New audiobook release: An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes

Librivox ^ | 8/4/23

[ProgressingAmerica]

If the contents of The 1619 Project are getting under your skin, here's a new audiobook for you.

Nothing else need be said, book speaks for itself.

An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes as Slaves, as Citizens, and as Soldiers, by George Livermore

Book summary: Collects the speeches, writings, public statements and legislative acts of the Founding Fathers and Framers of the United States against slavery. (Summary by progressingamerica)

[Pelham]

Why do you suppose Karl Marx found Lincoln and the GOP so attractive?

“Not all German émigrés were radicals, but many were. With their beer halls, patriotic songs, and kindergartens, they helped to broaden the distinctly Puritan culture of Republicanism. They had been educated to despise slaveholding, and eventually nearly two hundred thousand German Americans volunteered for the Union army.

“There was an affinity between the German democratic nationalism of 1848 and the free labor doctrine of the newly-established US Republican Party, so it is not surprising that a number of Marx’s friends and comrades not only became staunch supporters of the Northern cause but received senior commissions. Joseph Weydemeyer and August Willich, both former members of the Communist League, were promoted first to the ranks of Colonel and then to General.

“Lincoln may have recognized the name Karl Marx when he read the IWA “Address,” since Marx had been a prolific contributor to the New York Daily Tribune, the most influential Republican newspaper of the 1850s. Charles A. Dana, publisher of the Tribune, first met Marx in Cologne in 1848 at a time when he edited the widely read Neue Rheinische Zeitung. In 1852, Dana invited Marx to become a correspondent for the Tribune. Over the next decade he wrote — with some help from his friend Engels — over five hundred articles for the Tribune. Hundreds of these pieces were published under Marx’s name, but eighty-four appeared as unsigned editorials. He wrote on a global range of topics, sometimes occupying two or three pages of a sixteen-page newspaper....

“In Marx’s eyes, British observers who claimed to deplore slavery yet backed the Confederacy were simply humbugs. He attacked the visceral hostility to the North evident in the Economist and the Times (of London). These papers claimed that the real cause of the conflict was Northern protectionism against the free trade favored by the South. Marx rebutted their arguments in a series of brilliant articles for Die Presse, a Viennese publication, which caustically demolished their economic determinism, and instead sketched out an alternative account — subtle, structural, and political — of the origins of the war.

“Marx insisted that secession had been prompted by the Southern elite’s political fears. They knew that power within the Union was shifting against them. The South was losing its tight grip on federal institutions because of the dynamism of the Northwest, a destination for many new immigrants. As the Northwest Territory matured into free states, the South found itself outnumbered; the North was loath to recognize any new slave states. The slaveholders had alienated Northerners by requiring them to arrest and return fugitive slaves, yet they knew they needed the wholehearted support of their fellow citizens if they were to defend their “peculiar institution.” Lincoln’s election was seen as a deadly threat because he owed Southerners nothing and had promised to oppose any expansion of slavery.

“Marx gave full support to the Union cause, even though Lincoln initially refused to make emancipation a war goal. Marx was confident that the clash of rival social regimes, based on opposing systems of labor, would sooner or later surface as the real issue. While consistently supporting the North, he wrote that the Union would only triumph if it adopted the revolutionary anti-slavery measures advocated by Wendell Phillips and other radical abolitionists. He was particularly impressed by Phillips’s speeches in 1862 calling to strike down all compromises with slavery. He approvingly quoted Phillips’s dictum that “God had placed the thunderbolt of emancipation” in Northern hands and they should use it.

“Marx continued to correspond with Dana and sent him his articles (Dana was fluent in German). By this time Dana had left the world of journalism to become Lincoln’s “eyes and ears” as a special commissioner in the War Department, touring the fronts and reporting to the White House that Ulysses Grant was the man to back. Marx argued in Die Presse in March 1862 that the Union armies should abandon their encirclement strategy and seek to cut the Confederacy in two. Dana may have noticed that Grant had reached the same conclusion by instinct and experience. In 1863, Dana became Assistant Secretary of the War Department.

“Marx was delighted when Lincoln — emboldened by the abolitionist campaign and a radicalization of Northern opinion — announced his intention to issue an Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. The Proclamation would make it difficult for the British or French governments to award diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy. It also allowed for the enrollment of freedmen in the Union army.

“Marx and Lincoln had very divergent opinions on business corporations and wage labor, but from today’s perspective they shared something important: they both loathed exploitation and regarded labor as the ultimate source of value. In his first message to Congress in December 1861, Lincoln criticized the “effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government.” Instead, he insisted, “labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor . . . Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

“Lincoln believed that in America the wage laborer was free to rise by his own efforts and could become a professional, or even an employer. Marx held that this picture of social mobility was a mirage, and that only a handful could succeed in acquiring economic independence.

“For Marx, the wage worker was only partly free since he had to sell his labor to another so that he and his family might live. But, since he was not a slave, the free worker could organize and agitate for, say, a shorter working day and free education. Weydemeyer had launched an American Labor Federation in 1853 which backed these objectives and which declared its ranks open to all “regardless of occupation, language, color, or sex.” These themes became central to the politics of Marx’s followers in America.”

https://jacobin.com/2012/08/lincoln-and-marx

[ProgressingAmerica]

Great news!

Since this audio book’s release three weeks ago, it has been viewed or downloaded over 10,000 times.

https://archive.org/details/an_historical_research_respecting_the_opinions_2308_librivox

That’s not a bad opening at all, and its a very efficient way to help show what the Founding Fathers truly believed in.

[wardaddy]

Crickets

[ProgressingAmerica]

ProgressingAmerica: "There is an argument that all Lost Causers make in that they promote that they have no issue with the Founding/Founders, and perhaps pro-Founding."

"I'm sorry, my apologies, but I don't follow your argument here."

As if on queue when needed, see post 220. https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4172958/posts?page=220#220

"The Confederacy wanted independence. The same thing that their fathers and grandfathers gained from King George."

This is a tame version of what you might see, and the Founders couldn't even be named specifically(as a group) here, which is a bit shameful. We know who you're talking about with the fathers and grandfathers comment.

I've seen more boisterous versions, I know you have seen them too if you've been doing this for a decade. In this version its not so much "we love the Founders" though there is probably some of that there in the mix. Here in this quoted version what we are treated to is "we are the heirs of the Founding Fathers"

[woodpusher]

"The Confederacy wanted independence. The same thing that their fathers and grandfathers gained from King George."

This is a tame version of what you might see, and the Founders couldn't even be named specifically(as a group) here, which is a bit shameful. We know who you're talking about with the fathers and grandfathers comment.

What is shameful about a state, or group of states, wanting independence?

Abraham Lincoln stated,

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit.

Lincoln expressly stated that the right to shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better is not confined to cases of a whole people, but that any portion of such people may make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit. What is shameful about what Lincoln said?

If you know who were the fathers and grandfathers spoken of, what is your necessity to speak in riddles? A great many fathers and grandfathers of Confederates literally were Founders. What is the peculiar significance of your claim to know who they were? It would take the length of a book to name them all.

[jmacusa]

I agree Reb. You should see a psychiatrist. And be evaluated as to why you have an unreasoning hatred of Lincoln and Grant and an obsession for defending men who felt no compunction at all buying, selling and using human beings as slaves and chattel.

And were perfectly willing to rend the nation apart, violently to preserve an economic system based on the use of slave labor. A rending that led to the most bloodiest war in American history.

That Eisenhower spoke of Lee in the terms did certainly didn't endear him to me. I always felt he was barely qualified to command American forces. D-Dy came off, but barely, the Normandy Campaign came off but barely and The Hurtgen Forest Campaign was an absolute slaughter, Market-Garden was a complete screw up and as I pointed out the allied response to the initial German penetration during the Bulge was a frontal assault which caused more American casualties then happened when the Germans first attacked. I'd highly recommed mental health treatment for you so you can wok out and eventually be free of your obsessions for revisionist history. Maybe find a girlfriend too.

[jmacusa]

I meant to point Joe that self-righteousness can lead to an exalted feeling of power for the few , power that is often undeserved and more often exploited at the expense of the people

[jmacusa]

Oh Christ your back.

Lincoln didn't undertake secession, the South did. Lincoln didn't open fire on Ft. Sumter(and don't give that hogwash about the resupply boats being warships),the South did. The South wanted war. Confederate guerrillas had started as much with their "Bleeding Kansas"" campaign.

[Pelham]

I got a chuckle out of his “as if on cue” squawk.

The irony that Lincoln was playing the role of King George to the South’s declaration of independence wasn’t lost on anyone at the time.

Since most families in the South had been there for generations they were literal descendants of Revolutionary War “rebels”. Mine certainly were.

Compare that with the 1848 European socialist revolutionaries who had immigrated to the North and who played a major role in Republican party politics and the Union army. Some were literal associates of Karl Marx. Maybe that will garner another “as if on cue” comment.

[BroJoeK]

wardaddy: "Lee had near total respect from former combatants except some radicals"

Sure, as did Grant for Lee and some other capable Confederate commanders.

But our FRiend jeffersondem quoted praise for Lee from the New York Herald, so I think it's important to consider who and what the New York Herald was back then -- they were Democrats, before the war they were pro-slavery and pro-South.

After the war the Herald worked to help reunite the old North-South alliance of Democrats and in 1876 that succeeded in almost getting New York's Democrat Governer Tilden elected President.
In the bargaining after that election, Republicans agreed to withdraw Union troops from Confederate states and Democrats agreed not to strongly oppose confirmation of Republican President Rutherford Hayes.

As a result, Reconstruction ended in 1877, former Confederate Democrats returned to political power, and Jim Crow ruled for most of the next 100 years.

So, the New York Herald played its role of reuniting the old political love-affair between liberal New York Democrats and Old South Confederate Democrats, by singing praises for Robert E. Lee.

Of course, Lee fully deserved such praise, I'm only saying, the political consequences of strengthening Democrats' power had the effect of nullifying the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments in the South for most of the next 100 years.

Which part of that do you disagree with, and why?

[BroJoeK]

wardaddy: "Now this wokism is consuming their stalwarts even like Lincoln and Grant too
Makes you wonder their actual motivation
They are a tiny minority of viewpoint here and one not shared by Donald Trump it should be pointed out"

What in the world are you talking about, wardaddy?
Nobody posting here is remotely "woke", I doubt if any of us can even define what "woke" really means, beyond just "crazy Democrat" -- Democrats who hate America, despise their fellow Americans, constantly seek to divide us politically by any identities they can grab a handle on: race, gender, income, age, ethnicity, even religion, etc.

The only people posting here who hate America are our Lost Causers, who still think secession and war against the United States was a good idea.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Bear in mind that Warren was a Southerner (though in later years, he lived mostly in Connecticut and Vermont), so he’s giving a Southern view "

I'm not disputing that "Northern self-righteousness" is what Southern Democrats said and felt, no doubt they did.
I am saying it's equivalent to the accusation which became popular in the 1980s, that Republicans are "mean-spirited", what does that even mean?
It means nothing except: you disagree with Democrats on something important, so you are, "self-righteous", or "mean-spirited", or "racist" or even "fascist", etc.
These are ad hominem attacks intended to shut down disagreement and leave Republicans sputtering and ineffective.

Sure, you can easily argue that "Republicans do it too" and cite decades of claims that Democrats were "soft on Communism", if not outright Communists themselves, certainly they were Socialist-friendly.
And in response, for decades Democrat media ran campaigns against "McCarthyism" and "Hollywood blacklists", but we don't see that so much anymore because today even real Communists seemingly rejected communism, while nobody is ashamed of the word "socialist" anymore.
So, are there any pejoratives Republicans have used that are as remotely effective as the many accusations hurled by Democrats against us?
None that I know of.

Bottom line is: I see no reason to take any such Democrat accusations seriously or to even attempt defining objectively what they might mean or figure out some strategy for responding & countering them.
The only real response I see is pointing out how unfair or meaningless those accusations are and hopefully winning over enough voters to make them also irrelevant.

[jeffersondem]

“That Eisenhower spoke of Lee in the terms did certainly didn't endear him to me. I always felt he was barely qualified to command American forces. D-Dy came off, but barely, the Normandy Campaign came off but barely and The Hurtgen Forest Campaign was an absolute slaughter, Market-Garden was a complete screw up . . .”

Now we have a little more insight into your ill-feelings toward American heroes.

[x]

I guess it’s nice to know where you get your news (and opinions?) from. Far-left Jacobin magazine. The magazine that thinks better of the Communists’ Berlin Wall than the US-Mexico border wall.

Marxists are always looking for ways to link Marx with something positive in the American political tradition, but Americans in Lincoln’s day weren’t going to let what an obscure foreign agitator said affect their own political opinions one way or the other. Half your snippet points out the real differences between Marx and Lincoln.

[BroJoeK]

jmacusa referring to RE Lee: "The treasonous bastard was directly responsible for the deaths of some 600,000 Americans.”

Pelham: "Funny how well that description can be applied to Lincoln."
The Confederacy wanted independence.
The same thing that their fathers and grandfathers gained from King George."

Setting RE Lee aside for the moment, here is a table comparing conditions in the 1776 era Revolution with those of 1860s Civil War:

Comparing 1776 era to 1860s

Condition to Compare	1776 Revolutionary War	1861 Civil War
The rebelling party had voluntarily ratified the national constitution	No	Yes
The rebelling party was fully represented in the national government:	No	Yes
The rebelling party had previously dominated national politics for over 60 years:	No	Yes
The rebelling party had repeatedly petitioned for redress of grievances:	Yes	No
War was declared and waged against the rebelling party long before it delcared its independence.	Yes	No
The rebelling party made clear the necessity of separation due to abuses, usurpations and war waged against them:	Yes	No
The rebelling party declared independence based on "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights":	Yes	No

Condition to Compare	1776 Revolutionary War	1861 Civil War
The rebelling party made clear in their documents of separation that their main concern was protecting chattel slavery of the African race:	No	Yes
The rebelling party was overrepresented in its constitutional republic due to the 3/5 of slaves rule:	No	Yes
Spokesmen for the rebelling party declared slavery was the "cornerstone" of their new republic:	No	Yes
The rebelling party declared tariffs were the "real reason" for disunion:	No	No
The rebelling party declared "Northeastern power brokers" and "money flows from Europe" and "free trade" were the "real reasons" for disunion & war:	No	No
The rebelling party waited over a year after being declared in rebellion before declaring themselves independent.	Yes	No
The war began when the Empire (or Union) tried to seize American militia weapons:	Yes	No
The war began when Rebels assaulted & forced surrender of Union forces in a Union fort:	No	Yes
The Empire (or Union) issued a formal "Declaration of Rebellion" a year before rebels declared independence:	Yes	No
The rebelling party issued a formal "Declaration of War" and granted their leader dictatorial war powers:	No	Yes
The rebelling party invaded the Empire (or Union's) homeland with large forces many times:	No	Yes
The Empire (or Union) offered rebel slaves freedom in exchange for military service (1775 Dunmore):	Yes	No
Rebels soon responded by also promising slaves freedom in exchange for military service:	Yes	No
The Empire (or Union) granted slaves unconditional freedom in states then in rebellion (1779 Phillipsburg):	Yes	Yes
The Empire (or Union) opposed slavery on moral grounds:	No	Yes
During & after the war rebels began to abolish slavery voluntarily:	Yes	No

Pelham: "Lincoln, like George before him, wanted submission and obedience to the central government and was willing to kill as many Americans as it required to get that.
Most people can read a map. Where the battlefields are tells you who was defending their land versus who was the aggressor."

In the Civil War's first year there were as many battles fought in Union states & territories as in the Confederacy, and as many Confederate soldiers died in battles in the Union as died in battles in the Confederacy.

Union states & territories which Confederate forces invaded included:

1. Maryland
2. Pennsylvania
3. West Virginia
4. Kentucky
5. Ohio
6. Indiana
7. Missouri
8. Kansas
9. Oklahoma
10. New Mexico

As late as the summer & fall of 1864, Confederates were still invading Union states of Maryland, West Virginia, Missouri and Kansas.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"What is shameful about a state, or group of states, wanting independence?"

Do you love the Founding Fathers or not? Let's be direct here.

Do you love the Founding or not?

[woodpusher]

After the war the Herald worked to help reunite the old North-South alliance of Democrats and in 1876 that succeeded in almost getting New York's Democrat Governer Tilden elected President.

In the bargaining after that election, Republicans agreed to withdraw Union troops from Confederate states and Democrats agreed not to strongly oppose confirmation of Republican President Rutherford Hayes.

As a result, Reconstruction ended in 1877, former Confederate Democrats returned to political power, and Jim Crow ruled for most of the next 100 years.

So, the New York Herald played its role of reuniting the old political love-affair between liberal New York Democrats and Old South Confederate Democrats, by singing praises for Robert E. Lee.

Of course, Lee fully deserved such praise, I'm only saying, the political consequences of strengthening Democrats' power had the effect of nullifying the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments in the South for most of the next 100 years.

Which part of that do you disagree with, and why?

I disagree with much of that.

It is likely that the rightful winner of the election was Tilden, and not Hayes.

See, Roy Morris, Jr., Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876, (2004). It is even better than Wikipedia.

In the deal made to settle the election chaos, the Dems agreed to let the GOP have four more years in the White House, and the GOP sold out the newly freed Blacks who had served their useful purpose, and the GOP ended Reconstruction.

Casting aspersions at R.E. Lee (d. 12 Oct 1870) as having something to do with nullifying or restraining the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments is unwarranted. Lee was dead six years before the Fraud of the Century in 1876. The GOP ended Reconstruction for four more years of power.

None of the Amendments was nullified. The 13th Amendment freed the slaves and they remained free. Slavery did not make a comeback. The 15th Amendment made the freedmen citizens of the United States and the of the State in which they resided. They were not stripped of citizenship.

The GOP removed the military. While the 14th Amendment remained in effect, the GOP removed those who were enforcing it.

The GOP lost the votes of the Blacks who were allowed to be subjected to Jim Crow. For a long time the affected Blacks couldn't vote at all, and when they could, they no longer voted for the party that used them to gain power, and then abandoned them to keep power.

[woodpusher]

[ProgressingAmerica #224] This is a tame version of what you might see, and the Founders couldn't even be named specifically(as a group) here, which is a bit shameful. We know who you're talking about with the fathers and grandfathers comment.

"What is shameful about a state, or group of states, wanting independence?"

Abraham Lincoln stated,

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable—a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit.

Lincoln expressly stated that the right to shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better is not confined to cases of a whole people, but that any portion of such people may make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit. What is shameful about what Lincoln said?

[ProgressingAmerica #236] Do you love the Founding Fathers or not? Let's be direct here.

[ProgressingAmerica #236] Do you love the Founding or not?

When you work up the courage, I would love answers to my questions.

[jmacusa]

No you have an insight into how I feel about Dwight Eisenhower. Next to Robert E. Lee Eisenhower has quite a track record of getting Americans killed.

And who do you mean by ‘’we’’?

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher: "I disagree with much of that."

That's fine, let's see what you have...

woodpusher: "It is likely that the rightful winner of the election was Tilden, and not Hayes."

Sure, and there were accusations of cheating on both sides, unlike today where every vote is legally cast and scrupously counted... </sarcasm>

Regardless, Democrats were willing, and did bargain away a Tilden victory in exchange for removal of Union troops from former Confederate states.

woodpusher: "In the deal made to settle the election chaos, the Dems agreed to let the GOP have four more years in the White House, and the GOP sold out the newly freed Blacks who had served their useful purpose, and the GOP ended Reconstruction."

In 1877 Republicans turned the South over to former Confederates who then effectively nullified the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments for most of the next 100 years.

woodpusher: "Casting aspersions at R.E. Lee (d. 12 Oct 1870) as having something to do with nullifying or restraining the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments is unwarranted.
Lee was dead six years before the Fraud of the Century in 1876. The GOP ended Reconstruction for four more years of power."

Sorry, but once again you lost your struggle with truthfulness, because I never "cast aspersions at R.E. Lee"
I merely pointed out, factually, that when the Democrat New York Herald praised Lee in 1870, it was part of a highly successful campaign to reunite the old Democrat North-South alliance, that alliance resulting in 1877 in the end of Reconstruction.

woodpusher: "None of the Amendments was nullified.
The 13th Amendment freed the slaves and they remained free.
Slavery did not make a comeback.
The 15th Amendment made the freedmen citizens of the United States and the of the State in which they resided.
They were not stripped of citizenship."

In effect, Jim Crow laws with KKK-style terrorist enforcement nullified the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments by keeping African Americans in a state of subservience and by denying them full citizenship rights, notably in voting, office holding and juries.

Of course, that's just what African Americans tell us about it, is it really true?
I don't know for sure, but here's something from Wikipedia on the subject:

"One study found that there were "4,467 total victims of lynching from 1883 to 1941.
Of these victims, 4,027 were men, 99 were women, and 341 were of unidentified gender (although likely male); 3,265 were Black, 1,082 were white, 71 were Mexican or of Mexican descent, 38 were American Indian, 10 were Chinese, and 1 was Japanese."[4]

Of course, not all lynchings were in the South and not all were of African Americans.

Map of US lynchings from 1835 to 1964:

woodpusher: "The GOP lost the votes of the Blacks who were allowed to be subjected to Jim Crow.
For a long time the affected Blacks couldn't vote at all, and when they could, they no longer voted for the party that used them to gain power, and then abandoned them to keep power."

Right, African Americans shifted their loyalties from the party that freed them from slavery to the party which had enslaved them and then kept them suppressed via Jim Crow laws and KKK-style enforcements.

Sure, I fully understand, woodpusher, because you are a Democrat, the US Constitution and laws all require that you must, must blame Republicans for everything, under penalty of death if you refuse -- I "get" that.
But in this case, you might at least notice that it was not Republicans who lynched blacks in the South, or denied them voting and other rights of citizenship for most of 100 years after the Civil War.