Plus how would America's economy have been different without slave labor? And the ramifications of that lower economic output.

if we didn't have black people in America as slaves we still would have had a civil war. the battle between cotton producers and textile manufacturers still happens. post slavery cotton plantations still made shit loads off of the same blacks as share croppers and paid day laborers after they were freed and basically starved.

But that's the thing isn't it. Its what you're circling around- the master stroke of the checks and balances, these various compromises- that is the product of this group of deeply divided political theorists coming together upon a system of government that would experience these same stresses and endure it for centuries, more or less. The arguments of the populists, the federalists, states rights, hamilton papers, etc isn't forgotten, its the very nature of American democracy. A compromise system that is not a dictatorship nor democracy nor republic nor kritarchy, but takes from each column and pits them against each other. If the most radical founding fathers had demanded reforms for full representation and enfranchisement, the landowners and southern states would never have agreed and instead of a union you'd have independent nations. Some of those compromises, like making a slave 3/5ths of a person, were the necessary pragmatic steps to bind together a nation.

And yes, those same arguments and tensions weren't resolved and boiled up and many more compromises were struck to bridge the divide until it ruptured fully with the civil war. That's basically the classical theme of American history and infects every aspect of our politics. And for all we know, the future historians may write about how our generation still had the unresolved conflicts that were not truly ended with the civil war but engrained in our culture until they flared up again. We can't know. But as I said when Trump was elected, the country is more divided now than any point since the civil war, just thankfully not long the spatial and sovereign lines that would permit conflict.

I'd like to imagine that the best contemporary solution in some fanciful alternate history where a time traveler tries to heal the schism would be for the northern states to make a massive investment in building mechanized farming and factory infrastructure in the south in exchange for liberating slaves, phasing production in and slavery out. Of course I only say this because my great-great-grandfather was an inventor responsible for significant advances in mechanization at the time, before he got run over by a train

This post was edited by Goomshill on May 5 2020 08:45pm

when I look at polticized circuit court judges, a congress that passes almost nothing of note unless there's an impending crisis, and executive orders gone wild I tend to have less faith in checks and balances moving forward. but yes, it was a great system that they created. I still think there's a chance they wanted to avoid tyranny out of self preservation to avoid massive taxation by a dictator or monarch and maintain their wealth, and less because of it's truly just nature. we cant know, because they talked high and low about how this was just and right. but what politician doesn't.

and still to my point of forgotten history most PARDians couldn't name an accomplishment of over 50% of the signees of the constitution, or over 50% of US presidents. not one single factoid. its not an argument against anything specifically as much as a gripe of mine.

Is obstructionism and courts knocking down laws and a slow congress and partisan fighting grinding progress to a halt inherently any worse than having a president passing massive sweeping changes by unilateral decree, usurping the power of the purse, decriminalizing and granting status to millions or waging wars of aggression? Were we better off when the courts were deciding that a man can be property in hopes of averting a war, or when the president tried to stuff the bench with as many extra justices as it would take to permit a new deal in hopes of ending a depression? There's a tradeoff in the costs of damage done to the fabric of government versus the progress you hope to achieve, and there's also costs when deference to the system impedes progress that could have been achieved otherwise.

no, of course not. we're better off than we would be in a system like that. however im not looking forward to trying to break the knot of deep partisan divide and inability to pass legislation. especially as it implies further creeping of executive order powers of the POTUS. things need to be done and the power is shifting increasingly to the executive branch. if I had to choose a single branch I didn't want to have the most power it would be the executive branch. id much rather the legislature have the highest balance of power and the courts would be a second. we're now in a place where it looks like every 4-8 years the pendulum will swing further and further with piles of EOs unwritten in the first 100 days while departments struggle to comply. I wouldn't be such an alarmist if I saw a way out.

On a side note, Jefferson's house in Virginia is one of the best places to visit.

That's a byproduct of partisan gridlock. We're living in a rare era where the country is divided between two blocs of equal strength which are fundamentally disagreeing on almost every important issue. Such a situation is a historical exception, and it imho wont remain stable for another 2 decades. Sooner or later, one side has to "win" this "cold civil war".

Also, one could certainly argue that in an environment like this, every sensible political system would and should be gridlocked. When the country cant agree on much of anything, not much of anything being passed by the legislature, i.e. the bodies representing this divided people, is the outcome to be expected. This is not a crisis of the U.S. political system, it's one of U.S. society.



Regarding the 1619 article linked in the first post: it was a beautiful read and I appreciate the different perspective it brings to the table, irrespective from the historical inaccuracies and some dubious premises.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 5 2020 10:21pm