"John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery," David Waldstreicher and Matthew Mason

 Even as slavery has been gone a hundred and sixty-two years in the United States, race continues an unresolved issue. Perhaps that is because we conflate morality with democracy – that the latter should reflect the former. Voter interference, whether disallowing eligible voters or allowing ineligible voters, is what destroys democracy, not the election of a candidate disliked by those who comprise the establishment, or any other group.

 

Democracy is amoral; it manifests the will of the people, for good or for bad. In the 19^th Century, property ownership, gender and racial limits on voting meant the will of all the people was not fully represented. Today, those limits have been largely removed. However, a new problem confronts us – illiteracy and innumeracy are on the rise, as seen in falling IQ rates, not just in the U.S., but in much of the West. Blame for the decline can largely be attributed the rise in social media, the introduction of the smart phone, and a reduction in the number of people who read books. “Democracy,” Walter Russell Mead wrote in last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, “is about self-government, not good government.” The fact that our democracy has been a good government for people over 235 year speaks to the wisdom of the people, not, as Mead wrote, “the pretentions of…a self-regarding elite.”

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Burrowing into Books

John Quincy Adams and the Politics of Slavery:

Selections from the Diary

David Waldstreicher & Matthew Mason

May 24, 2025

 

“But my cause is the cause of my country and of human liberty. It is the

cause of Christian improvement, the fulfilment of the prophecies that the day

shall come when slavery and war shall be banished from the face of the earth.”

                                                                                                The Diaries of John Quincy Adams 1779-1848

                                                                                                November 12, 1842

 

This fascinating history traces the arc of John Quincy Adams’ gradual attitudinal shift toward slavery. He always saw it as evil and alien to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, but he feared the effect of its extinction on the nation. As Lincoln expressed in an August 22, 1862 letter to Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, Adams felt his paramount duty was to preserve the Union. 

 

In 21^st Century United States – even when slave-like conditions still persist in parts of the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa and in Uyghur-occupied China – it is easy to forget that slavery has been the norm, not the exception, for most of human history. Allegedly, it was Helen Keller who once wrote: “There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.”

 

Adams’ diaries provide a unique perspective on late 18^th Century and first-half 19^th Century American attitudes toward slavery. His diaries began in 1779 when he was twelve and off to France with his father. They continued until 1848 when he died at age eighty. Besides being the nation’s 6^th President, Adams served as ambassador to Russia and Great Britian. He was a U.S. Senator and James Monroe’s Secretary of State. Following his four years as President, he represented Massachusetts for seventeen years in the House of Representatives. This book is limited to those parts of the diary dealing with slavery.

 

Early on, Adams had to set aside his abomination for slavery for his interest in concluding the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1804 and for the acquisition of Florida from Spain in 1819, both of which meant both acceptance and expansion of slavery. He saw Britain as hypocritical, in making illegal the slave trade, while still impressing American merchant seamen into their navy during peacetime. He questioned the project to remove free African Americans to West Africa by members of the American Colonization Society, suspicious of motives; while some acted humanely, others were “weak-minded men,” and/or “speculators in [pursuit of] official profits and honors.”

 

On December 27, 1819 Adams wrote of Thomas Jefferson, “one of the great men whom this country has produced.” He added, though, that in his Declaration of Independence Jefferson did “not appear to have been aware that it also laid open a precipice into which the slave-holding planters of this country sooner or later must fall.” On February 24, 1820 he wrote: “Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union…” Yet he supported the Missouri Compromise that same year, which maintained a balance between slave and free states. Of Stratford Canning, British Ambassador to the United States, Adams wrote on June 29, 1822: “He asked if I could conceive of a greater and more atrocious evil than this slave-trade. I said, yes, admitting the right of search by foreign officials of our vessels upon the seas in time of peace.”

 

Adams was fearful that slavery would sever the Union, writing pessimistically on July 30, 1834: “My hopes of the long continuance of this Union are extinct.” On November 10, 1838, he wrote in response to upstate New York abolitionists: “I am not for the immediate abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia or the Territory of Florida; but I am for the abolition of slavery in both.” In March 1841, Adams, at the behest of abolitionists, represented the captives of the Amistad. He won their release to return to their homes in Sierra Leone.

 

On August 10, 1843, Adams wrote: “Before my lamp is burnt out,  I am desirous that my opinions concerning the great movement throughout the civilized world for the abolition of slavery should be explicitly avowed and declared.” While it would be almost twenty years – and fifteen years after John Quincy Adams’ death – before President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation on January 1,1863, Professors Waldstreicher and Mason have allowed readers to witness Mr. Adams evolving attitude toward the evil of slavery.

"A Cauldron of Challenges"

Yesterday, a grandson, a graduate student in 20^th Century European history, texted me a copy of the front page from the October 1, 1938 New York Times: “Czech Rulers Bow, But Under Protest.” British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had returned to London from meeting Hitler in Munich the previous day, declaring that, in offering Germany Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland he had brought “peace in our time.” My grandson was reminded of that event after President Trump’s urged Ukraine’s President Zelensky to give up Crimea to Russia.   

 

…………………………………………………………

 

While Francis was not my favorite Pope, there is no question that he was a compassionate man, especially to the poor and those unable to care for themselves. However, his allowing China’s Communist Party to select (or approve) Bishops I thought was wrong, but Francis may have concluded that it was the only way the Church could exist in that despotic, secular country. I also have long felt that like so many Socialists, Francis failed to credit capitalism as being the principal (albeit imperfect) force in reducing poverty. One has only to compare life in the Democratic and capitalist West with the Socialist world.

 

Nevertheless, I wish him eternal life, and, having watched the movie Conclave, I eagerly await the results of next month’s Conclave.

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“A Cauldron of Challenges”

April 25, 2025

 

“Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”

                                                                                                                Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1 (1606)

                                                                                                                William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

 

“The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

                                                                                                                Attributed to Socrates (c. 469 BC – 399 BC)

 

President Trump has achieved a few goals. Border crossings by illegal migrants have declined by close to ninety percent. Military recruitment is up, with Army recruitment at 15-year highs. DOGE has exposed waste and fraud in many government agencies, and woke ideology is on the run. And, unlike the Biden years, we know who is in charge at the White House. 

 

But in other respects Mr. Trump has been less successful. He is wrong, in my opinion, when he calls for the capitulation of Ukraine, and when he advocates for tariffs – a tax on American consumers. His on-again-off-again tariffs have wreaked havoc with the stock market, weakened the dollar, and caused a pause in the economy. A weak dollar would result in higher interest rates for U.S. Treasuries. While illegal migration poses cultural and dependency risks, globalization and a strong dollar have raised living standards, as the cost of consumables, measured in hours worked, have declined over the decades, due to manufacturing being done where it is most cost efficient, along with technological innovations. Stronger education standards, secure borders, and a tax code that encourages innovation and investment are what is needed, not barriers to free trade. And I fail to understand Mr. Trump’s love affair with cryptocurrencies.

 

……………………………………………………

 

This essay focuses on a few of the challenges we face. (There are, obviously, many others). Shakespeare’s three witches had filled their cauldron with fillets of fenny snakes, eyes of Newts, tongues of dogs, and other such delicacies, but the cauldron of which I write is filled with threats: federal debt and unfunded liabilities at record levels; interest rates that encourage borrowing and discourage savings; public schools that don’t educate; declining birthrates – a world-wide phenomenon; an imperialistic China; a revanchist Russia; a soon-to-be nuclear armed Iran; and, I would argue, an absence of moral judgement. 

 

As a percent of GDP, today’s federal debt exceeds the level reached in 1945 when it peaked at 121.2%. Then, the United States financed a large portion of the Allies needs to fight a global war. Currently, the debt to GDP ratio stands around 122%, and is estimated to rise further, as a projected $1.3 trillion deficit for fiscal 2025 will be added to the current $36.2 trillion in U.S. federal debt. Today, more than half the federal budget is spent on entitlements. None of this debt, of course, includes an estimated $73 trillion in unfunded liabilities, principally from Medicare and Social Security. The reason that deficits continue to increase is simple – we spend more than we take in. Resolution can only lie with higher taxes or reduced spending, or a combination of the two. Reduced spending penalizes recipients of government largesse. Increased taxes inhibit economic growth. Will anyone in Washington address this problem? 

 

Low interest rates encourage consumption and speculation, and they discourage savings. When Treasury rates are only a percent or two above inflation they offer little incentive, apart for foreigners who benefit (or have benefitted) from the strong dollar, which explains why they currently own about one third of all U.S. Treasuries publicly held. If Mr. Trump is successful, in achieving a weaker dollar one can expect foreign investors to fade. If they do, rates will rise, as domestic investors will demand higher returns. 

 

Thomas Jefferson believed that for a society to be self-governed it had to be “educated and free-thinking.” Yet, according to Pacific Research Institute 43% of high school students in the U.S. graduate illiterate and innumerate. A debate between Republicans and Democrats over whether boys can play on girls sports’ teams and use their bathrooms may be worth having, but it should not detract from the fact that not all our children are being taught to read, write and do simple arithmetic. Superintendents and principals need to be able to fire non-performing teachers, without fear of retribution from teachers’ unions.

 

Attention must be paid to the demographic crisis soon to confront us. Total Fertility Rates (TFR) measure the average number of children a woman is expected to bear in her lifetime. A TFR of 2.1 represents replacement rate. For the last fifty years, the TFR in the U.S. has been below replacement. Today, the TFR in the U.S. stands at 1.76. And during the last fifty years, the average age in the U.S. has risen from 27.6 to 38.5, even as the population increased by better than 50%, or about130 million. A little more than a third of that increase reflects legal immigrants. Additionally, current population numbers include illegal migrants. Nevertheless, births in the U.S. outnumbered deaths by approximately 380,000 in 2023. However, declining birthrates and an aging population pose economic and social risks. In the EU the situation is dire. Deaths outnumber births by more than a million, and the TFR for 2024 is estimated to have been 1.4, with the median age having risen from 31.3 to 42.5 over the past fifty years. Birthrates below replacement, with increasing longevity will have economic consequences, yet politicians and the media seem to care little about what could become a monumental challenge. “Attention must be paid,” as Linda Loman says to her husband in Death of a Salesman.

 

Overseas, China dominates the Pacific and is making inroads in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East through its Belt & Road initiatives. Putin’s Russia seems determined to restore its Tsarist boundaries, while Iran and North Korea threaten the peace in the Middle East and the Western Pacific. U.S. defense spending, as a percent of the federal budget, has declined from 24.3% in 1980 to 13.5% in 2024. At the same time interest expense in 1980, when the Ten-Year yielded 11.4%, has risen from 8.8% to 13.2%, even as the yield on the Ten-Year has fallen to 4.2%. World peace demands a militarily strong United States.

 

………………………………………………….

 

If blame for the challenges cited above were allocated fairly among our two political parties, there would be no one to manage government. Playing to the choir and grabbing headlines is more important than debating controversial subjects. If Diogenes were to wander the streets of Washington searching for an honest politician, he would have better luck looking for a Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree on the Tibetan Plateau.

 

Perhaps I exaggerate the threats. We have been in tight spots in the past – obviously during the Civil War, but also in the 1960s, when Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement caused bloody protests, campus shootings and assassinations. Nevertheless, today’s divisiveness is disturbing. We need as President a Lincoln-like figure, an individual capable of uniting the diverse strands of our people, a person with humor and possessed of moral certitude based on the Judeo-Christian heritage on which our nation was built.

 

After all, we are the United States. Surely such an individual must exist…somewhere in this great Country.

"The Verdict - Some Thoughts"

 It is unusual for me to send an essay in the afternoon, but circumstances make it more palatable. Early tomorrow morning, my wife and I have a Pilates class. Friday morning I am hoping to send an Essay from Essex, “Things Our Grandchildren Will Never Know.” Later that morning, we are driving up to my 65^th high school reunion.

 

…………………………………………………………

 

Eighty years ago tomorrow about 133,000 Allied troops sailed across the English Channel on approximately 7,000 vessels, accompanied by 11,000 planes to attack five beaches on the Normandy coast – Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. The purpose: to liberate Europe from Nazism. They were met by around 50,000 German troops who manned machine guns above the beaches, firing down on disembarking soldiers who also had to contend with heavy equipment and mined beaches. 4,414 Allied soldiers died on that first day, including 2,501 Americans – men who gave their lives on blood-soaked beaches thousands of miles from families and homes, so that others – people they never met – might live freely. The commemoration tomorrow marks one of the greatest sacrifices any people have ever made. 

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“The Verdict – Some Thoughts”

June 5, 2024

 

“’Let the jury consider the verdict,’ the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first – verdict afterwards.’”

                                                                                                                           Alice in Wonderland, 1946 (my copy)

                                                                                                                            Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

 

While the charges against Donald Trump were more severe than stealing tarts, there is no question that the trial was politicized. And there is a question as to whether he received due process, as explained by David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley[1] in the June 5, 2024 edition of The Wall Street Journal. Nevertheless, Mr. Trump was convicted by a jury of twelve ordinary people, seven men and five women, a panel of jurors agreed to by both prosecution and defense. Like it or not, their decision is something we should respect. As British Member of Parliament Daniel Hannani wrote recently in The Telegraph: “Laws on their own are not enough. A free society rests also on conventions, precedents, unwritten rules. Losers are expected to accept the result, winners to exercise restraint.”

 

But jurors are not omniscient and judges have biases, which is why our legal process allows for appeals, and one can certainly expect Mr. Trump’s lawyers to appeal the decision, and we are free to argue as to whether the charges should have been brought in the first place. The law is not perfect, but justice is supposed to be blind; it should not be weaponized for political gain. Regardless, a civilized society must accept a trial’s outcome, just as it must accept the decision of elections, else anarchy reigns and totalitarianism looms. There is a process that should be followed.

 

The outcome of the trial in “deep blue” Manhattan was predictable; though many of us hoped for a Henry Fonda-like character from 12 Angry Men to appear among the jurors, to at least create a hung jury. That did not happen. However, the consequences of the decision to try Mr. Trump in the first place may have the most long-lasting effect. Alvin Bragg, the New York County District Attorney who led the prosecution, had campaigned for office by claiming, in words reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s Lavrentiy Beria (or emanations from the Queen of Hearts), that he would prosecute Donald Trump – first the man, then the crime. He did, and he won. But did he let the genie of more political dissension escape from the bottle?

 

As the first prosecution of a presidential candidate, the trial set a precedent and will be studied for years by legal scholars. Perhaps we have crossed a Rubicon? We will have, if it becomes standard to try political opponents, in order to keep them off the campaign trail and the ballot. We will have forsaken our liberal constitutional heritage, and we will have destroyed democracy. For just as no one is above the law, the law must be exercised evenly and equitably. There is risk that we have entered a time when political victors find it okay to try and jail their opponents – a practice common in totalitarian states like Communist China, Venezuela, and Cuba, and as it was in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in years gone by.

 

Both political parties have violated norms and to the extent that both candidates reflect the United States today, one can understand why so many feel dispirited. We once looked up to our political leaders. Can we now? Are Biden and Trump men we admire? We were once taught manners and rules of behavior; we were taught to be self-sufficient if and when able; to be responsible for our behavior; to be respectful and tolerant of others, and to practice humility and restraint when personal success was ours. Do these characteristics apply to either man? These are values once learned in homes and in schools. They should be restored.  

 

Nevertheless, I remain optimistic about our country, that reason and commonsense will prevail, that when we reflect on the uniqueness of this nation and how fortunate are we to live here, we will give thanks. But it cannot be denied that hatred has infused our society, preventing courteous discourse and reasoned debate. Our culture has become invidious. As part of a poll of 18-30-year-old registered voters, Blueprint Polling found that 65% of those polled agreed strongly or somewhat that “nearly all politicians are corrupt, and make money from their political power” – only 7% disagreed. Using public funds for private gain is the mark of a banana republic, not a representative democracy. Each side blames the other. We once thought of ourselves, first as Americans and only secondly as members of a specific political party, or of a particular ethnicity or gender. Identity politics has been a curse.

 

While our nation is not as fractured as it was in 1861, it is moving in that direction. While Democrats achieved their goal of having former President Trump convicted as a felon before the election, in doing so they further divided an already ruptured nation. Justice will not be served until appeals are made – almost certainly after the election. Nevertheless, it is fitting at this time to repeat the closing paragraph of Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural: "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

 

While this trial and its verdict, in my opinion, is a blight on our country, the United States is unique among nations. It is a “land of opportunity,” which is why so many seek these shores. We should take pride in our country. Something that we often forget is that those of us who live here are fortunate. Never forget that.

"War - Israel versus Hamas"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“War – Israel versus Hamas”

March 25, 2024

 

“But Oct. 7 denial is spreading. A small but growing group denies the basic facts of the attack,

pushing a spectrum of falsehoods and misleading narratives that minimize the violence or dispute its origins.”

                                                                                                                                Elizabeth Dwoskin

                                                                                                                                The Washington Post, January 21, 2024

 

War is messy. It is cruel. It cannot be refined. It cannot be sanitized. Wars were once fought on battle fields. No longer. Civil War historian James McPherson has estimated that about 50,000 civilians died during that conflict, still less than 10% of all military deaths. That changed in the 20^th Century. About half of all deaths in World War I were civilians. In World War II, twice as many civilians died as military personnel. Innocent people get hurt in modern wars, as residents of London, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Naples learned during World War II, and as residents of My Lai and Hué learned during the Vietnam War. And as people today in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, in Gaza City, Jabalia, and Rafah understand, and in the border villages of Israel’s north where residents have evacuated due to threats from Iran’s other proxy, Hezbollah.  

 

When the fight is between good and evil, a “proportional” response, as attractive as the concept sounds, is not an alternative. “The moral thing to do,” the columnist Moshe Phillips wrote recently in Israel National News, “is to destroy evil when it poses a ‘clear and present danger’ or likely will again.” Hamas presents to Israel such a threat. In September 1864, on the cusp of taking Atlanta, General William Tecumseh Sherman sent a telegram to President Lincoln: “War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want; not a word of argument, not a sign of let up, no cave in until we are whipped or they are.” When Hamas attacked the Kibbutz Nir Oz, during the Tribe of Nova music festival, on October 7, raping women, slaughtering babies and children, mutilating those they had killed and kidnapping those they had not, war was the choice they made. Now, the only way to end the war is for Israel to totally destroy Hamas.  

 

The battle in Gaza, like the American Civil War and World War II, is a fight between forces of good and evil. (In one sense, this is a civil war, as both Israelis and Palestinians descend from Abraham.) This is not to suggest that all Israelis are paragons of virtue and that all Palestinians are devils incarnate. But Israel, according to the Economist Groups Democracy Index, is the only democracy in the Middle East, while Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Britain. The people of Gaza bear some responsibility, as Hamas was elected in 2006 with 75% of the vote. Citizens of Gaza know that terrorists hide and store arms in tunnels beneath schools and hospitals. On September 11, 2001 there was dancing in the streets of Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh, former Gaza Prime Minister and Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau (and who now lives in Qatar), explained in 2020 why Hamas rejects ceasefire agreements: “We cannot, in exchange for money or projects, give up Palestine and our weapons. We will not give up the resistance. We will not recognize Israel. Palestine must stretch from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea.” Commenting on the loss of civilian deaths in Gaza on October 26, 2023, Mr. Haniyeh said: The blood of the women, children and elderly […] we are the ones who need this blood, so it awakens within us the revolutionary spirit.”

 

Anti-Israeli demonstrations and pro-Palestinian marches are pressuring the Biden Administration to introduce more daylight between Israel and the United States. As Saturday’s Wall Street Journal editorialized: last week’s final draft to the United Nations’ Security Council called for an immediate and sustained cease fire, “to protect civilians and facilitate more aid, but not necessarily to free Israeli hostages. That direct linkage was dropped from a prior draft.”  Civilian deaths in Gaza – an Orwellian number provided by Hamas that the press accepts without reservation – are being used to call for a ceasefire or truce. But history offers lessons. In 1918, an armistice ended World War I. After two decades, which included hyper-inflation and a world-wide depression, a second – and more deadly – war broke out, a World War that cost 80 million lives. In contrast to the First World War, World War II ended with the Allies demanding – and getting – unconditional surrender. The consequence: almost eighty years of economic prosperity, with the Allies main antagonists, Germany and Japan, in the forefront of that growth. Wars must be won decisively, or they will reignite, as the world learned in 1938, and as Israel knows full well. 

 

Ironically, the massacre in Israel led to an increase in antisemitism in the U.S. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that in the two months following the October 7 attack 2,031 incidents of antisemitism were reported in the U.S., versus 465 in the corresponding period a year earlier. Pro-Palestinian rallies showcased a surge in antisemitism. On December 5, 2023, the presidents of Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania testified before Congress that calling for the genocide of the Jewish people – as pro-Hamas college demonstrators were then doing – would not necessarily violate their schools’ codes of conduct. At the same time, Palestinian propagandizing – the war they are winning – has influenced a gullible media and infested politicians from both Parties, reminding one of George Orwell’s 1984: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.” It was refreshing, therefore, to read Elizabeth Dwoskin’s piece in The Washington Post, from which I borrowed the epigraph that heads this essay.   

 

War is never pretty, and the best way to prevent one is to maintain a strong defense, something we and Europe have neglected since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Wars erupt because evil exists. It stems from ideological differences and disputes over land. Evil resides within some cultures, religions, and individuals, which many in the West find difficult to accept. Accusations of evil, therefore, make evil seem banal and thus less immediate and less harmful. Israel, in contrast, having existed under such threats for three-quarters of a century, understands the prevalence of evil, and, as her enemies know, are ready for it...except when restrained by her allies. 

 

Because of its unique position as a democracy in an otherwise autocratic Middle East, and because its people pray to a different God, Israel is singled out for destruction. She is a nation of 9.4 million, bordered by four countries with combined populations of 147 million, plus 5 million Palestinians, many of whom see her as an interloper, and some of whom vow to destroy her. She must rely on her allies, especially the United States. As a democracy, her leaders change with elections and so are not always the ones her friends and allies prefer. But it is the Country and the concept of liberty, not a political party or leader, we defend. The United States, as freedom’s and democracy’s most fervent advocate, must not equivocate in its defense of justice, democracy, and individual freedom. Israel must totally destroy Hamas and bring its leaders to justice, and the West must support her. As long as those terrorists exist and govern Gaza, there can be no talk of a two-state solution.

"A Few Short, Random Thoughts"

 

Sydney M. Williams

swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

March 17, 2024

“A Few Short, Random Thoughts”

 

“Listen to your hunches, pay attention to your intuition, do not dismiss your random

thoughts, inspirations or ideas…They could be giving you the best advice you ever had.”

                                                                                                                Neale Donald Walsch (1943-)

                                                                                                                Conversations with God, Book 3, 1998

 

American values, which have been denigrated, evolved over two hundred years. It has become common to debase history and belittle capitalism, Certainly, one can find faults in both. One thing that is often forgotten is how rare have been revolutions that produced positive change. The French Revolution of 1789 eliminated a king and produced an Emperor. The Haiti slave rebellion of 1791 got rid of the French and eliminated slavery, but the nation has never had an honest and fair government. The Russian Revolution of 1917 exchanged autocratic Tsars for totalitarian Communists. Other examples: China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, and Iran in 1979. But the American revolution produced a government that evolved into the world’s fairest representative democracy. Capitalism, which creates winners and losers, is antithetical to today’s devotees of DEI, with its focus on equal outcomes. Yet, it is capitalism that encourages competition and offers choices to consumers. Free market capitalism has done more to lift people out of poverty than any other economic system. It provides people opportunities, to strive to do their best in whatever field they choose. 

 

A few other thoughts: 

 

• Democracy – a form of government close to the center of a spectrum that stretches from anarchy to autocracy. It is not perfect, as Churchill said in a speech before the House of Commons on November 11, 1947: “…the worse form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Our democracy is, as Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” It is rare. Despite its visible success, according to ourworldindata.org, twice as many people live in “closed autocracies” as live in “liberal democracies.” Yet, we cannot forget that while our government is beneficent, dependency on government, unless it is absolutely necessary, leads to a loss of freedom. 

 

• Capitalism/Climate/Environment – It was free-market capitalism that produced the Industrial Revolution, a revolution that defoliated forests, polluted rivers, and eroded the landscape. But it also raised living standards, gave people access to healthier diets, better housing and medicines, and cheaper goods. It did increase wealth for merchants and bankers, but while we complain today about income and wealth disparities, those differences are less than they were at the end of the 19^th Century and substantially below what they were when the world was composed of a few kings and aristocrats and millions of serfs and slaves – and those wealth disparities are far less in capitalist societies than in totalitarian regimes like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. And it was capitalism that gave us the means to clean up the environment – our forests, rivers, and landscapes.

 

As for climate, there is little doubt that man affects its change. But the planet’s climate has been changing long before man arrived on the scene. During the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the earth 100 million years ago, the planet’s average temperature is estimated to have been forty-five degrees warmer than it is today. A few million years later, during the Pleistocene Era with its Ice Age, the earth’s temperature averaged fifty-three degrees colder than today. About ten thousand years ago, the climate became warm enough to begin to melt the Ice Age’s glaciers. 

 

When one cleanses the environment, one positively affects climate. Confronting climate change and improving the environment began to be addressed long before the advent of the EPA and John Kerry. As Bjorn Lomborg wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal: “The data show that climate-related deaths from droughts, storms, floods, and fires have declined by more than 97% over the past century.” We need to calculate costs – both societal and economic of climate-change measures – against expected benefits. While there is more we can do, we have come a long way. But governments should not use climate as an excuse to pick winners and losers. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand is fairer and better suited. In the meantime, governments, agencies, and the media should drop the hysteria.

 

• Immigration – Common sense tells us that when a country’s birth rates fall below replacement and economic growth is still the goal it must raise birth rates or increase migration. When people are admitted legally, authorities know who has entered. When migrants enter illegally, they arrive unknown. In my opinion, we should increase the number of legal immigrants, simplify immigration laws, allow for more seasonal workers, and, at the same time, tighten the border against illegal and unwanted migration. The country needs new workers and consumers. 

 

• Education – Thomas Jefferson believed that only educated citizens would allow the American experiment in self-government to succeed. We all know that women and blacks, despite education, were denied the right to vote in 1789. Nevertheless, his ideas were radical for the time. His founding of the University of Virginia in 1819 partially achieved his goal. Youth today should have an understanding and appreciation of what the founders accomplished: limited government of the people, consisting of three separate but equal branches – legislative, executive, and judicial, based on the rule of law. They should read the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They should be taught how rights have evolved, and they should know history, to understand how the nation’s values have also evolved over time. Youth needs a clear understanding of geography, math/economics, philosophy, science, and religion; they should develop a sense of decorum and personal responsibility, and they need to be able to articulately express themselves.

 

These short takes are not definitive or all-inclusive. I have neither the time nor the ability to make them so, and you do not have the time (or desire) to read what may be obvious and repetitive. But I worry that we have lost a sense of what it means to be an American, that our differences rather than our commonalities define who we are. To live in this country, with all its faults, is to live among the world’s most fortunate people. We must not be arrogant about our luck. We need to recognize that there may come a time, as it did for past generations, when it will be necessary to defend what we have. We should never forget the blessings of individual freedom, and the benefits of living in a free and democratic republic, amid free-market capitalism – all of which we inherited and which it is our duty to pass on to those who follow.

"Are Things as Bad as They Seem?"

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

Thought of the Day

“Are Things as Bad as They Seem?”

March 11, 2024

 

“Just when you thought that things couldn’t get any worse, you find out that they’ve

always been a lot worse than you thought they were. And then they get worse.”

                                                                                                                                Philip Kerr (1956-2018)

                                                                                                                                The Pale Criminal, 1990

 

Debt, including unfunded liabilities, threatens to bankrupt us. The southern border has become a porous venue for a record number of illegals and the drugs many bring into this country. An epidemic of crime has transformed our cities. Democrats have weaponized the criminal justice department to go after political opponents. Republicans, in a rush to isolationism, have abandoned global responsibilities – underestimating threats to democratic institutions posed by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and Iran’s Mullahs. Color-blind meritocracy and biological sex have given way to harmful fantasies, with preferential treatment for some groups and favored pronouns for others. A desire for clean energy is countered by demand for clean-technology factories and electricity-hungry data centers, “leaving,” as Evan Halper wrote last week in The Washington Post, “utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.” Biden’s mandate that two thirds of all new cars be electric by 2032 will increase the demand for electricity. One asks: is the country witnessing the death of common sense and entering a death spiral? 

 

I suspect everyone, no matter their political preferences, agrees that we live in contentious times – politically, technologically, and culturally. Of the two Presidential candidates, one is visibly senescent and the other is “the crudest trash-talker in politics,” as Barton Swaim wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. AI threatens to disrupt our lives in unknown ways. DEI, CRT, gender neutral bathrooms and gendered-altered athletes have turned high schools and universities into places alien to parents and alumni.

 

Perhaps we should step back. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes” is an aphorism usually attributed to Mark Twain. It suggests that while each era is different, there are recurring themes. And as George Santayana observed, we are disadvantaged regarding the present and the future when we ignore the past. And, while our current situation is unique, the United States has survived bigger schisms – the biggest being the Civil War when eleven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. That Lincoln was able to prevent England and France from recognizing the Confederacy and keep the Union intact, while abolishing slavery, is something for which every American should be grateful. 

 

While the Civil War created chaos, the two-and-a-half decades leading up to it were unsettled, and not just because of slavery. In the twenty-four years before Abraham Lincoln was elected in a four-way race in 1860, eight men served as President. The three decades leading to the Civil War saw the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, an event that raised living standards, but that also created winners and losers: Railroads and steamships disrupted traditional means of travel, and the telegraph radicalized the way people communicated. The McCormack reaper increased the value of large Pennsylvania and Ohio farms, while lowering the value of smaller New England farms. The Singer sewing machine revolutionized the clothing industry. All were examples of Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative disruption.” More than a third of the nation’s population increase over the thirty years prior to the Civil War was due to immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Germany. Growth spurts are usually accompanied by hiccups. 

 

Turbulent times continued: Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, and over the next thirty-six years two more Presidents would be assassinated – James Garfield in 1861 and William McKinley in 1901. Native Americans continued to be attacked, captured, and placed on reservations. Black Americans continued to experience bigotry and segregation, and the late 19^th Century saw the birth of the Ku Klux Klan. The Industrial Revolution continued, with electricity, autos, and telephones being introduced, creating dislocations for carriage makers and purveyors of gas lamps, but positively affecting living standards.

 

Once again, we live in politically rancorous times, with cultural appropriation in schools, universities, and businesses and disruptive technologies like social media and artificial intelligence. Democrats have what they want in Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee, and Republicans have what they want with Democrats sticking with Joe Biden. Both parties are more interested in attacking their opponent than in promoting their candidate. Neither candidate shows any interest in reconciliation. Trump, in a statement that showed how unhinged he is from reality, claimed to have no need of Nikki Haley’s supporters, Independents, or disgruntled Democrats. In his State of the Union, Biden made no effort to appease Republicans unhappy with Trump. Instead, the speech was, as Ben Domenech wrote in The Spectator, “unhinged…spewing invective at half the country.” – the campaign speech of an angry old man, which served as a preview of the road to November.

 

Unless, unless something changes. Last Friday, No Labels held a virtual 800-delegate meeting, and the members voted, “near unanimously” as NBC put it, to move forward with the process of forming a presidential ticket to run in the 2024 election against Joe Biden and Donald Trump. An official ticket was not put forward, but one is expected. Regardless, given the ages of Biden and Trump and should Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Harvard professor and civil rights activist Cornel West persist in their presidential bids, conventions this summer may be wide-open affairs. 

 

And yet, are things as bad as they seem? No one can see into the future. Classicists remind us that empires end, and so might the United States, a nation that has stood as a defender of freedom for the world’s democracies, and a country that provides hope for the world’s oppressed. But is now that moment? I recall the late 1960s and ‘70s when society was frayed and politics were in disarray, yet we survived. It is possible that the last stanza of Edgar Guest’s (1881-1959) poem published in the March 4, 1921 issue of the Detroit Free Press will prove prescient for today’s over-whelmed American voter:

 

“And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit – 

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.”

"Time for a Third Party?"

                                                                     Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Time for a Third Party?”

February 16, 2024

 

“Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die.”

                                                                                                                                Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970)

                                                                                                                                The Age of Reform, 1955

 

As Professor Hofstadter wrote almost seventy years ago, third parties do not have an encouraging history in American politics. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive “Bull Moose” Party handed the election to Woodrow Wilson. In 1924, Robert LaFollette’s Progressive Party garnered 16.6% of the popular vote, but probably did not affect the election’s outcome. As well, Strom Thurmond in 1948 and George Wallace in 1968 ran effective campaigns but did not affect elections in those years. However, Ross Perot’s Independent Party in 1992 probably cost George H.W. Bush his re-election.

 

John Templeton once said that the four most dangerous words in investing are “this time it’s different.” Those words are ordinarily applicable to third party candidacies. However, this year does seem different. Assuming that the two lead candidates stay the course – not a sure bet – November’s election will be between two of the widely unliked (and least qualified) candidates in American history[1].

 

With Robert Kennedy, Jr. already in the race and with No Labels standing in the wings, perhaps the most comparable election would be that of 1860, which fielded four candidates: Lincoln was the Republican candidate, Stephen Douglas the Democrat, John Breckinridge ran as a Lecompton Democratic candidate, and John Bell from the Constitutional Union Party. When the smoke cleared on November 6, 1860, Lincoln had won just under 40% of the popular vote, Douglas 29.5%, Breckinridge 18.2% and Bell 12.6%. However, in terms of Electoral College votes, Lincoln was the clear winner, with 180 votes out of 303 cast.

 

Voters are often told that a vote for a third party means a vote for the opposition. In other words, Democrat leaders today tell voters that a vote for Robert Kennedy, Jr. is in fact a vote for Donald Trump. History suggests their warnings are justified, as no third party candidate has ever won the White House. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest Antonio speaks to Sebastian: “What’s past is prologue.” 

 

But the past is not always prologue? Humans have advanced, driven by those who dared to experiment, to try something new. Consider the telegraph, railroads, telephones, cars, airplanes, space travel, computers, the integrated circuit, and artificial intelligence. Our Founders, in 1789, chose a new form of government. They looked to the past but created something new – a representative, republican democracy, in which the individual was paramount and government limited. Three equal and independent branches were devised to help prevent any one person or branch from taking control. The government born in Philadelphia was, as Lincoln proclaimed at Gettysburg eighty-seven years later, a new concept in human history, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

 

Today’s two political parties did not exist in 1789. It was not until 1828 that the Democratic Party was formed, as a vehicle to help elect Andrew Jackson. The Republican Party was formed in 1854 by forces opposed to the expansion of slavery. Today, neither party is what it was a generation or two ago. The country club crowd of the northeast, once solidly Republican, has become decidedly Democratic. Internationalists of the 1950s, once solidly Republican, have become, under Mr. Trump, anti-globalists. 

 

Today, two aging men (though younger than me) – one with obvious declining cognitive powers and the other a tactless, uncouth individual who threatens to dismantle NATO – head both parties. Is it not time to seek a third way? Or, if not a third way, is it not time for leaders of both parties to recognize their flawed choices and nominate someone who can move the country forward in a manner acceptable to the majority of voters? I recall once having lunch in the Senate dining room in the early 1970s. I remember the sense of camaraderie that permeated the room – Republicans and Democrats dining together. Famously, President Reagan and House Speaker Thomas (“Tip”) O’Neil, while poles apart politically, enjoyed a mutually respectful and affectionate relationship. And similarly, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich had a mutually beneficial meeting of the minds. But I cannot imagine President Biden enjoying a drink with Speaker Mike Johnson any more than I could have imagined former President Trump sitting down to exchange stories with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. That loss of political camaraderie has become the people’s loss.

 

No Labels was launched ten years ago, initially among House members, as fault lines between the parties widened and deepened. Today, fifty House members, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, meet regularly. The House effort is led by Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA). Five years ago, No Labels began an effort to organize a similar group in the Senate. Today, their leaders include Joe Manchin (D-WV), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Krysten Sinema (I-AZ). Their goal is to find common ground, at a time when extremists from both sides dominate their parties, along with news and social media platforms. 

 

Will a Third Party, like the mythical Phoenix arise from the ashes of today’s political conflagration? I am unsure. My hope is that both parties recognize that their current preferences for President will lead to more division at home and to a more dangerous world abroad. Ironically, Democrats hope Trump is Republicans’ choice, just as Republicans hope Biden heads the Democratic slate. 

 

As I have written before, the Democratic Party, being more disciplined, is more likely to drop the Biden-Harris ticket than Republicans to dump Trump. However, as a conservative, it is my hope that Republicans recognize the futility of sticking with the flawed and (nationally) unelectable Donald Trump. They have an opportunity with Nikki Haley who polls well against Mr. Biden. But will she gain the necessary votes in the upcoming primaries? She does not generate the fanaticism of Trump followers, but she appeals to a broader array of voters. If both parties stick with today’s leaders, a Third Party candidate seems, to this observer, a likely alternative.  

 

 

 

 

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[1] To be clear, in my opinion, it is not age that is the problem; it is the mental condition of one and the character of the other. Both, in varying degrees, are corrupt and neither seems to appreciate history. As to who is most corrupt, I leave that for you to decide. There is no doubt that Mr. Biden is cognitively impaired and we, the public, have no idea who is the puppeteer pulling the strings in his administration.  There is no debate about Mr. Trump being a boorish, loose cannon in a complex and multi-cultural world when tolerance and grasp are needed. Worse, he has become an isolationist just as the world is turning more dangerous. However, Trump’s appeal, we should not forget, is to those millions of forgotten men and women ignored by identity politics, elitism, and political correctness.