more dense and a pressure differential to occur, resulting in lift. A curved wing generates more lift than a flat one. The problem of wing strength still remained however. To solve it, Hargrave invented the box kite; a cubed wooden structure, cross braced within each square, wrapped in fabric, and open on two ends. The result was a kite capable of generating a healthy amount of lift while at the same time being rigid and strong. It was also able to carry a man aloft. On November 12, 1894, Hargrave affixed four of his kites together and used them to carry him 16 feet into the air. A scientific paper on the kites and their aerodynamic properties soon followed, and Hargrave traveled to London for a public demonstration.The prototype for the bi-plane wing of the Wright Flyer had been born. One need only compare the two to see the clear line of descent.  

  Wings were only a part of the equation, for they would be of no use unless one could control the vehicle during flight. This was a problem which the Wrights clearly identified. It was also a problem undertaken by aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal. A veteran of the 1871 Franco- Prussian War, Lilienthal pursued a successful career as a civil engineer following his military service; applying his knowledge to the study of bird flight in his free time. These avian studies would culminate in Bird Flight as the Basis of Aviation (eventually published in 1899), which, while flawed, helped lay the foundation for further investigation of wings, lift, airfoils, and camber. Convinced that observation alone was insufficient, Lilienthal constructed fixed-wing gliders of his own design with which he experimented repeatedly - becoming the first human to make multiple gliding flights. What was of prime interest to the Wrights however, was the way in which Lilienthal controlled his gliders once aloft.

   Strapped into them, his feet dangling below, Lilienthal maneuvered his gliders through the simple process of shifting his weight - as a bicyclist would by leaning into a turn. Each time he pushed his body to one side Lilienthal shifted the glider's center of gravity relative to its center of lift, causing the glider to turn. In this way rudimentary control during flight was achieved; and could potentially be achieved by the Wrights. However, the inherent inefficiency and instability of such a control system most likely contributed to Lilienthal's untimely demise. After logging roughly 2000 glides Lilienthal's career would come to an abrupt end on August 9, 1896, when a strong wind would cause him to lose control and plummet 50 feet to his death. This fatal accident helped rule out the shifting of weight as a mechanism for control and at the same time pushed the Wrights to find a more reliable alternative; one they readily found in the work of English engineer Francis Wenham. (Wenham, in 1866, suggested controlling an aircraft by creating a difference in the amount of lift generated by each wing. This was essentially what Lilienthal was accomplishing by shifting his weight. Wenham’s work, however, suggested this could be accomplished simply on the wing itself - no shift in the center of gravity needed - an idea which the Wrights would ultimately embrace.) Lilienthal's method for control may have been fatally flawed, but without it, the answers to one the most pressing problems of flight might not have been so thoroughly addressed.

   Cayley, Henson, Hargrave, and Lilienthal each contributed to the body of knowledge underlying the Wright's success; but without a way to gather it all together, the Wright's would have been flying in the dark. Today the Internet has the potential to place the whole of human knowledge instantaneously at one's fingertips; but at the turn of the 20th century the Wrights had no such advantage. Instead they relied upon the Smithsonian Institute and the tireless enthusiasm of Octave Chanute. A railroad engineer by trade, Chanute may well be aviation's first die hard fan. Chanute corresponded with Lawrence Hargrave about box kites, organized glider meet-ups on Lake Michigan in order to encourage the experimentation of younger enthusiasts, and followed closely the progress of Otto Lilienthal. Tantamount to an internet hub, Chanute  made himself a central point through which anything and everything to do with flight could pass. He eagerly shared everything that crossed his path in an attempt to broaden flight's horizons and expand its ideas. All of this, including his own analyses of stress forces and structural design, were bound together in his 1894 work Progress in Flying Machines. The Wrights themselves received much correspondence from Chanute - he even helped publicize their successes - but he was not their sole source of outside information. In May 1899, Wilbur Wright sent a request to the Smithsonian Institute for any and all information regarding flight. The Smithsonian willingly obliged, sending the Wrights everything they could, including such works as L'Empire de L'Air, an 1881 book by an Algerian glider named Louis Mouillard, and the work of Swiss scientist Daniel Bernoulli, who first described the interactions of pressure and velocity within a fluid, and by extension the principle of lift. Both Chanute and the Smithsonian provided a constant flow of information to the Wrights, without which they could not have gotten airborne.  

   What all of this leads to is not the independent creation of the airplane by Orville and Wilbur Wright, but rather the synthesis of over one hundred years of aviation research, from multiple countries, into a functioning, powered aircraft. To be sure the Wrights undertook their own research - building wind tunnels, gliders, engines, propellers, and flight controls - but all of their research built upon the work of those who came before them. Nothing the Wrights explored was uncharted territory. The international nature of flight research indicates that the Wrights were not the only ones who could have successfully created a functioning airplane; if they had not done so, it is almost certain that others would have. Glenn Curtis, Igor Sikorsky, and many others soon followed the Wrights into the air. What did make the Wrights exceptional was their willingness to embrace the ideas, theories, and knowledge of those around them and of those who came before. Rather than being constrained or pinned down by preconceived notions of what flight was or should be - as many other early aviators did - the Wrights maintained a open-mindedness that allowed their experiments to literally take flight. This is not a quality unique to any one country or society; but it is unique among humans as a whole. Too often we double down on what we think we know; often to the detriment of better or different possibilities. Had this been the mindset of the Wrights, theirs would not be the name forever associated with the history of human flight.

_______________________________________________________________________ Notes:

Tedeschi, Diane. 2015. David McCullough on the Wright Brothers. Airspacemag.com. http://www.airspacemag.com/as-interview/david-mccullough-wright-brothers-180955344/

Spencer, Jay. 2009. The Airplane: How Ideas Give Us Wings. Harper Collins Publishers.

Crouch, Tom D. 2004. Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age. W. W. Norton & Company.

Las Compañías de San Patricio

 by Scott Lipkowitz

  Wars are not fought solely on the battlefield. They are also fought in the mind, through the power of ideas. Physical force has always been, and will most likely always be, at the center of human conflicts; but the narratives we create around these struggles, the counter narratives of those on the other side, and how those ideas interact, play an equally important role. Case in point, our treatment of Syrian refugees. Abroad we paint ourselves as defenders of liberty, fighting against the seemingly medieval era scourge of ISIS. At home, however, those seeking refuge are confronted with armed civilians outside their places of worship and Presidential candidates seeking to prohibit the members of the larger group to which they identify from ever reaching our shores. These two ideas are mutually exclusive and reveal our inability to understand how other groups perceive themselves and the situations unfolding around them. Is it any wonder then, the ambivalence that many of these refugees may harbor towards their adopted home? How can the former idea hope to fight the ISIS view of a western world hostile to Muslims when the latter seems a fact of American life? Thus a counter-narrative is born; the power of which we ignore at our own peril - a counter-narrative that can turn potential allies into deadly enemies. Syrian refugees are not the first group in the United States to be caught up in a conflicting war of ideas, however. Refugees have been seeking sanctuary in the United States from the very moment of its tumultuous birth. In the mid 1840's, in a conflict over territory in what is now the southwest United States, it was the Irish who would demonstrate the power of ideas, and the consequences of ignoring them.    Every high school student who studies American history learns about 'Manifest Destiny'- the narrative of the inevitable westward expansion of the United States, cloaked in the idea that such expansion would spread democracy and civilization across the North American continent. Of course this idea was not the driver of territorial expansion itself. Instead, it provided the ideological facade for more sober realities. Founders, such as Thomas Jefferson, saw territorial expansion of the United States both in terms of national security - aiming to undermine the influence of European powers on the continent - and of economic prosperity - the seemingly endless resources would surely provide wealth and opportunity for generations of Americans. Jefferson himself initiated the first major fulfillment of this view with his purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. By the 1840's the lure of west coast ports and agricultural lands in California and Texas added to the American desire for a continent wide empire. Technological advances such as steam boats and the telegraph would make westward expansion more economically viable. Population pressures along the East coast, the result of an influx of migrant groups from Europe, would make it a necessity. The United States, however, was not the sole occupant of North America. Mexico, still undergoing internal turmoil following its war for independence from Spain, claimed as part of its sovereign territory much of the land that the United States sought to possess.

  The rebellion of Texas, on Mexico's northeast border with the United States in 1835, provided an opportunity to make good on that desire. Although provisionally recognized as an independent republic following initial hostilities, Mexico none-the-less considered the rebel province to be just that: a portion of its sovereign territory under the temporary control of revolutionaries. A stalemate of sorts continued for nearly 10 years, when, in 1845, the United States offered to incorporate Texas into it's union. On December 29th of that year, annexation became a fait acompli and Texas became a part of the United States. It is important to understand that from the point of view of Mexico, Texas was akin to the Confederate states during the Civil War. Imagine what the reaction of the Union would have been had Great Britain extended an offer of incorporation to the Confederacy, that such an offer was accepted, and that the Confederacy was now in partnership with a potentially lethal belligerent. It is not difficult then to see why Mexico threatened to invade Texas in order to retake its wayward province following the offer of annexation. In response, the U.S. dispatched Brigadier General Zachary Taylor to set up defensive positions in Corpus Christi. Negotiations to reduce the rising tensions between the two nations ended without result, and Taylor was ordered to take a defensive position on the north bank of the Rio Grande. The Mexican government responded in kind, fortifying Matamoros on the opposite shore. On April 26th 1846, the conflict came to a head; shots were fired, and 14 U.S. soldiers were killed or wounded. Though in a very real sense the initial aggressor, the United States took offense to this attack, and following President James K. Polk's urging, declared war on Mexico. The Mexican-American War had begun.   It was against this narrative of "American blood...shed on American soil", as Polk would state, that one of America's recent immigrant groups would find themselves caught up in the war: the Irish Catholics. Prior to the 1840's the majority of European immigrants coming to the United States were Protestant, even those from Ireland. Yet, with increasing food insecurity starting in the late 1830's, and culminating in the Famine of the 1840's, more and more Irish Catholics emigrated to the U.S. in search of a new start. Food, however, was not their only reason for leaving. Centuries of oppression and persecution at the hands of their more powerful and Protestant neighbor, Great Britain, drove many to seek refuge in the supposedly tolerant United States. Their reception could not have been further from that notion. Polk may have made much of American blood and American soil, but at the time there was very little idea about what an American actually was. Instead, Americans defined themselves more by what they were not than by any common national identity; and what they were not, was Irish Catholic.

  At it’s core, this anti-Catholic sentiment centered on the belief that anyone entrenched in the hierarchical Catholic faith and beholden to the Pope’s authority in Rome could not be a productive, or even trustworthy, member of a democratic state. At the very least Catholics would be incapable of independent thinking or morality, and so could not be expected to safeguard American ideals. Being an American and at the same time being a Catholic was a contradiction in terms to the American mind. They practiced an alien and, to many Protestants, unconscionable religion. They often spoke a foreign and strange sounding language, and their customs did not seem to fit. While it would be tempting to assume that in the modern era we have overcome this prejudice, we should remember that in 1960 John F. Kennedy, nominally a Catholic, had to make reassurances to the American public that he would not bow to Rome or papal authority. Religious enmity runs deep. The American Bible Society, in 1830, urged all Protestant denominations to present a united front in combating Catholic influence in the United States. When Irish Catholics began arriving en masse in the 1840’s, the groundwork for their opposition had been thoroughly laid.

  It was widely believed that the Irish were incapable of becoming a healthy part of the Republic, a view similar to that held by the British. Americans were encouraged to view the Irish as “inactive, slothful, and lazy” with a “hanging bone gait...the low brow denoting a serf of fifty descents…dark eyes sunken beneath the compressed brows” and possessing all the trappings of “savage ferocity”. Poor and pushed into ghettos in many of the major Eastern cities, it seemed that the promise of the New World would not be freedom and tolerance, but rather more of the same oppression and injustice endured in their native land. Fear of immigrant labor and religion sparked riots in Philadelphia in 1844, 2 years before the outbreak of the Mexican - American War, resulting in the destruction of two Catholic churches and the entire Irish ghetto. Many Irish Catholics sought refuge, and perhaps a way to become ‘legitimate’ Americans, in military service. Although often formed together into fighting units, the Irish were still subject to Protestant officers and commanders. Any hope of proving their worth to their adopted home by serving its armed forces seemed to be virtually non-existent. Writing of Irish troops he encountered in the U.S. Civil War, Robert Gould Shaw stated that the “Irishmen seem sometimes utterly unable to learn or understand anything” and that black soldiers under his command learned “all the details of guard duty and camp service infinitely more readily than the Irish.”

  That similar dismal appraisals of Irish soldiers existed at the time of the Mexican-American War is not hard to imagine. Taken with the harsh treatment of Irish in civilian society, it should not have been surprising when John Riley, an artilleryman and native of Clifden, County Galway in Ireland, deserted from General Taylor’s ranks, taking the Irish artillerymen under his command with him. Dubbed “Las Compañías de San Patricio”, Riley and those who followed him - mostly Irish Catholics, but soon joined by other Catholic Europeans from surrounding areas – lent artillery support and expertise to the Mexican forces. Fighting under a green banner displaying an Irish harp surrounded by the Mexican coat-of-arms, the San Patricios took part in the battles at Matamoros, Monterrey, and Angostura. Mexican General Francisco Mejia, commanding the San Patricios at Angostura, stated that their actions were "worthy of the most consummate praise because the men fought with daring bravery." John Riley was given a Captain’s rank, and in 1847, in the war’s second year, General Santa Anna incorporated the San Patricios into the Mexican foreign legion.  On August 20 of that year, the San Patricios would fight in what would become one of the bloodiest battles of the war, at the monastery of Churubusco. Setting up defensive positions within the monastery, the San Patricios, alongside other Mexican regiments, repelled U.S. troops until their ammunition ran out. Anticipating defeat, the Mexican garrison raised the white flag of surrender, only to have it torn down, supposedly, by Captain Patrick Dalton of the San Patricios. Spurred on by this gesture of resilience the garrison fought on until superior U.S. bombardment brought the battle to a close. 35 San Patricios paid with their lives. Riley and several other captains were wounded in action. Prisoners were taken, of which 72 were charged with desertion from the U.S. army and tried by court martial.

   On September 8, 1847, 20 San Patricios were hanged, a further 16 on September 10. Many of their comrades were made to dig their graves. Those who were not executed received brutal lashings and were branded with the “letter ‘D’ for deserter” and made “to wear iron yokes around their necks for the duration of the war.” A final 30 San Patricios were hanged on September 13, including Francis O’Connor, who had lost both legs at Churubusco. Dragged from his hospital bed he was none-the-less fitted for a noose. Such horrific treatment provoked shock and horror in Mexico; but seems to be in line with American sentiment towards the Irish at the time. Despite their sacrifices for the Mexican cause, their efforts were not enough to affect the eventual outcome. The United States, vastly superior militarily, eventually occupied Mexico City in late 1847, forcing negotiations for a peace settlement. Mexico would recognize the annexation of Texas, and cede to the United States New Mexico and ‘Upper’ California (California minus the Baja peninsula). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in May 1848, saw the fruition of all of America’s expansionist desires. The fight of the San Patricios, it would seem, had all been for naught.

   All of this begs the question then, why? Why did the Irish desert from a superior force? Why did they risk the horrible punishment that was meted out to them upon their capture – surely they knew of the repercussions? What were they thinking? Many American accounts of the desertion have emphasized the offer of land or money -reinforcing the negative view of the Irish as without principle or honor – and neglecting what was most certainly a prime factor: the common Catholic faith of the Irish and the Mexicans. Days before the desertion, leaflets written by Santa Anna were distributed among Taylor’s men. They read:

 “Can you fight by the side of those who put fire to your temples in Boston and Philadelphia? Did you witness such dreadful crimes and sacrileges without making a solemn vow to our Lord? If you are Catholic, the same as we, if you follow the doctrines of Our Savior, why are you murdering your brethren? Why are you antagonistic to those who defend their country and your own God?”

 A contemporary account of the war, The Mexican War, by an English Soldier: Comprising Incidents and Adventures in the United State and Mexico with the American Army, written in 1860, further reinforced this root cause, stating:

 “As the majority of these deserters were Irish, the cause commonly assigned by the officers for their desertion, was, that as they were Roman Catholics they imagined they were fighting against their religion in fighting the Mexicans.”

The author’s description of himself as ‘English’, even though he fought for the United States army, is revealing in and of itself.  Money and land may have been on offer; but it is not unreasonable to conclude that John Riley and his San Patricios viewed themselves as Irish fighters serving a nation that mistreated them, and maintained the level of oppression and aggression against them common to their previous dealings with the British. It does not require much of a push then, for these same men to view a commonality between their struggle and the struggle of Mexico, who were similarly Catholic, and similarly attempting to resist the incursions of their Protestant neighbors. The power of self-identity, and the beliefs and ideas upon which such an identity are built, are powerful motivators. The American narrative failed to dovetail with the way the Irish saw themselves; but the Mexican narrative did.

   Such interactions between narratives and counter-narratives are often driven by what we would now refer to as ‘identity politics’.  At the time, Americans maintained a national identity defined by all of the things they were not, married to the narrative of ‘Manifest Destiny’.  Mexico, awash in turmoil, saw themselves as the victims of outside aggression, in part, though not necessarily true, because they were Catholic. One could argue that Catholicism had little to do with the reasons behind American ambition; but it did happen to dovetail with how the Irish in the United States saw themselves; and helped to push some of them to change allegiances. As humans, we often fail to account for how others see themselves, and when we do, it is often for divisive purposes. Americans of the 1840’s certainly knew that the Irish immigrants coming to their shores embraced a specific identity, and chose to use that fact as a way to exacerbate religious, political, and economic divisions. Rather than trying to create a common ground - perhaps built around a common opposition to the British - Americans at the time ignored anything they may have know about the nature of Irish Catholic identity, often with violent results, and certainly leading to the desertion of Riley and his men.

  Though John Riley and the San Patricios did not turn the tide of the Mexican-American War; their transformation from ally to enemy is instructive. Today we are similarly engaged in a struggle against an opponent with a conflicting narrative: one that seeks to show the animosity of the Western world towards Islam. We are also presented with a similar group of immigrants, fleeing from violence and persecution, looking for refuge and inclusion in the United States. However, as with the Irish in the 1840’s, the narrative we have on offer is contradictory: champions of freedom abroad, fearful and xenophobic at home. It is this very same clash that allowed Santa Anna to separate Riley and the San Patricios from the United States military. Americans of the 1840’s were unwilling to look beyond their prejudices - even if only for strategic purposes- to solidify the allegiance of their new immigrant community. It cost them one artillery battalion; today, we cannot afford to be so callous. The price of turning potential allies into bitter enemies may be more than we are willing to pay. If the San Patricios reach out to tell us anything, it is that there is a limit to how much any group will endure; especially when confronted with the same hostilities they were initially trying to escape. We seem either to fail to, or refuse to acknowledge that self-perception and self-identity are powerful facets of human nature.  If we are to truly win in any war of ideas, then understanding this fact will be an important part. Imagine the defeat ISIS would see if the United States welcomed Muslims with open arms. We must be more sensitive to how the narratives we create align with or contradict those of the people who reach our shores, and abandon those which only serve to undermine or go against our best interests. In a war of ideas, it is often those ideas that compliment the stated goals that come out on top. The only way to combat bad ideas is with good ones. _______________________________________________________________________

Notes:

Hogan, Michael. 1997. The Irish Soldiers of Mexico. Fondo Editorial Universitario.

Ballentine, George. 1860.  The Mexican War, by an English Soldier: Comprising Incidents and Adventures in the United State and Mexico with the American Army. Townsend & Company.

Macias, Francisco. 2013.  The San Patricios: the Irish Heroes of Mexico. Library of Congress Blog.  https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2013/03/the-san-patricios-the-irish-heroes-of-mexico/

Society for Irish Latin American Studies. http://www.irlandeses.org/sanpatriciosB.htm

U.S – Mexican War. PBS. http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/index_flash.html

The U.S. - Mexican War. http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/history/concise.htm

Welch, Richard F. 2006. America’s Civil War: Why the Irish Fought for the Union. Civil War Times Magazine.  http://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-why-the-irish-fought-for-the-union.htm

 Kaylor, Brian. 2010. 50th Anniversary of Historic JFK Speech on Religion. EthicsDaily.com. http://www.ethicsdaily.com/50th-anniversary-of-historic-jfk-speech-on-religion-cms-16663