Leonard W. Levy, Editor. Essays on the Making of the Constitution, Second Edition.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
This Second edition of a book originally published in 1969 still serves a useful purpose. A lengthy introduction by the editor establishes the context--the nationalist "Spirit of '76" which failed to take institutional or political form in the early months of the Revolution immediately following the Declaration of Independence would ultimately be revived and codified in the Constitution. Levy, in other words, does not play the impartial curator of historiography; he has his own point of view. In fact, he not only writes an introduction to each reading, he also gets the "last word" in with his own essay on the Bill of Rights at the end of the volume.
Naturally,the book begins with a selection of passages from "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution" by Charles Beard, and not surprisingly much of the selections which follow are direct responses to Beard's essential argument. Levy's brief introductions establish the context for each selection, and the selections in general--including Merrill Jensen, Jackson T. Main, and John P. Roche--cover many of the seminal works on post-Beard Constitutional scholarship.
This short volume is an excellent "crash-course" in the subject, and a handy resource for students and scholars alike.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Friday, October 9, 2015
Slave Counterpoint
Philip D. Morgan. Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake & Lowcountry. Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina University Press, 1998.
Morgan's epic work of scholarship won a raft of major awards upon publication in 1998, and it has endured as a modern classic ever since. Long, but neither dense nor burdened with theory, his study of the subject is possibly as "exhaustive" as it is possible to be given the paucity of primary sources. Morgan, like other historians of early America, have followed Rhys Isaac's lead, finding new ways to "read" information which previous generations might have regarded as mere decorative detail, if they even noticed them at all.
What that means in practice is that Morgan casts a wide net; he uses material culture and archaeology, as well as applying a probing, critical eye to first-person accounts by both white observers as well as slaves and former slaves. He analyzes oral histories, accounts of clothing, gesture, dialect, etc. One reason this book is so long is because Morgan was seemingly tireless in finding any possible facet of black culture during this period.
Although the subtitle might seem to indicate that this is a comparative history, that is not entirely the case; Morgan is interested in comparing these two regions--which collectively were the home of the vast majority of Eighteenth-century British North American slaves--but also in noting their similarities. While he is interested in the differences, ultimately this book is about the larger fact of American slavery, and the leading role that these two regions played in shaping the institution and its further development in the late Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries.
This is, he notes, a "structural history" (page xix), divided into three parts. Part I examines the landscape, and the agricultural reality, in each of the two sections--place is very important in understand Chesapeake and Lowcountry slavery, as are the differences between the primary cash crops (tobacco in the former, rice in the latter) and secondary cash crops (wheat, and indigo, respectively) in terms of the work required to produce them and the infrastructure required. In the Chesapeake, generally, tobacco and wheat favored smaller production units, lower capital costs, and a less relentless work regimen than rice and indigo called for in the Lowcountry. At the same time, the relatively unhealthy climate in the Lowcountry dictated that it would take longer to develop a self-sustaining (i.e., demographically self-replacing) slave population than in the Chesapeake. Therefore, large-scale importation of new slaves from Africa lasted longer there, giving Lowcountry slavery a more explicitly African tinge.
Part II explores interactions between Blacks and Whites in the two regions; this section therefore delves into issues of patriarchy, paternalism, interracial antagonism and cooperation, intimacy of all kinds as well as hostility.
Part III finally considers the Black American culture that began to take shape over the course of the century in these two regions. This is a detailed examination of everything from dance, to conversational sarcasm, dialect, funerals, African influences on religion and the assimilation of Christianity, and more.
The book is heavy with detail and anecdote, but never gets bogged down. Morgan has done a masterful job of teasing out numberless strands of meaning from a diverse range of sources and scholarly realms.
Morgan's epic work of scholarship won a raft of major awards upon publication in 1998, and it has endured as a modern classic ever since. Long, but neither dense nor burdened with theory, his study of the subject is possibly as "exhaustive" as it is possible to be given the paucity of primary sources. Morgan, like other historians of early America, have followed Rhys Isaac's lead, finding new ways to "read" information which previous generations might have regarded as mere decorative detail, if they even noticed them at all.
What that means in practice is that Morgan casts a wide net; he uses material culture and archaeology, as well as applying a probing, critical eye to first-person accounts by both white observers as well as slaves and former slaves. He analyzes oral histories, accounts of clothing, gesture, dialect, etc. One reason this book is so long is because Morgan was seemingly tireless in finding any possible facet of black culture during this period.
Although the subtitle might seem to indicate that this is a comparative history, that is not entirely the case; Morgan is interested in comparing these two regions--which collectively were the home of the vast majority of Eighteenth-century British North American slaves--but also in noting their similarities. While he is interested in the differences, ultimately this book is about the larger fact of American slavery, and the leading role that these two regions played in shaping the institution and its further development in the late Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries.
This is, he notes, a "structural history" (page xix), divided into three parts. Part I examines the landscape, and the agricultural reality, in each of the two sections--place is very important in understand Chesapeake and Lowcountry slavery, as are the differences between the primary cash crops (tobacco in the former, rice in the latter) and secondary cash crops (wheat, and indigo, respectively) in terms of the work required to produce them and the infrastructure required. In the Chesapeake, generally, tobacco and wheat favored smaller production units, lower capital costs, and a less relentless work regimen than rice and indigo called for in the Lowcountry. At the same time, the relatively unhealthy climate in the Lowcountry dictated that it would take longer to develop a self-sustaining (i.e., demographically self-replacing) slave population than in the Chesapeake. Therefore, large-scale importation of new slaves from Africa lasted longer there, giving Lowcountry slavery a more explicitly African tinge.
Part II explores interactions between Blacks and Whites in the two regions; this section therefore delves into issues of patriarchy, paternalism, interracial antagonism and cooperation, intimacy of all kinds as well as hostility.
Part III finally considers the Black American culture that began to take shape over the course of the century in these two regions. This is a detailed examination of everything from dance, to conversational sarcasm, dialect, funerals, African influences on religion and the assimilation of Christianity, and more.
The book is heavy with detail and anecdote, but never gets bogged down. Morgan has done a masterful job of teasing out numberless strands of meaning from a diverse range of sources and scholarly realms.
Sunday, October 4, 2015
The Transformation of Virginia
Rhyss Isaac. The Transformation of Virginia: 1740-1790.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.
Isaac's book is a classic of cultural history; one which not only forced a reconsideration of the Revolutionary era, but also pointed the way towards a new methodology. Over three decades since it won the Pulitzer Prize for History, its status as a modern classic of Early American historiography seems secure.
He tells his story in a decidedly non-linear style, eschewing narrative and and an extended, explicit argument for the cumulative power of vignettes and descriptive sketches. Isaac confronts the challenge that faced any historian of colonial Virginia who wishes to match the depth of intellectual insight and cultural meaning scholars of colonial New England have been able to achieve--namely, the extreme paucity of written sources produced by Virginians relative to the wealth produced by the much more literate and bookish New Englanders. Isaac--as he explains in the Appendix, "Discourse on Method"--turned to alternate sources and alternate modes of "reading" them. Therefore, Part I consists of a large number of brief sketches of material and physical culture, broadly defined--houses and landscapes, yes, as well as clothing and furniture, but also dancing, horse-racing, seating arrangements at public events such as church and "court days" at the County courthouse. Gestures and public speaking are all "texts" that Isaac reads in order to recreate the world of colonial Virginia as it existed in 1740.
In Part II, he goes on to show that the colonial social order which seemingly was becoming more settled and secure by 1740 would soon be challenged and ultimately undermined by changes coming from within; changes rooted in the Great Awakening and the evangelical movement which continued to flourish and grow in its wake. Evangelicalism challenged the static and hierarchical nature of colonial society and encouraged the growth of individualism, which was incompatible with the corporate social idea which the traditional gentry both believed in and relied on to preserve their power and status. For the gentry, traditional Virginia religion--vested in the Anglican Church--was a bulwark against anarchy and change. For evangelicals, the Anglican establishment was corrupt and insufficient for the spiritual needs of Virginia's people. In the end, he traces the final throes of this struggle within the legislative battles which led to the passing of one of Thomas Jefferson's proudest accomplishments--the Act for Establishing Freedom of Religion. The temporary political alliance between mostly back-country Baptists and the liberal gentry of the Tidewater and Piedmont was, according to Isaac, a sign of the degree to which individualism was now regarded as the basis of society.
Part III briefly details how this new individualism took shape, in matters of changing political behaviors, new architectural norms, and a decline of the conviviality which the pre-war gentry had been famous (and prided itself) for. Virginia was still a largely rural, agrarian society--and it was still a slave society--but in many ways it entered the nineteenth century as a much different place than it had been a few decades earlier.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.
Isaac's book is a classic of cultural history; one which not only forced a reconsideration of the Revolutionary era, but also pointed the way towards a new methodology. Over three decades since it won the Pulitzer Prize for History, its status as a modern classic of Early American historiography seems secure.
He tells his story in a decidedly non-linear style, eschewing narrative and and an extended, explicit argument for the cumulative power of vignettes and descriptive sketches. Isaac confronts the challenge that faced any historian of colonial Virginia who wishes to match the depth of intellectual insight and cultural meaning scholars of colonial New England have been able to achieve--namely, the extreme paucity of written sources produced by Virginians relative to the wealth produced by the much more literate and bookish New Englanders. Isaac--as he explains in the Appendix, "Discourse on Method"--turned to alternate sources and alternate modes of "reading" them. Therefore, Part I consists of a large number of brief sketches of material and physical culture, broadly defined--houses and landscapes, yes, as well as clothing and furniture, but also dancing, horse-racing, seating arrangements at public events such as church and "court days" at the County courthouse. Gestures and public speaking are all "texts" that Isaac reads in order to recreate the world of colonial Virginia as it existed in 1740.
In Part II, he goes on to show that the colonial social order which seemingly was becoming more settled and secure by 1740 would soon be challenged and ultimately undermined by changes coming from within; changes rooted in the Great Awakening and the evangelical movement which continued to flourish and grow in its wake. Evangelicalism challenged the static and hierarchical nature of colonial society and encouraged the growth of individualism, which was incompatible with the corporate social idea which the traditional gentry both believed in and relied on to preserve their power and status. For the gentry, traditional Virginia religion--vested in the Anglican Church--was a bulwark against anarchy and change. For evangelicals, the Anglican establishment was corrupt and insufficient for the spiritual needs of Virginia's people. In the end, he traces the final throes of this struggle within the legislative battles which led to the passing of one of Thomas Jefferson's proudest accomplishments--the Act for Establishing Freedom of Religion. The temporary political alliance between mostly back-country Baptists and the liberal gentry of the Tidewater and Piedmont was, according to Isaac, a sign of the degree to which individualism was now regarded as the basis of society.
Part III briefly details how this new individualism took shape, in matters of changing political behaviors, new architectural norms, and a decline of the conviviality which the pre-war gentry had been famous (and prided itself) for. Virginia was still a largely rural, agrarian society--and it was still a slave society--but in many ways it entered the nineteenth century as a much different place than it had been a few decades earlier.
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