DOCSLIB.ORG

Down but Not Out: How American Slavery Survived the Constitutional Era

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Down but Not Out: How American Slavery Survived the Constitutional Era Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Theses Department of History 12-16-2015 Down But Not Out: How American Slavery Survived the Constitutional Era Jason Butler Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses Recommended Citation Butler, Jason, "Down But Not Out: How American Slavery Survived the Constitutional Era." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2015. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses/99 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DOWN BUT NOT OUT: HOW AMERICAN SLAVERY SURVIVED THE CONSTITUTIONAL ERA by JASON E. BUTLER Under the Direction of H. Robert Baker, Ph.D. ABSTRACT Whether through legal assault, private manumissions or slave revolt, the institution of slavery weathered sustained and substantial blows throughout the era spanning the American Revolution and Constitutional Era. The tumult of the rebellion against the British, the inspiration of Enlightenment ideals and the evolution of the American economy combined to weaken slavery as the delegates converged on Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Even in the South, it was not hard to find prominent individuals working, speaking or writing against slavery. During the Convention, however, Northern delegates capitulated to staunch Southern advocates of slavery not because of philosophical misgivings but because of economic considerations. Delegates from North and South looked with anticipation toward the nation’s expansion into the Southwest, confident it would occasion a slavery-based economic boom. Consequently, the institution of slavery was given room to thrive in ways that would take decades and a devastating war to overcome. INDEX WORDS: Slavery, Abolition movement, Constitutional Convention, American Revolution, Northwest Ordinance, Manasseh Cutler, Black soldiers DOWN BUT NOT OUT: HOW AMERICAN SLAVERY SURVIVED THE CONSTITUTIONAL ERA by JASON E. BUTLER A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University 2015 Copyright by Jason Eli Butler 2015 DOWN BUT NOT OUT: HOW AMERICAN SLAVERY SURVIVED THE CONSTITUTIONAL ERA by JASON E. BUTLER Committee Chair: Robert Baker Committee: Robert Baker Charles Steffen Electronic Version Approved: Office of Graduate Studies College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University December 2015 iv DEDICATION To my parents, for teaching me how to get better. To my children, for making me want to get better. And to my wife, for making me better. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge those who have most directly made possible this labor of love. The probing questions of Dr. Rob Baker, Dr. Chuck Steffen and Dr. John McMillian of Georgia State University helped, in and out of class, to fortify the engine of inquiry requisite for this project. Rob far exceeded the requirements of advisership with support, insight and generosity that safeguarded my sanity. From the Teaching American History grant in 2011-12 to the final stages of my thesis, he has encouraged and edified me in ways I deeply appreciate. With prompt, helpful and informative answers to two years’ worth of questions, Ms. Robin Jackson, graduate coordinator par excellence, shepherded me through my master’s program with abundant patience. The generosity and inspiration of the James Madison Memorial Foundation made it possible financially and intellectually for me to complete this course of study. The Foundation’s faculty and staff, Dr. Jeffry Morrison in particular, provided a metaphorical steroid injection to my brain. The Madison Fellows who gathered at Georgetown in the summer of 2013 have deepened my love of history in a way that made this project possible; Trish Everett, Elizabeth Rasmussen and Adena Barnette deserve mention as first among equals in that regard. Danielle Armstrong, Sean Costa and Antoinette McGlasker, colleagues and friends, have made me a better teacher in a way that has made me a better student, which helped make possible this project’s success. My 96-year old grandfather, Benjamin Harrison Root, has infected me with his passion for learning as long as I can remember. He is an inspiration. Lastly I want to recognize the alpha and omega of the support I have received throughout my journey. Though the word literally is grossly overused, it is entirely accurate here. My wife, Carmen, and her parents, Connie and James, have literally made this project possible by holding down the fort and taking care of my sons throughout my time at Georgia State, never once letting on that it was a burden. They knew this was a labor of love, they knew it was a lot of labor and they know they have my love. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................................... VI 1 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................... 1 2 AMID THE TURBULENCE: BLACK UPHEAVAL DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION ....................................................................................................................... 3 3 RESISTANCE: ASSAULTS ON SLAVERY FROM SOUTH TO NORTH .................. 21 4 PRIVATE AND PUBLIC: FROM ROBERT CARTER III TO THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE ........................................................................................................................ 51 5 ENTRENCHMENT: EARLY VICTORIES FOR SLAVERY AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION ............................................................................... 70 6 CAPITULATION: NORTHERN DELEGATES YIELD AGAIN .................................. 91 7 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 116 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 124 1 1 INTRODUCTION The year was 1786, and the horizon shimmered with heady possibilities for the youngest nation on earth. In the prior decade, American rebels had overcome daunting odds to best Britain on the battlefield, championing the causes of liberty and rights in ways that stirred the Western world. The United States had won independence, formed a sovereign government and adopted the set of laws that would see it through not only the Revolutionary War but the nation’s infancy. Ambitious from the start, America’s dreams knew no bounds. The new nation laid claim to more land than the sum of England, France and Spain. Its multifaceted economy – boasting the North’s forests and fisheries, alongside lucrative cash crops like tobacco and indigo in the South – teemed with potential. Buoyed by glorious ideals such as equality and natural rights, America looked to the unknowns of the future with justifiable optimism. Unanimity, however, was not in the offing. Americans were hardly on one accord, as the populace, four million and growing daily, was riven by varying views on matters both political and economic. The colonial period had bred manifold philosophies among the populace in terms of distribution of power between federal and state governments, and there was no articulated consensus as to what place Native Americans and immigrants would have in the new nation. But no issue occasioned more impassioned or more impactful views than did slavery, as white Americans’ perspectives were disparately shaped by geography, religion, station in life and personal experiences. The Carolinian subsistence farmer, the Connecticut shipping baron and everyone in between had strong opinions and a personal stake in the plight of nearly 700,000 enslaved Americans. In an April 1786 letter to a close friend, one founding father weighed in decisively on slavery. 2 “I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it,” he wrote. “(T)here is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority.”1 These words came not from the quill of a second-tier statesman, nor a milquetoast who shrank diffidently into the corner while the Madisons and Jeffersons commanded the spotlight. This was a statement of principle by George Washington, the man so widely respected that he was chosen unanimously to become the nation’s first president and has been regarded henceforth as the Father of the Country. His election took place a little more than a year after 40-odd delegates left the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia having spent four intense months wrangling, debating and writing the United States Constitution. At the Constitutional Convention, over half of the delegates did not own slaves. There were many Framers who had criticized the institution in public speeches, published essays and private correspondence. Some had freed their own slaves. Eleven delegations came from states that had banned the importation of slaves.2 Five states already had approved immediate or gradual emancipation, in addition to the outright prohibition enacted by the Northwest Ordinance on the western frontier. Slavery’s hold on the new nation was weakening, owing to blows from south to north, from abolitionists
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Yorktown Victory Center Replacement Will Be Named 'American Revolution Museum at Yorktown'
    DISPATCH A Newsletter of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation • Spring 2012 Yorktown Victory Center Replacement Will Be Named ‘American Revolution Museum at Yorktown’ Along with a physical transforma- bonds, is estimated at $46 tion of the Yorktown Victory Center will million. Private donations come a new name – “American Revolu- to the Jamestown-Yorktown tion Museum at Yorktown” – adopted Foundation, Inc., will sup- May 10 by the Jamestown-Yorktown port elements of gallery Foundation Board of Trustees and and outdoor exhibits and endorsed by the Jamestown-Yorktown educational resources. Foundation, Inc., Board of Directors. “The new name high- Recommended by a board naming lights the core offering of study task force, the new name will the museum, American be implemented upon completion of Revolution history,” said the museum replacement, and in the Frank B. Atkinson, who meantime the Yorktown Victory Center chaired the naming study will continue in operation as a museum task force comprised of 11 The distinctive two-story main entrance of the American of the American Revolution. members of the Jamestown- Revolution Museum at Yorktown will serve as a focal point Construction is expected to start Yorktown Foundation for arriving visitors. in the second half of 2012 on the proj- and Jamestown-Yorktown name were identified, and research ect, which includes an 80,000-square- Foundation, Inc., boards, “and the in- was undertaken on names currently in foot structure that will encompass ex- clusion of the word ‘Yorktown’ provides use. Selected names were tested with panded exhibition galleries, classrooms a geographical anchor. We arrived Yorktown Victory Center visitors and and support functions, and reorganiza- at this choice through a methodical reviewed by a trademark attorney and tion of the 22-acre site.
    [Show full text]
  • Economics of Slavery Essay
    1 From: The Oxford Handbook of Slavery in the Americas, ed. Robert L. Paquette and Mark M. Smith (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) The Economics of Slavery Peter A. Coclanis Writing on the economics of slavery is in some ways an impossibly difficult task, for the subject’s limits and bounds are viewed by many as virtually coterminous with those of slavery itself. Indeed, such an assignment has become increasingly difficult over time, as economists incorporate more and more areas of human experience into their interpretive clutches. Whereas at one time almost everyone conceded the material realm to economics, but cordoned off spiritual concerns, economists now make claims on such concerns as well, bringing the emotions, the psyche, and even the soul under the discipline’s dominion. It is thus a long way from the ancient Greeks, whose original sense of economics concerned the rules, customs, and laws (nomos) of the house or household (oikos), to Nobelist Gary Becker, for whom the decision to bear children is interpretively akin to the decision to purchase a refrigerator or car, to more recent writers who have written on the economics of attention, interpreted the rise of religion and the origin of fear in economic terms, and linked behavioral expressions ranging from sexual orientation to laughter to cruelty to economic variables. 2 This said, here we shall focus on issues of traditional concern to economic historians of slavery, to wit: the origins of and motivations/rationales for slavery; pattern and variation in the institution both across space and over time; questions relating to slavery’s profitability; the developmental effects of slavery; and the reasons for its demise.
    [Show full text]
  • Philadelphia, the Indispensable City of the American Founding the FPRI Ginsburg—Satell Lecture 2020 Colonial Philadelphia
    Philadelphia, the Indispensable City of the American Founding The FPRI Ginsburg—Satell Lecture 2020 Colonial Philadelphia Though its population was only 35,000 to 40,000 around 1776 Philadelphia was the largest city in North America and the second-largest English- speaking city in the world! Its harbor and central location made it a natural crossroads for the 13 British colonies. Its population was also unusually diverse, since the original Quaker colonists had become a dwindling minority among other English, Scottish, and Welsh inhabitants, a large admixture of Germans, plus French Huguenots, Dutchmen, and Sephardic Jews. But Beware of Prolepsis! Despite the city’s key position its centrality to the American Revolution was by no means inevitable. For that matter, American independence itself was by no means inevitable. For instance, William Penn (above) and Benjamin Franklin (below) were both ardent imperial patriots. We learned of Franklin’s loyalty to King George III last time…. Benjamin Franklin … … and the Crisis of the British Empire The FPRI Ginsburg-Satell Lecture 2019 The First Continental Congress met at Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia where representatives of 12 of the colonies met to protest Parliament’s Coercive Acts, deemed “Intolerable” by Americans. But Congress (narrowly) rejected the Galloway Plan under which Americans would form their own legislature and tax themselves on behalf of the British crown. Hence, “no taxation without representation” wasn’t really the issue. WHAT IF… The Redcoats had won the Battle of Bunker Hill (left)? The Continental Army had not escaped capture on Long Island (right)? Washington had been shot at the Battle of Brandywine (left)? Or dared not undertake the risky Yorktown campaign (right)? Why did King Charles II grant William Penn a charter for a New World colony nearly as large as England itself? Nobody knows, but his intention was to found a Quaker colony dedicated to peace, religious toleration, and prosperity.
    [Show full text]
  • Conflicts of Interest in Bush V. Gore: Did Some Justices Vote Illegally? Richard K
    Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship Spring 2003 Conflicts of Interest in Bush v. Gore: Did Some Justices Vote Illegally? Richard K. Neumann Jr. Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/faculty_scholarship Recommended Citation Richard K. Neumann Jr., Conflicts of Interest in Bush v. Gore: Did Some Justices Vote Illegally?, 16 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 375 (2003) Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/faculty_scholarship/153 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons at Hofstra Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARTICLES Conflicts of Interest in Bush v. Gore: Did Some Justices Vote Illegally? RICHARD K. NEUMANN, JR.* On December 9, 2000, the United States Supreme Court stayed the presidential election litigation in the Florida courts and set oral argument for December 11.1 On the morning of December 12-one day after oral argument and half a day before the Supreme Court announced its decision in Bush v. Gore2-the Wall Street Journalpublished a front-page story that included the following: Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 76 years old, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 70, both lifelong Republicans, have at times privately talked about retiring and would prefer that a Republican appoint their successors.... Justice O'Connor, a cancer survivor, has privately let it be known that, after 20 years on the high court,'she wants to retire to her home state of Arizona ...
    [Show full text]
  • Emancipation Day in Canada
    YES, IT MATTERS! ADDRESSING SYSTEMIC RACISM AUGUST 1 IS NOW RECOGNIZED FEDERALLY AS EMANCIPATION DAY IN CANADA In August 1833, the Slave Emancipation Act was CREATING THE FUTURE BY passed, giving all slaves in the British empire their CONFRONTING THE PAST freedom, albeit after a set period of years. Plantation owners received compensation for the 'loss of their slaves' in the form of a government grant set at £20,000,000. In contrast, enslaved people received no compensation and continued to face much hardship. They remained landless, and the wages offered on the plantations after emancipation were extremely low. The 1833 Act did not come into force until 1 August 1834. The first step was the freeing of all children under six. However, although the many thousands of enslaved people in the British West Indies were no longer legally slaves after 1 August 1834, they were still made to work as unpaid apprentices for their former masters. These masters continued to ill-treat and exploit them. Source: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/emancipation.htm YES, IT MATTERS! ADDRESSING SYSTEMIC RACISM On March 1, 2021, MPs in the House of Commons voted unanimously to designate Aug. 1 as Emancipation Day across Canada. On July 14, 2021, Toronto City Council voted to rename CREATING THE FUTURE BY Dundas Street and other civic assets with the Dundas CONFRONTING THE PAST name. In June 2020, an online petition was launched to rename the city of Vaughan. Henry Dundas was a Scottish lawyer and politician for whom Dundas Street in Toronto and the Town of Dundas in western Ontario.
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Study Guide
    Historical Study Guide Light A Candle Films presents “THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL” Historical Study Guide written by Tony Malanowski To be used with the DVD production of THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL The Battle of Bunker Hill Historical Study Guide First, screen the 60-minute DocuDrama of THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, and the 30 minute Historical Perspective. Then, have your Discussion Leader read through the following historical points and share your ideas about the people, the timeframe and the British and Colonial strategies! “Stand firm in your Faith, men of New England” “The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.” - George Washington, August 27, 1776 When General Thomas Gage, the British military governor of Boston, sent one thousand troops to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock at Lexington in April of 1775, he could not know the serious implications of his actions. Nor could he know how he had helped to set in motion a major rebellion that would shake the very foundations of the mightiest Empire on earth. General Gage was a military man who had been in North America since the 1750s, and had more experience than any other senior British officer. He had fought in the French and Indian War alongside a young George Washington, with whom he still had a friendly relationship. Gage had married an American woman from a prominent New Jersey family, and 10 of their 11 children had been born in the Colonies.
    [Show full text]
  • The American Founding and the Federal Era (1785-Early-1800S)
    Lesson 4 The American Founding and the Federal Era (1785-early-1800s) Words such as “virtue,” “piety” and “learning” are emphasized in the writings of our Founding Fathers and therefore appear in many of our governmental documents. In fact, when modern political scientists examined seventy-six of the most representative pamphlets and essays written by our Founders, they found the word “virtue” stressed over 300 times.1 Additionally, various synonyms meaning the same thing (such as “religion,” “morality,” and “knowledge”) also frequently appear in official writings (such as in the famous Northwest Ordinance, by which territories become states).2 Significantly, to our Founders, “religion” meant Christianity; “morality” or “virtue” meant Biblical character; and “knowledge” meant information or skills acquired within the framework of a Biblical worldview. The Founders consistently emphasized the elements of religion and morality (or piety and virtue) as the indispensable foundation and supports of our American system of government. They believed that if these pillars were lost, then our nation would eventually collapse. Notice some of their representative declarations affirming this: [I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. 3 [R]eligion and virtue are the only foundations...of republicanism and of all free governments. 4 Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious 5 people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. JOHN ADAMS , SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION [R]eligion and good morals are the only solid foundations of public liberty and happiness. 6 While the people are virtuous, they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.
    [Show full text]
  • Tennessee Counties Named for Patriots & Founding Fathers
    Tennessee Counties named for Patriots & Founding Fathers Photo County amed for Anderson County Joseph Anderson (1757-1837), U.S. Senator from TN, and first Comptroller of the U.S. Treasury. During the Revolutionary War, he was an officer in the New Jersey Line of the Continental Army. Bedford County Revolutionary War Officer Thomas Bedford Bledsoe County Anthony Bledsoe (ca 1795-1793), Revolutionary War Soldier, Surveyer, and early settler of Sumner County. Blount County William Blount (1749-1800) was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of North Carolina, the first and only Governor of the Southwest Territory, and was appointed as the Regimental Paymaster of the 3rd NC. Regiment during the Revolutionary War. Davidson County William Lee Davidson (1746-1781) a Brigadier General who died in the Revolutionary War Battle of Cowan’s Ford. DeKalb County Johann de Kalb (1721-1780) A German-born baron who assisted the Continentals during the Revolutionary War Fayette County Marquis de La Fayette (1757-1834) a French aristocrat and military officer who was a General in the Revolutionary War Franklin County Founding Father Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Greene County Nathaniel Greene (1742-1786) Major General in the Continental Army During the Revolutionary War. Hamilton County Founding Father Alexander Hamilton (ca.1755- 1804) Hancock County John Hancock (1737-1794) President of the Continental Congress Hawkins County Benjamin Hawkins (1754-1816) was commissioned as a Colonel in the Continental Army where he served under George Washington for several years as his main French interpreter. Henry County Revolutionary-era Patriot Patrick Henry (1736- 1799) Jackson County Revolutionary War Veteran and President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845).
    [Show full text]
  • 2015 May Christopher Rivera.Pdf (1.964Mb)
    School of Graduate Studies Colorado State University–Pueblo 2200 Bonforte Boulevard Pueblo, Colorado 81001 (719) 549–2100 “INTO DUST AND OBSCURITY”: SILAS DEANE AND THE DRAFTING OF THE 1778 TREATY OF ALLIANCE by Christopher Michael-Anthony Rivera _____________________ A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY–PUEBLO Pueblo, Colorado, USA MAY 2015 Master’s Thesis Committee: Advisor: Dr. Matthew L. Harris Dr. Paul Conrad Dr. Brigid Vance STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted and approved for the partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at Colorado State University–Pueblo. It is deposited in the University Library and available to borrowers of the library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowed without special permission, provided that, accurate acknowledgment of their source is indicated. Requests for permission to use extended quotations, or to reproduce the manuscript in whole or in part, may be granted by the History Graduate Program or the Graduate Studies Director in History in the interest of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. Signed: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________ APPROVAL BY THESIS ADVISOR THIS THESIS HAS BEEN APPROVED ON THE DATE SHOWN BELOW: ________________________________ ____________ Dr. Matthew Harris Date Committee Chair Professor of History ________________________________ ____________ Graduate Studies Director in History Date Dr. Matthew Harris “INTO DUST AND OBSCURITY”: SILAS DEANE AND THE DRAFTING OF THE 1778 TREATY OF ALLIANCE by Christopher Michael-Anthony Rivera Silas Deane’s role during the American Revolution has been examined by numerous academics, including George Clark, Jonathan Dull, Julian Boyd, Richard Morris, David Jayne Hill, and Walter Isaacson.
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliotheca Sacra
    Tlte American Republic. 135 ART I C LEV Ill. THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC AND THE DEBS INSURRECTION. BY MR. Z. SWIFT HOLBROOK. THE American Republic is the fruitage of a religious inspiration. Our democratic institutions, ollr notions of lib­ erty and equality, had their origin with men who practised every form of self-denial, that they might be free from hie­ rarchical authority and worship God according to the dic­ tates of conscience. They were not men, like the colony that landed at Jamestown in 1607, moved by the spirit of adventure or by the desire to acquire,-both worthy and useful passions when subordinated to higher ends,-but they came to an unknown land, braving the perils of the sea and enduring the privations incident to such a perilous journey, that they might have freedom to worship God. To what extent these men had caught the inspiration of Luther and had given it a new interpretation, need not here be traced; but the age was one of discovery, of hero­ ism, of adventure, of awakened intellect,-giving the world the revival of faith, hope, and learning. It was the Eliza­ bethan Age in literature. It was the period of the centuries when, freed from the bonds of ecclesiastical authority, indi­ vidualism burst the barriers which had restrained it, and men took on new conceptions of liberty and of individual worth. Man as an individual, a unit, free and independent in his re­ lations to the unseen, and bound by social compacts only because thus his individualism found higher freedom and fuller .development,-this was the conception that inspired [Jan.
    [Show full text]
  • Sugar, Steam and Steel: the Industrial Project in Colonial Java, 1830-1850
    Welcome to the electronic edition of Sugar, Steam and Steel: The Industrial Project in Colonial Java, 1830-1885. The book opens with the bookmark panel and you will see the contents page. Click on this anytime to return to the contents. You can also add your own bookmarks. Each chapter heading in the contents table is clickable and will take you direct to the chapter. Return using the contents link in the bookmarks. The whole document is fully searchable. Enjoy. G Roger Knight Born in deeply rural Shropshire (UK), G Roger Knight has been living and teaching in Adelaide since the late 1960s. He gained his PhD from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies, where his mentors included John Bastin and CD Cowan. He is an internationally recognised authority on the sugar industry of colonial Indonesia, with many publications to his name. Among the latest is Commodities and Colonialism: The Story of Big Sugar in Indonesia, 1880-1940, published by Brill in Leiden and Boston in 2013. He is currently working on a 'business biography' — based on scores of his newly discovered letters back home — of Gillian Maclaine, a young Scot who was active as a planter and merchant in colonial Java during the 1820s and 1830s. For a change, it has almost nothing to do with sugar. The high-quality paperback edition of this book is available for purchase online: https://shop.adelaide.edu.au/ Sugar, Steam and Steel: The Industrial Project in Colonial Java, 1830-18 by G Roger Knight School of History and Politics The University of Adelaide Published in Adelaide by University of Adelaide Press The University of Adelaide Level 14, 115 Grenfell Street South Australia 5005 [email protected] www.adelaide.edu.au/press The University of Adelaide Press publishes externally refereed scholarly books by staff of the University of Adelaide.
    [Show full text]
  • A TUB to the WHALE": the FOUNDING FATHERS and ADOPTION of the FEDERAL BILL of RIGHTS Kenneth R
    "A TUB TO THE WHALE": THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL BILL OF RIGHTS Kenneth R. Bowling Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship. Jonathan Swift, Tale of a Tub (1704) Like a barrel thrown to the whale, the people were to be amused with fancied amendments, until the harpoon of power, should secure its prey and render resistance ineffectual. [Samuel Bryan], ''Centinel NO. 19, ' ' (Philadel- phia) Independent Gazetteer, October 7, 1788 The constitutional role of the federal Bill of Rights has been monu- mental. This fact would surprise most members of the First Federal Congress, the body which reluctantly proposed to the states the con- stitutional amendments later called the Bill of Rights.' The Federalist Mr. Bowling is a member of the First Federal Congress Project at George Wash- ington University, Washington, D.C. This article is based upon a chapter in his "Politics in the First Congress, 1789-1791" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin 1968). Additional research was conducted under a grant from the National Endow- ment for the Humanities. ' Although much has been written about the Bill of Rights, very little of it re- lates to the legislative history of its adoption. This is particularly true about the polit- ical aspects, most of which are contained in previously unstudied manuscripts. Robert A. Rutland, The Birth of the Bill of Rights, 1776-1791 (Chapel Hill 1955), which focuses on the background of the amendments, aptly summarizes its passage through the First Federal Congress.
    [Show full text]