“Toward An American Revolution”
Exposing the Constitution and Other Illusions
by Jerry Fresia
Fresia’s book provides additional insight into the Federalist Constitutional coup against the Articles of Confederation in the aftermath of Shay’s and the Whiskey Rebellions as discussed in our July 4, 2017 post, “America; A Short Story (ver 2.0)”.
Fresia leans radical left (Marxist class-based) but his historical review is equally supportive of a more libertarian (freedom-based) orientation.
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Marker Denoting the First Anti-Federalist Rebellion by American Patriots
Afraid to Reflect (excerpt)
Consider certain features of the lives of three men. The first was a very wealthy man. In l787, many considered him the richest man in
all the thirteen states. His will of l789 revealed that he owned 35,000 acres in Virginia and 1,119 acres in Maryland. He owned property in Washington valued (in 1799 dollars) at $19,132, in
Alexandria at $4,000, in Winchester at $400, and in Bath at $800. He also held $6,246 worth of U.S. securities, $10,666 worth of shares in the James River Company, $6,800 worth of stock in the Bank of Columbia, and $1,000 worth of stock in the Bank of Alexandria. His livestock was valued at $15,653. As early as 1773, he had enslaved 216 human beings who were not emancipated until after he and his wife had both died.
The second man was a lawyer. He often expressed his admiration of monarchy and, correspondingly, his disdain and contempt for
common people. His political attitudes were made clear following an incident which occurred in Boston on March 5, 1770. On that day, a number of ropemakers got into an argument with British
soldiers whose occupation of Boston had threatened the ropemakers’ jobs. A fight broke out and an angry crowd developed. The British
soldiers responded by firing into the crowd, killing several. The event has since become known as the Boston Massacre. The soldiers involved in the shooting were later acquitted thanks, in part, to the skills of the lawyer we have been describing, who was selected as the defense attorney for the British. He described the
crowd as “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs.”
The life of the third man was more complex, more filled with contradiction than the other two. He was wealthy. He owned over 10,000 acres and by 1809 he had enslaved 185 human beings. States one biographer, “He lived with the grace and elegance of many British lords; his house slaves alone numbered twenty-five.” Yet
slavery caused him great anxiety; he seems to have sincerely desired the abolition of slavery but was utterly incapable of acting in a way which was consistent with his abolitionist sympathies. He gave his daughter twenty-five slaves as a wedding present, for example. And when confronted with his indebtedness of $107,000
at the end of his life in 1826, he noted that at least his slaves constituted liquid capital. He had several children by one of his slaves and thus found himself in the position of having to face
public ridicule or keep up the elaborate pretense that his slave children did not exist. He chose the latter course and arranged, discreetly, to have them “run away.”
Who are these three men? We know them well. They are among our “Founding Fathers,” or Framers as we shall call them. They are the
first three presidents of the United States, George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.
The brief sketches of these men are but glimpses into their personal lives, but some of the details are significantly revealing. They suggest that the Framers, far from champions of the people, were
rich and powerful men who sought to maintain their wealth and status by figuring out ways to keep common people down.
Moreover, I shall present additional evidence about the lives of the Framers, the Constitution, and the period in which it was written which supports the contention that the Framers were profoundly anti-democratic and afraid of the people. Some of the information may be surprising. In 1782, for example, Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris believed that a stronger central government was needed to “restrain the democratic spirit” in the states. Eric Foner
tells us that Morris’s private correspondence reveals “only contempt for the common people.”
Benjamin Rush, “the distinguished scientist and physician” from Philadelphia and Framer (although he was not at the Constitutional Convention), would often refer to common people as “scum.” Alexander Hamilton called the people
“a great beast.”
Not all the Framers resorted to name calling, but it is clear that they feared and distrusted the political participation of common people. Perhaps even more shocking than the personal
opinions of the Framers, is the process by which the Constitution was ratified. As described in more detail in Chapter 3, secrecy, deceit and even violence played key roles in the Constitution’s
passage. These unsavory tactics were used by the Framers and their allies because the majority of the people were against the ratification of the Constitution…
It is contrary to everything we’ve been taught about the Framers to hear that they felt contempt for common people and that their Constitutional Convention was profoundly undemocratic. Indeed
such accusations sound even less familiar in the context of the late 1980s when celebrations of the Constitution’s bicentennial have brought adulation of this country’s political origins to new and even more mindless heights.
In its issue celebrating the bicentennial, Newsweek gushed, “The educated men in post-Revolutionary America,” (and one must presume that this includes the Framers),
“embraced the political tradition of participatory democracy, the social pretense of virtual classlessness and the economic fact of
absolute equality of opportunity.”
The “Founding Fathers” are always the champions of freedom, justice, and democracy.
“Reverence is due to those men…,” states
Time magazine in its special bicentennial issue…
Fresia would be among the first to correctly point out that slaveholders and indian-fighters could be found among the leaders of both the Federalists and the anti-Federalists.
We part company with Fresia, when, later in his Introduction, he gives up any freedom-loving principles by endorsing a tyranny of “revolutionary leaders of today” [who might Fresia had in mind here, Bill and Hillary Clinton? Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Bernie Sanders, Jessie Jackson? He doesn’t say] “who are genuinely committed to directing meager resources to the majority poor in the Third World…”
Fresia does not disguise himself as the Statist/Centralist/Fascist of the left that he is. Like the Federalists, Fresia appeals to our innate freedom and liberty-loving sensibilities as he seeks to deliver us into the arms of a new oppressor.
SSDD (same shit, different dogma).
Despite Fresia’s foolish Marxist prescriptions, “Toward An American Revolution” is worth reading for its historical analysis of the Revolutionary period. Just ignore the Marxist claptrap.
Toward an American Revolution is available as a free pdf file here.
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has all that much changed ? and don’t they have a point ? consider the majority voted for zero twice and for Hillary, seems cut and dry stupidity, and don’t our leaders despise us ? all is as it ever was and will be until men rely upon god and there neighbors instead of leaders
Absolutely… if one “interacts” with the general masses of the populace than one would find a reason to fear those masses. The masses act as a single hive mind when pushed with propaganda which has been shown time and again (Bernays).
The “name calling” existed then and exists today only the name calling seemed to cover a whole many more demographics in the past and seemed to have much more creativity than today.
Painting slave owners with a broad stroke during a period of time in which it was common place and happened not only to blacks but to the Irish and Italians as well as every other culture on the planet is just plain ignorant. Comparing to different time periods in the same ideologies is also ignorant. If one was to look at the time of monarchs and their divine rule and how ALL were “subjects” compared to today where most are “subjects” the peoples of that time would think we were the lunatics…
all hind sight is 20/20 and viewed through the lens of the current ideology.
Human nature requires no hindsight handicapping. It’s very consistent, & it’s no ideology, either.
The slavers of the early empire days were always intent upon upgrading their sable hair brushes & black (& red) paint to rollers & airguns & all the colors (of peoples) contained within their pre & post constitutional CAFO.
The propaganda of that day differed in the details necessary to enslave & use the mass from other days, but propaganda is propaganda. Using it to marshal the masses is old, well-known, & works consistently. And when it fails, there is always force – also by propagandized pigeons – standing by.
They were framers, alright. Prison building carpenters.
All I’m reading is a Marxist engaged in critical theory.
The only rights we have ever had are those we take by force or persuasion. The Constitution is great propaganda and plenty of people can defend it in theory but not in fact. Go back a decade at a time and see who had what rights and for how long.
Digit mentioned Irish and Italian slavery, rarely mentioned and never in Public Schools. This was not Indentured servants either, that gets thrown in to the conversation to derail the topic.
You could buy a Catholic Irish slave for 5 Schillings and work them to death and throw them in a ditch and buy another. Black slaves cost 50 schillings and you had to protect your investment.
While jackasses like you want to use today’s social standards to bash founding fathers in a completely different time of social standards, let me remind you they were right. The common people are scum and are ‘the beast’. We run around killing, raping, stealing, cheating, smoking weed, drinking beer, while texting on our Obama phones and with our other hand out for free shit while bathing in the fountain of propaganda. (CNN mainstream media). When there are 355 million people in the USA but only 77m working full time please try and debate that……these founders could have easily taken the sheep, the commoners, by the neck anytime they wanted and created a dictatorship, monarchy, etc etc, but instead chose and gave the commoners a constitutional republic, for the people by the people. Do not go bashing with your snowflake hammer in a biased single pointed view to prophesize your libtarded argument. Many politicians that embrace LGBTGY or wtf ever it is now as it changes every damn day because people are now identifying as a dung beetle must be included…..anyways, many politicians that support these freaks with mental problems do so for political gain but secretly hate them and call them names……the same as democrats hate the blacks but feign love while using them as voting slaves….go elsewhere and take your bullshit bias and hatred of the only constitutional republic worth a damn on earth with you. STFU. Imagine one day the author of this article will be hated for owning the laptop in which he wrote the article. He will be considered an insensitive bastard for not caring about his robot as robots in 200 years will have voting rights and be the next level of a new snowflake on college campuses. What is the normal in society today can change dramatically in 200 years. Slavery was everywhere, all over the world, not just blacks. It was kill or be killed, strong survive weak die or become slaves. Hell slavery still exist today in 38 countries and more on the black market, human trafficking etc. Slavery back then is the exact same as owning computers today. Rather than respecting this iPad and giving it voting rights and a proper burial and computer maintenance insurance and a peaceful retirement I will shoot it as a target when it is no longer useful, I guess I will be called some form of a cruel racist bigot in 200 years as well…..can’t fix stupid as stupid just keeps on keeping on. Hell in 200 years beetles will have some form of social justice rights and those millions of mosquitos I killed with the bug zapper, I guess my great great great great great great great great grandkids will owe reparations to the minority mosquito council for my insensitive actions……..for putting a bug zapper out by the swing set. Nothing shocks me anymore, bet it happens!
Bones.
Not sure which jackasses you’re referring to or which “Commoners” were given a Constitutional Republic. Do you mean the common Indian, the common Black, The common non landowner/non able to vote on account of being too poor commoner, The common whiskey maker in Pennsylvania?
If you mean “This” jackass, I don’t hate this country. I just want us to quit the Bullshit under the guise of democracy and not so free markets and at least pretend to be whatever we are calling a “Constitutional Republic worth a damn”. Telling someone on TBP to STFU is more bullshit than anything us jackasses might have said. That’s like telling a 16 year old boy not to get a hardon.
If these rights really do exist for us all then I gave a lost a half a liftime over them and spent the last half fighting to change it to something I think is decent.
You and I have been through this before and you have a nice theory about constitutional rights for the scum commoners but the facts of it’s existence are not on the ground. These Freaks are using force and persuasion to take rights from some and give rights to others but will it last a decade. Will you be one of the next batch of usurpers rounding up the scumbags and sending them to re-edumakashin camps or sterilizing them to prevent inferior offspring. That’s no more of a stretch than what you have just accused us jackasses of. Maybe you should take “Your Bullshit Bias of La La Land to La La Land.
The founding fathers were actually human? What a surprise. Also not surprising is the school system NOT teaching kids what the founders really thought about democracy. That’s why nobody can fathom what the Electoral College is all about.
Yawn to the author and sponsor…long since debunked that T. Jefferson sired any slave babies.