Slavery in the Colonies. Emancipation and its Legacy.  6 27 2023

The Reuters news people are writing a history of slavery in America, it is at:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-slavery-lawmakers/

And:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-slavery-lawmakers-overview/

“President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached the third year of the Civil War.

Google search emancipation proclamation 

Prior to this there is little real archival information for black slaves, beyond death notices from slave owners, whose wills included slaves, and tax notices filed by the slaveowner.  Sometimes a family kept writings from the ancestors, often 4 or 5 generations removed, that included a record of slaves owned by the person.  Generally it includes a dollar amount, as it was in a will or if the estate was sold after the death of the slave owner.  

Reuters shows a consistent connection between serving as a Congressperson, Senator, Supreme Court Justice, and even president, and having descendants that owned black people.  They found 100 people whose ancestors owned slaves, the southerners more commonly directly linked to slavery.

It is relevant because here we see the legacy of slavery and the position of the descendants of slave owners, who may have suffered abolition, but nevertheless remained politically powerful, and eventually got their fortunes back.  And it only took about 100 years.

It is also relevant that these powerful people in government, our bourgeoisie, are totally opposed to Karl Marx and his writings. They seek to kill by silence his writings such as Capital.  They have convinced their workers Marxism is immoral, as Marx was not a Christian.

Nevertheless we retain records of the real events Marx took part in. Here is an example: 

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm

This letter was written by Marx for the International Working Men’s Association on January 25 1856.  

Here is another:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/11/26.htm

The latter shows the contradiction of what the Republicans became, after the Civil War.  At some point the descendants of the slave owners became leadership in the party.  The Reuters article names many, for instance Mitch McConnell, Senator from Kentucky.

According to the Reuters article: 

Direct ancestor: Joseph Farrington

Number of enslaved: 12

Generations removed: 4

In this case we know little detail of the human beings Mr. Farrington owned.  We just see a powerful man whose family history has a rather interesting connection to slavery.

Continuing to delve into Reuters we find: 

“Lindsey Graham

U.S. Senator from South Carolina

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Joseph Maddox

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 8

“The great-great-great-grandfather of Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. After the death of Graham’s direct ancestor, Joseph Maddox, a receipt from the sale of his estate was prepared. Dated February 1, 1845, it shows the sale of eight people Maddox had enslaved. Among them were five children: Sela, Rubin, James, Sal and Green. The “Negro man Sam” was sold for $155.25. Their names are listed alongside items including a sorrel horse ($10.50) and a folding table ($9.87).

Reuters see above ibid.

How about this one:

“Pete Sessions

U.S. Representative from Texas

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Richard Sessions

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 96

“One of the wealthiest slaveholders was Richard Sessions, the great-great-grandfather of Representative Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas. A family history written by the congressman’s grandfather in 1975 tells a riches-to-rags story involving the Sessions’ cotton plantation along the Mississippi River: a place called Luna Landing in Chicot County, Arkansas, where more than 80% of the residents in 1860 were Black.

“The family book depicts the affluence of Richard Sessions before the war. It also documents the dependency of his fortune on the labor of those he enslaved.

“Richard Sessions owned about 770 acres of some of the most fertile land in the South. By 1860, census records show, the 43-year-old Sessions was among the richest 1% in America. His land in Chicot County was valued at $75,000. His personal wealth – measured largely in human property – was far greater: $200,000, or $113 million in today’s money by one calculation.

“An 1860 local tax list indicates he owned $1,000 in household furniture, two “pleasure carriages,” and at least eight horses, 30 mules and 40 head of cattle.

“Sessions had 96 enslaved people working his land and tending to his family, according to the slave schedule portion of the 1860 census.

“Many slave schedules listed each person who was enslaved, individually, but almost never named them. The census taker’s entry for those in bondage by Sessions is even more impersonal. It grouped the enslaved by age and sex: There is an entry for three unnamed 55-year-old men, for example. Thirteen 25-year-old men. Twelve 15-year-old girls. And so on.

Reuters ibid.

Although ruined in business by the Civil War, which emancipated his slaves, the family today is still bourgeois.  It would seem to be that way for many of the people in the article; they suffered financially by abolition, but remained powerful, governing America 160 years later.

Another one:

Joe Wilson

“U.S. Representative from South Carolina

DIRECT ANCESTOR: Stephen H. Boineau

RELATIONSHIP: Great-great-grandfather

NUMBER ENSLAVED: 16

“Joe Wilson is the Republican Congressman from South Carolina who famously shouted “You lie!” at America’s first Black president, Barack Obama, during a joint session of Congress in 2009. Wilson has at least five slaveholders among his forebears. His ancestors first enslaved Black people during the 1700s, Reuters found.

“Among the slaveholders was Wilson’s great-great-grandfather, Stephen H. Boineau. In 1860, he enslaved 16 people, ranging from an 8-month-old girl to a 50-year-old man. Boineau also worked for another enslaver as an overseer – a man who enforced plantation rules and monitored the conduct of the enslaved.

“Wilson did not respond to five requests for comment.

Reuters ibid.

“Among 536 members of the last sitting Congress, Reuters determined at least 100 descend from slaveholders. Of that group, more than a quarter of the Senate – 28 members – can trace their families to at least one slaveholder.

“Those lawmakers from the 117th session of Congress are Democrats and Republicans alike. They include some of the most influential politicians in America: Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and James Lankford, and Democrats Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan.

“In addition, President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president – except Donald Trump – are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and – through his white mother’s side – Barack Obama. Trump’s ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished.

“Two of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices – Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch – also have direct ancestors who enslaved people.

Article continues

“Reuters found that at least 8% of Democrats in the last Congress and 28% of Republicans have such ancestors. The preponderance of Republicans reflects the party’s strength in the South, where slavery was concentrated.

“Few were willing to discuss the subject: Only a quarter of those identified as having slaveholding ancestors offered any comment to Reuters. Among the silent are politicians who previously have spoken publicly, sometimes eloquently, about the legacy of slavery and the need for racial healing. The reticence underscores the enduring sensitivity of slavery as a political issue, an unease that genealogist Burroughs suggests is greatly amplified for many people when one’s own kin are linked to the brutal institution.

Reuters ibid.

Reuters went so far as to contact the people referenced in this article, and most were silent.  Part of living in America for many includes a past history sometimes hard to face.  For Wisconsin, it is what happened to the natives.  While there was never slavery in Wisconsin, their men marched to Civil War under Lincoln, president from Illinois, to emancipate the slaves, it is a shame they could not have felt the same way towards the suffering of the native peasants who were run off their land to create capitalism as we know it today.

But for many it did not stop there, a legacy of slavery remaining also, especially in the South. Not only did they remove the natives,  they used slave labour to farm the land, often to its demise and then moving further west to do it again.  

If one is to point to a family history, as many a representative will do when trying to gain the sanction of universal suffrage, of hard work and good business sense allowing for a bourgeois to become Congressman,  the reality of many includes human bondage.  Although there are few today who would suggest ending abolition, some of the main protagonists in the story such are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, whose ideas are still being met with violence.  There is still a sore spot about when the southern man was confronted by the proletariat, and forced to give up ownership of the human beings he held in bondage.  It has yet to be forgiven, and it will not be in my lifetime. It is part of a history few read, it is the real life struggle of the workers in their daily lives, how they labour, their real material conditions. Their non ownership of the means of production, and the human bondage practiced by their so-called “betters” ancestors.

The Reuters article seems to be the first of a series.  More on this soon hopefully.

Nicholas Jay Boyes 

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

6 27 2023

An agreement was reached a few days prior to default on the debt by Washington.  In the agreement reached, there will be no limit to the amount of bonds the government can offer to pay the bills of the state.

Which would seem to have been inevitable, given it was simply the Republican bourgeoisie who were having trouble with how their money was being spent by the less extreme section of the bourgeoisie, the liberal progressives.  

The suggestion they lowered spending, when to pay for their day to day expenses with bonds, rather than straight out taxes, looks absurd.  Rather this money, in bonds, will carry an interest rate, and will be issued by the Central Bank, as bonds. Even if they did lower spending, what is going to be spent will be more expensive than it would be if it were simply paid for by taxes, rather than the roundabout way of issuing bonds to be paid back at a later date.

Although the money comes from selling commodities, as all value is created by labour, it is claimed as profit by the capitalist, and some of it is subdivided out to pay the expenses of the capitalist state.  The worker can claim this to be his, it is produced by him, but so is profit, which he cannot claim as his own.  Taxes on the worker like sales taxes, which tax things like pens and papers, books, computers etc. are all simply repressive.  Given the conditions, you would be hard pressed to find a worker who would agree to pay a sales tax.  Yet that is the argument  when taxes are due, that the state money is property of the worker, and the liberal progressive is spending too much of it. 

Given it is a division of profit, the Republican bourgeoisie who comprise most of the owners of capital must see a conspiracy to spend their money due to universal suffrage they could not control.  But why issue bonds?  Why not lower the cost of the state by simply raising taxes to pay for what the bonds are going to?

Instead any money saved will go to paying off the interest on the state’s debt, as bonds.  So where was the controversy?

In the 2008 recession the debt rating was downgraded. Prior to this, and since then, there has never been default.  This time the rating has fallen, but only because the debt was in question for so long, as capitalists argued about their profits from bonds, and how much to issue.  Although they never intended to not pay for the maturing bonds, a few weeks away from a default has rattled investors.

The whole issuing of bonds is speculation on the ability of the state to pay off its debts at a future date of purchase of the bond.  It comes to 3.7% interest on a ten year note.  There is no commodity involved, it is pure fetish. It is money that creates interest from its power as capital.  It is not machines, or a product speculated on that will be built, like a ship or railroad.  It is pure speculation, the trading of tax money, fictitious capital.  At best the capitalist spreads around the wealth a little, as instate college tuition.  But make no mistake, the repressive power of the state is not being removed.  It just carries an interest rate now.

The industrial capitalist recognizes this, and deducts from his surplus value this money. It is part of the interest, which is going to bonds. Perhaps this sweetens the pot for him, so to speak, as the money is not simply taxes, it has a return date with interest for his fellow capitalists who buy bonds.  But he still has to pay. The financial capital is still all created in production, and its circulation can only be made cheaper by the intervention of credit, in this case bonds. The state is using its authority to issue bonds, financial capital.

The currency is obviously a cost of production, the money stored up here for circulation an expense.  

But with bonds comes interest, making it seem superficially that the state has created a profit, and paid back the bond.  

This is simply not the case, the capitalist state is not running factories to pay off their debts.  If there were assets that could produce a profit that were run by the state they would be privatised.  There is no “ National Debt Incorporated” production facility hidden somewhere in the deep west., making  profit paying off the bonds debts.  

Instead, there is the surplus value, which is calculated by what is left over after the cost of labour, the variable capital, wages, are paid for by the industrial capitalist. The rest of the expenditure comes from the constant capital, the expenditure on machinery and raw materials.  The latter becomes important in drawing  the distinction between surplus value and profit. 

The financial capital carries the interest the capitalist has to pay out as part of  his expenditures.  He calculates for this, and here we have him using the Central Bank for credit.  It’s where the bonds are issued, the money coming from selling commodities.  The fact the commodities have not been built yet changes nothing.  It is a form of credit, and in times of crisis the bonds are considered viable assets, even though there are failing banks containing them.  Loans to smaller banks are made by the Central Bank based on bonds as assets.

Which seems like a great deal of fictitious capital.  And a group of investors who are ultimately speculating on the taxes that will have to be paid if the whole thing goes south.  When the banks become “too big to fail”,  it seems as though there is no cost spared to pay for the bonds that are becoming due. 

The latest exercise in the issuing of bonds expands the credit mechanism of the Central bank further.  With the economy coming back from the Covid crisis, short of a few notable bank failures, it seems prosperity is being felt again.  At least there are still paper products on sale, rather than empty shelves in the pandemic.  The Central Bank looks able to handle issuing large amounts of debt, for the day to day expenditures of the state.  But in the end there will always be a question of just why taxes are being traded, rather than simply paid for by capitalists, the former what bonds really represent.  

Nicholas Jay Boyes 

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

6 5 2023