[Peace] Shot heard round the world?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Thanks for this, David. 

I‘d like to hear my late colleague Gene Genovese on the recent developments of this discussion. 

My suspicion (it’s no more than that) is that Gene, the combative soi-disant Marxist, would agree with the following - and that it’s essentially correct. 

—CGE


> On Apr 19, 2020, at 12:44 PM, David Green <davidgreen50 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.
>