THREE FIFTHS OF A HUMAN BEING

“THREE FIFTHS OF A HUMAN BEING”

            July 12, 1787 (230 years ago) was a huge and terrible day in American history.  It was the day that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia voted to include the “three-fifths” clause in the newly proposed Constitution of the United States.   In its final form, it appeared in Article 1, Section 2, paragraph 3 as:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

            Underlying this legalese was a debate over how a national tax should be determined and how numbers of representatives to Congress (the lower house, in their British-oriented minds) should be determined.  As Lawrence Goldstone writes in his fine book “Dark Bargain:  Slavery, Profits, and the Struggle for the Constitution,” at the heart of much of the discussion over the Constitution was the survival or the extinction of slavery.   Slave-holding states did not want to acknowledge the equal humanity of those held as slaves, but they did want to gain political power by using the number of slaves to increase their number of representatives.  As has happened in much of American history, the view of those holding people as slaves prevailed. 

            Many scholars point out that the Constitution does not say that people of  African descent were 60% human, but the practical use of this phrase solidified in the American mind the idea that people of African descent are not equal in their humanity to those who are classified as “white.”  Indeed, in its infamous Dred and Harriet Scott decision of 1857, Chief Justice Roger Taney and the majority of the Supreme Court used this clause to conclude (7-2 vote) that people of African descent were not equal human beings and thus were not entitled to any rights under the Constitution.

            Many scholars also point out that the passage of the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments to the Constitution after the Civil War nullified the “three-fifths” clause. Yet from 1877-1965, the white South (and much of the rest of the country) worked hard to re-apply the Dred and Harriet Scott decision and to re-establish “slavery by another name,” to use Doug Blackmon’s powerful phrase.   As we all know, it worked.  The idea of slavery being a “natural” state for those of African descent prevailed politically for 100 years after the end of the Civil War.  That idea still reverberates in the hearts of many white Americans and in the hearts of others who have swallowed this poisonous Kool-Aid.

            Because of this terrible history, I do believe that it is worthwhile and necessary to begin discussions about amending the Constitution to explicitly nullify the “three fifths” clause, so that it is firmly stated in the Constitution that this terrible plague of racism and slavery are specifically repudiated by the Constitution and by the American people.  Obviously the current Congress would not even consider such an amendment, but we must start the discussion.  Even if the proposed amendment never saw a congressional vote, it might motivate a national discussion about the reality and the legacy of the twin demonic powers of racism and slavery in our history and in our present life.  The main reason that racism remains so powerful in American life is that those of us classified as “white” are still in denial about its power in the past and in the present.  Such a discussion would call us to acknowledge the demonic power of racism in our history and in our current society.

            I am no lawyer or constitutional scholar or historian, but here is my first attempt at a draft of such an amendment to the Constitution – baby steps!

            HUMAN BEINGS AMENDMENT

 “This amendment to the Constitution specifically repeals the phrase “which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons,” of Article 1, Section 2, paragraph 3,” and replaces it with the phrase “which shall be determined by the number of American citizens.  All American citizens are acknowledged to be 100% human beings in this Constitution.”

I’ll be glad to hear your comments on this idea and this proposed amendment.  If you think it is unnecessary, please tell me why.  If you think that the proposed amendment needs improvement (that will undoubtedly be the case), please suggest changes.  If you think that it is a good idea and should be discussed and pushed forward, please send it to your Congressperson or Senator.  After a period of reflection, I’ll be contacting mine.  I’d love to hear from you on this!

THE PAST IS NOT DEAD

“THE PAST IS NOT DEAD”

            In his 1951 novel “Requiem for a Nun,” William Faulkner uses a couple of lines that have echoed through 20^th century literature and history:  “The past is not dead – it’s not even the past.”  I have thought of that quote many times in the last few weeks during the debates about taking down statues and memorials to the Confederacy, especially in the South.  I thought of it in the blog that I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the lynching in Duluth, Minnesota.

            I also remembered a column that I wrote for the Oakhurst Presbyterian Log in July, 2001, and I want to quote some of it here: “On February 17, 1866, General Robert E. Lee, - who had surrendered the Confederate forces some ten months earlier on April 9 - came to Washington, DC, to testify before the Congressional Joint Committee on Reconstruction.   If we look back to the violence and re-establishment of slavery in the South after 1877, Lee’s testimony seems moderate, but he revealed the bottom line when he was asked his opinion of voting rights for African-American people.  The roots of the white supremacy that surged forth was seen in his testimony on that day: ”In a good many States in the south, and in a good many counties in Virginia, if the black people now were allowed to vote, it would, I think exclude proper representation;  that is, proper, intelligent people would not be elected; and rather than suffer that injury, they would not let them vote at all.”

            I wish that I could say that such sentiment had faded over these 151 years, but we see evidence all around us that white people are bound and determined to deny the vote to African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans and many others classified as POC (people of color).  Just as Lee stretched the reach of the truth in the name of “alternative facts” in his day, so the current white supremacists seek to deny voting rights on the fabricated danger of voter fraud.  

            I grew up in the segregated South, hearing that Reconstruction, which sought to protect voting rights of all American citizens, was a dismal failure because of the incompetence of African-Americans and the corruption of some white folks.  As I learned as a young adult, this interpretation was an alternative interpretation and was akin to the denial of climate change in the present day.  Reconstruction was one of the few times in American history when the nation sought to live up to its ideal of equality – voting rights were expanded, public schools for all were begun, debtors’ prisons were lessened.   The seeds of the false narrative, currently called “alternative facts,” can be seen here in Lee’s testimony before Congress in 1866. 

           

            In regard to the current debate over whether we should be removing monuments to the Confederacy, which was established to protect slavery and white supremacy, we should recall this history.  We should also recall that Germany does not allow public displays of Nazi symbols, which seems to us a violation of the First Amendment.  There is one huge difference between us and Germany, however.  They admit that the Holocaust happened, and that the German people were the principal cause of it.  Because of that admission and that awareness, they are cautious about allowing that deadly spirit to come back into the public square.

            In our country, though, we have never admitted how much slavery and the genocide of native Americans has caused economic benefits to flow to those classified as “white.”  Without such an admission, we have yet to recoil from the heritage of slavery and the taking of the land, as the Germans now recoil from Nazism.  I am not advocating that we eviscerate the First Amendment, but it would be a huge step to move toward a national admission that those of us on top benefitted immensely from stealing human labor and annihilating the peoples who lived here when the Europeans came.  Perhaps the best step towards that would be for us to contact our state and federal representatives to seek an amendment to the Constitution which declares that people of African descent are 100% human beings, rather than the 60% status that the Constitution currently gives them.  More on this next time.

SEPTEMBER 11

“SEPTEMBER 11”

            Almost all adults remember where we were on this day 16 years ago when we heard the news that the World Trade Center had been attacked by airplanes.  I was in the post office in Decatur getting the mail about 8:45 AM, when one of the postal workers asked me if I thought that the second plane that hit the buildings was an accident too.  At that time, I was not aware that the first plane had hit the buildings, but I said in reply – “no, it sounds like neither one of the planes was an accident.”  I hurried home to watch the TV, and I alerted Caroline who had already gone to work at the church.  I saw the twin towers fall, and I knew then that we were in a new era. 

            We had just taken our daughter Susan up to Macalester College in St. Paul for her first year, and we were worried about her.  Fortunately, one of our former interns, Alika Galloway, was a pastor in Minneapolis, and we were very relieved when she called us and said:  “I don’t know what’s going on, but if this goes any further, don’t worry about Susan – we’ll get her and bring her to our house!”  We’re still grateful to Alika for that great ministry to us.  Our hearts still go out to the families of the 3,000 people killed in the twin towers, the airplanes, and the Pentagon.  I also give thanks for the First Responders who ran towards the buildings to save lives rather than running away from the buildings to save their own.

            The meaning of September 11 is still reverberating through our culture, and there are many levels.   All of us have our interpretations, and these are a few brief ones of mine.  First, the world suddenly shrunk for Americans.  The nuclear age had made us aware that the oceans protecting our shores were not really relevant any more. Yet the idea that 21 people, trained by us to fly our airplanes, could kill over 3,000 people and cause such physical and psychic damage was stunning.   Our idea of ourselves as the one Superpower in the world was shaken to its core.  Our twin gods of materialism and technology were used and manipulated and attacked.  Few people remember that Puerto Rican nationalists shot up Congress in 1954, wounding five congressmen, but all of us will remember September 11, because it told us that we were now living in a smaller, global world.

            Second, our Empire mentality led Dick Chaney, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Bush into an idiotic and disastrous invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that now seem to have no end.  We invaded these countries out of hubris and a desire for revenge because our vulnerability had been revealed to us.  This process began in our losing the Vietnam War, and it continues through the election of Donald Trump.  It will be interesting to engage Ken Burns’ PBS series on the Vietnam War this month, as we consider this process again.   Sweet Honey in the Rock put it this way in the song “Battle for My Life:”  “Your hunger for war ain’t nothing new, Cowboy.”  I remember Jonathon Alter’s column in Newsweek “Blame America At Your Peril,” in the October 15, 2001 issue, as he closed it with these prime facie American imperial words: “”Al Qaeda was planning its attack at exactly the time the United States was offering a Mideast peace deal favorable to the Palestinians.  Nothing from us would have satisfied the fanatics, and nothing ever will.  Peace won’t be with you, brother.  It’s kill or be killed.”  September 11 should have told us that it’s “a just peace” or endless violence and war – we have yet to hear that lesson.  I don’t know that we ever can.

            Finally, the deep enmity for Islam is rooted in September 11.  In our history as Christians, we have considered Judaism as our primary enemy.  In modern times we have seen Islam as a small gnat in the way of our access to oil, but September 11 changed that.   It is no surprise that we did not attack the nation where most of the September 11 combatants came from – Saudi Arabia – because they are our primary oil ally in the region.  As the influence of religion, especially Christianity, wanes in America, some of us look longingly at Muslims who seem to try to actually practice their faith in a thoroughly consumer culture such as ours.  

            There are many other lessons from September 11, but these stick with me:  global life, the futility of violence and war, and the strengthening enmity for Islam.  As we reflect back on this history that continues to course through our individual and collective veins, let us remember these lessons and especially the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.:  “We must learn to live together to live as brothers (and sisters} or perish together as fools.”

LABOR DAY

“LABOR DAY”

            Later this week Caroline and I will travel to Baltimore to celebrate our daughter Susan’s 35^th birthday – I lost a couple of decades somewhere!  I still remember her coming out of Caroline’s birth canal in less than 90 minutes – ready to engage the world!   We’ll drive up through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia then pass close to Martinsburg, West Virginia, which was the scene of a labor strike in 1877 that led to the observance of Labor Day. 

            One hundred and forty years ago, 1877 was a huge year in American history.  In March a Federal Election Commission voted 8-7 to certify that Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was the winner of the 1876 Presidential election over Democrat Samuel Tilden.  Tilden had won the popular vote (sound familiar?), and was barely ahead in Electoral College votes, but he did not have a majority, and so the election was thrown into Congress.  Part of the compromise to get Hayes elected was a promise to pull the remaining Federal troops of Reconstruction out of South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida.  On April 24, 1877, the last Federal troops pulled out, and white supremacists worked hard to re-establish slavery under another name, using both violence and legislation.  Their efforts were crowned with the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 that declared by an 8-1 vote that “separate but equal” was the law of the land.  As we all know, they mean “separate and unequal.”

            April, 24, 1877, indicated the white American view that racism still prevailed, and that slavery could be re-established under a different name.  Three months later on July 16, 1877, a struggle began over wages and working conditions on the railroads, with President Hayes indicating that he favored the railroad barons over the workers.  On that date, railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, responded to a pay cut by shutting down the railroad yard of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.  From there the strike spread to Baltimore, St. Louis, Pittsburgh , Chicago and other places, and an estimated 100,000 workers took part, including iron workers, miners and longshoremen.  The governors of West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Illinois called on newly named President Hayes to send in Federal troops, and he did.  Violence broke out in many places, and finally the railroad barons put down the strikes.

            Yet the workers and the American public had begun to see things just a bit differently – there might be a need for community and even for unions.  Just as Hurricane Harvey has reminded us all (especially those in Texas) of the need for community and government involvement in the struggle for social justice,  many people in the USA in the 1870’s and 1880’s began to think about the need for this social fabric to be sown.  The first Labor Day was celebrated on the first Tuesday of September in 1882 in New York City, and Oregon was the first state to establish Labor Day as a statewide holiday in 1887.  In 1894, Congress approved the first Monday in September as Labor Day to honor American workers and to note the continuing struggle that workers have to establish living wages and working conditions.  That struggle would lead to abolition of child labor, 40 hour work weeks, and a minimum wage, and on this day, we should give thanks for those who have witnessed and fought for these conditions.

            That struggle will continue because the power of capitalism is such that many of these workers’ rights are being eroded under another name, just as slavery was re-established under another name after 1877.   The “free market” mantra that has reared its ugly head again under the Presidency of Donald Trump is seeking to strip workers of their hard won rights over the last 140 years.  At the same time, we are undergoing a technological revolution that will bring robots to displace many workers.  Workers in America, and indeed around the world, will find themselves caught in this vice of free market and robotics, and very few visionaries seem to be rising up to help us find our way to justice and equity in these days. 

            The anger of displaced workers in Rust Belt states ironically helped lead to the election of Donald Trump as president.  Let us not forget also that all the white South except for Virginia voted for Trump also.  As we think about these things and a way forward to justice and equity, let us note the intersectionality between race and labor here.  Slavery and its successor neo-slavery was, after all, an economic system, and 140 years ago, we saw the connection in its primal form.  1877 re-established slavery, and workers’ rights were thrown back.  Nevertheless, the forces for justice persisted. While we have made significant progress, 140 years later, we stand at a crossroads again.   In many ways, the path forward is in our hands.