Vikings, Medicis, Rome, Marco Polo, Last Kingdom--What Next?

We've watched those TV serials on Netflix and elsewhere--all based more or less on history. If the entertainment industry is running out of history to dramatize, I'd suggest series on the conquest of Mexico and Peru--I read Prescott's books on those subjects written in the 19th century, and mentioned them in a twitter thread--here's one of the tweets: 

Steel was a far bigger advantage than gunpowder in my opinion. And yes, there was some psychological shock, but only at the start. If you read more recent work (remember Prescott was writing in 1843) then the Indigenous people were far more impressed by horses than the weapons.

— Caroline Dodds Pennock (@carolinepennock) April 7, 2022

The Dormant Commerce Clause

This Adler post at Volokh led me to this explanation of the dormant commerce clause.  The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. The question is whether that includes the ability to limit the ability of any particular state from legislating on interstate commerce. The current answer is yes, it does, in at least some instances. The next question is what instances?  Can California require Iowa hog farmers to abandon gestation crates and chicken farmers to provide x square feet per hen if they want to sell their ham and eggs in California? 

That's the issue I wrote about here. No answers here, but at least the question has a name.

Surprising Fact About India

This blog post claims IT is the biggest industry. It does it by excluding farming as an industry, which is reasonable, I guess.

The American Experiment 111 Years Later

 TR has a famous quote about the "man in the arena" but the whole speech which includes it is interesting.  He's speaking as ex-President to the Sorbonne, and appeals to what France and US share: being a republic and democracy, an experiment in government.  The year is 1911 and the world is governed by monarchies. The excerpt:

Today I shall speak to you on the subject of individual citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, my hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you and we are great citizens of great democratic republics. A democratic republic such as ours—an effort to realize in its full sense government by, of, and for the people—represents the most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught with great responsibilities alike for good and evil. The success of republics like yours and like ours means the glory, and our failure the despair, of mankind; and for you and for us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of one man or very few men, the quality of the leaders is all-important. If, under such governments, the quality of the rulers is high enough, then the nations for generations lead a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world achievement, no matter how low the quality of the average citizen; because the average citizen is an almost negligible quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness. But with you and us the case is different. With you here, and with us in my own home, in the long run, success or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, does his or her duty, first in the ordinary, every-day affairs of life, and next in those great occasional cries which call for heroic virtues. The average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation. Therefore it behooves us to do our best to see that the standard of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be kept high unless the standard of the leaders is very much higher. [emphasis added]

I guess WWI marked the change--the German, Russian, Italian, Austria-Hungary monarchies vanished and the US became more eminent in the world.   

Is Federalism Good or Bad?

 It's hard to tell, because it depends on whose ox is gored.

For example, California seems to be leading the way on animal welfare--imposing restrictions on how hogs are reared and how much space hens are provided. The state is being sued over this.

Texas is setting new restrictions on abortion, which may or may not be upheld by SCOTUS. Its being sued over that.

Obamacare originally provided for all states to expand Medicaid, but SCOTUS said that was going too far, so a bunch of states haven't done it.

I could go on and on.  The point is that most, perhaps all, people who have political views want the entire US to adopt their view. Historically that's not worked. So the question becomes a discussion of means to enforce uniformity. 

Can California set requirements for the ham bought into the state, How about the motor vehicles--can it set tougher standards than the national ones. Can Missouri set standards for what its women do outside of the state?  Can Texas restrict what comes in the mail (ie. the morning after pills)? 

Historians may remember that the Southern states were setting restrictions on anti-slavery material being mailed into the state, while officials in Northern states often resisted enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law.

Can anyone come up with a neutral standard that reasonably navigates these issues?

Korea, Ukraine and the UN

 I remember when North Korea invaded South Korea.  Harry S Truman was often a lucky man. In 1950 the world, most of it, at least the white and western portions, believed in the United Nations.  And the Soviet Union sometimes boycotted sessions of the Security Council. The invasion happened during a boycott, so the Security Council was able to agree on the use of force to oppose it.  

(For those many people who don't know the structure of the UN, almost all "nations" are included in the General Assembly (which in 1950 also included Ukraine plus another Soviet republic as well as the USSR) but the Security Council was supposed to be the fast-acting executive body with five permanent members (the WWII allies of USA, UK, France, (Nationalist) China, and USSR plus a rotation of other members. Each of the permanent members could veto action, which during the course of 72 years has eroded the UN's ability to act.)

So the Korean War was not the US and South Korea against North Korea and eventually Red China--it was the UN against the Reds. Wikipedia says 21 countries contributed troops, though the US provided the bulk of those coming from outside Korea.

So 72 years later we have a country invading another country, one of the permanent members of the Security Council, and neither Russia nor China is boycotting, so it's impossible for the Security Council to act. If it were possible, then NATO would have had cover to provide planes and troops to war. But as it is the UN becomes even more irrelevant.

I shed a tear for the dreams of the people after WWII who thought they'd fixed the problems of the League of Nations and the UN would lead the way to a better world. 

Religion and Liberalism

 Saw a tweet saying that mainstream Protestantism had been replaced by liberalism. Looked at another way mainstream Protestantism has always been evolving into liberalism.  Back in the 1960's "God is dead" was a fad, but the liberal World Council of Churches has, in my limited view and knowledge, focused on a common denominator of "justice, peace, and the protection of creation". 

You can trace American individualism back to Luther and Calvin--with various offshoots over the years going in the liberal direction, until finally the offshoots have overtaken the original Protestant thrust. 

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.

Differences in Slavery in New World

 One big part of slavery in the US was the internal "migration", the movement of slaves from the Atlantic Coast colonies to the newer states of MS, AL, AL, AR, mostly it seems by sale  to slave traders.  

There are differences in the societies in different parts of the New World, partially from differences in Spain, France, and Britain, partially from differences in the crops being grown, and partially the climate/health conditions.  I know that; what I didn't think about until today was the difference in size.  The US and Brazil are big countries, while the Caribbean islands are much smaller.  So in the US slaves who gave trouble could be threatened with being sold to slave traders or "down river". On the other hand the slave population multiplied by natural increase in the US, less so or not so at times elsewhere.

So the question I have is whether historians can find a difference in what might be termed "mobility", except it connotes choice.  What was the probability that a slave born in 1770 in Virginia would die 200+ miles away versus the same probability for a slave in the sugar islands of the Caribbean?  And, if there's a difference, what impact was there on the societies?

Petroleum Reserve

 I'd support Biden's release of oil from the reserve if there was a provision for refilling it when oil prices are low.  (I'm thinking of a parallel with the old grain loan/storage program.)