Month: February 2022

In chapter 4, Daniel Mandell talks about America during the post-revolutionary war in the late 18th century. The most significant argument that Mandell points out is how after the war America needed to create a stronger system of government. Specifically, how America was a mess after the war ended where they didn’t have an organized system of government. Which required Benjamin Lincoln Jr. and John Adams to create an example of how the government should be organized. John Adam based is on bicameral legislation with the house representing the people and the senate upper house representing property(Mandell 86). This idea that the government should be organized to mirror America’s socioeconomic division was embraced in the creation of an organized system of government. This shows the step-by-step development from having a weak system of government at first to a clear and organized system of government.

An event that caught my interest was the formation of the Society of Cincinnati, which was concerning at the time because the membership would be inherited by the son or grandson of members(Mandell 87-88). Mandell uses this event to support the idea that a new Aristocracy forming around capital instead of land was arising. This would also lead to inequality in wealth and property since the rich will become richer. Similarly, this would be what Johann Schoepf considered as a nuance since they acted like the nobility in other countries(Mandell 79). Moreover, Judge Aedanus Burke also commented how the Society of Cincinnati would result in the countries being made up of only two ranks of men the nobles and the rabble(Mandell 88). I found it interesting that such a society was still able to form in America even though this society functioned very similarly to that of English Aristocrats. I am guessing that this society didn’t pose enough of a threat to the newly founded nation. In addition to this, there probably is a good portion of people who are hoping for an Aristocracy because there were a lot of merchants at the time who have amassed a great amount of wealth.

It seems to me that the growth of the accounting in slavery was gradual but also inevitable in a way since plantation owners needed a way to organize their work, workers, supply, and profits.

Rosenthal shows how meticulous plantation owners were in accounting for their slaves, property, and product. Slave owners were incredibaly wealthy who could own multiple plantations all of which housed slaves numbering in the thousands which necessitated some kind of accounting system to record and orgainze all this data these plantations were producing.

You could see the amount of detail these plantation owners were dealing with with the ledgers shown in Rosenthal’s book and the countless pages of balance sheets left behind for historians to work with. You can see this with how Rosenthal would paint the picture of how a typical plantation would operate from the various positions in the platation, the amount of people who could work that position, to even the names of the workers, both slaves and free workers and their ability to accomplish their task in said position.

The importance of accounting in the slave trade also shows itself in the sugar production industry at the time. Sugar production was complex and timely work that needed a lot of attention from everyone and management to get maximum profit. Rosenthal states that “a breakdown of one stage of the production process could cause the whole works to grind to a halt”. Rosenthal continues by stating the importance of the balance sheet, as a way to monitor the allocation of slave labor in each part of the work process.

 The reading opened my eyes to how involved slave owners were in managing the live of their slave owners as well as how complex of a operation these slave owners were running. For example, just from the chart depicting the hierarchy of a plantation Rosenthal showed was enough to demonstrate the complexity of these plantations so too were the duties and distinctions between attorneys and overseers, where an attorney was a commission based worker that ran the overall operations of the plantations to the overseers who worked on a fixed rate while overseeing small scale daily activities/plans.

Walter A. Friedman, America Business History: A Very Short Introduction, focuses on business revolutions and, innovations commencing from the very first colony to modern-day corporate America. Friedman accesses how the United States rose its economy to be a capitalist superpower. The author structures the book in a specific format enabling the reader to see the transformation in how America made its income and profits. Friedman makes it very clear not to disregard any of the unjust ways in which America makes money from taking land to slavery. The book makes a big emphasis on the differences each period had advanced technologically leading to America’s exponential income bloom. 

The book initiates with the discovery of the first encounters of capitalism on North American soil. The different joint-stock companies such as The Virginia Company or the Massachusets Bay Company commence the change of an era. This was the beginning of labor occupations in America, when cultivation of the land was needed for the growth of cash crops such as tobacco (Friedman, 8). The introduction of merchants arose and imports and exports created the next steps towards the innovations in capitalism. 

Friedman makes the emphasis on exports and imports and the effects it had on the newly formed United States. The discovery of having to find other methods of survival using the available resources that the colonies had. Each had different resources from the land. Not every colony had the same fertile soil of geographical landmarks. As the United States started to expand and gained more territory a more stable economy and the system started to form. Influential figures such as Hamilton started to create an impact after the independence. Hamilton Report on Manufactures lead to change for industries and the foundation of a National Bank led to a more progressive method of a democratic system of government (Friedman, 17). Other resources such as cotton, roads and canals, whale oil, and exports to other locations in the Caribbean marked the difference from grazing cash crops to expanding internally and being recognized as an independent nation.  Friedman makes a big emphasis that the changes do not occur instantaneously, instead, it took decades even centuries of labor to make progress in the next steps of capitalism. 

 

Looking back into history and into Mandell’s reading on Wealth, Power, and the Early Republic were able to see early on how certain New England states such as Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts set to disagree with “Republicans” ideas of what is property and how property should be acquired. The idea of “Equality of an estate and property” did not truly exist, property was vested to only a certain few individuals to only promote industry, population, frugality, and morality (Mandell 81).

Many articles began coming out discussing the “fraud and injustice” in America’s part and how deeply flawed our country was. America had not yet departed from the rule of the right and had people paying taxes on the debt even knowing that they would be unable to afford it. Thus, leading to them being fraudulently being deprived from their possessions. The people in the northern states felt that they were mourning the “simplicity of manners” and had been “lost to luxury and its attending evils” (Mandell 83). The themes presented in history, with the conflicting views on heavy taxation, egalitarianism, distribution of wealth, and property as to what and who will also be considered property in the early rises of the emancipation.

 

Throughout this time Americans also became more sensitive to slavery causing a socioeconomic divide between the northern states and southern states. People like James Winthrop urged the people to go against the proposal given by the federal Constitution that would then make the northern states equally as the south with an unequal distribution of property. Accepting this will display a toleration of slavery and the ignorance of poverty of the lower classes, it was also explained northern taxation was traditionally democratic and generally more experienced and commented whereas those southern taxation suffered because the regions cultural “mastership” and made assessments seem to benefit dominating plantation owners.

 

With independent Americans causing commotion and disagreements over wealth and property. Throughout American history time and time again property rights and the distribution of those rights have always been a problem and the American people and government can never seem to come to a resolution. Mandell’s reading just proves that history always repeats itself or that it can just be that it’s never truly resolve.

Reading: Daniel R. Mandell “Wealth and Power in The Early Republic” in the last tradition of Economic Equality in America

Prompt: What was the historic transformation, or change over time, that the author is describing in thee reading? According to the historian, why and how did this change take place? Did these changes take place gradually or rapidly.

The reading “Wealth and Power in The Early Republic” by Daniel R. Mandell focuses on how wealth can be obtained in the United States. The United States was very young nation that was still developing its economy and laws. The people of this nation were very excited for the opportunities this nation can provide. In the reading it says “Most saw sufficient equality in the opportunities offered by the new country’s rapidly changing economy, easily available land and lack of titled nobility” (Mandell 80). This quote explains the mentality of many people that lived in the United States. They did not want a nation where wealth was based off of nobility and classes, like It was in Great Britain. Things such as education became more accessible to people so they can have a better opportunity to obtains wealth and land.  This view would slowly change throughout the years as the wealthy became more and more powerful. The wealthy would do several things to gain more power and influence, while preventing others from doing so.

Many people had a fear of an aristocracy forming again in the United States. A aristorcracy would have went against  the idea of equal oppurtunities that many believed in. There were many attempts by the wealthy to form a aristocracy throughout the early years of the United States. Elections were a way for the wealthy to persuade people were not as educated to elect people to power that would benefit them. Writers such as Herman Husband saw these attempts and tried to inform the population. In the reading it says “In past elections, husband mourned, districts were so large that voters knew little about the candidates running for office and so were persuaded by the flattery of men in power and possessed of wealth that only the well known, rich and immoral tavern keepers, merchants and lawyers could get elected” (Mandell 84). This is was one tactic used by men in power to elect specific people into power. Another way individuals who had wealth and power tried to form an aristocracy was from war debt. Wealthy merchants and farmers benefited greatly from wars, while the heavy taxes had a impact on the middle and lower class.

Another way the wealthy tried to form an aristocracy was through the bank of North America in 1781. This bank had a big impact on people of a lower status. In the reading it says “Interest rates on bank notes increased rapidly, making them unaffordable to all but a few. These circumstances generated more wealth for holders of notes and stocks” (Mandell 90). Only the wealthy who had money to back the banks would be benefitting from this. People such as farmers were forced into foreclosure because they were unable to pay off their debts. Even as many Americans were struggling the wealthy were becoming richer. When America first gained its independence many people believed in equal opportunities and the ability to gain wealth. Over time the wealthy would make it very difficult for others to do the same.

In the reading, “American Business: A Very Short Introduction” by Walter Friedman explains the different aspect of improvement and change around the 18^th and 19^th century. After the American Revolution, America went into debt. With the help of business activity, government, policies, and trading goods the nation began to slowly reshape itself.

The improvement of whale oil kind of stood out to me. It was one of the ways where people could use it for lighting and production of machines. During the American Revolution “there were about 360 whaling vessels” (Friedman 22). The amount of risk and funding for these whaling expedition “Ships could be lost or catch on fire” (Friedman 23).  In the 18^th century, the improvement of having tryworks at sea, “furnaces for melting blubber” (Friedman 23). As for today, America is banned from whaling but there are still other countries who still does it.

The advancement and improvement of firearms. In 1815-1822, Colonel Roswell lee began working towards interchangeable parts. However, Thomas Blanchard who was an worked for him created this machine, “Blanchard lard, was able to produce identical gunstocks” (Friedman 34). Since this was expensive to create, the US was willing to fund to make more of these interchangeable parts due to “how poorly the US arsenal had fared in the war of 1812” (Friedman 35). In 1836, the production of barrel revolver was discovered by Samuel Colt “claimed that the winding of rope aboard the ship gave him the idea” (Friedman 35). The revolver soon became popular among the West and other parts of the world.

In brief, these chapters were interesting as it explains the details of methods, they used to improve America and other parts of the world. These development help makes it easier for the America to improve economically. It was interesting to find how whaling was used and risk involving it.  The change of firearm over time and the discovery of interchangeable parts for better firearms.

This reading added extensive knowledge to my understanding of the slave trade. Prior to reading chapter two of Rosenthal’s Accounting for Slavery, I did not understand the amount of meticulous records that were kept on the births and death of slaves working on Caribbean sugar plantations. My view was definitely similar to Alfred Chandler, the author of Strategy and Structure, who viewed the role of administration and administrative records as only playing a significant role in the sphere of industry. However, Rosenthal writes, “On these plantations, violence and control complemented organizational innovation.” (Rosenthal 13) Figure 1.1 in this chapter shows how the bookkeeper of a plantation recorded how many people were born each month, and it had the added totals on the bottom of the sheet. (Rosenthal 12) As plantation owners placed little value on an enslaved person’s life, it is surprising to see such an organized record. Figure 1.4 is a photograph of an extremely in depth record kept on the Dawkins Plantations. This chart includes skills, age and health of enslaved individuals (Rosenthal 21).

 

While reading the chapter and learning about the incredible rates of death among enslaved individuals, I found myself considering the question of, ‘why didn’t these plantation owners, invest a small amount of money into keeping their slaves alive.’ Rosenthal writes, “In the British Caribbean, some estimates suggest that as many as half of ‘New Negroes’ died within three years of arrival.” (Rosenthal 12) After seeing the extensive bookkeeping plantations owners had completed, it was clear to me that they were very interested in spending as little money as possible and making a large profit. It surely is cheaper to keep an enslaved person alive than purchase more enslaved individuals. I can’t help but wonder that if plantation owners spent a bit more money on things like proper food for those enslaved on their plantations or giving them some time off to rest, they could have kept these enslaved individuals alive for longer and ended up making a larger profit in the long run. 

 

While reading this chapter, I learned, for the first time, about the different role slaves played on plantations aside from physical labor. Rosenthal writes, “Just as planters made use of elderly and inform slaves as supervisors, they also made use of children on this special gang devoted to lighter tasks.” (Rosenthal 34) This chapter also explores other roles a slave may have had including being a midwife or a healer. Learning about this aspect of varying roles on plantations adds a multidimensional perspective that is lacking from much of mainstream High School level education in America.

Prompt: How does this reading add to your knowledge of the subject, or challenge or contradict what you previously thought about this aspect of American or global history?

Source: Daniel Mandell, The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, Chapter 4 “Wealth and Power in the Early Republic.”

Answer: Throughout the fourth chapter of Daniel Mandells The Lost Tradition of Economic Equality in America, an extensive political and economic analysis is offered of the immediate post-revolutionary war period and the important debates of the time pertaining to national organization. The chapter itself, titled “Wealth and Power in the Early Republic,” covers the relationship between power and wealth that the young nation experienced. Specifically, whether estates and property rights should give an individual greater say and power within the government, and whether it should allow for  a “natural aristocracy” to form. I have previously had very limited experience with the American Post-Revolutionary War period, especially the political and economic aspects of it. This chapter greatly added to my understanding of American history and to my appreciation for how exactly the country that I live in today turned out to be the way it is.

Starting off the chapter, there is a great quote about the egalitarian nature of political expression amongst the Americans, it sets the tone well. It notes that a man, irrespective of class, holds the right to get their opinion across, reflective of the active and equal role that politics played in the lives of citizens. This idea of political courage is familiar to me, what is new to me however, is that this seemingly “core” American principle was a topic of debate when it came to who would run the country in the 1780s-1790s. Mandell offers examples of how the landowning elites at this time benefited greatly from the establishment of national institutions and economic independence, and how this growth in power of the few, was simply seen as a return to yet another regime for many ordinary Americans. Those with resources and influence “…sought state charters for banks, canals, roads and manufacturing centers, many Americans protested that such privileges would enable a corrupt aristocracy of wealth.” (Mandell, p.80) A nation indeed needs all such things, they are essential to prosperity, but allowing private citizens the right to own such crucial facets of a developing country, would have given them immense power, more power than a single vote allows a citizen in any democracy. 

On the subject of elections, Mandell quotes a Presbyterian minister, “to maintain the freedom of elections, there should, as much as possible, be an equality among the people of the land.” (Mandell, p.80) Land itself is a symbol of political influence, those who own great amounts of land will always find themselves with a greater voice within society and government than those without it. The way I see it, allowing the elites to form a natural aristocracy would have betrayed the American spirit of sovereignty and equality, rendering the revolution meaningless and once more returning to the European system of rule, which at the time was either that of an aristocracy or a monarchy. 

Although the idea of equality among the citizens at this time was afforded mostly to white property owners, going down the path of forming an aristocracy would have been much more detrimental, as it would have created a ruling class which was very comfortable in their positions of power. Staying true to the belief in a republic, the American common man at this time was the beneficiary of a very important and understated political and social victory. Understated because this to me was a crucial fork in the road, where social elites could have seized power based on their wealth and America would have simply become another wealthy Western nation, without the core principles of personal rights and liberty that are afforded to us today.

For this assignment, I chose Walter Friedman’s reading. It starts explaining how the US was a country that did not do well compared to Europe or Asia. But, in the 19^th century, it changed unexpectedly. This happened thanks to businesses growing and government involvement, trading, etc.

An event that caught my attention was on page 68, which mainly highlights how sources of power, such as electricity and combustion engine, took a role, specifically on businesses and societies. The author explains how people took advantage of this new source, for example, telephone service had a better quality.

In addition, the industry of automobiles was mentioned. It began in the year 1885, by Karl Benz. He “patented a gasoline-powered car with a single cylinder engine” (Friedman 71). Fast forward to the years 1900-1910s, many other people started to work with other sources such as steam and electricity, and came up with the idea of creating automobiles companies. We all know about Henry Ford. The reading explains in depth of how his company started, how went on, and his products. Later on he began agreements with companies such as Alexander Y. Malcomson. His success led to him paying employees “more than double the minimum wage” (Friedman 73), which I think it was a positive event since people would be more interested in working with someone well-known and with a better pay. He appeared on several newspapers, articles, etc. Not only this, but also, his success made him introduce “Fordlandia” which had ‘schools, restaurants and golf courses.'(Friedman 74). Even though he had rivals, his purpose became a reality, which was to “sell affordable cars” (Friedman 74) nationally and internationally. As a result, this reading was engaging to me because it made me think about the time of how industries started, how they operate now and how they are growing in the U.S., even if some companies face challenges sometimes, some rely on agencies or partnerships.

Property and Mandell’s Wealth and Power in the Early Republic

Global history can be described as a story of perpetual problems faced by humans throughout time, and their response to them. Whether it be the problem of greed for power and control resulting in many of the atrocities seen throughout the past few centuries, or the unequal distribution of property resulting in a quasi aristocracy formed on the basis of wealth; humans have thought extensively about such problems and responded with their own proposed solution. This theme is exactly what Mandell’s Wealth and Power in the Early Republic describes. After fighting for independence from colonial rule, colonists began to develop their own government that suits their interests. However, as is the theme in history, several conflicting views emerged about taxation, egalitarianism, wealth, and property.

Despite property being enshrined as a natural right by enlightenment philosophers like Locke, colonists argued over property limits and distribution. As described by Johann Schoepf, an emerging aristocracy had begun to form among colonists based on wealth and material attainments as opposed to the hereditary system seen in Britain(Mandell 79). Colonists who managed to gain wealth were able to “work the levers of power” and acted similarly to nobility seen in countries around the world(Mandell 79). This began to alarm the recently freed colonists and as a push back, proposed progressive taxation and a wealth limit to combat what they feared was an arising wealth based noble class. Prominent writers like Jacob Green started to chime in and equate property with freedom(Mandell 81). These views on property conflict with the prevalent narrative of unity behind a meritocratic society in even early America, and learning about these split thoughts on regulation of a natural right surprised me. Although I knew conflict regarding natural rights and others occurred, I did not expect that views on property were so split and divisive.

Mandell provides statements from multiple writers in early America that view property as far more significant than just wealth. David Daggert describes property as a means to prevent “oppression” and “slavery”(Mandell 83). While others like John Adams desired a natural or propertied aristocracy to govern the land(Mandell 83). These two thinkers, despite both valuing property ownership, have two very different reasons or ideas for its usage. One seeks for widespread property ownership to protect liberty, while the other views it as a means to determine who will lead the American populace. 

Newly independent Americans argued over many things, property being one of them. Throughout history, property rights and distribution has been a problem many thinkers proposed solutions for, but has continued to be a problem even in modern day America. Mandell’s text provides evidence of the chaotic period early America faced and represents, in part, the story of global history.