John Kelly, President Trump's chief of staff, is one of the White House characters who, in the view of Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, keeps our country from falling into chaos. The source of Kelly's reputation for seriousness and competence must be his military background, his crewcut, and the way he often hangs his head in apparent dismay while listening to his boss speak. There was also his silence, which allowed us all to hope for the best, but which he has now broken, thereby providing more evidence that the malaise within Trumpland is general.
Was the Civil War caused, as Kelly insists, not by slavery but by the failure of men of honor on the opposing sides to compromise? No, because the only issue there was to compromise on was slavery, and by 1860 there had already been too much of that. The story of the country's first eighty years is a tale of trying to reach some kind of accommodation regarding slavery. It began with the Constitution, which, when ratified by the separate states, brought the US into existence. Here is Article I, Section 9:
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
So the founding document, adopted in 1787, allowed for the continuation of the slave trade for twenty years, until 1808. This may appear to be a gift to what has been modestly described as "the peculiar institution," but it is possible to detect in the somewhat stilted prose--which here as everywhere else in the document studiously avoids the words "slave" and "slavery"--the outline of a compromise: you can import your slaves, but you may have to pay a tax to do so.
Then, from Article IV, Section 2:
No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.
This is the notorious fugitive slave clause, which allowed for the return of escaped slaves to their masters. The squabbling at the constitutional convention again brings into sight a kind of compromise. The phrase "under the laws thereof" was added at the eleventh hour, so that it would not be possible, strictly speaking, to assert that the Constitution regarded slavery as legal. It's only that the laws of some states permitted it. The anti-slavery contingent at the convention was in the role of Pontius Pilate, washing its hands of evil while taking actions that would result in its advance.
And then from Article I, Section 2:
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.
This is the three-fifths compromise, probably the Constitution's most notorious sop to slave owners. The question was about whether slaves should be counted as persons for purposes of determining representation in the Congress. Since they were treated as property, and had no political rights whatever, certainly no right to vote, they obviously should not have counted at all. But the slave-holding states were already worried about being outvoted by the more populous North, so wanted desperately to boost their clout in Washington, and, again, the anti-slavery contingent caved or, if you prefer, compromised. Every five slaves would count as three souls--the ratios of one-half and three-fourths were discussed but rejected in favor of the middling three-fifths, another compromise. Thus more slave owners would be elected to Congress, where they could be counted on to vote against the interests of fake constituents who they were "representing" in a sixty per cent sort of way. (The compromise also boosted the electoral vote tally of the slave states.)
So those are three ways in which the Constitution "compromised" on slavery (though I think "caved" is the more accurate verb). By any decent standard, the problem was not that there wasn't enough compromising but that there was too much--and we're talking about only the Constitution, not the next eighty years and the Fugitive Slave Act, the Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case, the disputes over the expansion of slavery into the territories, the Kansas and Missouri compromises, etc., etc.
Kelly isn't going to say anything more on the subject, of course. His best defense would be that he doesn't believe it himself but is just kissing up to Trump's base, the only people in the world who seem eager to wallow in this load of manure. I sometimes almost feel sorry for Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The administration is full of white guys saying stupid stuff and she's the one who has to go out and answer questions about it. She's probably as nostalgic as Kelly for the days when women were "sacred" and so didn't have impossible jobs like hers.
Comments