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Early Years of the Republic

2015-09-27T23:36:55Z

TylerKubik:

{{Infobox book
| name = Early Years of the American Republic: From the End of the Revolution to the First Administration of Washington (1783-1793)
| author = Herbert Aptheker
| publisher = International Publishers Co.
| pub_date = 1976
| pages = 167
| isbn = 0717804801
| image = [[File:Aptheker.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}

Early Years of the Republic, by Herbert Aptheker, a Marxist historian, takes a look at the American Republic in the years from the Articles of Confederation to the first administration of Washington in order to examine the character of the social and political changes during the period, with a special regard to the confederation itself. His thesis is that the Articles of Confederation was the first attempt, or first step, to centralizing politics in the states, with the Constitution in 1787 representing the culmination of the American nationalist impulse, not a conservative counterrevolution against the radical tendencies of the American revolutionaries. As he says it, “The Constitution of the United States, as originally drafted, was a bourgeois-democratic document for the governing of a slaveholder-capitalist republic” (55).

Chapter One begins by tracking the political changes leading to the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, finding that among the bourgeoisie, the propensity to expand trade and commerce to national levels corresponded with a desire to expand government to national levels (7). He says that the Articles of Confederation gathered support during the war due to the exigencies of war, growing inflation, and “the needs of diplomacy and commerce” (8). Interestingly, Aptheker notes that the first draft of the Articles came to be gradually reduced in the scope of national authority. One notable example is that the first draft written by John Dickinson originally reserved to each state “as much of its present Laws, Rights, and Customs as it may think fit, and...the sole and exclusive Regulation and Government of its internal police”, which was changed to the flat retention by each state of “its sovereignty, freedom, and independence” (8). Other changes included removing full authority from Congress to managing Indian affairs, removing authority over the Western territories, and adding into the supermajority provision the choice of commander-in-chief and the apportionment of tax revenue among the states. Its most notable feature, however, was still its expansion of centralized power in a confederate government.

Chapter two evaluates the Confederate period, entering into the historiographic fray that is dominated by numerous scholars who either find the Articles to be total failure and anarchy, or those who find them to be an imperfect, but healthy step on the way to creating a national government. Aptheker points out that the movement for centralized national government "was not confined to those of any particular outlook or class position," but could be found germinating across a variety of social and political boundaries (19-20). It was a fear among many of the revolutionaries that the splitting of the union into multiple confederacies could give Britain an opening to reestablish itself in directing colonial affairs (20-21). Individual states had their own reasons for wanting a strong national government. Georgia, for instance, had problems dealing within the Indians and bordered on Florida, held by imperialist Spain, so it is easy to see why they would seek to implement a government capable of combating such problems. Aptheker takes a middle rode between the views of John Fiske and Merrill Jensen on the economic turmoil of 1781-1786, viewing it as a period of "economic difficulty," but not catastrophic like Fiske contended (26-27). Aptheker finds that the depression in the 1780’s a pivotal role in making the Articles appear weak and ineffectual, although he doesn’t think the Articles of Confederation were the source of the depression.

Chapters three and four relate that there were numerous proposals for a strong national government continually being put forward starting in 1780 and culminating in the Philadelphia convention in 1787. Many of these proposals came from those of the propertied classes and wanted to secure their property and the ability to trade in a national market. Aptheker goes into Charles Beard;s thesis, that the Constitution was a document created by wealthy conservative reactionaries trying to protect their economic interests and property. He documents a vast range of scholarship that had essentially understood the Constitution on similar terms, namely that it was a document that expressed a suspicion of democracy and a movement away from the American Revolution (48-50), and wonders why his thesis should have provoked such an outrage among historians. He thinks this happened because Beard's thesis made the founders appear not at purveyors of truth and possessors of eternal wisdom on the crafting of government, but as special interests bend on institutionalizing their class interests (50). Aptheker ultimately concludes that those who see the Constitution as reactionary are not considering the document in its time and place, given that "this document [was] hailed at the time by radicals and revolutionists in Europe," among numerous others who were understood to be Revolutionary radicals of the period (54).

Chapters five and six go through the theory and content of the Constitution, concluding that it was "a consolidation of that [American] Revolution by the classes which had led it" (55). He finds a disanalogy in comparing the spirit of the Constitution to the spirit of contemporary capitalism because the "The enunciation by those property owners at that time and place and under those circumstances of the sacredness of property rights and the freedom to accumulate capital" was a far-cry from "present day monopolistic, thoroughly reactionary capitalism" (62). Liberty, for the founders, "was the liberty to accumulate and securely possess that property," based upon an immutable human nature to do so (62). Government was instituted among men to ward off both tyranny and anarchy, substituting order and security in its place; it was not a positive force to do good. During the Philadelphia Convention, Aptheker finds an underlying consensus among the delegates, namely they all wanted to protect their bourgeois interests, which primarily consisted of protecting private property, slave and otherwise. He doesn’t accept a pure Beardian thesis, that the convention was purely a document to protect Revolutionary bond-holders and secure repayment, though he finds, as should be expected, that some of these men wanted to nationalize for this reason. What Aptheker saw was that there were disparate nationalizing elements that came together at the convention--each carried their own motivations, but all of them found the Articles to be inadequate for whatever purposes to which they thought a government ought to be devoted. Concluding, he says that the document cannot be considered reactionary if understood in its time and place; it was, in fact, progressive, despite the many qualifications that are warranted due to some anti-progressive features (95).

Chapters seven and eight run through the ratification process and the early activities of the new government, finding that is difficult to arrive at any proportion of the population generally who were for or against ratifying the Constitution, given how far both supporters and critics cut across social and political lines (97-98). He goes through the first sessions of Congress that set up the broad organization of the government, as well as the early debates on the "Hamiltonian" economic program. Aptheker believes that it was Hamilton’s mercantilist program of central banking, tariff protection, and federalization of power that “stimulated the polarization of politics in the United States” (114).

In his chapters covering social history during the early republic, Aptheker finds that the period was generally characterized by the upper classes exploiting the lower classes, without much room for social mobility. He concluded that "in the nonslaveholding portion of the nation in about 1795 the richest 10 percent owned 55 to 60 percent of the net wealth and that in the South this figure should be about 70 to 75 percent" (138). In general, there was widespread inequality, with the rich getting richer, while the poor increased in number and destitution. Here, his Marxism appears full-fledged, but it is here that his analysis is the weakest. In his chapter covering the new government and its relationship with American Indians, he does little more than point out that the Indian question was one of substantial import and addressed a number of times in the early Congresses. Writing about African-Americans and slavery, he only writes about what slavery was, its extent, mention that some slaves organized for resistance, and how there was some anti-slavery sentiment during and after the Revolution, which ultimately led to more or less the abolition of slavery in the North. These final chapters were extremely short and did little more than point out a few studies per chapter, leaving some space for Aptheker to insert his own view at some point. This, however, shows the weakness of Aptheker's study as a whole: it was one nearly devoid of references in the footnotes, and given the breadth of scholarship existing on the issues he covered, he needed to address the scholarly literature much more than he did so that his perspectives would not come off as bare assertions as they did on many occasions.

[[Category:Early America/Colonial History]]
[[Category:Herbert Aptheker]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]

Early Years of the Republic

2015-09-27T23:26:56Z

TylerKubik:

{{Infobox book
| name = Early Years of the American Republic: From the End of the Revolution to the First Administration of Washington (1783-1793)
| author = Herbert Aptheker
| publisher = International Publishers Co.
| pub_date = 1976
| pages = 167
| isbn = 0717804801
| image = [[File:Aptheker.jpg|200px|alt=cover]]
}}

Early Years of the Republic, by Herbert Aptheker, a Marxist historian, takes a look at the American Republic in the years from the Articles of Confederation to the first administration of Washington in order to examine the character of the social and political changes during the period, with a special regard to the confederation itself. His thesis is that the Articles of Confederation was the first attempt, or first step, to centralizing politics in the states, with the Constitution in 1787 representing the culmination of the American nationalist impulse, not a conservative counterrevolution against the radical tendencies of the American revolutionaries. As he says it, “The Constitution of the United States, as originally drafted, was a bourgeois-democratic document for the governing of a slaveholder-capitalist republic” (55).

Chapter One begins by tracking the political changes leading to the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1781, finding that among the bourgeoisie, the propensity to expand trade and commerce to national levels corresponded with a desire to expand government to national levels (7). He says that the Articles of Confederation gathered support during the war due to the exigencies of war, growing inflation, and “the needs of diplomacy and commerce” (8). Interestingly, Aptheker notes that the first draft of the Articles came to be gradually reduced in the scope of national authority. One notable example is that the first draft written by John Dickinson originally reserved to each state “as much of its present Laws, Rights, and Customs as it may think fit, and...the sole and exclusive Regulation and Government of its internal police”, which was changed to the flat retention by each state of “its sovereignty, freedom, and independence” (8). Other changes included removing full authority from Congress to managing Indian affairs, removing authority over the Western territories, and adding into the supermajority provision the choice of commander-in-chief and the apportionment of tax revenue among the states. Its most notable feature, however, was still its expansion of centralized power in a confederate government.

Chapter two evaluates the Confederate period, entering into the historiographic fray that is dominated by numerous scholars who either find the Articles to be total failure and anarchy, or those who find them to be an imperfect, but healthy step on the way to creating a national government. Aptheker points out that the movement for centralized national government "was not confined to those of any particular outlook or class position," but could be found germinating across a variety of social and political boundaries (19-20). It was a fear among many of the revolutionaries that the splitting of the union into multiple confederacies could give Britain an opening to reestablish itself in directing colonial affairs (20-21). Individual states had their own reasons for wanting a strong national government. Georgia, for instance, had problems dealing within the Indians and bordered on Florida, held by imperialist Spain, so it is easy to see why they would seek to implement a government capable of combating such problems. Aptheker takes a middle rode between the views of John Fiske and Merrill Jensen on the economic turmoil of 1781-1786, viewing it as a period of "economic difficulty," but not catastrophic like Fiske contended (26-27). Aptheker finds that the depression in the 1780’s a pivotal role in making the Articles appear weak and ineffectual, although he doesn’t think the Articles of Confederation were the source of the depression.

Chapters three and four relate that there were numerous proposals for a strong national government continually being put forward starting in 1780 and culminating in the Philadelphia convention in 1787. Many of these proposals came from those of the propertied classes and wanted to secure their property and the ability to trade in a national market. Aptheker goes into Charles Beard;s thesis, that the Constitution was a document created by wealthy conservative reactionaries trying to protect their economic interests and property. He documents a vast range of scholarship that had essentially understood the Constitution on similar terms, namely that it was a document that expressed a suspicion of democracy and a movement away from the American Revolution (48-50), and wonders why his thesis should have provoked such an outrage among historians. He thinks this happened because Beard's thesis made the founders appear not at purveyors of truth and possessors of eternal wisdom on the crafting of government, but as special interests bend on institutionalizing their class interests (50). Aptheker ultimately concludes that those who see the Constitution as reactionary are not considering the document in its time and place, given that "this document [was] hailed at the time by radicals and revolutionists in Europe," among numerous others who were understood to be Revolutionary radicals of the period (54).

Chapters 5 and 6 go through the theory and content of the Constitution, concluding that it was "a consolidation of that [American] Revolution by the classes which had led it" (55). He finds a disanalogy in comparing the spirit of the Constitution to the spirit of contemporary capitalism because the "The enunciation by those property owners at that time and place and under those circumstances of the sacredness of property rights and the freedom to accumulate capital" was a far-cry from "present day monopolistic, thoroughly reactionary capitalism" (62). Liberty, for the founders, "was the liberty to accumulate and securely possess that property," based upon an immutable human nature to do so (62). Government was instituted among men to ward off both tyranny and anarchy, substituting order and security in its place; it was not a positive force to do good. During the Philadelphia Convention, Aptheker finds an underlying consensus among the delegates, namely they all wanted to protect their bourgeois interests, which primarily consisted of protecting private property, slave and otherwise. He doesn’t accept a pure Beardian thesis, that the convention was purely a document to protect Revolutionary bond-holders and secure repayment, though he finds, as should be expected, that some of these men wanted to nationalize for this reason. What he sees was that there were disparate nationalizing elements that came together at the convention--each carried their own motivations, but all of them found the Articles to be inadequate for whatever purposes to which they thought a government ought to be devoted. Concluding, he says that the document cannot be considered reactionary if understood in its time and place; it was, in fact, progressive, despite the many qualifications that are warranted due to some anti-progressive features (95).

Chapters seven and eight run through the ratification process and the early activities of the new government, finding that is difficult to arrive at any proportion of the population generally who were for or against ratifying the Constitution, given how far both supporters and critics cut across social and political lines (97-98). He goes through the first sessions of Congress that set up the broad organization of the government, as well as the early debates on the "Hamiltonian" economic program. Aptheker believes that it was Hamilton’s mercantilist program of central banking, tariff protection, and federalization of power that “stimulated the polarization of politics in the United States” (114).

In his chapters covering social history during the early republic, Aptheker finds that the period was generally characterized by the upper classes exploiting the lower classes, without much room for social mobility. He concluded that "in the nonslaveholding portion of the nation in about 1795 the richest 10 percent owned 55 to 60 percent of the net wealth and that in the South this figure should be about 70 to 75 percent" (138). In general, there was widespread inequality, with the rich getting richer, while the poor increased in number and destitution. Here, his Marxism appears full-fledged, but it is here that his analysis is the weakest. These chapters were extremely short and did little more than point out a few studies per chapter and insert his own view at some point. This, however, shows the weakness of Aptheker's study as a whole; it was one nearly devoid of references in the footnotes, and given the breadth of scholarship existing on the issues he covered, he needed to address the scholarly literature much more than he did, so that his perspectives do not come off as bare assertions.

[[Category:Early America/Colonial History]]
[[Category:Herbert Aptheker]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]

Early Years of the Republic

2015-09-27T19:47:39Z

TylerKubik:

File:Aptheker.jpg

2015-09-27T19:23:45Z

TylerKubik:

Early Years of the Republic

2015-09-27T19:23:03Z

TylerKubik: Created page with " {{Infobox book | name = Early Years of the American Republic: From the End of the Revolution to the First Administration of Washington (1783-1793) | author = Herber..."