and then puts this power into the hands of their oppressors, to be wielded by them for the more perfect security of their tyrannous authority

Some boob started going on and on about "Hamilton" the musical fiction that is the rage of broadway in my presence.  No doubt this person, who holds a degree from a prestigious New England university, believes the crap is "based on history".   It's the sad fact that holding a degree from a prestigious university is probably, in many cases, less of an indication of knowledge or even a knowledge of the means of obtaining knowledge than having graduated from high school was a couple of generations ago.  This boob isn't that much younger than I am, though I know people my age who are as stupid and aggravatingly certain of their smattering of show biz based ignorance is certain knowledge.

I wouldn't have gone off on this again just now except that the estimable Charles Pierce had a piece up in which he says, mostly rightly, that Roy Moore the bible thumping pedophile who will almost certainly be elected the next Senator from Alabama, to replace the white supremacist Jeff Sessions,  - or the poltroon who was appointed by the criminal governor who said poltroon let off on criminal charges to fill out the white supremacist's term - was not some aberration but was typical of today's Republican Party.  Do read it,  it is well worth considering, even though I believe some of Pierce's emphasis is slightly off - both in terms of regionalism and in terms of the focus he thinks real religious belief instead of mere hypocritical profession plays in this.  He dwells too much on the South, forgetting that these days Wisconsin and Michigan and other states as Northern as any dont have much to feel proud of in that regard.  What has been done in places like Flint, in which black voters were poisoned after their elected local government was usurped by Republican-fascism is as bad as anything that has happened anywhere.  And there are plenty of Northern Senators and House members who are in thick as thieves with the worst of them.  Paul Ryan for a start.

But the part of that piece that inspired me to go back to what I would say has been the most important book I've read all year, so far, and revisit my idea of going over large parts of it to debunk the mythology of the "founding fathers" and the brain cancer of "originalism" or "Constitutionalism" or whatever that is certainly more to blame for Republican fascism than The New Testament.  The book is an old one, first published in 1844*,  The Constitution a Pro-Slavery Compact:  or, Extracts from the Madison papers, etc. selected by Wendell Phillips.  I would recommend that Charles Pierce read the words of Madison as a balance to what sounds like a hagiographic biography of James Madison by Noah Feldman.  I haven't read Feldman's book, though I have to say that what I've read from him in the past wouldn't lead me to suspect it is anything like a rigorously objective reading of the primary record.  Reading his own words as published by Phillips, not to mention the other "founding fathers" in the book, I don't see how anyone could not be skeptical of anything he had to say which would be productive of egalitarian democracy.  The sordid materialism of the founders, discussing not only slaves but free working people as chattels and in terms of useful productivity is truly disgusting.  I hope, this week, to go farther into the discussion starting with the section impeaching the Northerner, the "abolitionist" Alexander Hamilton on the basis of his part in promoting the original corrupt bargain in our politics, the selling out by even such supposed abolitionists as him to the slave power on the basis of advantage to the commercial class in the Northern states.   This extract, alone, shows how Hamilton's legend is pretty much a fiction.

Article 1, Sect. 2, provides --- "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,"

Here, as in the clause we have already examined, veiled beneath a form of words as deceitful as it is unmeaning. in a truly democratic government, is a provision for the safety, perpetuity and augmentation of the slaveholding power  a provision scarcely less atrocious than that which related to the African slave trade, and almost as afflictive in its operation,  a provision still in force, with no possibility of its alteration, so long as a majority of the slave States choose to maintain their slave system  a provision which, at the present time, enables the South to have twenty-five additional representatives in Congress on the score of property, while the North is not allowed to have one,  a provision which concedes to the oppressed three fifths of the political power which is granted to all others, and then puts this power into the hands of their oppressors, to be wielded by them for the more perfect security of their tyrannous authority, and the complete subjugation of the non-slaveholding States. 

Referring to this atrocious bargain, Alexander Hamilton remarked in the New York Convention  

" The first thing objected to, is that clause which allows a representation for three  fifths of the negros.  Much has been said of the impropriety of representing men who have no will of their own. Whether this be reasoning or declamation  (!) I will not presume to say. It is the unfortunate situation of the Southern States to have a great part of their population, as well as property in blacks. The regulation complained of was one result of the spirit of accommodation which governed the Convention ; and without this indulgence, NO UNION COULD POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN FORMED. But. sir, considering some peculiar advantages which we derive from them, it is entirely JUST that they should be gratified. The Southern States posses certain staples  --tobacco, rice, indigo, &c., –  which must be capital objects in treaties of commerce with foreign nations ; and the advantage which they necessarily procure in these treaties will be felt throughout all the States." 

If such was the patriotism, such the love of liberty, such the morality of Alexander Hamilton, what can be said of  the character of those who were far less conspicuous than himself in securing American independence, and in framing  the American Constitution? 

So, fuck all with abolition, there was indigo and tobacco to trade.   Which anyone who wants to groove on and boogie to "Hamilton" might want to consider before they buy the Broadway tripe as accurate history.   I, somehow, doubt it's going to keep Rosie O'Donnell from buying her 32nd ticket to the thing   It's got about the same intellectual status as Star Wars, so why not?

I will address this more later, but not far on from that in the book Wendell Phillips rightly contrasts the requirement that slaves that escaped to free states were not, thus, freed in Article 4, section 2 of the Constitution with The Law of Moses which did, in fact, free such escaped slaves and enjoined that they were to be treated equally with other members of the community.   Phillips also reinforced that point with arguments from Isaiah and Obadiah.   I have pointed out before that when escaped slaves such as David Walker agitated for abolition, they didn't go to the Constitution, they went to the Bible for their arguments.   Such people as Hamilton and that patron saint of disestablishment, Madison, would have made sure such arguments were no where there to be found and that the promises of the Declaration of Independence, which the Constitutional Convention was convened to renege on, set aside.  Another point which John Quincy Adams and Wendell Phillips made.

*  I erred.   The copy I read was from 1856,  the book was first published in 1844.