[Peace] Shot heard round the world?

[David Green]

In a review of Gerald Horne's Book *The Counter-Revolution of 1776*,
published by the Marxist historian Charles Post in the Marxist journal *Science
and Society*, Post concludes as follows:


Ultimately, the greatest weakness of Horne’s book is his reduction of

the American Revolution to a “counter-revolution of slavery” (x). Clearly

the *intent *of the southern planters and their allies among northern
colonial

merchants was to defend slavery. The Constitutional Settlement of 1787,

which consolidated a relatively centralized capitalist state in the United
States,

established the dominance of the merchants and planters and placed the

master–slave relationship outside the purview of the classes represented in

the newly created federal government. However, the *unintended consequence*

of the Revolution and the Constitutional Settlement was to create a *mass
constituency*

among European–Americans in the north opposed to the expansion

of plantation slavery in the 1840s and 1850s, and in support of the
*abolition*

of slavery during the Civil War.



The goal of the merchants and their political representatives who
spearheaded

the adoption of the Constitution in 1787–88 was to create a centralized

state capable of securing the public debt, stabilizing a national currency,

and ensuring the collection of government revenues (taxes, tariffs and land

sales) and private debts (Holton, 2007). The new state institutions allowed

merchants and land speculators to defeat northern independent household

producers in the cycle of class struggles in the 1790s. Farmers
unsuccessfully

fought tax collectors, merchant–creditors, and land speculators to defend

*non-market access to land*, which allowed them to market only physical
surpluses

and maintain possession of landed property without “selling to survive.” The

*unintended consequence *of closing off access to free or inexpensive land
on the

frontier was the transformation of the conditions under which farmers in

the north obtained, expanded and maintained landed property. Northern

U. S. farmers became dependent upon successful market production for

their economic survival — they became agrarian petty-commodity producers

who had to specialize output, accumulate land and capital, and introduce

new tools and methods to preserve their landed property. As rural households

became dependent on the market for their economic survival, northern

agriculture became a massive home market for industrially produced capital

and consumer goods, sparking the industrial revolution of the 19th century.



The transformation of social property relations in northern agriculture

established the conditions for *capitalist development *in the north after
c. 1840,

and created a *majoritarian *social bloc of farmers, manufacturers and
skilled

workers opposed to the geographic expansion of slavery. By the 1840s, the

growing contradictions between the social conditions of the development of

capitalism and slavery set the stage for the sharp class conflicts that
culminated

in the Civil War. The emergence of two regional social blocs — a northern

coalition of farmers, native- born skilled workers and manufacturers opposed

to slavery expansion organized in the Republican Party; and a southern
coalition

of slaveholders and non–slave-owning white farmers demanding the

opening of the west to slavery organized in a rump Democratic Party — set

the stage for Lincoln’s election, southern secession and war. Military
contingency

and the mass flight of slaves from the plantations led to the abolition

of slavery, with the support of the vast majority in the north (Levine,
2013).



Ultimately, Horne’s claim that the American Revolution was *simply *a

“counter-revolution of slavery” is, at best, only *partially true. *The
American

Revolution and Constitutional Settlement protected the masters’ property

rights in African–American men, women and children, enabling the plantocracy

to maintain and expand their form of social labor as the demand

for slave-produced cotton exploded in the first half of the 19th century.

However, the *unintended consequence *of the Revolution — the transformation

of northern household-based agriculture — not only created the conditions

for the development of capitalism, but created massive social forces opposed

to slavery’s expansion and eventual existence. Put another way, the American

Revolution *both *consolidated and ultimately undermined chattel slavery in

the United States.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 11:42 AM C. G. Estabrook via Peace <
peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> The anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775)
> should remind us to ask how much the 'War of Independence' was a defense of
> slavery against the presumed plans of the British government to abolish it
> - in part because the slave-based economies of the American colonies were
> out-producing the home country.
>
> ###
> _______________________________________________
> Peace mailing list
> Peace at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace
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