Tuesday Daily Delawhere [7.3.12]
I have a feeling this is going to be a light week around here, and in the political world too, what with the Fourth of July holiday falling right in the middle of the week. Damn you Gregorian Calendar!
Who is this guy and what did he do on this night 236 years ago?
Caesar Rodney’s late night ride to philadelphia almost killed the already ill senior statesman, but he made it and the cause of liberty…… championed by the progressive north and opposed by the conservative slave holders…. carried the day.
Absolutely correct. While those conservative southerners eventually gave way to the more superior progressive North, it is amazing how their dedication to tyranny and oppression continues throughout our history.
One more nugget about that late night ride: it was in the middle of a violent thunderstorm. My how things do not change.
That’s a particularly nice photo, DD.
The social contract theory which is embodied in the Declaration is still under attack constantly. It is safe to say that America got extremely lucky on July 4th 1776. If the revolution had come 20 years earlier or later, we certainly would have had a king rather than a representative democracy.
The benefits of the enlightenment and rationality are hardly “self-evident” to modern conservatives.
Very nice. Great way to kick off the holiday.
He rode to Philadelphia in a horse & buggy.
But that’s what he was wearing, right? Because if the hat detail is off, well, I’m boycotting 4th of July.
“…championed by the progressive north and opposed by the conservative slave holders…”
Let’s peer back into history, shall we?
Caesar Rodney was a Kent Countian and a slave holder, one who would later emancipate his slaves.
George Read, whose nay vote Rodney rode to Philadelphia to override, was from New Castle County.
New Castle County had a strong Ulster-Scot influence, which enhanced resentment against the Crown. While it’s true that Loyalist and Court Party sentiments ran stronger in the southern part of the lower three counties, there was no clear dividing line. People in all parts of the state had varying opinions on the radical agenda of the day. It was not uncommon for neighbors to have opposing views on the subject.
we were talking north/south in regard to the whole country, not just boarder-state delaware. The southern…. meaning Carolinas, Georgia…. were VERY interested in making sure “freedom” and “liberty” DIDNT apply to their propert…. er um… slaves. They also used “God’s will” to justify their forcible control over other people’s bodies… much like their ideological…. and even geographical…. descendants do today.
It’s interesting, the southern politicians and plantation owners were generally more loyal to the conservative crown, while the poorer white people who lived there tended toward liberty. Modern day white folks down there could learn a lesson that guys like Daniel Morgan knew…. the people in power did NOT have their best interests at heart, no matter how holy they made themselves sound.
ben,
I have to ask: where exactly do you get your history?
Your attempt to trivialize a pretty complex social and political situation pre-American Revolution into a cardboard cut-off to support your own ideological positions is pretty ridiculous.
For a serious consideration of the issue, you might want to try Edmund Morgan’s classic American Slavery, American Freedom, move on to Tom Davis’ A Rumor of Revolt, or even take a serious look at the latest edition of Robert Middlekauff’s The Glorious Cause. The “south” that you seem to be so interested in projecting back into those times was primarily a creation of the cotton gin and slavery’s widescale expansion in the early 1800s, not a phenomenon of the late 1700s. See Christopher Morris’ Becoming Southern, the Evolution of a Way of Life.
Then you might at least sound like you know what you’re talking about.
The largest concentrations of Loyalists were in the Middle Colonies. New York City was the epicenter of Loyalist Colonial America. Throughout all the colonies, Loyalists tended to be either wealthy or recent immigrants.
Generally, among the wealthy there was a higher percentage of Loyalists. Loyalist tendencies were motivated by an incentive to preserve the status quo, and hence, their wealth. Slave holders, mostly wealthy themselves, fell into this same pattern. However, it’s disingenuous to say that the wealthy were of one mind and opposed to the radical agenda. Many wealthy Americans were prominent in the patriot cause and in fact dominated the highest levels of its leadership.
The money back then was in plantations. And the money is always going to back certainty, as long as certainty allows its profitable pursuits. With a new government there would be too much uncertainty.
The money back then was in plantations. And the money is always going to back certainty, as long as certainty allows its profitable pursuits. With a new government there would be too much uncertainty.
Most plantation owners were in hock up to their eyeballs to British shipping and British factors. Most also benefited financially from intra-colonial trade and trade with the West Indies. The idea that a new government provided too much uncertainty is a modern retrojection of current business models. These folks were, if they considered economics at all, strong mercantilists rather than capitalists, and the modern idea of money as a capital instrument was just being developed in the Bank of England (see Niall Ferguson, the History of Money).
Religious identification, political identification (whig v tory), and English county of origin had far more to do with political loyalties among the gentry and plantation owners. To make matters more complicated, plantation owners from Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia stemmed from different origins and had different values.
“Loyalist tendencies were motivated by an incentive to preserve the status quo, and hence, their wealth.” or, conservatism.
Steve, I was talking mostly about the politicians from the southern states, primarily before 1776. True, many of them actually became fervent supporters of the cause…. traits no longer around in any politicians today, even after the country goes in a direction they disagreed with, they still continue to fight… And not to absolve northerners who supported liberty. Guys like John Hancock and Samuel Adams had their own personal axes to grind with gigantic bank accounts and lots of power. I doubt they cared at all about the slaves. (Sam’s cousin sure did, although he never really could do anything about it.) and of course there was slave-holding Thomas Jefferson, the father of freedom.
but back to you charge… The decision to become independent was the first in a long line of major changes to american society. Those who wish to protect the status quo… allegiance to a king, slavery, equal rights for _________….. have always opposed it and have have always waived around some “sacred” credibility. Yet every time, the status quo has changed, and unless you are still a slave holding torre who sells his daughters for land entitlements, the country has improved.
The decision to become independent was the first in a long line of major changes to american society.
No, ben, the decision to become independent was at the end of a long chain of precursor events, including settling issues like the role of governors vs the colonisal legislatures, the question of who controlled land policy, the question of whether adult white male suffrage would be universal or not, the question of authority for creating new towns, questions of whether the Proclamation of 1763 would be allowed to strangle trans-Appalachian trade, the question of western land speculation, the question of specie v paper money, the question of women’s rights as femme covert, the question internal v external taxes, the question of religious authority (Great Awakening and Parson’s Cause) . . .
I doubt they cared at all about the slaves.
Nobody really cared about the slaves in the manner you suggest, outside of a few Quakers and Methodists. Nobody questioned the issue of indentured servitude, either. The unlovely economic truth is that virtually all large-scale economies in the pre-industrial age required some form of forced labor to function. Most white Americans who were literate (meaning the top 10%) did not question the social and intellectual inferiority of Africans, and would not until well into the next century. Nor was slavery quite you might think it was during the period–see Wood’s Black Majority for a groundbreaking discussion of South Carolina in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Yet every time, the status quo has changed, and unless you are still a slave holding torre who sells his daughters for land entitlements, the country has improved.
Really? Slavery was arguably on its way to extinction in the later 18th Century when the Constitution was written, but a few years later new technology (the cotton gin) changed the status quo dramatically and made possible the largest expansion of slavery in American history. Read Eric Foner’s The History Freedom–it has not been a continuous movement forward by any means, nor is “progress” any more of a directed process than evolution. See Herbert Butterfield’s The Whig Interpretation of History.