Myrh America II

 Akhil Reed Amar writes in Myth America about the founding fathers.  He emphasizes Washington's importance to the Constitutional Convention and downplays Madison's contribution, sees little difference between "republican" and "democratic", emphasizes the "union" side of the founding, doesn't accept Charles Beard's interpretation, and accepts the Constitution as helping slavery. 

All in all it seems well-argued.  I was surprised by his singling out Beard; by 1960 he seemed no longer prominent.

Originalism and Lived Experience

 Just a gripe here. If I understand "originalism" as a way to interpret the Constitution, it says that the Founding Fathers agreed on a document which had one meaning. (No doubt that exaggerates and distorts but it's close enough for my purposes.)

Now I've been in a lot of meetings over the years, some of which involve a group of people coming to an agreement, others involving people trying to understand the meaning of one or more speakers.  I think it's fair to say that in most cases the people who were trying to agree or who were being talked to came away from the event with somewhat different understandings.  In most cases the context was such that the differences made no long-term differences, but the principle is the same.  No group of 39 to 55 people would agree on how to apply the document resulting from their meeting. 

Original intent is a myth, an "ideal type" as some  used to say, which doesn't exist in real life.

Holton and Constitution

 Reading Woody  Holton "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution".  Some arguments he stresses:

• the Founding Fathers wanted to strengthen the national government more than they actually did in the constitution, because they knew they needed popular support to get it ratified, even after they reduced the required number of states to ratify it from the 13 (required in the Articles of Confederation) to 9.  
• Some debtors wanted sound money being optimistic about borrowing in Europe and the prospects for prosperity. 
• Most state taxes were tariffs (disproportionately aiding MA, NY, PA as opposed to CN, DE, NJ, etc.) and direct taxes--poll taxes and property. Founding Fathers assumed that national government would assume debts and pay using tariff revenues, which would mean a transfer of burden from the states with less import activity to those with a lot. 

Overall it's a reminder that what "history" books describe are a selection of episodes and people, but only they only represent the tip of the iceberg.  For example, the Shays Rebellion was the most visible and biggest episode of resistance to taxes levied to support the wartime debts of the states and to fund the government of the Articles of Confederation. But Holton describes a wide variety of actions in the various states with similar motives and causes for action.

Woody Holton: Liberty Is Sweet

Woodie Holton is a historian who has been active in defending the 1619 Project, which led me to read his new book: Liberty Is Sweet,  If I don't write further on it (it's good), I want to note this nice quote from Ben Franklin, which the Democrats could use:

All Property indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man for the Conservation of the Individual & the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who by their Laws have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire & live among Savages.— He can have no right to the Benefits of Society who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

From Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, 25 December 1783 

[Updated-corrected the author's name.  See this Hogeland post on the related issue.'

George Washington on Refugees

Washington wrote to a recent immigrant from Ireland in 1783, who was representative of a number of such immigrants:

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent & respectable Stranger, but the oppressed & persecuted of all Nations & Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights & previleges, if by decency & propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.