Meta-Buffy/America Thought

[butterfly]

"Uh, reconstruction began after the... construction, which was... shoddy, so they had to reconstruct."
Buffy, Angel (S1), on The Reconstruction

Actually, this strikes me as very true, even if Buffy may not have realized it. The construction of America was shoddy -- built on hypocrisy ("Actually, it was Jefferson." "Kept slaves. Remember?" -- Willow and Cordelia, Go Fish (S2)) and thus unstable. The Civil War was a demolition, the tearing down of a compromised structure, and then came the Reconstruction.

Comments

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

*giggles like a mad thing*

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I make my own fun.

[jic]

Hmmm. There's a difference between being built by hypocrites and being built on hypocrisy.

If the documents themselves are self-contradictory in a hypocritical nature when you take them independent from the authors, that would be built on hypocrisy.

If the only source of hypocrisy is in that the authors did not practice what they preached, then it was simply built by hypocrites.

The Civil War -- That was an act of selfishness.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Well, considering that the documents themselves allowed for slavery (and counted slaves as 1/5 of a person or some such -- it's been a long time since high school history, mind), I would say that there was hypocrisy in the structure.

The Civil War... I dislike war on principle. For the most part, I think that wars are selfish and pointless beasts. I think that they're very rarely just and necessary and even when the war is, many of the acts committed during it won't be.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

Yup. "the whole number of free people and, excepting Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other people"

Since representation depended on population, the south wanted slaves to count as whole people, but the north said they shouldn't count at all. 3/5 allowed both sides to come out more or less equal.

[jic]

*nods* A compromise solution. And the best compromises have been said to make all parties equally unhappy.

I think you'll like the essay I linked below.

[jic]

Time to do your research, sugar. That, or clarify exactly to which founding documents you refer.

The Declaration of Independence makes no mention of race or slavery.

The US Constitution and its amendments make no mention of race or slavery except to disallow slavery (Amendment XIII) and to disallow restricting the right to vote based on race (Amendment XV)

Racial inequity was introduced with the Naturalization Act of 1790 (see essay). As this essay points out, "The fact that the United States of America was committed to liberty yet rested, to a considerable extent, on slavery was more than an irony or contradiction." But the hypocrisy is on the part of the authors, not the documents themselves. I think you'll like the essay.

My point is not that there was no hypocrisy, just that the hypocrisy was not inherent in the documents. If our history were judged solely by those DoI and the original US Constitution and Bill of Rights, there would be no history apparent. Not until reaching the 13th and 15th amendments would one realize that reality did not match the ideal originally presented.

[jic]

Correction: "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," clearly refers to slavery and indentured servitude, but it does not address any rights or restrictions based thereon. It only refers to how to calculate the census for purposes of representation and taxation.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

the first draft of the DoI had a bit about slavery, but it got edited out. it went along the lines of "thaht bitch george made us get slaves and now we need them dammit so it's totally not wrong to keep them."

[jic]

Uh huh. `_-