Original Proposal - The Quartet

[TheChancellors]

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Originally posted by TheChancellors » Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:06 pm – 182 views before being transplanted here


Proposed book: "The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789" by Joseph J. Ellis, published by Alfred A.Knopf (2015); 220 pages (sans notes and appendices).

This book will give you new insights as to the how the background for the convention, drafting, and ratification of the Constitution. It is quite a story and not what you learned in school.

[johnkarls]

Originally posted by johnkarls » Fri Jan 26, 2018 8:46 am

The Chancellors claim that the description in “The Quartet” for the background of America’s Constitutional Convention “is not what [we] learned in school.”

I’m starting to read the book now. But want to make a list of things that were “learned in school” before adding the information and insights of Joseph Ellis, the author of “The Quartet.”

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AUTHOR BIO

But before starting to read “The Quartet” (or any book), it is always imperative to know the background of the author so you know what you’re dealing with in terms of qualifications and also in terms of possible biases.

Prof. Joseph Ellis earned his PhD from Yale in 1969 and taught at West Point before joining the faculty of Mount Holyoke College, one of the so-called “Seven Sisters” (the nation’s seven foremost all-women colleges which were highly prestigious when he became a full professor there in 1979).

His academic work concentrated on the Founding Fathers of the U.S., including biographies of our first three Presidents -- George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

His biography of Thomas Jefferson (“American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson”) won a National Book Award and another of his NY Times Bestsellers “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation” won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Prof. Ellis served as the Dean of the Faculty at Mount Holyoke 1980-1990. However, he was suspended from his endowed Ford Foundation Chair without pay in 2001 due to controversy over his service in Vietnam during the Vietnamese War, but was re-appointed to the chair in 2005. He currently teaches up the road at the main campus of U/Mass in Amherst (not to be confused with Amherst College which, during the heyday of “The Seven Sisters” all-women colleges, was an all-male college like most of the Ivy League and was just as prestigious as Smith College and Mount Holyoke, two of The Seven Sisters which were a stone’s throw away).

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The Articles of Confederation

Most of us have long-since forgotten from High School Civics that the U.S. operated under The Articles of Confederation for 13 years 1776-1789.

[Indeed, Yours Truly did not focus until a moment ago that the U.S. at that time constituted the first “Confederate States of America” though I have never seen it so described.]

Per H.S. Civics, the United States under the Articles of Confederation was like NATO without its Article 5 commitment to the common defense (“an attack on one is an attack on all”).

In other words, foreign countries viewed the U.S. under The Articles of Confederation as a group of 13 small countries that had once collaborated to throw off their colonial overlord (the Brits) but were probably “ripe for the picking.”

At least in this regard, scrapping The Articles of Confederation in favor of the “Do Over” (aka the U.S. Constitution) was the equivalent of adding Article 5 to the NATO Treaty.

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British Attempts To Re-Subjugate The American Colonies For Nearly A Century

Most of us have long-since forgotten from High School Civics that the Brits tried for nearly a century (if not longer) to re-assert their control over the American colonies.

Indeed, they were constantly looking for such opportunities.

And in 1812, they actually seized such a chance, torching Washington DC and also invading, inter alia, New Orleans in order to split the country in two by coming up the Mississippi River.

And much has been written by historians about the Brits’ fascination with the American Civil War 1861-1865 and the Brits’ constant calculations throughout that war re whether it presented the Brits with an opportunity to re-conquer the U.S.

[NB: 1865 was a mere 49 years before WW-I in which, like WW-II, the U.S. “saved the bacon” of the Brits.]

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The Incompetence of George Washington and How France Freed the American Colonies

My recollection is that High School Civics did teach that France freed the American colonies but soft-pedaled George Washington’s incompetence.

High School Civics, of course, taught that the so-called French and Indian War 1754-1763 was fought by the Brits and their American colonies against the French who had established forts along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to join their Quebec colony with their Louisiana colony, thereby halting the westward expansion of the British colonies and reserving for themselves everything west of the Mississippi to the Pacific (except for the Spanish colony of Mexico which extended so far north as to include modern-day California, Utah and Colorado -- indeed, when the Mormons arrived in Utah in 1847, they thought that they had successfully fled the U.S. for Mexico).

What High School Civics glossed over was the utter incompetence of George Washington.

He led the Virginia Militia into the so-called French and Indian War and managed to spurn the advice of the Brits’ Native-American allies in more than a half-dozen important respects, as a result of which the Virginia Militia was routed and largely massacred.

George Washington’s performance had two consequences.

First, virtually all of the Native Americans in the area had been British allies and Washington’s performance caused them to switch sides.

[Indeed, the area west of the Mississippi never fell under British control and only became part of the United States in 1803 when it was purchased from a bankrupt France that was trying to dig out of the financial disaster of the Napoleonic Wars (and finance yet more disastrous Napoleonic Wars).]

BUT SECONDLY, BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, IF ANY MEMBER OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT WANTED TO CALL ANYONE ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD INCOMPETENT, S/HE WOULD CALL THAT PERSON “A GEORGE WASHINGTON”!!!

George Washington’s performance in the Revolutionary War???

First, his selection as the commander of The Continental Army was a “bitter pill” for New England to swallow!!!

But their firebrands had perpetrated the so-called “Boston Tea Party” and they were desperate for other American colonies to join in the rebellion.

There are even some reputable historians who have theorized that the Middle-Atlantic and Southern colonies insisted on Washington with the expectation that his incompetence would soon cause the revolution to fizzle.

And, indeed, despite American military success on Lake Champlain and in Upper New York State, most of the military action (or really inaction) comprised Lord Cornwallis chasing George Washington and his Continental Army from New York to New Jersey (where he crossed the Delaware River as depicted in a famous painting) and down through the mid-Atlantic colonies until he reached the Virginia shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

The conventional wisdom was always that “an army travels on its stomach” meaning that it plunders whatever it needs (food, sex, etc.) from the local populations.

But even Napoleon recognized the limits of the conventional wisdom when he reached Moscow 9/14/1812. The Russians had abandoned the city and retreated into the surrounding countryside!!!

Napoleon’s immediate comment???

“An abandoned city is NOT a supplied city” meaning his army could NOT keep warm and fed during the impending winter as a parasite on the local population.

Napoleon retreated from Moscow a mere 9 weeks later on 10/19/1812 and, compounding his error, retreated over THE SAME ROUTE that had been recently ravaged by his army when it was on its way to Moscow!!!

So back to Lord Cornwallis and George Washington.

When they reached Yorktown VA on the shore of Chesapeake Bay, Lord Cornwallis expected to see the British Fleet bearing supplies for his army.

Instead, the French Fleet had blockaded Chesapeake Bay.

And just like Napoleon immediately recognized his fate in Moscow, Lord Cornwallis immediately recognized that his army which, by all rights, had finally cornered Washington and should be receiving Washington’s surrender, was doomed by the French blockade!!!

Has anyone ever wondered about the origin of the rule in basketball and hockey that if a defensive player scores a goal by mistake for the opposing offense, the goal is credited to the “nearest offensive player”???

George Washington, who had been chased all the way to Yorktown VA, was the “nearest offensive player”!!!

Though American historians should have been honest enough to admit that the French Fleet (and NOT Washington) defeated Lord Cornwallis.

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The U.S. Constitution

Yes, High School Civics taught that the original U.S. Constitution (including the first 10 Amendments, aka the Bill of Rights, which were adopted almost immediately) had a few good ideas, such as free speech.

And, of course, it solved the immediate problem of the weakness of the Articles of Confederation which was to provide for a unified foreign policy and a unified defense.

But let’s face it, it was a primitive document written by a bunch of unsophisticated farmers who did NOT anticipate many, if not most, of the problems our country would face.

For example, the Constitution requires for military action a “Declaration of War” by Congress – and NONE of our many wars since the Second World War has had a Congressional “Declaration of War”!!!

Moreover, virtually all of the glaring problems with our national government are the fault of the U.S. Constitution WHICH FAILED TO PROVIDE A PARLIAMENTARY FORM OF GOVERNMENT.

We have studied on numerous occasions how this FAILURE has doomed America to a NON-DEMOCRATIC and UNRESPONSIVE government!!!

Yes, it is true that many Parliamentary governments around the world throughout history have been plagued by corruption.

But a Parliamentary government is run by a single political party (or a coalition of political parties) which designates various of its MP’s to run the various executive departments while remaining Members of Parliament. And the governing political party (or coalition) has no problem taking action!!!

[Unless, of course, prior to the expiration of its term (5 years in Britain if memory serves), parliament casts a “no confidence” vote against an important policy of the leadership of the governing political party (or coalition), whereupon there are immediately new elections following which a new 5-year (or whatever) term commences.]

An even more-important feature than ability to act???

Parliamentary elections (for example in Britain) are usually unpredictable in terms of timing, but even more importantly they are very quick!!! Only a few weeks!!!

And citizens are only voting for their own Member of Parliament -- NOT for the Prime Minister (though voters may, or may not, know who would become Prime Minister if a particular party wins a Parliamentary majority or is able to form a governing coalition).

Digressing for a moment, the twin foci of our 2/14/2008 meeting 10 years ago were Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank’s “Homo Politicus” and former long-time liberal Business Week columnist Robert Kuttner’s “The Squandering of America.”

The thesis of both Milbank and Kuttner is that NOTHING is done (or not done) in the CESSPOOL known as Washington DC except as the result of “campaign contributions” which are either BRIBERY of the pols, or EXTORTION by the pols!!!

The enabler of “The Best Government Money Can Buy”???

The U.S. Constitution, of course.

Instead of short elections every 5 years or so, WHICH ARE SHORT AND LOCAL, America SUFFERS from CONSTANT election campaigns and, as a result, CONSTANT BRIBERY OF, AND EXTORTION BY, OUR POLS!!!

Which means that it is a forlorn hope for our national government to be influenced in the slightest by American citizens (upon whom for the last 25 years has been waged what we have called a “War on American Workers” by what we have, since reading Milbank/Kuttner 10 years ago, called The Establishment which we have always defined as the billionaires who “own” both political parties, who “own” many, if not most, of the members of the Mainstream Media, and who “own” many members of academia).

In other words, American workers would have to wait 25 years for a Messiah!!!

A Bernie Sanders who could mount an easily-sabotaged campaign financed by zillions of small campaign contributions, virtually all of which were less than $100.

Or a Donald Trump who could finance his own campaign while also standing up for American workers.

[Though witness the Herculean efforts by The Establishment to castrate, if not remove, President Trump as what we have called “The Left-Hand Puppet of The Establishment’s ‘Kabuki Theater’” attempts to continue defrauding American workers with “identity politics” rather than “lifting a finger” on their behalf.]

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Conclusion

OK, so there we have the salient things “I learned in school” or at least the ones I remember.

[Treating “school” as including everything our organization has studied in its 12 years of existence, and including everything I read during my 33 years of marriage to the co-author of the nation’s best-selling high school world history textbook during which my “real job” (vs. my “day job”) was to read 12-15 thick historical tomes/biographies EVERY YEAR to discover overlooked nuggets for possible inclusion in the next edition of the world history textbook -- it went through 6 editions during the 33 years.]

“The Quartet” looks like it will be very interesting and very informative!!!

And it’s always a pleasure to add to what was “learned in school”!!!