The Land That Has Never Been Yet - Part I

Resource: First 2 episodes of Scene on Radio’s podcast series The Land that Has Never Been Yet: http://www.sceneonradio.org/tag/season-4/

I first learned about Scene on Radio, a podcast through Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, through their series “Seeing White” (which is excellent, and I definitely recommend it!). They also have a series called “Men” on the patriarchy. But their most recent series, which I had started to listen to in March, and then stopped and am now starting over is called "The Land That Has Never Been Yet” and takes a critical look at the extent to which the United States is (and has been) democratic. It is hosted by John Biewen, Audio Program Director at the Center for Documentary Studies, and for each series he has a collaborator, in this series, Chenjerai Kumanlyika, a researcher, journalist, artist, and Assistant Professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Journalism and Media Studies. They do a really nice job of looking at topics with a critical lens and engaging many different voices.

I have to admit, that history was always my least favorite subject in school - I always felt like it was just memorizing dates and events and I had a lot of trouble doing that. Although I had the BEST history teachers throughout my school career, I really was not that great of a student in placing history in context or thinking about how events linked together or being critical of the knowledge I was learning. There’s so much history that I can’t remember or only vaguely have an idea about. This podcast series starts with an episode on the Revolutionary War (and actually there’s a big section at the beginning interviewing people from the Cherokee Nation), which I know I learned about relatively in depth in 8th grade, but really haven’t even thought about since then. Even though I’m sure I learned at least some of the things presented in the podcast, they definitely did not impact me the way they should have in 8th grade (or I never learned them). I’ve always had a fixed mindset that learning history was just not for me, but that is so irresponsible as a citizen and as someone with so much privilege to ignore history. So I’m changing my mindset and learning what I’ve missed.

Episode 1: A Rich Man’s Revolt, started by interviewing members of the Cherokee Nation who described their society pre-contact as one of balance with respect for individual choice but the common good built into the culture where women had equal voice in decisions. In contrast, Western culture is concerned with acquiring things to elevate social status. I learned that most famous revolutionaries we talk about in history class were the elites of colonial society - they were wealthy landholders, rich lawyers, businessmen, etc. In fact, George Washington was one of the richest men in the US at the time of the revolution, owning 52,000 acres of land at the height of his life. While these rich elites were unhappy with the British (higher taxes and also the Royal Proclamation of 1763 didn’t let anyone travel or settle beyond the Appalachian mountains. This was something the Americans didn’t like because after the 7 Years War, the British did not have any money to pay American soldiers, so they paid them in land which, after the proclamation, became useless), they were not looking to split with them. UNTIL in 1775 when enslaved Blacks joined Loyalists in exchange for their freedom which infuriated white colonists. Citing a letter by Thomas Jefferson, this was the straw that really led to the revolution and the capstone problem with the British. Democracy was not on the minds of the elite founding fathers, but rather a desire to keep the British from meddling and the ability to rule themselves (while exploiting BIPOC). The American Revolution was a political one, but it was not intended to deliver freedom or economic prosperity for poor whites, black folks, women, or indigenous people (aka - most of the country).

Episode 2: The Excess of Democracy took a look at the events leading to the Constitutional Convention as well as the purpose of the Constitution itself and what it was designed to do. The episode starts out with an account of Shay’s Rebellion, an event I vaguely remembered about farmers protesting, although I thought it had something to do with prohibition. So, the United States were in an economic slump after the American Revolution, and had to pay off bonds which they did by taxing farmers heavily (about 4-5 times the taxes they had under British rule). Farmers protested, and in most states, the state legislatures made it easier for farmers to pay, but not in Massachusetts. Farmers were expected to pay their taxes in gold (something hard to come by) or face losing their land. The elites said farmers were lazy for not paying taxes, and that the farmers were the problem, not the taxes. Daniel Shay was a farmer from Massachusetts who had fought in the revolution (and had never been compensated for it) who led peaceful protests. On August 29 1786, farmers went to a debtors court, wouldn’t let judges in, tried to negotiate, and court did not open, and over the next few weeks, farmers shut down all debtor courts west of Boston. However, this led to the Riot Act which allowed the arresting of protesters along with a ton of punishments, something that sounded like British Law. In November, the state government sent officers to arrest the leaders of the protests, and Boston created a private army of 4000 men to subdue the protesters (who called themselves Shaysites) These two groups met, and while the Shayzites did not want violence, the army ordered men to shoot cannons at the farmers, killing 4 and wounding 20. The Shaysites did not return fire and did not attempt to take anything over. The Massachusetts governor, James Bowdoin, was voted out in the next election and was replaced by John Hancock who dramatically lowered taxes. In any case, Shay’s Rebellion was a catalyst for the Constitutional Convention during which the Constitution was created.

In 1788, George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention. The call for the convention was led by James Madison who wrote the Virginia Plan which was used as a framework for talks at the convention. The convention consisted of 55 white men, most of them rich and about half of them slave holders. The Constitution provides a framework for how our government is set up today, including creating a national government consisting of an executive, legislative, and judicial branch, dividing power between federal and state governments, and protecting individual liberties of US citizens. One of the most contentious issues at the convention was whether or not the House of Representatives should be directly voted by the people. Many at the convention saw this as too much democracy and worried about giving citizens too much power, thinking they lacked knowledge and ability. From Madison’s extensive notes from the convention: “Mr Sherman opposed the election by the people insisting that it ought to be by the State Legislatures. The people he said, immediately should have as little to do as may be about the Government” and “the evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy” citing that the people of the United States “are daily misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men, and which no one on the spot can refute.” (I don’t know how to cite these properly, but you can find transcripts of James Madison’s notes here!) The framers of the Constitution were class conscious, and saw the senate as a house of elites used to temper the House, and even considered letting senators be appointed for life. In fact, state legislatures, and not the people, elected senators until it changed in 1913 with the 17th amendment. The framers saw the government institution as a means for protection of property, NOT protection of people (there were direct quotes from Madison's notes in the podcast, and I tried to skim through his notes to find some, but the notes are so extensive, and I don't have time for that right now). The United States had to pay off war bonds to rich creditors (some of whom were delegates at the convention), and the number one goal of the framers was to stop state legislatures from defrauding creditors. The Constitution was a capitalist document because it was meant to attract capital to the economy, and gave the federal government power to regulate commerce across state/national lines and tax imports (but not exports which was a gift to slaveholders who exported goods to make money). It also included the Fugitive Slave clause which required enslaved people to be returned to their owners no matter where in the nation they were caught and gave government power to put down protests. The framers put lots of veto power to check the democratically-elected House (eg, having to go through the Senate, the President, and the courts). I learned that 8 anti-slavery measures passed by House before civil war and they all got stopped in the Senate. The framers of the Constitution thought in order to make the US safer for investment, had to make it less democratic.

It was chilling to listen to similarities in the protests leading up to the Constitutional Convention and the protests that are happening today, and how seemingly not much has changed - how folks are still fighting for their rights as people to live safely. As paraphrased from the end of the episode, people going to jail and breaking the law is what changes the law. I am someone who, either by conditioning or by personality, and likely a mix of both, slowly and steadily works towards goals while trying to rock the boat as little as possible. But I think that’s a privileged place to be in and that the protesting and action we’re seeing today has been putting on pressure to make some changes happen that would have taken a long time or would have never happened without a catalyst. I’ve never actually read the Constitution in its entirety (although I started to listen to a reading of it and some commentary on the Ologies Podcast)and that’s something I’m doing today too. Listening to this episode also made many white folks reactions to the protest about being more concerned about property than people make sense (not in a way that it made sense that they’re right but in the reason why they might think that) because those are the principles our country was founded on - protection of property over people. I have a lot of history to re-learn, and I’m trying to find the voices and perspectives that were missing in the history I learned in school.