BIRTH | May 4: Horace Mann, Advocate for Public Education

May 4, 2017—This day was born in 1796 Horace Mann, is called the father of American public education. He said:

"Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark, all is deluge." 

Born in Franklin, Massachusetts, in 1796, he grew up poor, but he made full use of the local library founded by his town's namesake, Benjamin Franklin. 

Brown University accepted him as a sophomore at 20 years of age. He graduated in three years and was named  class valedictorian.

Elected to the state legislature in 1827, he was appointed secretary of the State's Board of Education when Massachusetts created it in 1837. He used the position, which had little budget attached, to inspect every school in the state and publish annual reports advocating a common school education,  i.e., a basic tax-funded education for all children. He established the concept of a "normal" state school, taking on those who believed all schools should have a religious orientation.

Elected to the U.S. Congress in 1848, after the death of John Quincy Adams, he spoke out in Congress against slavery, and wrote in a letter:

"I think the country is to experience serious times. Interference with slavery will excite civil commotion in the South. But it is best to interfere. Now is the time to see whether the Union is a rope of sand or a band of steel."

When he left politics, he moved to Ohio to become president of Antioch College. He told a graduating class, two years before his death:

"I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words. Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

LORD NORTH: Apr. 15–Hey, I Just Did What Ben Said To (Updated May 13, 2016)

Benjamin Franklin.

On this day in 1774, a British newspaper published an open letter by autodidact (high school dropout) Benjamin Franklin to Britain’s prime minister–Oxonian Frederick, Lord North. 

The newspaper was published in England, in The Public Advertiser. Franklin signed himself "A Friend to Military Government". 

He wrote as from the Smyrna Coffee House on St. James Street in London; this was for decades a well-known meeting place of the liberal Whig party. North was the leader of the ruling Tory party.

Lord North.

Franklin’s sarcastic letter suggested to Lord North that King George should ASAP respond to the insolence of the  American colonial rebels as follows:

• Impose martial law in the colonies, i.e., closing the civil courts.
• Appoint a “King’s Viceroy of all North America" to keep order.
• Collect its taxes through whatever intimidation was required.
• Then sell to Spain the impoverished colonies and its colonists ("the soil and the people on it").

Did Lord North take the letter seriously? Based on his subsequent actions, it certainly seems as though he did...

• The next month, in May 1774, his government passed the Massachusetts Government Act, imposing martial law on Massachusetts, where the rebels were most vocal.
• General Thomas Gage was appointed to institute the military government.
• He was made the colony’s royal governor.

The response of the colonies was the Declaration of Independence, which followed in 1776. The colonies were no longer so easy to sell to Spain.

An Open Letter to Lord North

Smyrna Coffee-House, April 5. [1774]
For the Public Advertiser. [Published April 15, 1774]

To Lord North.

My Lord,

All your small Politicians, who are very numerous in the English Nation, from the patriotic Barber to the patriotic Peer, when big with their Schemes for the Good of poor Old England, imagine they have a Right to give Advice to the Minister, and condemn Administration if they do not adopt their Plan. I, my Lord, who have no mean Opinion of my Abilities, which is justified by the Attention that is paid to me when I harangue at the Smyrna and Old Slaughter’s, am willing to contribute my Mite to the public Welfare; and have a Proposal to make to your Lordship, which I flatter myself will be approved of by the Ministry, and if carried into Execution, will quiet all the Disturbances in America, procure a decent Revenue from our Colonies, make our royal Master (at least there) a King de facto, as well as de jure; and finally, as it may be managed, procure a round Sum towards discharging the national Debt.

My Scheme is, without Delay to introduce into North America a Government absolutely and entirely Military. The Opposition which some People suspect would be made by the Colonies, is a mere Bugbear: The Sight of a few Regiments of bold Britons, appearing with Ensigns displayed, and in all the Pomp of War, a Specimen of which may be seen every Summer at the Grand Review on Wimbledon Common, with that great Commander G——l G——e at their Head, accompanied with a Detachment from the Artillery, and Half a Dozen short Sixes, would so intimidate the Americans, that the General might march through the whole Continent of North America, and would have little else to do but to accept of the Submission of the several Towns as he passed. But as the Honour would be too great for one Man to reduce to absolute Subjection so great an Extent of Territory, I would propose that a separate Command be given to L——d G—— G——e, who by his animated Speeches in the House, and coinciding so entirely with your Lordship’s Opinion on the proper Methods for humbling America, deserves a Share in the Fame of such a grand Exploit. Let him have one half of the Army under his Direction, and march from New York to South Carolina. No one can object to the Nomination, as his Military Prowess is upon Record. 

The Regiments that are in America, with those who are about to embark, will be amply sufficient, without being at the Expence of sending more Troops. Those who served in America the last War, know that the Colonists are a dastardly Set of Poltroons; and though they are descended from British Ancestors, they are degenerated to such a Degree, that one born in Britain is equal to twenty Americans. The Yankey Doodles have a Phrase when they are not in a Humour for fighting, which is become proverbial, I don’t feel bould To-day. When they make this Declaration, there is no prevailing on them to attack the Enemy or defend themselves. If contrary to Expectation they should attempt an Opposition, procure Intelligence when it happens not to be their fighting Day, attack them and they will fly like Sheep pursued by a Wolf. 

When all North America have thus bent their Neck to the Yoke designed for them, I would propose that the Method made use of by the Planters in the West Indies may be adopted, who appoint what they call a Negro Driver, who is chosen from among the Slaves. It is observed that the little Authority that is given him over his Fellow Slaves, attaches him to his Master’s Interest, and his Cruelty would be without Bounds were he not restrained; but the Master is certain, that the utmost Exertion of Strength will be exacted by this cruel Task-Master for the Proprietor’s Emolument. Let all the Colonists be enrolled in the Militia, subject of course to Martial Law. Appoint a certain Number of Officers from among the conquered People, with good Pay, and other Military Emoluments; they will secure their Obedience in the District where they command.

Let no other Courts be allowed through the whole Continent but Courts Martial. An Inhabitant, who disobeys an Order, may by a Court Martial be sentenced to receive from One Hundred to a Thousand Lashes in a frosty Morning, according to the Nature of his Offence. Where Punishment is thus secure, this Advantage will accrue, that there will not be the same Necessity of hanging up so many poor Devils as in this free Country; by which Means the Service of many an able Man is lost to the Community. I humbly propose that the General and Commander in Chief be vested with the Power, and called by the Name of the King’s Viceroy of all North America. This will serve to impress the Americans with greater Respect for the first Magistrate, and have a Tendency to secure their Submission. All Orders issuing from this supreme Authority to have the Force of Laws.

After this happy Change of Government, how easy to collect what Taxes you please in North America. When the Colonists are drained of their last Shilling, suppose they should be sold to the best Bidder. As they lie convenient for France or Spain, it may be reasonably expected one of those little Powers would be a Purchaser. I think Spain is to be preferred, as their Power hath more of the Ready than France. I will venture a Conjecture, that the Ministry might get at least Two Millions for the Soil, and the People upon it. With such a Sum what glorious Things might he not achieve! Suppose it should be applied towards the Payment of one hundredth Part of the National Debt, I [it?] would give him an Opportunity of drawing down upon him the Blessing of the Poor by making him to take off the Halfpenny Duty on Porter. Considering the probable Stability of the present Ministry, this Honour may be reserved for your Lordship.

My Lord, excuse the Crudity of these indigested Hints, which your Wisdom is so capable of improving; and believe me, with infinite Respect, Your Lordship’s Most obedient Humble Servant,

A Friend To Military Government

(Bold face added by your blogger to show the main points of the letter.)

SLAVERY: American Colonies before 1776

Betty Wood explains the
 economic aspects of
slavery in the colonies. 

Slavery issue was a hot button in the American colonies in the years leading up to the American Revolution. It was a phenomenon of the southern states, those led by Oxonians, rather than of New England, which were colonized more by Cambridge alums.

Opposition to slavery in the last quarter of the 18th century was muted by a common need to oppose the Crown. This colonies were thereby unified long enough for the United States to be formed.

How did this evolve, and how were Oxford and Cambridge alumni involved?

Colonial Economics and Slavery

The Spanish and Portuguese colonies produced gold, silver and other valuable commodities like sugar for their colonial masters.

The same could not be said for the British colonies in the early years. The colonies were viewed as a place for emigrants from Britain to obtain the freedom that comes with land ownership. It was also a market for British goods, but this depended on the colonies generating their own export income, which took some time for them to do.

The mercantilist business model of the Spanish and Portuguese rulers depended heavily on slavery. The mines and single-crop agriculture (sugar and tropical fruits) depended on having a large work force of low-cost workers.

Initially, the British model was based on the idea that each emigrant would be given some land and Britain surplus population could be put to use on the free land in the New World. Oxonian James  Oglethorpe conceived his new colony of Georgia as a place where slavery would be outlawed and the work force would be made up of convicts or the overlapping category of poor British people (in those days, poverty was an offense; one could go to prison for not paying back debt).

But initial British settlements did not last and others felt threatened by the harsh winters, by native Indians who resisted the arrival of the settlers, by settlers from other countries like Spain coming north from  Florida, or from France coming south or east into New York.

Sugar plantations didn't fare so well in the new American colonies, but early on tobacco became a major cash crop. Then, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin made possible the harvesting of short-staple cotton and made cotton farming very profitable.

As tobacco and cotton farming grew, the value of slaves in working on the farms became more evident, and the American colonies began importing slaves. The profitable farms also made the colonies themselves more profitable, and the market in the South grew for goods from New England, the mid-Atlantic colonies and from the Mother Country. William Pitt decided that the American colonies were worth fighting over, and he sent an army to chase the French and unfriendly Indians out of the colonies, but left behind debts for his successors to pay for, setting up the dynamics for the American Revolution.

Secular and Religious Movements against Slavery

The movement against slavery came early on from evangelical ministers and Quaker preachers and later from rational philosophers concerned with human rights.

Baptists in the early colonies were often opposed to slavery. Chad Brown (c. 1600-1650), a Baptist minister who co-founded Providence with Roger Williams (alumnus of Pembroke College, Cambridge) was one of the first prominent abolitionists in the colonies.

Rationalist thinkers of the Scottish and English Enlightenment in the mid- to- late 18th century (David Hume died in 1776) criticized slavery for violating basic human rights.

The First Great Awakening in the 1730s and 1740s in the colonies produced movements against slavery, which was seen as un-Christian.

Quakers in North America and Great Britain became well known for their involvement in abolition. During the colonial era in America, it was common for Friends in British America to own slaves. During the early to mid-1700s a disquiet about this practice arose,  through the work of abolitionist Quakers in Philadelphia like Anthony Benezet and John Woolman. By the time of the American Revolution few Friends still owned slaves and Cambridge-educated abolitionists like William Wilberforce and William Pitt (the Younger) were opposing slavery in parliament.

Moses Brown was one of four Rhode Island brothers who, in 1764, organized and funded the tragic and fateful voyage of the slave ship named Sally. Moses Brown had a crisis of conscience and broke  from his three brothers, becoming an abolitionist and a Christian Quaker. The brothers co-founded the college that became Brown University. The family, active mainly in the Baptist community of Providence, was descended from Chad Brown. Brown's brother-in-law and business partner, Jabez Bowen, was a Yale graduate and notable Rhode Island political figure. Three years before the American Revolution broke out, Moses Brown freed the last of his slaves.

James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785), a graduate of Eton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was among the first to articulate the secular Enlightenment case against slavery, banning it in the Province of Georgia on humanistic grounds (until his influence waned), arguing against it in Parliament, and eventually encouraging his friends Granville Sharp and Hannah More to pursue the cause after his death.

Granville Sharp was an attorney who helped defend the slave Somersett. The Somersett's Case in 1771 emancipated a slave who ran away from his master in England. It established the principle that a slave obtains freedom upon reaching Britain, which helped launch the British movement to abolish slavery that Wilberforce and others picked up after the Revolution.

Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread and growing after the American Revolution, the new American states that used slave labor, including in the South of the United States, continued to do so.

Benjamin Franklin's Three Visits to England, 1724-1775

How did growing British opposition to slavery affect public opinion in the American colonies? One way was Benjamin Franklin, who made three pre-Revolutionary visits to England, lasting 18 years. He had increasing access to the political leadership. The following summary is based primarily on data from a Revolutionary War website:

On his first trip in 1724-26, Benjamin Franklin went to England when he was 18 to buy printing equipment that the Governor of the colony of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith, promised to pay for. But Governor Keith did not send to London the needed letter of credit. Franklin therefore worked for  the famed printing house of Samuel Palmer (and later with another famed printer, James Watts) to earn the fare to go back to Philadelphia. Franklin left London in 1726 with Thomas Denham, a Philadelphia shopkeeper who hired Franklin when they returned.

By the time of his second trip to England in 1757, Franklin had served in Pennsylvania as a city councilman, state assemblyman, and Deputy Postmaster General. Pennsylvania was formally owned by the Penn family, since a Royal Charter from Charles II was issued to William Penn in 1681, granting the land to him and his heirs. The colony had a democratic legislature but the Penn family could override it. Conflicts developed over the years between the state Assembly and the Penn family. In 1757, the Pennsylvania Assembly hired Ben Franklin to represent before George II their concerns about the Penn family's arbitrary authority and its exemption from taxes. Franklin was in England for five years but failed in his mission, leaving London in 1762.

Franklin's last and longest trip occurred at the behest of the Pennsylvania Assembly within two years after he returned. The legislature was outraged by George III's Sugar Act, his proposed Stamp Act and other laws initiated by George III's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend. Franklin sailed in 1764 to represent Pennsylvania's interests before the King. He was in England until 1775, later representing other colonies - Massachusetts, New Jersey and Georgia.

Benjamin Franklin used some ingenuity in making the colonies' case in England. For example, he argued that slavery in the colonies was different from slavery in the Caribbean islands and in Brazil, on the basis (among other differences) that slaves in the colonies were allowed to have families. Franklin saw in London the belligerence of the British lawmakers and came to the view that  diplomacy was not going to solve the colonies' problem with the King. He left London in March 1775 and arrived in Philadelphia on May 5. The next day he was elected by the Pennsylvania Assembly as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

Slave traders. Benjamin Franklin argued that slavery in
the West Indies was immoral, but was not such a problem
in the American mainland colonies. Anti-slavery themes
were applied to the relations between the colonies and Britain.

The Growth of Slavery in the American Colonies

Whatever the progress of ideas in opposition to slavery in the American colonies, the fact is that  an estimated 12 million slaves were brought from Africa to the Americas during the most active decades of the slave trade.

During that entire period, a relatively small fraction, about 287,000 slaves were brought to the North American colonies - only 2.4 percent of all the slaves. Most of the 11.7 million other slaves were sold in the Caribbean Islands and Brazil, where they had a shorter life expectancy because they tended to be worked harder and they had no family life. The slaves in the Caribbean and Brazil were said to be in need, in the blind language of the time, of being "replenished".

Although conditions of slaves in the American colonies were terrible, the weather was not as brutal as in the Caribbean and slaves were at least in homes and on farms with a place to live, and often were allowed to have children. Consequently their life expectancy was reportedly higher than most other parts of the continent where slavery existed.

The importation of slaves into the colonies peaked in the decade before the American Revolution. In the 17th century, the colonies imported 21,000 slaves. In the 18th century up to 1760, 189,000 slaves were imported. In the 1760s, another 63,000. In the 1770s, another 15,000.

Benjamin Franklin's Changing Views on Slavery

Franklin himself was a runaway, from a despotic brother and father and the contract that they signed with him binding him to work for them. Yet Franklin relied on slave labor at home and in his business. His newspaper relied heavily on advertising from slave auctioneers and from slaveowners pursuing runaways. This is all in David Waldstreicher, Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery and the American Revolution (Hill and Wang, division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004).

After the Revolution, historians give great credit to the abolitionists who, in due course, stirred up emotions on both sides that precipitated the Civil War. Benjamin Franklin is counted among these abolitionists.

But before the Revolution, Franklin was much less activist on the subject of slavery within the United States. He was based in England for 16 of the 18 years before the Revolution! Antagonism toward slaveowners emerged on the secular side for reasons unrelated to Enlightenment views on human rights. The 1764 revenue tax on French and Dutch sugar benefited British plantation owners. They were able to raise their prices at the expense of people living in the mainland American colonies. At the time, the British Parliament considered the West Indies a far more profitable part of the world for them than the mainland colonies, and the objections of the mainlanders, represented in England by Franklin among others, did not get much of a hearing.

The reaction back home in the colonies was one of outrage at both Parliament and the "nabob" plantation owners in the West Indies. One form it took was opposition to slavery - opposition to slavery in the plantations and opposition to the slavery of the colonies to the mother country. But it did not mean questioning the existence of slavery in the colonies, where the concentration of power and money was not as great as in the West Indies and where the colonies agreed to disagree on issues like slavery because they wanted to be united against the Crown.

Franklin and other leaders in the colonies - Steven Hopkins, Governor of Rhode Island, and James Otis, Jr. - a Harvard-educated writer who pushed the anti-slavery arguments to the extreme - painted a picture of all residents of the colonies being slaves to the British crown and Parliament.

The Revolutionary spirit did not precede the antislavery argument, as has often been taught. Instead, the Revolution can be said to have emerged from taking antislavery arguments applied to the wealthy British West Indies slaveowners and applying them to the relations between the colonies and the mother country.  (Waldstreicher, pp. 177-179.)

So the pre-Revolutionary colonies were antislavery relative to the West Indies, their leaders took the view that "slaves, or their labor, was unimportant in mainland America" (Waldstreicher, p. 180). Their sugar slavers were evil, whereas the colonies were slaveowners in some kind of moderation, and were okay.

Benjamin Franklin maintained a dialog on slavery issues in Britain with David Hume, William Pitt the Elder (Trinity, Oxford), Lord Mansfield (Christ Church, Oxford), Secretary of State for the Colonies Lord Hillsborough (who maintained a hard line against the colonies after the Townshend Acts), Scottish poet William Knox and Samuel Johnson (Pembroke, Oxford).

Franklin is described as being "downright crafty" in making the case for the innocence of the American colonies. In England, Franklin shifted his focus on the labor of the American colonies to the importance of the land in contributing to British welfare, while insisting that Americans "are not, never were, nor ever will be [Britain's] slaves."

Franklin was supported by Pitt the Elder, who in retirement opposed the taxes and echoed Franklin's argument that the American colonists  were not slaves of the British. Pitt was a hero to Americans because when he was Prime Minister his soldiers had chased the French and their Indian allies from the colonies during the Seven Years ("French and Indian") War; Pittsburgh is named after him - it was formerly the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne.

BIRTHDAY: June 16–Adam Smith, Balliol, Oxford

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was born in 1723 this day - based on the newer (Gregorian) calendar - in Kircaldy, Fife, Scotland. His contribution to the American Revolution was to provide an economic rationale for the overthrow of foreign domination.

To the French Physiocrats' idea that some labor is productive and other labor unproductive, Smith added the idea that trade broadens the market, thereby allowing more division of labor, which makes labor more productive.

Smith entered the University of Glasgow in 1737, at the age of 14, and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson, a professorial star of the time, who taught philosophy with the vigor of a preacher.

From Glasgow, Smith went to Balliol College, Oxford on an Exhibition/Scholarship endowed by his fellow Scot, John Snell. Of his Oxford career, we may note two basic facts:

• Smith was not impressed by Oxford. The teaching quality at Oxford, he later wrote (in Book V, Chapter II of The Wealth of Nations), was poor because the dons were given excessive and secure incomes - making it unnecessary for them to attract students. For Smith, orthodox Church-of-England Oxford was a comedown from the buzz of Glasgow, where the Scottish Enlightenment was shaking up the intellectual landscape. When Smith was caught reading fellow Scotsman David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1738)–an exposition of Hume's Utilitarian Philosophy–his copy of the book was confiscated and he was severely punished. Smith spent his happiest time on the other side of Trinity College, reading at the Bodleian Library. Smith left Oxford in 1746, before his scholarship ended.

• Balliol College, on the other hand, was impressed by Smith. The College still glories in the fact that the founder of the economics profession once resided there, however unhappily. Smith is described as the college's most famous alumnus. Balliol was selected to receive the Snell Scholarship not because of any special distinction at the time in the college's scholarship, but rather because of its Scottish connections. The college was founded (in principle) by a Scotsman, John I de Balliol, at the urging of the Bishop of Durham. However, the establishment of the college did not occur until after his death - when his widow, Dervorguilla of Galloway, confirmed a significant transfer of funds. Their son John became King of Scotland but was challenged and left Britain to seek the protection of the Pope. Every November, Balliol has a Snell Dinner that includes representatives from the University of Glasgow and Balliol's sister college at Cambridge, St. John's.

After leaving Oxford, Smith delivered a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh, where two years later he befriended Hume. For the next 13 years, he taught at the University of Glasgow, becoming first a professor of logic in 1751 and then a year later, when the position opened up because of the death of the incumbent, of moral philosophy. Besides Hume in Edinburgh, who named Smith his executor, Smith's friends included a variety of Glasgow academics and merchants. Smith's literary executors were chemist-physicist Joseph Black and noted geologist James Hutton.

Smith's first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) was a well-received analysis of the essence of human morality. It depends on sympathy between the person who is acting and a spectator, i.e., sympathy between the individual and other members of society. Smith argued that the basis of "moral sentiments" is "mutual sympathy", which we would today be more likely to call "empathy".

His second book, The Wealth of Nations (1776) had greater influence because it had clearer policy implications. Smith shows that the marketplace is not moral itself, but produces a moral outcome because the pursuit of individual self-interest leads, as if by an "invisible hand," to the Holy Grail of the Utilitarians - the greatest good of the greatest number.

Based on Utilitarian principles, Smith opposed monopolies and government efforts to create or preserve them, preferring competition to maximize consumer welfare. His opposition to monopoly was hugely influential in providing theoretical support to public grievances against the British Crown (and later in France against the French Crown).

Smith was against most government regulation of business but he was not anti-tax. He favored progressive taxes - not just taxation "in proportion to their respective abilities," but something more:

The rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

However, his anti-mercantilist ideas - built on those of the Physiocrats - were easily be spun into anti-imperial and therefore anti-imperial-tax rhetoric.

Although The Wealth of Nations did not appear until the American Revolution was under way, Smith's ideas were already percolating among the Founding Fathers. Starting in 1763, Smith travelled as a tutor to Toulouse, France, where he stayed for a year and a half. He then moved on to Geneva, where he met with the philosopher Voltaire, and Paris, where Smith came to know Benjamin Franklin, as well as economists like François Quesnay, leader of the Physiocrats, and his followers, including Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune. Franklin could not have better tutelage for making an economic case against new British laws directed at the colonies.

Quesnay and the Physiocrats provided the anti-mercantilist motif of the Wealth of Nations. Their motto favoring marketplace freedom was "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" (Let it be and let it pass, the world goes on by itself!). Smith, following the Physiocrats, argued that the cause of increase in national wealth is labor, rather than the nation's quantity of gold or silver, which was the mercantilist focus. This argument was used by the American Revolutionaries to argue against oversight and taxation from London. It was also later used by French Revolutionaries, with specific additions from Jean-Baptiste Say, to argue against the necessity of the French aristocracy, with unfortunate consequences for the aristocracy and, in due course, France.

The aristocracy and the church - and even the standing army - were viewed by Adam Smith as unproductive. The distinction between productive and unproductive labour (the "class steril" of the Physiocrats) was a rallying cry of both the American and the French Revolution. To the Physiocrat idea that unproductive labour should be pushed back, Smith added the idea that productive labor is made more productive by deeper division of labor, which is "limited by the extent of the market." Every country should try to broaden its market to deepen the division of labor.

Smith never married. On his death bed, he said he was disappointed he had not achieved more.