[lit-ideas] Re: Beard's The Rise of American Civilization
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2006 23:57:06 -0800
Lawrence wrote-
I checked through my library and discovered that the last book I read
that treats the Civil War with some thoroughness was Charles and Mary
Beard’s /The Rise of American Civilization/, 1930.
There've been a few books on the Civil War written since then.
It strikes me as a bit ironic that I seem to be presenting something of
a Marxist interpretation of the Civil War and those whom I would
normally consider . . . closer to Marx than I am are arguing with me.
I’m not complaining – just finding it ironic.
The Civil War is inexplicable without reference to the practice of
slavery in the South. To say that is not to say that the North took up
arms to free the slaves. The existence of slavery in the South was a
necessary, not a sufficient condition for the war. One could not make
sense of the war were it not for the issue of slavery. To say this is
not to say that the North went to war to free the slaves. Nobody has
suggested that here.
To suggest that Northerners were willing to go to war to free the slaves
presents the North in a nobler light than I think justifiable. There
was the abolition movement to be sure, but it was never large enough to
influence politics in a major way. I suppose I was convinced by Beard
that economic motives were driving both the North and the South. The
North had a good thing going and didn’t want to lose it. The South felt
it was being economically squeezed beyond endurance.
See above. That the South felt it was 'being economically squeezed
beyond endurance,' again, cannot be explained without some understanding
of the economy of the South and how essential slaves were to it.
To return to your second paragraph. Lawrence, you keep calling everyone
to the left of the Forbes family Marxists. (You and I have discussed
this in a past life.) I am not 'close to Marx.' I think Marx was an
idiot who managed to coin some snappy slogans and to shock le bourgeois
in a serious way. It doesn't follow, as you seem to have implied this
afternoon, that if Marx was for the eight hour day, the eight hour day
was a 'Marxist' idea. As far as I know, Irene is not 'close to Marx'
either. (Judy has already spoken for herself, but she did not claim that
there were no economic reasons for the American Civil War.)
It's a distraction from serious discussion to view people as belonging
to a group the members of which have been pre-judged. 'Well, you would
say that, because you're a Materialist (Cartesian, Behaviourist,
Methodist, a member of the milles feuilles, or the camicie nere).' It's
inevitable that people get sorted out this way in the media. But on
lit-ideas it might be more useful to take longer views.
Robert Paul
Strict Reconstructionist
somewhere south of
Reed College
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