Day 112 of Nat'l Emergency: History Reconsidered

Are you familiar with the court case Somerset v Stewart?

Don’t be embarrassed if you’re not. Odds are many lawyers are in the dark, as well. For good reason. The case goes way back to 1772. In England.

Yet some scholars trace the outcome of that legal battle to a unified American colonial stance against the British monarchy.

Some background: Northern colonies had reason to bridle under the mercantile laws that inhibited and at times prohibited manufacturing on American soil, production that would compete against industry based in the British Isles. The North wanted commercial independence. 

Southern colonies, on the other hand, were enriched by shipping their agricultural products—mainly cotton, rice and tobacco—back to the mother country.

The South had little financial reason to disassociate from the king.

Until Somerset v Stewart threatened the region’s economic underpinning—slavery. Without going into the details of the case (you can do that by linking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart), the verdict began a process that in a few decades led to the abolition of slavery in Britain.

Southerners could see the writing on the wall. If the colonies remained part of Great Britain they feared control over the enslaved could be restricted. Abolition could become the law in America. 

To be sure, all the original colonies at one time permitted slavery. But the combination of exhaustive heat and humidity, insect born illnesses such as malaria and yellow fever, and an agricultural economy that required a large amount of expendable manpower turned the South into a bedrock of slavery. 

Virginian Patrick Henry’s famous plea for freedom from British rule—“Give me liberty or give me death”—might well be interpreted to mean, “Give me liberty to keep my slaves or my ruined economy will lead to my death.”

Keep in mind that after winning the Revolutionary War each state under the Articles of Confederation set its own rules on slavery. When the newly independent states reorganized in 1789 as a federal republic under a constitution, the legality of slavery remained a state by state choice, though Congress decreed the importation of more slaves was to be banned after January1, 1808.

The ban and other events—significantly, the expansion westward into Alabama, Mississippi and the territories of the Louisiana Purchase coupled with the invention of the cotton gin that greatly enhanced cultivation and processing of cotton—profoundly changed the economy and future of the United States. 

Charleston, SC, for example, lost its position as the richest city in America, a spot achieved through its being the port of entry for some 40% of the enslaved. Commerce shifted further north in a two-pronged fashion. New York became a larger harbor for international trade and, after construction of the Erie Canal, for domestic commerce.

Virginia had relied on slaves to grow tobacco, but much of the land had been depleted of nutrients and was no longer profitably arable. So Virginia became a dominant player in a transformed slave market. With almost no new slaves arriving from foreign soil, slaves already here were bred for sale to territories and new states cultivating labor-intensive cotton. 

The cash crop for Virginians became the human creation of more slaves. Slaves to be sold. Slaves to be sold not as family units but as individuals. Separating husbands from wives, children from parents, Virginia sent many of its enslaved to plantations in the Deep South. 

Seven of the first 12 presidents of the United States were born in Virginia. Aside from being the first of the British colonies to welcome slaves, Virginia adapted English common law to make it easier to perpetuate slavery. Known by its dictum “partus sequitur ventrem,” a 1662 Virginia law decreed children would take the social status of the mother, not the father. Thus, even offspring of a female slave impregnated (commonly raped) by a white male would be considered a slave. 

The seventh and last president to be born in Virginia was Woodrow Wilson. Often associated with New Jersey, where he was president of Princeton University and governor before winning the presidency of the United States in 1912, Wilson has long been held as a statesman for his leadership before, during and after World War I and for being in office when women won the right to vote, the federal income tax system was inaugurated, the Federal Reserve System was established, and laws pertaining to the Federal Trade Commission along with the Clayton Antitrust Act were passed. 

Yet he had dyed in the wool Southern sympathies. He kept the military segregated and purged the federal government of many Black civil servants, an action that stifled development of a Black middle class in Washington, DC, and other cities. Under Wilson, the Treasury and Post Office installed separate workspaces, lunchrooms, and bathrooms for Blacks (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2015/11/20/9766896/woodrow-wilson-racist).

Much of our nation’s history flows through Virginia, much of it tinged by slaveholding and racist presidents, men who were “products of their times,” say apologists. Or they were leaders who chose not to practice equality but rather to enjoy during their lifetimes the benefits derived from enslaving other humans. 

History is never a simple straight line. The myths surrounding our lionized leaders are fading under deeper scrutiny. Ben Franklin owned another human being. Wikipedia notes that of the first 12 president, only John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams never owned slaves. Eight of the remaining 10 owned slaves while president. Only Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison did not. 

Lincoln is revered for emancipating the enslaved. But he embarked on the Civil War not to abolish slavery but rather to preserve the Union. He would have been agreeable to retaining the status quo in the South. Only after two years of battle did he redefine the objective.

The White House plus at least part of the Capitol building were built by slaves. 

Today’s protests for political correctness are the culmination of years, decades, of retrospection. Taking down statues of traitors—for that’s what Confederate officers and soldiers were—seems long overdue. No one should be forced to have any ray of sunshine blotted out by figures that deprived men, women and children of their dignity, their humanity, their freedom, their families. 

But what of our imperfect presidents? Are we to cover over the chiseled profiles of Washington, Jefferson Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt atop Mount Rushmore? Are bridges and tunnels to be renamed across the land? Cities and towns to be rechristened? 

Perhaps we could find a way to honor the descendants of flawed slaveholding presidents. Name schools after George Washington’s children. Or for Sally Hemings, Jefferson’s enslaved consort. 

I just don’t know. I just don’t know … 

I just know that the pain of slavery, of Jim Crow, of racial discrimination haunts our society. And that far too many of our fellow Americans refuse to see it. 

President Spanky and His Gang

One of the more amusing tidbits to emerge from the 60 Minutes Stormy Daniels interview is a new nickname for The Donald allegedly used by Washington politicos. Reflecting off Stormy’s swatting him on his derriere with a rolled up magazine bearing his face on the cover during their tryst at the Beverly Hilton bungalow that apparently was his preferred pied-à-terre-les-liaisons-dangereusese, the cheek-in-chief is being called President Spanky

(http://time.com/5218617/stephen-colbert-on-donald-trumps-new-nickname-stormy-daniels/).

It seems overblown to label Stormy’s sexcapade with Spanky an actual affair as she claims they did it only once during their months-long relationship. It was more like a frisbee fling that so far has not officially landed. 

The kerfuffle over Stormy’ nondisclosure agreement brought to light Trump’s alleged demand that administration officials sign NDAs. If adhered to, one wonders how detailed a view the public will get of Trump world. One can only imagine the stories ex-secretary of state Rex Tillerson or ex-national security advisor General H.R. McMaster could tell. Or ex-press secretary Sean Spicer. But, according to The Washington Post, the NDAs include a penalty of $10 million if classified information is ever released without authorization. The fines would be paid to the government, not Trump (https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/opinions/trumps-nondisclosure-agreements-came-with-him-to-the-white-house/2018/03/18/226f4522-29ee-11e8-b79d-f3d931db7f68_story.html). 

If anyone would dare test the NDA it might well be David J. Shulkin. Fired within hours of being told by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that his job as head of the Veterans Administration was safe, Shulkin said he was let go because he did not support Trump’s plan to privatize the VA (https://nyti.ms/2uuSXaZ). 

“They saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed. That is because I am convinced that privatization is a political issue aimed at rewarding select people and companies with profits, even if it undermines care for veterans,” he wrote in The New York Times. 

“I can assure you that I will continue to speak out against those who seek to harm the V.A. by putting their personal agendas in front of the well-being of our veterans.”

Let’s hope he follows through and that others place loyalty to country ahead of NDA’s to an egotistic leader. 

Turn of Phrase: To be a television commentator or political show panel guest it seems one has to be able to put Trump’s actions in comic terms. I was particularly taken by a remark Republican strategist Ana Navarro made on a recent Real Time with Bill Maher. 

“The only consistent thing about Donald Trump is his inconsistency. We saw it with guns. We saw him doing it with barring gays from the military. The guy, you know, can hold more positions than the Kama Sutra.”

Safety First?: Mississippi governor Phil Bryant was quoted as saying he wants his state to be the safest for the unborn child. That’s why he is trying to prevent any abortion from happening in Mississippi. He signed a law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law has been stayed in court pending a constitutional challenge (https://nyti.ms/2GL6X39). 

But what Bryant doesn’t talk about is his state’s position on health care for expectant mothers and their babies.

A new report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention “showed that, from 2013 through 2015, the infant mortality rate in the U.S. ranged from 9.08 deaths per 1,000 infants born alive in Mississippi -- which had the highest rate -- to 4.28 deaths per 1,000 live births in Massachusetts, which had the lowest” (https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/health/infant-mortality-by-state-study/index.html).

Moreover, Mississippi ranked 40th when it came to maternal mortality (https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/2016-health-of-women-and-children-report/measure/maternal_mortality). 

Passover begins Friday night: Time of liberation. A template story for Africans bound into slavery in the New World. Some 40% of all slaves brought to North America landed in Charleston, SC. 

A new International African American Museum is planned for the city. But as The Times pointed out, South Carolina still has a ways to go to balance its dedication to the Confederacy and slavery with the inalienable rights of Black residents. “The state’s most recent proposal for social studies standards in public schools doesn’t mention the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or Rosa Parks,” The Times noted (https://nyti.ms/2uvYcar).

Harbinger of Spring: Passover also is known as a celebration of spring. I have my own signal spring is upon us. My harbinger is not a crocus that keeps trying to reveal itself through the lingering cover of snow across our yard. Or the robins bobbing along each morning. 

No, my signal reveals itself in the middle of the night when I turn on the bathroom light, freezing any silverfish that, resurrected from a winter’s sleep, has chosen that moment to emerge from a crack where the baseboard meets the tiled floor.  

An Illuminating Journey Down South to Charleston, Savannah and St. Augustine

Passover, the quintessential Jewish holiday of liberation and national identity ends Tuesday night. Exodus from four centuries of slavery. A time when Jews came together for a seder, traditional or not, hopefully to reflect on the values of human rights and the history of oppression, not just to their brethren, ancient and modern, but to all people including this year Syrians under fire in their native land and dispersed as refugees throughout the West, undocumented immigrants in America, the starving multitudes in eastern Africa, and, yes, even those Palestinians who would recognize Israel’s right to exist in peace as they too would like to live.

Gilda and I recently toured Charleston, SC, Savannah and St. Augustine for two weeks. It was as much an architectural embrace of some of our nation’s earliest cities as it was a passage back in time as we absorbed some of the history of the coastal Atlantic southern states.

Forty percent of the near half million souls who survived the barbaric, inhumane voyage as cargo from West Africa across the Atlantic Ocean on a journey from freedom to slavery in colonial America and the nascent United States came to our shores through Charleston (another 12 million were sent to South American and Caribbean lands). Charleston was considered the richest city in the New World until the importation of slaves was halted by Congress in 1808.

Anyone, virtually anyone, associated with merchant trading and shipping in Charleston engaged in the slave trade. That included Jewish merchants. They might not have had as many slaves as a plantation owner but Jewish households possessed slaves who, we were told by a Jewish guide, would often be included in the Passover seder ritual. How strange that must have been for slaves to hear a story of liberation and exodus while forced to live in bondage in, at the very least, figurative shackles. Is it any wonder that the song “Go Down Moses” with its haunting refrain of “Let my people go” became an anthem for their release?

Growing up in Saratoga Springs, NY, Gilda lived in a house that was a stop on the Underground Railroad for slaves fleeing to Canada. But there was a southern spur to the railway. From the beginning of the 18th century, slaves fled south from Carolina and Georgia to Florida while Florida was under Spanish rule. Escaped slaves need only convert to Catholicism to be granted freedom in Spanish Florida. However, Florida changed hands several times over the next century. When the British and Americans ruled Florida their liberty vanished. Many former slaves fled again, this time to the Bahamas.

An irony of slavery in South Carolina is that the enslaved West Africans had the skills and experience needed to make the colony successful. The original crops planted— indigo, tobacco, sugar cane and cotton—did not flourish. But the English had brought with them an asset that changed their fortunes. Their West African slaves came from rice growing regions. They suggested the Carolina plantations situated along riverbanks were suitable for rice cultivation.

Unlike cotton, growing rice required lots of water and constant attention. Constant attention, in the region’s malarial and alligator-infested waters, required lots of manpower. In other words, lots of slaves. 

Dismiss the notion that just any ol’ slave would do. Plantation owners had specific needs and culled their purchases from a diverse but skilled assortment of human possibilities.

Far from being ignorant toilers, slaves were prized for their expertise in carpentry, masonry, smithing, barrel making, basket and net knitting, rice farming, and boat construction. Highly skilled slaves were often rented out by their owners to other plantations and businesses. They possessed the skills and trades necessary to clear land and channel waters to build rice paddies, plant and maintain rice, and separate the kernels from the hulls. 

A highly profitable cash crop sprouted up along the coastline. Carolina Gold—rice  exported to Europe—made plantation owners among the wealthiest Americans. Before the Revolutionary War Charleston was richer, more important, than New York, Boston or Philadelphia. As early as 1750 it was not uncommon for the gentry of Carolina to summer in Newport, RI, to escape the heat and mosquitoes of their plantations.

Rice grown on Middleton Place plantation outside Charleston made its owners one of the elite families of colonial and antebellum America. The Middleton family played a part in the momentous times of the era. 

Henry Middleton served as the second president of the First Continental Congress. His son, Arthur, signed the Declaration of Independence. Arthur’s son, Henry, became governor of South Carolina and a minister to Russia. His son, Williams, signed the Ordinance of Secession prior to the Civil War. 

King Cotton is a phrase often associated with the South and indeed, after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, cotton production, and slavery, expanded exponentially as America developed more lands westward of the Atlantic. Rice, however, made planters wealthy, at least until the end of the Civil War. 

With the end of slavery, cheap labor disappeared. Plantation owners encountered new competition from more mechanized rice farmers in upland counties, while a series of devastating storms destroyed most of the dykes that formed their rice paddies. Today, rice production is mostly a historic foundation of coastal South Carolina’s past.

The state tree of South Carolina is the palmetto in honor of the service it provided during the Revolutionary War. To prevent the British from capturing Charleston, Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island at the mouth of the harbor was constructed from palmettos trees. In late June 1776 a British fleet of nine warships pounded the fort but cannonballs simply bounced off the soft, resilient palmettos. The navy retreated after sustaining damages. Attacking by land four years later, the British succeeded in taking Charleston. 

One of the more spectacular sights of Charleston and Savannah are the Live Oak trees. An oak tree, to me, had always conjured up images of a tall, stately tree that shed its leaves each fall. Live oaks, however, retain leaves throughout the year.

Often draped in Spanish moss (an epiphyte plant that is not harmful to other vegetation), live oaks have numerous expansive limbs that can span as much as 100 feet. They provide abundant shade and give the tree a majestic look. Live oaks can live for hundreds of years. Their deep, strong roots preserve them during storms, even hurricanes. 

During our time in St. Augustine Gilda and I stayed in a bed and breakfast on the oldest street in America, Aviles Street, which dates back to the 1570s (parts of the B&B, the Casa de Solana, trace their construction to the 1760s). 

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously inhabited European-established city in the United States, having been founded in 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Florida's first governor. 

I could be wrong but I believe most Americans, especially those who grew up and were educated along the Eastern Seaboard, the region of the original 13 British colonies, do not fully appreciate the contributions of Spanish colonials to the development of America. Our orientation is toward our link to Britain.

It is illuminating to realize the list of Spanish introductions to America includes horses, cattle, pigs and citrus fruit. But that’s not all. Here’s a link to a BuzzFeed article recounting 14 contributions Latinos have made to America: https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidnoriega/14-things-latinos-gave-to-america?utm_term=.owXq6X9Pq#.meV80dqE8

The by-no-means-comprehensive-list becomes all the more interesting and poignant given the attitude Donald Trump has taken toward the Hispanic community.

Car Talk: Time to Check Your Automotive IQ

Just back from a 2,000 mile road trip with Gilda down to St. Augustine, FL, with stops along the way in Rockville, MD, Charleston and Hilton Head, SC, and Savannah, GA. Seeing all those cars on the road got me to thinking about the nameplates of many of our vehicles over the last century, so I decided to create a little quiz for your edification (actually mine, but you get to enjoy it, too).

Score one point for identifying a car name from the clue and another point for identifying the division of the parent company manufacturer. For example, if the clue is Theater, the answer would be Ford for both the car name and the division of the parent company. 

Top score including bonus points is 118. Answers will be published a few days from now.

(Try not to look up any answers on the Internet.)

Pirate sword.  

Trail of Tears nation.

Ballet. 

Unbroken horse. 

Coastal town.

Tv science show.

Sharp-toothed fish.

You can’t fly without one. 

Texas border town. 

Nickname for Prince Henry of Portugal.

Mediterranean island.

Native American chief.

Wisconsin city. 

Zodiac sign. 

African leaper.

Old Movie detective.

Kitchen Cleaner.

Songbird.

Wino’s libation. 

Automotive scion.

Long trip.

California city. 

Princess of Argos.

Shofar source.

Mountain lion.

Prince of comics.

Rocket. 

Mischievous creature.

Stinger. 

Unsafe at any speed. 

Zodiac sign.

Fighter plane.

#53. 

Actress Ruehl.

Conquistador’s quest.

Free roaming steed.

French explorer.

Spanish explorer.

Australian region.

Fish. 

Novelist C. S. ??? 

Metro-North station.

Famous rock.

Fast cat.

Naval ship.

Manhattan street. 

Los Angeles suburb.

Jamaican bay.

Miami boulevard.

Resort lake.

Extra Credit: 

Legendary Arthurian island.

Fifth brightest star at night.

Shakespeare play.

French Auto race.

Space shuttle.

Pregnancy casualty.

Half a tech duo.

Downton Abbey actor.

European principality.

Symbol of Oppression

I can’t explain or understand why, but one of my father’s favorite shows when he was just a few years older than I am now was The Dukes of Hazzard. Friday nights after dinner, whether we were visiting my parents in Brooklyn or they were with us in White Plains, he’d watch Bo and Luke Duke do their shenanigans while riding around in the General Lee, their orange Dodge Charger with a Confederate battle flag painted on the roof. To enter and exit the car the Dukes had to climb in or out through the side windows.

Sitting next to my father during these TV times would be our son Dan, all of five years old when the series ended its six-year run. So it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise to me that one day during his formative years, when Dan and I were riding around in my Chevy Vega hatchback, he asked if he could get out of the car “like the Dukes.” 

The General Lee is back in the news. After the massacre of nine Afro-American parishioners in Charleston, SC, by a white supremest who posed for pictures with the Confederate battle flag, professional golfer Bubba Watson has removed the flag from his copy of the General Lee, replacing it with an American flag.  

As a symbol of oppression, the Confederate battle flag ranks right up there with the Nazi swastika and the Communist hammer and sickle. And, if we’re going to be historically correct and objective, with the Christian cross and the crescent of Islam, both religious symbols used to subjugate and annihilate millions of non-believers down through the centuries, throughout the world. Perhaps in another posting I’ll delve deeper into the realm of religious conflagrations that continue to this day, in the case of Islam, for example, or the once daily strife in Northern Ireland, or the genocide in Bosnia. In the interim, you can look up the histories of numerous wars, invasions and mass murders done in the name of religion.

For now, let’s confine ourselves to the table talk discussion at hand, the meaning, and thus the fate, of the Confederate battle flag. Flying the flag, its supporters say, respects those who died fighting for the Confederacy, the heritage of the South, its history, its way of life. They reject any suggestion that it stands for racism, segregation and white supremacy. 

The flag went into battle, they say, in the War Between the States.

In not recognizing that conflict as The Civil War, they fail to understand and accept that the cause they so faithfully cherish was fought, and the soldiers who fell under its banner died, to preserve the right to own another human being! 

The whole foundation of the South was built on slavery. Today’s Republican electoral domination of the South is based on gerrymandered districts and restrictive voting rights laws that diminish the power of Afro-Americans. 

The Confederate battle flag has come to represent a distilled segment of disobedience, of rejection of the common good. Rebellion. A belief that majority rule does not apply if it undermines outdated, biased, principles. 

It is interesting to recall that during the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, or the resistance to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, no one, to my memory, ever rallied dissenters by waving the Confederate flag. Yet, when the nation finally started to recognize and do something about inequality in the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, the Confederate battle flag reappeared across the South. 

Coincidence? Hardly. The Stars and Bars were meant to send a signal that just as Afro-Americans were not equal citizens in the Old South their status would be no different in the New South.   

Anyone who defends the public showing of the Confederate flag except in a display inside a museum just doesn’t get it. And if they haven’t after all that happened in Charleston and around the country over the last year, they probably never will.

A Response to the Biases Within All of Us

Within all of us biases lurk. Mine tend to be a favorable slant toward most things Jewish and/or progressive, two positions not always in concert with each other. 

My biases and their counter biases—I’m against religious extremism and intolerance and conservative political dogma, along with other issues—are deeply rooted, though not to the depth that I would violate a moral code that should reside within all of us, though apparently not to be found inside Dylann Storm Roof, the allegedly admitted killer of nine blacks studying the Bible in a Charleston, SC, church Wednesday evening.

The mind has difficulty expressing revulsion toward Roof’s actions. It was horrific, tragic, racist, an act of domestic terrorism. It was not insanity, at least in the clinical sense, though anyone who thinks what transpired in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church can be rationally explained or justified needs to have his or her head examined. 

I’ve often cited Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for their takes on the comic absurdities inherent in national and world news. I miss Colbert’s nightly takes and didn’t latch onto his replacement in the 11:30 pm Comedy Central slot, Larry Wilmore. But Thursday night (or in my case, repeats aired Friday) provided must-see TV as Stewart and Wilmore provided textbook examples of how media stars should react to events that demand comment. If you haven’t seen these telecasts, use the accompanying links, the first one for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the second for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. They express far more eloquently than anything I could the anger, the frustration, the anguish, the distress, grief, and heartache being felt across America, particularly among people of color:

http://on.cc.com/1dNEzgC

http://on.cc.com/1dNQNpp