Age of Jefferson Blog

Additional study terms from Gordon-Reed book & accompanying lecture

2008-12-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

Students may remember there was no hand-out on the day we had our discussion of Annette Gordon-Reed's Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy and mini-lecture on African-Americans in the Early Republic. Here are some terms to use in studying this material for the test.

TERMS AND CONCEPTS

gradual abolition
manumission laws
growth of free black communities: occupations, AME Church
George Washington's slaves
American Colonization Society
slave trade, changes in
Jefferson, Thomas: attitudes toward race and slavery
"diffusion" argument
Hemings, Sally
Hemings, James
Hemings, Madison
Wayles, John
Jefferson, Martha Wayles
Carr brothers
Randolph, Thomas J.
Randolph, Martha Jefferson
Coolidge, Ellen Randolph
Callender, James
Historians' arguments against a Thomas Jefferson-Sally Hemings relationship

Jefferson gets blamed for everything!

2008-12-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

If students are looking for something to comment on, check out this interesting/frightening article on "The Creation Museum" in northern Kentucky near Cincinnati. The place is an expensive, high-tech send-up of modern scientific thought about natural history, devoted to presenting the text of the Bible as literal scientific fact. Yet guess who gets named by the article's author (Joseph Clarke) as one of the museum's intellectual progenitors? Poor Thomas Jefferson. He clipped up the Gospels for nothing, apparently.

But while the Creation Museum undoubtedly reflects these recent trends, moralistic distrust of city life has a rich history in America. When, in 1925, John Scopes was tried for teaching Darwinism to a high school science class in violation of Tennessee law, the case against him was argued by William Jennings Bryan, a luminary of the young fundamentalist movement and a staunch agrarian. In Bryan’s view, urban industrial capitalism was inextricable from the social Darwinist credo of survival of the fittest and the cultural ills to which it gave rise. Before Bryan, Thomas Jefferson argued against Alexander Hamilton that the cold rationality of economic development would lead to social waywardness unless held in check by a thriving agrarian culture: “Corruption of morals...is the mark set upon those, who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on casualties and caprice of customers.” Jefferson’s proposed design for the Great Seal of the United States depicted the nation of Israel journeying through the wilderness in search of the Promised Land.

There is a lot more to this article than this little attack on Jefferson, but still. Read the whole thing, and comment on Clarke's view of Jefferson, or the article or Creation Museum in general.

[You can also comment on the more elaborate version of this post on my main blog.]

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Fun with citations, part 2 (including citation guide)

2008-12-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

This should have been part 1! Here is a very nice brief guide to the Turabian citation style from the University of Georgia libraries. I would greatly prefer it if students would try use this style rather than the parenthetical reference/reference list style (like APA & APSA) many of you may have picked up from social science classes. Those are not compatible with extensive primary research. Bibliographies are appreciated but will not be necessary if you use full citations in your notes.

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Turabian Style

Format for Bibliographies

Based upon Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed., 1996. (Copies available at Main and Science Library Reference and Reserve Desks call number LB2369 .T8 1996)

Type of Entry	Note Form (first note)*	Bibliographic Form
Book--single author	1. Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1988), 425.	Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random House, 1988.
Book--multiple authors	2. John E. Schwarz and Thomas J. Volgy, The Forgotten American (New York: Norton, 1992), 42.	Schwarz, John E., and Thomas J. Volgy. The Forgotten American. New York: Norton, 1992.
Encyclopedia article	3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. "cold war."	None: "Well-known reference books are generally not listed in bibliographies" (8.112).
Newspaper article	4. "The Wrong Issue in Bosnia," New York Times, 22 March 1996, sec. A, p. 26.	None: "News items from daily papers are rarely listed separately in a bibliography... If a newspaper is cited only once or twice, a note...is sufficient" (11.44).
Magazine Article	5. David Ansen, "Spielberg's Obsession," Newsweek, 20 December 1993, 112.	Ansen, David. "Spielberg's Obsession." Newsweek, 20 December 1993, 112-116.
Journal article	6. Christopher Policano, "Dueling Colas," Public Relations Journal41, no. 11 (1985): 16.	Policano, Christopher. "Dueling Colas." Public Relations Journal 41, no. 11 (1985): 16-17.
Article from online database	7. Patrick O'Driscoll, "Baggage Conveyor Takes Suitcase Taste Test," Denver Post, 20 February 1994, B3, in LEXIS/NEXIS [database on-line], NEWS library, DPOST file; accessed May 13, 1996.	None: "News items from daily papers are rarely listed separately in a bibliography... If a newspaper is cited only once or twice, a note...is sufficient" (11.44).
Article from online database	8. John R. McRae, "Buddhism," Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 2 (1995), in Periodical Abstracts Research [database on-line], UMI- Proquest, GALILEO; accessed May 13, 1996.	McRae, John R. "Buddhism." Journal of Asian Studies 54, no. 2 (1995): 354-371. Periodical Abstracts Research. Database on-line. UMI-Proquest, GALILEO; accessed May 13, 1996.
Document from CD-ROM	9. United Parcel Service, "1994 Report to Shareowners," 31 December 1994, in LaserD [CD-ROM] (Bethesda, MD: Disclosure, 1995).	United Parcel Service. "1994 Report to Shareowners," 31 December 1994. LaserD. CD-ROM. Bethesda, MD: Disclosure, 1995.
Internet/World WideWeb site	10. Federal Election Commission,"Receipts of 1996 Presidential Pre-Nomination Campaigns"; available from http://www.fec.gov/pres96/ pres1b.jpg; Internet; accessed 13 May 1996.	Federal Election Commission. "Receipts of 1996 Presidential Pre- Nomination Campaigns." Available from http://www.fec. gov.pres96/pres1b.jpg. Internet; accessed 13 May 1996.

*"The place in the text where a note is introduced, whether footnote or endnote, is marked with an arabic numeral typed slightly above the line (superscript)" (8.7). "Note numbers preceding the footnotes themselves are preferably typed on the line, followed by a period. If the computer system used generates footnotes with superscript numbers, however, that is also acceptable" (8.10).

Format for Additional Note References

"Once a work has been cited in complete form, later references to it are shortened. For this, either short titles or the Latin abbreviation ibid. (for ibidem, "in the same place") should be used" (8.84).

Use this form after the first full reference when there are no intervening references:	2. Ibid.
Use this form when there are no intervening references and the reference is to a different page in the same work:	3. Ibid., 68.
Use this form when there are intervening references between the first full reference and this one (book and article titles may be shortened):	12. Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie, 425.
	13. Ansen, "Spielberg's Obsession," 116.

Fun with citations, part 1

2008-12-03T13:55:00.000-08:00

I suspect most upper-level history students are quite capable of following the Turabian or Chicago styles themselves they put their minds to it, but I will provide here a little capsule summary of the style I use, which basically follows Turabian. I will try emphasize the particular types of sources most of you are using. These examples are in the style you would in a footnote or endnote. The best way to learn a citation style is to follow the pattern another scholar has used. If you need a very large number of detailed practical examples, covering many different types of sources, you could do a lot worse than studying the endnotes of my book chapter on lobbying, which you should already have read.

DOCUMENTS IN PRIMARY SOURCE COLLECTIONS -- you should always be citing the individual documents, rather than the whole volume or series

The format for a letter is:

Author to Recipient, date, Lead or first editor of collection, ed., Title of collection (Place of publication: Publisher, Date or date range of publication), Volume:Page numbers
Examples:

James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 10 Jan. 1796, Julian P. Boyd et al, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950-), 28:577.

John Beckley to James Madison, 10 Sept. 1795, William T. Hutchinson et al, eds., The Papers of James Madison (Vols. 1-10, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962-1977; vols. 11-17, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977-1991), 16:86.For other sorts of documents in the collections, you will need to list the author and title of the document instead of the sender and recipient, then the date and the other information.

You can cite more than one item in a note by separating the references with semi-colons. You should also shorten the references if you have to re-use them later in your paper. So the first example above could be shortened to: Madison to Jefferson, 10 Jan. 1796, Boyd, ed., Papers of Jefferson, 28:577. You have some freedom about how you shorten references. The main thing is to do it consistently.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE -- don't worry about what database it came from; the publication information is what is important. Give an author or title if available, but know they often will not be. You can also use the pseudonym as the author or title, depending on the circumstances.

"From a George-Town Paper," Newark Centinel of Freedom, 25 January 1797.More later . . .
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Term paper due date clarified

2008-12-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

As we discussed in class this morning, the term papers are going to be due in the last class period, 11 December 2008. There was an inconsistency in the syllabus, and the later date seemed to be more popular. See you Thursday!

P.S. A term sheet for the Jefferson-Hemings discussion day and lecture will be coming soon.

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Now playing: The Action - Brain

Course website access [UPDATED]

2008-12-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

I am having some issues with the pasleybrothers.com domain thanks to an "upgrade" at my hosting service. The main course site URL now works again, but the Virtual Reader links are messed up. It can be reached at:

http://www.pasleybrothers.com/mocourses/jefferson/virtual_reader.htm

[NOTE: Post updated to reflect the current state of the site.]

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Now playing: The Capstan Shafts - Use The Poets As Barricades

Question for students: Just how evil was Thomas Jefferson?

2008-11-19T19:30:00.000-08:00

It's not me asking, but it was more or less what Irish writer Conor Cruise O'Brien asked in his 1996 article, "Thomas Jefferson: Radical or Racist?" Now that have read (or once you have read) Jefferson's letters on the French Revolution -- see the Virtual Reader -- and about his relations with the Hemings family in Annette Gordon-Reed's book, give your response to O'Brien's screed. (These passages from Jefferson's writings on race and slavery may also be informative. You have probably seen them already.) Most present-day historians and commentators would not be as harsh as O'Brien, but many make some basically similar points that, like O'Brien, follow some of the Federalist attacks on Jefferson in his own time. Do you think Gordon-Reed would agree them?

Dr. Benjamin Rush, medical genius of the Early Republic

2008-10-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

In answer to some of the student questions raised by my discussion of the state of medical practice in the 1790s, specifically as employed by Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush, here are some answers.

I found an extensive discussion of the "explosively powerful" purgatives Rush used, and a picture of his medicine chest here. Calomel (a.k.a. mercury chloride) was apparently his favorite purgative. It used to be used in certain cosmetics as well as medicines, but that is illegal now. One source says it was also used for insecticides, but I imagine that is illegal now too, at least for household use.

On the amount of blood that might be drained from a patient, graduate student Roger Robinson found the following:

One typical course of medical treatment began the morning of 13 July 1824. A French sergeant was stabbed through the chest while engaged in single combat; within minutes he fainted from loss of blood. Arriving at the local hospital he was immediately bled twenty ounces (570 ml) "to prevent inflammation". During the night he was bled another 24 ounces (680 ml). Early next morning the chief surgeon bled the patient another 10 ounces (285 ml); during the next 14 hours he was bled five more times. Medical attendants thus intentionally removed more than half of the patient's normal blood supply - in addition to the initial blood loss which caused the sergeant to faint. Bleedings continued over the next several days. By 29 July the wound had become inflamed. The physician applied 32 leeches to the most sensitive part of the wound. Over the next three days there were more bleedings and a total of 40 more leeches. The sergeant recovered and was discharged on 3 October. His physician wrote that "by the large quantity of blood lost, amounting to 170 ounces [nearly eleven pints] (4.8 liters), besides that drawn by the application of leeches [perhaps another two pints] (1.1 liter), the life of the patient was preserved". By nineteenth-century standards, thirteen pints of blood taken over the space of a month was a large but not an exceptional quantity. The medical literature of the period contains many similar accounts-some successful, some not.

Delpech, M (1825). "Case of a Wound of the Right Carotid Artery". Lancet 6: 210-213.

SP & JB on TJ (and religion)

2008-10-02T15:18:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Katie Couric vice-presidential interviews crossed paths with our class this week. Watch and learn (?), as you get ready for tonight's debate (The Donnybrook on Delmar! The Skunking on Skinker!) at Wash. U. in St. Louis:

Palin actually makes a halfway decent point about Jefferson at the beginning of her answer, about on par with Couric's poor quotation, then goes downhill from there.

WWJS?

2008-09-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

What would Jefferson say, I mean, about this?

Pastor Luke Emrich prepared his sermon this week knowing his remarks could invite an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. But that was the whole point, so Emrich forged ahead with his message: Thou shalt vote according to the Scriptures.
"I'm telling you straight up, I would choose life," Emrich told about 100 worshippers Sunday at New Life Church, a nondenominational evangelical congregation about 40 miles from Milwaukee.

"I would cast a vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin," he said. "But friends, it's your choice to make, it's not my choice. I won't be in the voting booth with you."

All told, 33 pastors in 22 states were to make pointed recommendations about political candidates Sunday, an effort orchestrated by the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.

The conservative legal group plans to send copies of the pastors' sermons to the IRS with hope of setting off a legal fight and abolishing restrictions on church involvement in politics. Critics call it unnecessary, divisive and unlikely to succeed.

Congress amended the tax code in 1954 to state that certain nonprofit groups, including secular charities and places of worship, can lose their tax-exempt status for intervening in a campaign involving candidates.

Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said hundreds of churches volunteered to take part in "Pulpit Freedom Sunday." Thirty-three were chosen, in part for "strategic criteria related to litigation" Stanley wouldn't discuss.

Pastor Jody Hice of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Bethlehem, Ga., said in an interview Sunday that his sermon compared Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain on abortion and gay marriage and concluded that McCain "holds more to a biblical world view."

He said he urged the Southern Baptist congregation to vote for McCain.

"The basic thrust was this was not a matter of endorsing, it's a First Amendment issue," Hice said. "To say the church can't deal with moral and societal issues if it enters into the political arena is just wrong, it's unconstitutional."

There's more here.

In answering this, don't jump to conclusions. Think about Jefferson's writings on religion and politics and the Constitution from your reading so far, and supplement them with this 1798 letter to John Taylor and his famous reply to the Danbury Baptist Association.

Are you enlightened?

2008-09-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

My apologies for forgetting to post this last week. Here are a couple of questions to consider and answer as you finish going through the Enlightenment Reader: The Enlightenment is considered a cornerstone of modern thought. What Enlightenment principles do we still live by? Do any seem to have been abandoned?

Gentility, Lobbying, and Corruption

2008-09-10T17:09:00.000-07:00

We need to move on in the course, so I think I will not be addressing in lecture one of the important political practices that gentility helped foster. I explain it much better in print anyway, and we can discuss it here. So, just to make sure everyone gets the point, please read the assigned article on lobbying in the Early Republic and answer these questions: How did the culture of gentility pave the way for the beginnings of lobbying in the United States? Do the activities of men like the Rev. Manasseh Cutler and William Duer right in their midst indicate that the Founders had a bit of a corruption problem? The first question has a definite answer, the second leaves more room for your own interpretation.

"Deference" in the news

2008-09-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to alert my students to a post on my other blog about a concept we discussed last week, "deference." Apparently the "natural aristocracy" is alive and well, at least in their own minds.

Duelling for Fun and Friendship

2008-09-07T16:39:00.000-07:00

Linked here is the one version of the "code duello," or the rules that American duellists used in the era of the Founders. While the most famous duels were between politicians and military officers, the code could also be used to deal with minor or major verbal disputes of any kind among gentlemen, including college students. Please read it and consider: Was this a brutal and unreasonable system? What would be the impact in your social circle if people knew they might have to stand and be shot at from 30 feet away across an open field, for treating someone inconsiderately or criticizing them to others?

OTHER RESOURCES: PBS has a good brief history of dueling in American here. A site called How Stuff Works has a surprisingly good explanation on how duelling operated, including but also going beyond early America. A brief history of the Burr-Hamilton duel, and images of the site and the letters leading up the encounter, appear in "Interview at Weehawken."

Any particular duel would make a great paper topic, though if Burr and Hamilton is your interest I would probably make you pick some aspect of their lives or relationship rather than the duel itself.

Jefferson and Adams on the "Natural Aristocracy"

2008-08-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

After their presidencies, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams renewed the friendship had been strained just a bit by competing against each other in two presidential elections. Adams won in 1796, Jefferson came back and beat him in 1800. They carried on a long-distance philosophical discussion that continued until nearly the end of their lives. One point they realized they agreed on was that America and all other societies had a "natural" aristocracy, and that the goal of any good political system should be to see that such natural aristocrats controlled the powers of government. Here's Jefferson, from a letter I will quote in class:

For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent it's ascendancy.

Read the whole thing. Adams's reply can be found online beginning here. The available copy is in Jefferson's handwriting, so you may need to use the link on each page that brings up a larger, higher-resolution image. Don't worry about the many historical references and ancient-language quotations in these letter unless you want to.

Directing this question to my students, what do you think, did these Founders really favor an aristocracy? Are Jefferson's and/or Adams's consistent with American democracy as you understand it?

Welcome 2008 students

2008-08-26T07:22:00.001-07:00

Watch this space for more, but for now here is this year's syllabus, with a few corrections from the one posted on the main site.

Review sheet for final

2006-05-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

I forgot about this over the week-end, but the final review sheet is now up on the main course web site.

Images related to last couple of lectures, and test

2006-05-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

Friday April 21 lecture cancelled -- discuss the Whiskey Rebellion here

2006-04-19T06:40:00.000-07:00

I have to go out of town on Friday for a last-minute meeting. Because of the small amount of time we have left, I am posting the complete lecture notes for the next topic, "1794: The Year of the Gun." Please read these along with Thomas Slaughter's book on the Whiskey Rebellion. Those who need to boost their participitation/attendance scores may post comments or questions on the book and lecture here. Consider the question: Do you find the Whiskey Rebellion to be the crucial turning point in American history that Slaughter makes it out to be? Why or why not?

The Great Sally Hemings Debate

2006-03-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

As I explained in class, by next Monday March 29, please read Annette Gordon-Reed's Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings and Jefferson's writings on race and slavery. Then prepare yourself for a little debate. Students with last names beginning with A-L should prepare to take the "guilty" side of the question, last names M-Z the "not guilty." The graduate students can be the jury and ask questions and help decide the penalty if the verdict is guilty.

Students are free to organize themselves and appoint spokespeople, or I will just call on people. Students who are more comfortable with writing or can't come to class can answer in the comment thread below.

Midterm Questions

2006-03-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

If there are any questions about the mid-term, please post them here as comments. Someone already e-mailed me to ask about citing lecture notes. Yes, you may do that. Cite the lectures parenthetically as follows: (Class lecture, 3/2/06), changing the date to the correct one. If are citing directly off one of the outlines, which I do not recommend, cite the outline title and date in a footnote or endnote.

Map related to this morning's lecture

2006-03-03T13:57:00.000-08:00

This morning when I was discussing the difficulty of travel in early America, I had meant to display the following map show the estimated travel time before and after the transportation revolution of the mid-19th century.

Midterms postponed a week

2006-02-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

Just so we can we have the mid-term at the thematic break-point of the course, I am going to postpone the tests a week. This means that the take-home will be distributed on Friday, March 3 (due March 10) & the in-class will be held Monday, March 6.

General interest from TomPaine.com

2006-02-17T05:20:00.000-08:00

Regaining Our Common Sense
Harvey J. Kaye
January 10, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/01/10/regaining_our_common_sense.php

Harvey J. Kaye is professor of social change and development at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America (Hill and Wang, 2005).

The 230th anniversary of the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense—the brilliant little pamphlet whose arguments literally turned the world upside down— invites reflection both on the state of the nation to which it gave birth and on the state of the left to which it gave rise and whose many generations carried on the fight to realize the democratic vision rendered in its pages. Recalling Paine’s work should serve, as well, to remind us of not only what we stand in opposition to, but also what we stand in opposition for. And ultimately we might ask, “What would Tom Paine do?”

Born in 1737, the son of an English Quaker artisan and an Anglican mother, Paine had a career before coming to Philadelphia in 1774 that included corsetmaking, privateering, tax collecting, preaching, teaching, labor campaigning and shopkeeping, punctuated by bouts of poverty, the loss of two wives, business bankruptcy and dismissal from government service (twice!). And yet as much as he came to despise kingly rule, aristocratic privilege and religious establishments for their oppression, exploitation and corruption, Paine did not pick up his pen to assail Crown, Constitution and Empire out of anger alone.

It was his love for America that turned Paine into a radical writer. Struck by the country’s prospects and possibilities, and moved by the spirit and determination of its people to resist British authority, Paine devoted himself to the American cause. And through Common Sense and his later Crisis Papers , he emboldened his new compatriots to turn their rebellion into a revolutionary war, defined the new nation in a democratically expansive and progressive fashion, and articulated an American identity charged with exceptional purpose and promise.
Sincerely believing that, “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth,” Paine translated American anxieties and aspirations into a powerful cry for independence. But it was never simply a matter of separating from Britain.

Paine’s own experience—reinforced by what he witnessed in America— convinced him that working people, not just the highborn and propertied, had the capacity both to comprehend the world and to govern it. And by addressing his arguments not merely to the governing elites, but all the more to those who traditionally were excluded from political debate and deliberation, he transformed the very idea of politics and the political nation.

Utterly rejecting the old political and social order and pressing for national unity, Paine called for an American constitution—empowered by the people— that would create a democratic government and guarantee freedom to all, and above all else freedom of conscience and worship (which, he clearly stated, required separating church and state). And in that spirit he projected an Independence Day filled with splendid democratic ritual:

"[L]et a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. But lest any ill should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is."

Moreover, appreciating America’s ethnic diversity, Paine foresaw the United States welcoming to its shores freedom-loving folk from all nations:

" O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."

Declaring that, “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind,” Paine envisioned the United States serving not only as a refuge, but also as a model, and in time a champion, of freedom and republican democracy. And possessed of tremendous confidence in his fellow citizens to be, he proclaimed that, “We have it in our power to begin the world again.”
To the chagrin of conservatives, and against their best efforts to suppress Paine’s memory, American progressives—men and women, native-born and immigrant— for two hundred years thereafter were to draw ideas, inspiration and encouragement from Paine’s life and labors as they themselves sought to extend and deepen freedom, equality and democracy.

Heartened and animated by Paine, we pressed for the rights of workers; insisted upon freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state; demanded the abolition of slavery; campaigned for the equality of women; confronted the power of property and wealth; opposed the tyrannies of fascism and communism; fought a second American Revolution for racial justice and equality; and challenged our own government’s authorities and policies, domestic and foreign. Though we regularly suffered defeats and committed mistakes, we also achieved great victories and, more often than not, transformed the nation and the world for the better.
Evidently, struggles continue. Yet something has changed. Somewhere along the way, we lost the political courage and conviction that once motivated our efforts. Arguably, we lost touch with Paine.

Clearly our own “times that try men’s souls” differ profoundly from those Paine confronted. Yet we, too, find ourselves subject to a regime that ignores the needs of working people, promotes aristocratic power and wealth, pursues imperial policies, makes religion a test for public office and places itself above the law.

Far more than simply reciting Paine’s lines and acknowledging their author, the revitalization of progressive politics demands that we redeem Paine’s radical spirit. We must reaffirm our faith in America’s great purpose and promise, recover our belief in the prospects and possibilities of democratic change and regain our confidence in our fellow citizens. For only then, Paine would surely say, might we “have it in our power to begin the world over again.”

Reading assignment in the Portable Enlightenment Reader

2006-02-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here are the excerpts from Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader, that you should read. Note that we have already discussed many of these thinkers in lecture, while others will come up later.

Introduction
Part I: selections by Kant, d'Alembert, Diderot, Dumarsais, Condorcet
Part II: selections by Bacon, Newton, Voltaire, Condorcet, Priestley, Franklin
Part III: selections by Locke, Shaftesbury, Newton, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Gibbon, Jefferson, Franklin, Temple of Reason, Paine
Part IV: Mind and Ideas --selections by Descartes, Locke, Voltaire, Hume, Reid, Condillac
Part IV: Education and Childhood -- selections by Locke, Rousseau & Priestley
Part IV: Manners and Morals -- selections by Mandeville, Pope, Diderot, Hutcheson, Smith, Kant
Part IV : Taste and Art --selections by Hutcheson, Rousseau, Smith, Kant
Part V: Progress and History -- selections by Turgot, Smith, Ferguson, Priestley, Condorcet
Part V: Politics and the State (all)
Part V: Markets and Economcs -- selection by Hume, Smith

More selections from Part V will be posted shortly.

If you bog down in this material, the selections from Locke are by far the most important.

Welcome to History 4000/7000 for 2006

2006-01-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

This blog will be my principal electronic means of communicating with students. Students will also be able to participate here by means of the comment section. You may have to register with Blogger.com in order to comment, but in any case students should use their real 1st & last names (no student numbers) in order to get proper credit for their postings.