Thoreau's Slavery in Massachusetts - with annotated text
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The whole military force of the State is at the service of a Mr. Suttle,
a slaveholder from Virginia, to enable him to catch a man whom he calls
his property; but not a soldier is offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts
from being kidnapped! Is this what all these soldiers, all this training,
have been for these seventy-nine years past?(11)
Have they been trained merely to rob Mexico and carry back fugitive slaves
to their masters? -
I hear a good deal said about trampling this law under foot. Why, one need
not go out of his way to do that. This law rises not to the level of the
head or the reason; its natural habitat is in the dirt. It was born and
bred, and has its life, only in the dust and mire, on a level with the
feet; and he who walks with freedom, and does not with Hindoo mercy avoid
treading on every venomous reptile, will inevitably tread on it, and so
trample it under foot — and Webster,(18)
its maker, with it, like the dirt-bug and its ball. -
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law
free. They are the lovers of law and order who observe the law when the
government breaks it. -
Whoever can discern truth has
received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice
in the world who can discern only law. He finds himself constituted judge
of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple
truths! -
Rather than do thus, I need not say what match I would touch, what system
endeavor to blow up; but as I love my life, I would side with the light,
and let the dark earth roll from under me, calling my mother and my brother
to follow. -
The majority of the men of the North, and of the South and East and West,
are not men of principle. If they vote, they do not send men to Congress
on errands of humanity; but while their brothers and sisters are being
scourged and hung for loving liberty, while — I might here insert all that
slavery implies and is — it is the mismanagement of wood and iron and stone
and gold which concerns them. Do what you will, O Government, with my wife
and children, my mother and brother, my father and sister, I will obey
your commands to the letter. It will indeed grieve me if you hurt them,
if you deliver them to overseers to be hunted by bounds or to be whipped
to death; but, nevertheless, I will peaceably pursue my chosen calling
on this fair earth, until perchance, one day, when I have put on mourning
for them dead, I shall have persuaded you to relent. Such is the attitude,
such are the words of Massachusetts. -
I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature
when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them;
when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country
where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? The remembrance
of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and
involuntarily go plotting against her.
2008 Summer Institute Suggested Readings - CESA 6
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Table of Suggested Readings -- 2008 Summer Institute
-
Table - 2008 Summer Institute Schedule & Session Descriptions
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Breakout 0A (Steven Sheehan) - Christopher Lasch article 10 page article entitled "The Culture of Consumption" from Encyclopedia of American Social History
Breakout 0A (Steven Sheehan) - Shelley Nickles article 42 page article entitled "More is Better: Mass Consumption, Gender, and Class Identity in Postwar America", found in American Quarterly. -
-
Breakout 7B (Michael Jacobs) - American Declaration of Independence Features both the preliminary and final draft. -
Plenary 2 (Jack Rakove) - Declaring Rights, Jefferson-Madison Correspondence These readings consist of several pages from Jack Rakove's book "Declaring Rights," that deal specifically with correspondence between James Madison and Thomas Jefferson regarding the topic of "rights."
The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcolm X
-
And now you’re facing a situation where the young Negro’s coming up. They don’t
want to hear that "turn the—other—cheek" stuff, no. In Jacksonville,
those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails. Negroes have never
done that before. But it shows you there’s a new deal coming in. There’s new
thinking coming in. There’s new strategy coming in. It’ll be Molotov cocktails
this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month. It’ll be
ballots, or it’ll be bullets. It’ll be liberty, or it will be death. The only
difference about this kind of death —— it’ll be reciprocal. You know what is
meant by "reciprocal"? That’s one of Brother Lomax’s words. I stole
it from him. I don’t usually deal with those big words because I don’t usually
deal with big people. I deal with small people. I find you can get a whole lot
of small people and whip hell out of a whole lot of big people. They haven’t
got anything to lose, and they’ve got every thing to gain. And they’ll let you
know in a minute: "It takes two to tango; when I go, you go."
Message to Grassroots by Malcolm X
-
I would like to make a few comments concerning the difference
between the black revolution and the Negro revolution. There’s a difference. Are they both the same? And if
they’re not, what is the difference? What is the difference between a black revolution and
a Negro revolution? First, what is a revolution? Sometimes I’m inclined to believe that
many of our people are using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking
careful consideration [of] what this word actually means, and what its historic
characteristics are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a
revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution, and the methods
used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise another program. You may change
your goal and you may change your mind.Look at the American Revolution in 1776. That revolution was for
what? For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed.
Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And the only way they could
get it was bloodshed. The French Revolution —— what was it based on? The land—less against
the landlord. What was it for? Land. How did they get it? Bloodshed. Was no love lost; was
no compromise; was no negotiation. I’m telling you, you don’t know what a revolution is.
’Cause when you find out what it is, you’ll get back in the alley; you’ll get out of the
way. The Russian Revolution —— what was it based on? Land. The land—less
against the landlord. How did they bring it about? Bloodshed. You haven’t got a revolution
that doesn’t involve bloodshed. And you’re afraid to bleed. I said, you’re afraid to
bleed. -
[As] long as the white man sent you to Korea, you bled. He sent you to
Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, you bled. You
bleed for white people. But when it comes time to seeing your own churches being bombed and
little black girls be murdered, you haven’t got no blood. You bleed when the white man says
bleed; you bite when the white man says bite; and you bark when the white man says bark. I
hate to say this about us, but it’s true. How are you going to be nonviolent in
Mississippi, as violent as you were in Korea? How can you justify being nonviolent in
Mississippi and Alabama, when your churches are being bombed, and your
little girls are
being murdered, and at the same time you’re going to violent with Hitler, and Tojo,
and somebody else that you don’t even know?If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it’s
wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black
men, then it’s wrong for America to draft us and make us violent abroad in defense of
her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense
of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own
people right here in this country. -
The Chinese Revolution —— they wanted land. They threw the
British out, along with the Uncle Tom Chinese. Yeah, they did. They set a good
example. When I was in prison, I read an article —— don’t be shocked when I say
I was in prison. You’re still in prison. That’s what America means: prison. When
I was in prison, I read an article in Life magazine showing a little Chinese
girl, nine years old; her father was on his hands and knees and she was pulling
the trigger ’cause he was an Uncle Tom Chinaman,
When they had the revolution over there, they took a whole generation of Uncle Toms
——
just wiped them out. And within ten years that little girl become
[sic] a full—grown woman. No
more Toms in China. And today it’s one of the toughest, roughest, most feared countries on
this earth —— by the white man. ’Cause there are no Uncle Toms over there. -
Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our
research. And when you see that you’ve got problems, all you have to do is examine the
historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours.
And once
you see how they got theirs straight, then you know how you can get yours straight.
There’s been a revolution, a black revolution, going on in Africa. In Kenya, the
Mau Mau were revolutionaries; they were the ones who made the word " Uhuru" [Kenyan word for "freedom"]. They were the ones who brought it to the fore.The Mau Mau, they were revolutionaries. They believed in scorched earth. They knocked
everything aside that got in their way, and their revolution also was based on land, a
desire for land. In Algeria, the northern part of Africa, a revolution took place. The
Algerians were revolutionists; they wanted land. France offered to let them be integrated
into France. They told France: to hell with France. They wanted some land, not some
France. And they engaged in a bloody battle. -
So I cite these various revolutions, brothers and sisters, to show
you —— you don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn—the—other—cheek
revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. [The] only kind of revolution
that’s nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution based on loving
your enemy is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is a
desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a
desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to white folks on the toilet. That’s
no revolution. Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is
the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.The white man knows what a revolution is. He knows that the black
revolution is world—wide in scope and in nature. The black revolution is sweeping Asia,
sweeping Africa, is rearing its head in Latin America. The Cuban Revolution —— that’s a
revolution. They overturned the system. Revolution is in Asia. Revolution is in Africa.
And the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. How do you
think he’ll react to you when you learn what a real revolution is? You don’t know what a
revolution is. If you did, you wouldn’t use that word. -
A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no
compromise. Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way.
And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I’m going to love
these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. Whoever
heard of a revolution where they lock arms, as Reverend Cleage was pointing out beautifully, singing
"We Shall Overcome"? Just tell me. You don’t do that in a revolution. You don’t do any
singing; you’re too busy swinging. It’s based on land. A revolutionary wants land so he
can set up his own nation, an independent nation. These Negroes aren’t asking for
no
nation. They’re trying to crawl back on the plantation.When you want a nation, that’s called nationalism. When the white
man became involved in a revolution in this country against England, what was it for? He
wanted this land so he could set up another white nation. That’s white nationalism. The
American Revolution was white nationalism. The French Revolution was white nationalism.
The Russian Revolution too —— yes, it was —— white nationalism. You don’t think so? Why
[do]
you think Khrushchev and Mao can’t get their heads together? White nationalism. All the
revolutions that’s going on in Asia and Africa today are based on what? Black
nationalism. A revolutionary is a black nationalist. He wants a nation. I was
reading some beautiful words by Reverend Cleage, pointing out why he couldn’t get together with someone
else here in the city because all of them were afraid of being identified with black
nationalism. If you’re afraid of black nationalism, you’re afraid of revolution. And if
you love revolution, you love black nationalism. -
To understand this, you have to go back to what [the]
young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro —— back
during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the
field Negro. The house Negroes — they lived in the house with master, they
dressed pretty good, they ate good ’cause they ate his
food —— what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the
master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give
their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house
Negro, if the master said,
"We got a good house here," the house Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good
house here." Whenever the master said "we," he said "we." That’s
how you can tell a house Negro.If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight
harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro
would say, "What’s the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself
with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the
house Negro and said, "Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate," the house
Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is
there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat
better food than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a
"house nigger." And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some
house niggers running around here. -
Just as the slavemaster of that day used Tom, the house
Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slavemaster today has
Negroes who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep
you and me in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful and
nonviolent. That’s Tom making you nonviolent. It’s like when you go to the
dentist, and the man’s going to take your tooth. You’re going to fight him when
he starts pulling. So he squirts some stuff in your jaw called novocaine, to
make you think they’re not doing anything to you. So you sit there and ’cause
you’ve got all of that novocaine in your jaw, you suffer peacefully. Blood
running all down your jaw, and you don’t know what’s happening. ’Cause someone has
taught you to suffer —— peacefully.The white man do the same thing to you in the street, when he
want [sic] to put knots on your head and take advantage of you and don’t have to be afraid of
your fighting back. To keep you from fighting back, he gets these old religious Uncle Toms
to teach you and me, just like novocaine, suffer peacefully. Don’t stop suffering
——
just suffer peacefully. As Reverend Cleage pointed out, "Let your blood
flow In the streets." This is a shame. And you know he’s a Christian preacher. If it’s a shame
to him, you know what it is to me. -
This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him.
He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then
brag about "I’m the only Negro out here." "I’m the only one on my
job." "I’m the only one in this school." You’re nothing but a house Negro.
And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let’s separate," you say the
same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean, separate?
From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get
here?" I mean, this is what you say. "I ain’t left nothing in Africa,"
that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field
Negro —— those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than
there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the
house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn’t get nothing but what was
left of the insides of the hog. They call ’em "chitt’lin’" nowadays. In those
days they called them what they were: guts. That’s what you were —— a gut—eater. And some
of you all still gut—eaters. -
The field Negro was beaten from morning to night. He lived in a
shack, in a hut; He wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his
master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro ——
remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on
fire, he didn’t try and put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When
the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he’d die. If someone come
[sic] to the field
Negro and said, "Let’s separate, let’s run," he didn’t say "Where we
going?" He’d say, "Any place is better than here." You’ve got field Negroes
in America today. I’m a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes. When they see this
man’s house on fire, you don’t hear these little Negroes talking about "our government
is in trouble." They say, "The government is in trouble." Imagine a Negro:
"Our government"! I even heard one say "our astronauts." They won’t
even let him near the plant —— and "our astronauts"! "Our Navy" ——
that’s a Negro that’s out of his mind. That’s a Negro that’s out of his mind. -
There’s nothing in our book, the Quran —— you call it "Ko—ran"
—— that teaches us to suffer
peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the
law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
That’s a good religion. In fact, that’s that old—time religion. That’s the one that Ma and
Pa used to talk about: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head,
and a life for a life: That’s a good religion. And doesn’t nobody resent that kind of religion
being taught but a wolf, who intends to make you his meal.This is the way it is with the white man in America. He’s a wolf and
you’re sheep. Any time a shepherd, a pastor, teach [sic] you and me not to run from the white
man and, at the same time, teach [sic] us not to fight the white man, he’s a traitor to you
and me. Don’t lay down our life all by itself. No, preserve your life. it’s the best thing
you got. And if you got to give it up, let it be even—steven.
Online Library of Liberty - 24: A Moderate Whig [Stephen Case?], DEFENSIVE ARMS VINDICATED - Political Sermons of the American Founding Era. Vol. 1 (1730-1788)
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DEFENSIVE ARMS VINDICATED
A Moderate Whig
[Stephen Case?]
- [NEW-MARLBOROUGH]
1783
Stephen Case (1746–1794). Neither the author nor the place of publication of Defensive Arms Vindicated (1783) has been determined with certainty. It is signed “A Moderate Whig,” dated June 17, 1782 at New-Marlborough, and dedicated to George Washington. In the text the author indicates that the piece was actually written in 1779. Scholars believe that a Stephen Case was the author because his name is written in manuscript on some extant copies of the pamphlet. This may be the Captain Stephen Case born in Orange County, New York, in 1746, who served in Colonel Jonathan Hasbrouck’s regiment of the Ulster County militia during the Revolution, and who died in Marlborough, Ulster County, New York, in 1794. In the Preface to the Reader the author addresses “my dear brother soldiers,” which bears out the identification to some extent.
-
I acknowledge that there have already been many able pens employed in stating the justice of our cause, and none, in my opinion, merits more our thanks than the author of Common Sense; but none, that I have seen, has, to my satisfaction, cleared up the lawfulness of the use of defensive arms against tyrants and tyranny, whenever they shall endeavour to deprive a people of their liberty and property.
Online Library of Liberty - 8: Jonathan Mayhew, THE SNARE BROKEN - Political Sermons of the American Founding Era. Vol. 1 (1730-1788)
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THE SNARE BROKEN
Jonathan Mayhew
- BOSTON
1766
Jonathan Mayhew (1720–1766). One of the celebrated names associated with early American opposition to British tyranny, Mayhew graduated from Harvard College in 1744 and received an S.T.D. from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1749. He was pastor of Boston’s West Church from 1747, a position he retained for the remainder of his short life. According to Frederick L. Weis, Mayhew was regarded by some as the best preacher in the New England of his day (The Colonial Clergy and the Colonial Churches of New England [1936]).
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Our soul is escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
Psalm CXXIV. 7, 8.
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The Snare Broken, a “thanksgiving discourse,” was preached by Mayhew in his own pulpit on May 23, 1766, less than two months before he died at the age of forty-six. Occasioned by Parliament’s repeal of the Stamp Act, the sermon conveys a warning to William Pitt and other English readers that taking self-government into private hands in some circumstances must surely proceed from “self-preservation, being a great and primary law of nature.”
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I now partake no less in your common joy, on account of the repeal of that act; whereby these colonies are emancipated from a slavish, inglorious bondage; are re-instated in the enjoyment of their ancient rights and privileges, and a foundation is laid for lasting harmony between Great-Britain and them, to their mutual advantage.
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My immediate aim in what I now say, being only to recommend industry, good order and harmony, I will not meddle with the thorny question, whether, or how far, it may be justifiable for private men, at certain extraordinary conjunctures, to take the administration of government in some respects into their own hands. Self-preservation being a great and primary law of nature, and to be considered as antecedent to all civil laws and institutions, which are subordinate and subservient to the other; the right of so doing, in some circumstances, cannot well be denied. But certainly, there is no plausible pretence for such a conduct among us now.
Online Library of Liberty - 12: Samuel Sherwood, SCRIPTURAL INSTRUCTIONS TO CIVIL RULERS - Political Sermons of the American Founding Era. Vol. 1 (1730-1788)
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As societies and communities have their beginning and origin in voluntary compact and agreement; when persons have entered by consent and free choice, into society, they must acknowledge themselves under strict and sacred obligations to act toward one another agreeable to the laws and constitution of that society whereof they are members. There are certain duties required of rulers, as well as of subjects; and their obligations faithfully and punctually to fulfil them, rise in proportion to the dignity and importance of their high and elevated stations; and the effect and influence which their conduct has on the rest of the body. A man’s being raised to honour and promotion above others, is so far from releasing him from, or lessening his duty, that every step he takes in his advancement, proportionably enlarges it, and adds a new and powerful obligation to the performance of it. The most absolute of sovereign princes owe something to the meanest of their subjects; and may be very criminal in the neglect or refusal of it. Subjects have rights, privileges and properties; and are countenanced and supported by the law of nature, the laws of society, and the law of God; in demanding full protection in the enjoyment of these rights, and the impartial distribution of justice, from their rulers. And when rulers refuse these, and will not comply with such a reasonable and equitable demand from the subject; the society is dissolved; and its fundamental laws violated and broken; and the relation between the ruler and the subject ceases, with all the duties and obligations that arose from it. For it must be supposed, and every one of common sense will readily allow, that no man would ever have consented to place himself in the state of a subject, on any other consideration or footing than that of his having protection and justice from those to whom he submitted. The good of society in all its individual members, is the end for which it is formed; and for which government is instituted and appointed. And this cannot be obtained, unless rulers exert their power, influence and authority to protect their subjects in all their valuable rights and privileges; defend them against their enemies, both from without, and within; and administer impartial justice among them.
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That glorious Being by whom kings reign, and princes decree justice, is the author of this divine sentence here given forth: to whom sovereign rulers are as strictly accountable for all their conduct, as the meanest of their subjects—may therefore properly be called upon, and that, by the authority of the great Lord and governor of the world, to attend to, and conscientiously practice their duty in such plain, important instances of it. Be wise now therefore O ye kings, says God, be instructed ye judges of the earth; serve the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling. Psal. ii. 10, 11.
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The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.
II Samuel, xxiii. 3.
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God the sovereign Lord and supreme Ruler of all things, has made men in such a manner, and placed them in such circumstances, as plainly to discover his will, that they should unite and combine into societies for their mutual benefit and advantage. He has not, by the light of nature, nor by any positive declarations of his will, infallibly directed what form of society he would have to prevail, nor prescribed any one particular species of civil government, as more agreeable to him, than another. But has made mankind rational creatures; and left them to choose that which they apprehend to be most perfect in its nature and kind, and best suited to their state, situation and circumstances. The divine constitution, and government of God over his intelligent creatures, is fixed; and it does not become men to exercise their invention or wisdom in seeking any alteration or change in it: but to study the most ready and cheerful submission; as they may be assured, that whatever God requires, is fit and right for his subjects to comply with. His authority and power over us is unlimited and uncontrolable, and cannot be denied, or opposed without our being guilty of the highest crime of rebellion. But no created being is invested with such absolute, unlimited power, nor qualified for the exercise of it. Error and imperfection belongs to every individual of the human race.
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The brightest character that was ever justly drawn among mortal men, has this dark shade in it: So that the will of none, is infallibly right in all things, and cannot therefore be complied with in all instances, consistent with a good conscience, and the superior obligations we are under to the sovereign Ruler of the world; who still maintains this rightful authority over us, and has not given it by delegation, to any one among created beings: all of whom were originally made free-agents; and considered as in a state of nature, previous to their uniting as members of society, have their liberty and free choice to agree upon such a form of government, and mode of administration in their civil and temporal affairs, as they judge most conducive to their happiness and good: any one of which has no more claim than another to be, jure divino, or of divine right, on any other principle, than its being more conformable to right reason and equity, by the eternal rules of which, God has manifested it to be his will, that his rational creatures be governed.
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I do not mean to encourage evil jealousies and groundless suspicions of our civil rulers, the guardians of our liberties; nor to countenance seditious tumults in the state, so destructive to our civil happiness and peace. I am a firm friend to good order and regularity; that all ranks of men move in strait lines, and within their own proper spheres: That authority and government be supported and maintained so as to promote the good of society, the end for which it was instituted; perfectly consistent with which, a people may keep a watchful eye over their liberties, and cautiously guard against oppression and tyranny, which I detest and abhor, and solemnly abjure.
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SCRIPTURAL INSTRUCTIONS TO CIVIL RULERS
Samuel Sherwood
- NEW-HAVEN
1774
Samuel Sherwood (1730–1783). A 1749 graduate of Yale, Sherwood took his second degree there also and was later awarded an A.M. by the College of New Jersey at Princeton, where he tutored and where his uncle, Aaron Burr, Sr., was president. In 1757 he settled in Weston, Connecticut, as the first pastor of a church consisting of twelve members. There he remained for the rest of his relatively short life.
Nixon's Acceptance Speech
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Thank you very much. My friends, America is a great nation. It is time we started
to act like a great nation around the world.
Historical Thinking Matters:How to use this site
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Questions: This tab includes a series of reading questions that highlight the reading strategies that historians use when they approach an historical source: Sourcing, Contextualizing, Close Reading, and Corroboration.
Advice needed. 29'er w/ rack mounts [Archive] - Mtbr.com Forums
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What I've found;
Karate Monkey, On One Inbred and Soma Juice, - only draw back to all of them is track-ends instead of vertical drop outs.
Fisher Ferrous has rack mounts on the drops but I don't want to buy a complete bike, just the frame. Don't know if the frame is available separate. -
$1000 would get you a custom steel frame. Then you specify all the little touring details you wanted. Maybe something like this:
http://www.clockworkbikes.com/
$800 with no extra charge for braze ons. He's also got one of the cheapest rates for S&S couplers which would be a cool option on a touring rig. -
This was the exact same criteria that led me to the El Mariachi.
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The Salsa mounts are intended, to my understanding, for fenders- not to bear lateral loads like a loaded rack. There are no upper mounts for racks and no V-brake bosses, so I don't think you could run any current racks on the market unless you use the clamps/skewer method on OMM.
What do have against the QR OMM rack? It's strong, clean, and proven. The only drawback I see is the flat-changing challenges....
Mike -
Check out Curtlo. $775 gets you a custom steel frame.
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Willits here (http://willitsbikes.com/).
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I am not sure if rackmounts would work with discs or not, if you are running them. Old Man makes a rack mount which is an extender that goes on the quick release and was made for disc bikes. Why not get that and you can use any frame regardless of it being disc, rackmount or whatever.
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Old Man Mountain racks work beautifully and they are not cheesy or kludged in any way.
Yes, they do have a model that works with disk brakes -
Gunnar Rockhound. Sweet 853 steel with rack mounts and a very nice ride.
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Gunnar Rockhound, mine has V-brake and disc mounts, rack mounts, good steel (they are True Temper now) and fits all your other needs well.
Plus, only $730 for a USA handbuilt frame. -
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Tutorial: Now you see 'em, now you don't: Invisible files in Mac OS X - MacFixIt
Tags: no_tag on 2008-05-18 and saved by3 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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For starters, you can accomplish the same changes just described with Property List Editor by using the defaults command. Specifically, to make invisible files visible, type the following: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles Yes.
"Their Own Hotheadedness": Senator Benjamin R."Pitchfork Ben" Tillman Justifies Violence Against Southern Blacks
Tags: lynching, racism, populism, sources, politics, Lost Cause, reconstruction on 2008-05-15 -All Annotations (0) -About
in list: Race, Culture, and Politics in the "New South"
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The Stupidity of Dignity
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The general feeling is that, even if a new technology would improve life and health and decrease suffering and waste, it might have to be rejected, or even outlawed, if it affronted human dignity.
Whatever that is. The problem is that "dignity" is a squishy, subjective notion, hardly up to the heavyweight moral demands assigned to it. The bioethicist Ruth Macklin, who had been fed up with loose talk about dignity intended to squelch research and therapy, threw down the gauntlet in a 2003 editorial, "Dignity Is a Useless Concept." Macklin argued that bioethics has done just fine with the principle of personal autonomy--the idea that, because all humans have the same minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, reason, and choose, no human has the right to impinge on the life, body, or freedom of another. This is why informed consent serves as the bedrock of ethical research and practice, and it clearly rules out the kinds of abuses that led to the birth of bioethics in the first place, such as Mengele's sadistic pseudoexperiments in Nazi Germany and the withholding of treatment to indigent black patients in the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. Once you recognize the principle of autonomy, Macklin argued, "dignity" adds nothing.
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How did the United States, the world's scientific powerhouse, reach a point at which it grapples with the ethical challenges of twenty-first-century biomedicine using Bible stories, Catholic doctrine, and woolly rabbinical allegory?
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The Judeo-Christian--in some cases, explicitly biblical--arguments found in essay after essay in this volume are quite extraordinary. Yet, aside from two paragraphs in a commentary by Daniel Dennett, the volume contains no critical examination of any of its religious claims.
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Kass has a problem not just with longevity and health but with the modern conception of freedom. There is a "mortal danger," he writes, in the notion "that a person has a right over his body, a right that allows him to do whatever he wants to do with it." He is troubled by cosmetic surgery, by gender reassignment, and by women who postpone motherhood or choose to remain single in their twenties. Sometimes his fixation on dignity takes him right off the deep end:
Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone--a catlike activity that has been made acceptable in informal America but that still offends those who know eating in public is offensive. ... Eating on the street--even when undertaken, say, because one is between appointments and has no other time to eat--displays [a] lack of self-control: It beckons enslavement to the belly. ... Lacking utensils for cutting and lifting to mouth, he will often be seen using his teeth for tearing off chewable portions, just like any animal. ... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if we feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior.
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And the Church's franchise to guide people in the most profound events of their lives--birth, death, and reproduction--is in danger of being undermined when biomedicine scrambles the rules. It's not surprising, then, that "dignity" is a recurring theme in Catholic doctrine: The word appears more than 100 times in the 1997 edition of the Catechism and is a leitmotif in the Vatican's recent pronouncements on biomedicine.
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First, dignity is relative. One doesn't have to be a scientific or moral relativist to notice that ascriptions of dignity vary radically with the time, place, and beholder. In olden days, a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. We chuckle at the photographs of Victorians in starched collars and wool suits hiking in the woods on a sweltering day, or at the Brahmins and patriarchs of countless societies who consider it beneath their dignity to pick up a dish or play with a child. Thorstein Veblen wrote of a French king who considered it beneath his dignity to move his throne back from the fireplace, and one night roasted to death when his attendant failed to show up. Kass finds other people licking an ice-cream cone to be shamefully undignified; I have no problem with it.
Second, dignity is fungible. The Council and Vatican treat dignity as a sacred value, never to be compromised. In fact, every one of us voluntarily and repeatedly relinquishes dignity for other goods in life. Getting out of a small car is undignified. Having sex is undignified. Doffing your belt and spread- eagling to allow a security guard to slide a wand up your crotch is undignified. Most pointedly, modern medicine is a gantlet of indignities. Most readers of this article have undergone a pelvic or rectal examination, and many have had the pleasure of a colonoscopy as well. We repeatedly vote with our feet (and other body parts) that dignity is a trivial value, well worth trading off for life, health, and safety.
Third, dignity can be harmful. In her comments on the Dignity volume, Jean Bethke Elshtain rhetorically asked, "Has anything good ever come from denying or constricting human dignity?" The answer is an emphatic "yes." Every sashed and be-medaled despot reviewing his troops from a lofty platform seeks to command respect through ostentatious displays of dignity. Political and religious repressions are often rationalized as a defense of the dignity of a state, leader, or creed: Just think of the Salman Rushdie fatwa, the Danish cartoon riots, or the British schoolteacher in Sudan who faced flogging and a lynch mob because her class named a teddy bear Mohammed. Indeed, totalitarianism is often the imposition of a leader's conception of dignity on a population, such as the identical uniforms in Maoist China or the burqas of the Taliban.
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The perception of dignity in turn elicits a response in the perceiver. Just as the smell of baking bread triggers a desire to eat it, and the sight of a baby's face triggers a desire to protect it, the appearance of dignity triggers a desire to esteem and respect the dignified person.
This explains why dignity is morally significant: We should not ignore a phenomenon that causes one person to respect the rights and interests of another. But it also explains why dignity is relative, fungible, and often harmful. Dignity is skin-deep: it's the sizzle, not the steak; the cover, not the book. What ultimately matters is respect for the person, not the perceptual signals that typically trigger it. Indeed, the gap between perception and reality makes us vulnerable to dignity illusions. We may be impressed by signs of dignity without underlying merit, as in the tin-pot dictator, and fail to recognize merit in a person who has been stripped of the signs of dignity, such as a pauper or refugee.
American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many : NPR
Tags: indians, boarding schools on 2008-05-13 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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Declarations - WSJ.com
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In case you didn't get what was behind that exchange, Mrs. Clinton spent this week making it clear. In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, she said, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? "Even Richard Nixon didn't say white," an Obama supporter said, "even with the Southern strategy."
If John McCain said, "I got the white vote, baby!" his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.
H-Net Review: Roger Bolton on West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War
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The reader's biggest question after putting the book down (whether he or she puts it down after page 150, or after page 250, or at the very end) will be: Just how homogeneous was this mainstream middle? Is "coalesce" really the right verb to describe how this mainstream developed? A fuller description of the end result might have strengthened Richardson's claims about the mainstream's character and about the usefulness of the concept in the first place. Or, maybe it would have revealed such heterogeneity in the "mainstream" as to cast doubt. Perhaps the mainstream middle was really a "loose baggy monster," to borrow Henry James's description of big sprawling novels.
Rediscovering the Book Reiview
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My book reviews all follow a set format, both to avoid plagiarism and to ensure that critical thinking does indeed take place. Each are divided into four paragraphs. In the first paragraph, the student must identify the thesis of the book. Why is the author writing? What is the message he/she is attempting to convey? Why does it matter? The second paragraph contains a summary of the book. What do its chapters contain? How is it organized? What historical evidence does the author use to support his/her argument? If the first paragraph made sure that the student had identified the argument and "got it," the second paragraph is the inducement to read each chapter, not just the introduction and conclusion. It is with the third and fourth paragraphs, however, that the book review really becomes interesting. In the third paragraph, the student must analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the book. Where is the author's argument compelling? Where does it fall short? What is particularly persuasive? What is missing? Finally, in the fourth paragraph, the student is required to place the book into the context of the course. How does the book fit with the lectures and discussions? What does it add to our understanding of the historical topic at hand? How does it compare to the other books we have read?
Challenges for History Doctoral Programs and Students: Rising Admissions and High Attrition
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The data also indicate that after 10 years in the program, fewer than half of the students who started their doctoral studies in 1997–98 had received their degrees and nearly a third had dropped out altogether


