TÁQUEOPARIU!!! SÉRIO ISSO????

É sobre a Independência Americana ~MAS~ algumas partes lembram a Brasília do Congresso, do Planalto, da Esplanada et caterva. [3ª parte do 4º Volume]

Getting Aid from France

To open the ports of America to trade for munitions and with the West Indies the Americans were required to take a step toward independence almost as momentous as throwing open the ports in defiance of the navigation acts: they had to negotiate as a separate country with the European countries supplying the munitions, especially with the major supplier, France.

As early as July 1775 the Continental Congress began its first diplomatic efforts by sidestepping the British government and speaking directly to their fellow subjects. An address stating its wish for equal liberty was sent to the City of London. Appeals to the people of Canada and Jamaica to join in the colonial cause, and a particularly noteworthy address sent to the people of Ireland, were the first attempts to export the revolution overseas. Congress noted the grievances of the Irish under British rule, and suggested that both peoples should engage in a common struggle for liberty, albeit within the framework of the British Empire. The subservient Irish Parliament, however, merely moved to endorse the British war of suppression against the colonies.

At the same time Congress was moving toward liberty and independence, however, it was taking some steps at home toward oligarchic rule Of necessity, it had already begun to function through various standing committees to discharge its vital responsibilities for the war effort. Generally these functioned under the strict control of Congress itself and were always open to its guidance and supervision. But in late 1775 Congress created two "secret committees," and as their name implies, they acted in secret and on their own initiative, without checking with Congress. Instead, Congress only had the power (largely unexercised) to ask for their records at its discretion. A great deal of working power was thereby put into the hands of a few men who dealt, furthermore, in the particularly sensitive area of foreign affairs. On September 18 Congress created the nine-man Secret Committee to handle the deals with foreign countries for munitions; on November 29 it created the five- (later six-) man Committee of Secret Correspondence, to correspond "with our friends" abroad. An omen for the future was the highly conservative complexion of the Committee of Secret Correspondence, consisting of John Jay, John Dickinson, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Johnson, who were archconservatives, and Benjamin Franklin, a thoroughgoing opportunist with highly conservative instincts. The establishment of this committee came as a response to the prodding by John Adams, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Chase of Maryland to open full diplomatic relations with France.

Soon the two secret committees were able to work very closely and cozily together. This close working relationship was embodied in the person of the young Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris, destined to become the great Mephistophelean figure of the revolutionary era. At the turn of the year, he became a member of both committees; he virtually ran the Committee of Secret Correspondence himself throughout 1776 and quickly became the leading figure in the Secret Committee. He was, in fact, to serve as the second chairman of the latter committee, succeeding his friend and partner, Thomas Willing of the firm of Willing and Morris. Thus catapulted to the very seat of power in the American colonies, the highly conservative Morris was able to make himself the center of a veritable plunderbund, which unabashedly and systematically looted the public purse for their private profit.

One of the first deeds of the Secret Committee was to substitute for regular market purchases a system of contracting—the ancestor of modern "cost-plus" government contracts. Under this system some favored firms were selected by the government to purchase (or to produce) certain goods, which the government pledges to buy at a rate that will give the merchants a guaranteed margin of profit, a lucrative special privilege eagerly fought for by business then and since. The Secret Committee established a handsome rate of profit on such mercantile purchases and often advanced the merchants the initial capital to buy the supplies. Moreover, Congress had thoughtfully allowed only merchants specifically to purchase supplies abroad, and as we have seen, this condition obtained until April 1776. This authorization came from the Secret Committee, and it was soon clear enough that control of this committee was the open sesame to special privilege and high guaranteed fortunes to be made out of the revolutionary effort.

Control of the committee Morris and Willing had, and they lost no time in exploiting their position. One of the first acts of the committee was to grant heavy contracts to the firm of Willing and Morris. These commission contracts were not the only form of subsidy the company enjoyed. The committee now quickly granted it a startling contract for supplying gunpowder, guaranteeing a high flat price of fourteen dollars a barrel, whether or not the powder reached American stores safely! This assured Willing and Morris a clear profit of $60,000 without even a fleeting risk of loss. Other members of the Secret Committee also came in for their share of the loot. John Langdon of New Hampshire provided contracts to his own firm; Philip J. Livingston routed contracts to Livingston and Turnbull of New York; Silas Deane of Connecticut furnished commissions to his brother Barnabas. But heading the associates in plunder were Willing and Morris. All in all, the Secret Committee paid out over $2 million in war contracts from 1775 to 1777, and of these nearly $500,000, or one-fourth of all disbursements, went directly to the firm of Willing and Morris. Morris also directly shared with fellow members of the committee the largesse of nearly $300,000 in other contracts. Morris and Willing soon established a far-flung network of agents and followers, including leading merchants Benjamin Harrison (a member of the Committee of Secret Correspondence) and Carter Braxton, both of whom consequently received handsome contracts from the Secret Committee. Two particularly important committee agents were soon to double as congressional envoys to the French, William Bingham of Philadelphia, and Silas Deane of Westfield, Connecticut.

Deane was a prototype of the young lawyer with a keen eye to the main ;hance. He had launched his career by marrying the widow of a wealthy merchant, then capped that by divorcing her and marrying a member of the powerful Saltonstall family, thus getting himself profitably launched in Connecticut politics. Hardly had he latched onto a good thing in the operations of the Secret Committee, however, when the ungrateful voters of Connecticut unceremoniously turned him out of Congress in the elections of October 1775.

Rothbard em Conceived in Liberty, capítulo 18

"In mid-December 1620 the Mayflower landed at Plymouth. In a duplication of the terrible hardships of the first Virginia settlers, half of the colonists were dead by the end of the first winter. In mid-1621 John Peirce and Associates obtained a patent from the Council for New England, granting the company 100 acres of land for each settler and 1,500 acres compulsorily reserved for public use. In return, the Council was to receive a yearly quitrent of two shillings per 100 acres.

A major reason for the persistent hardships, for the "starving time," in Plymouth as before in Jamestown, was the communism imposed by the company. Finally, in order to survive, the colony in 1623 permitted each family to cultivate a small private plot of land for their individual use. William Bradford, who had become governor of Plymouth in 1621, and was to help rule the colony for thirty years thereafter, eloquently describes the result in his record of the colony:

All this while no supply was heard of. . . . So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length . . . the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves. . . . And so assigned to every family a parcel of land . . . for that end, only for present use. . . . This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression. The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's . . . that the taking away of property and bringing community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing. . . . For this community . . . was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong . . . had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice.   . . . Upon . . . all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought . . . one as good as another, and so . . . did . . . work diminish . . . the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst men. . . . Let none object this is men's corruption . . . all men have this corruption in them. . . .

 The antipathy of communism to the nature of man here receives eloquent testimony from a governor scarcely biased a priori in favor of individualism."

rothbard

[conceived in liberty, volume 1, páginas 28, 29 e 30]


Esse tal "pattern of Spanish colonization" foi um achado. Acho que vou comprar o livro do narloch para "pesquisar" a respeito.

The pattern of Spanish colonization was based upon conditions in
Spain in the late Middle Ages. In contrast to Europe generally, where
aggressions against non-European territories had been checked by the
growth of Turkish power, the Spanish and the English could still pursue the
conquest of lands and peoples against the Spanish Arabs of Granada and
the Celts of Ireland. Thus, the two major land-conquering and colonizing
powers, Spain and England, preceded their respective transatlantic conquests
by the conquest of neighboring peoples—the Moors of Granada
by Spain in the late fifteenth century, and the Irish by the English,
particularly during the sixteenth century. In these aggressions both the
Spanish and the English not only acquired the skills and appetites for further
violence, but also established the attitudes and policies to be
applied to alien peoples through conquest, extermination, or enslavement.

Due to geographical and political conditions, Spain retained the military
spirit of feudalism for a longer time than other European
countries. The arid climate and the frontier wars with the Muslims
caused the Spanish ruling class to remain essentially horsemen, who in
place of agriculture emphasized sheep and cattle farming, occupations in
which horsemen could be utilized and trained for war. This style of life had
a profound influence on Spanish colonization. The Christian and Muslim
farmers conquered by the Spanish nobles were kept in feudal serfdom to
provide foodstuffs for the ruling class, to whom their villages had been
granted. This feudal system, which had been imposed on the conquered
lands of Granada and the Canary Islands, was then applied to the larger
islands of the West Indies and later to Mexico, Venezuela, and Peru.
The native villages were granted to Spanish conquistadores, who were
to govern them so as to live upon the work of the natives. The hapless
natives were compelled to provide food, cotton, and forced labor for building
the great cities where the Spanish lived and from which they governed,
and to work for large mining operations of the Spaniards. Alongside
the agriculture of the Indians, the conquistadores developed the raising
of sheep, cattle, horses, and mules to provide profits for themselves as well
as work and plentiful meat for their keepers. Generally the Spanish
colonists did not pursue productive work; instead they entered government
and privileged occupations, in which to live from the work of the natives
whom they enslaved.

Continuando, Rothbard fala sobre aa honrada posição do Escolásticos sobre o tema [coisa de 500 anos atrás negada! PUTAQUEOSPARIU!! Pois é, seriam "inocentes" os pacifistas escolásticos?, fica a pergunta, inclusive a OLAVÃO. Anyway, embora a POLÍTICA tenha [sempre tem] vencido, há - sempre -  muito a aprender com os Escolásticos]:

The right to conquer, coercively convert, govern, and enslave the
natives of the New World was subjected to intense criticism in a series
of lectures in 1539 at the University of Salamanca by the great Dominican
scholastic philosopher Francisco de Vitoria. In international law based
upon the natural law, insisted Vitoria, the native peoples as well as
European peoples have full equality of rights. No right of conquest by Europeans
could result from crimes or errors of the natives, whether they
be tyranny, murder, religious differences, or rejection of Christianity.
Having grave doubts of the right of the Spaniards to any government of
the natives, Vitoria advocated peaceful trade, in justice and in practice,
as against conquest, enslavement, and political power, whether or not
the last mentioned were aimed at individual profit, tax revenue, or
conversion to Christianity. Although the Spanish government prohibited
further discussion of these questions, the Vitoria lectures influenced the
New Laws of 1542, which gave greater legal protection to the natives
in America.

Nevertheless, there were defenders of imperialism in Spain who
rejected international law and scholastic individualism and returned
to the slave theories of the classical authors. Based on the theory of natural
servitude—that the majority of mankind is inferior and must be
subdued to government by the ruling class, of course in the interest of
that majority—these imperial apologists proposed that the natives be
taught better morals, be converted, and be introduced to the blessings
of economic development by being divided among the conquistadores,
for whom they must labor.

The serfdom of the Indians was most strongly and zealously opposed
by the Dominican missionary Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas. Tireless
in working to influence European public opinion against the practices
of Spanish officials in America, Las Casas argued that all men must have
freedom so that reason, which naturally inclines men to live together
in peace, justice, and cooperation, can remain free and unhampered.
Therefore, concluded Las Casas, even pursuit of the great objective of
conversion to Christianity cannot be used to violate these rights. Not only
was all slavery evil, but the natives had a right to live independently of
European government. The papacy, in 1537, condemned as heretical the
concept that natives were not rational men or were naturally inferior
persons. These progressive views were also reflected in the abolition
of conquistador feudalism in the New Laws of 1542; however, this abolition
was revoked by the Spanish Crown three years later.

Political control of the Spanish colonies was first exercised by a committee
of the Council of Castile, and then from 1524 by the Council of the
Indies. In the New World, provincial governments were created, with
the two most important, Mexico and Peru, raised to status of viceroyalties.
Economic control of the colonies was vested in the Casa de Contratacion,
instituted in 1503 to license, supervise, and tax merchants,
goods, and ships engaged in trade in the New World. In 1508 a Bureau
of Pilots was established under the Casa which advised the Government
on maritime matters and supervised navigation and navigators; its first
chief pilot was Amerigo Vespucci. Sebastian Cabot held that office for
about thirty years, after transferring from English to Spanish service,
as England's maritime interests had shifted from exploration to the
development of a governmental navy.

The Revolutionary Movement: Ideology and Motivation [pp 350/1 do terceiro volume de Conceived in liberty, de rothbard]

"With the beginning of the American Revolutionary War at the outbreak of Lexington and Concord, two truths about the Revolution already stand out clearly. One is that the Revolution was genuinely and enthusiastically supported by the great majority of the American population. It was a true people's war against British rule. In addition to all the evidence given above, the American rebels could certainly not have concluded the first successful war of national liberation in history, a war against the world's greatest naval and military power, unless they had commanded the support of the American people. As David Ramsay, the first great historian of the American Revolution, put it in 1789, "The war was the people's war . . . the exertions of the army would have been insufficient to effect the revolution, unless the great body of the people had been prepared for it, and also kept in a constant disposition to oppose Great Britain."***

A second truth that emerges is the egregious fallacy of the view endemic among historians of all ideological persuasions that there is a large and necessary dichotomy between political or moral principle and economic self-interest. Historians friendly to the Revolution have insisted that the Americans fought for political freedom, for independence, for constitutional rights, or for democracy; critical historians maintain that the fight was merely for economic reasons, for defense of property and trade against British interference. But why must the two be sundered ? Why may not a defense of American liberty and property be conjoined to a defense of political and economic rights? The merchants rebelling against the stamp tax, or sugar, or tea taxes, or the restrictions of the navigation laws, were battling for their rights of property and trade free from interference. In doing so, they were battling for their own property and for the rights of liberty at the same time. The American masses, similarly, were battling for all property rights, for their own as well as those of the merchants, and acting also in their capacity as consumers fighting against British taxes and restrictions. In short, there need be no dichotomy between liberty and property, between defense of the rights of property in one's person and in one's material possessions. Defense of rights is logically unitary in all spheres of action. And what is more, the American revolutionaries certainly acted on these very assumptions, as revealed by their essential adherence to libertarian thought, to political and economic rights, and always to "Liberty and Property." The men of the eighteenth century saw no dichotomy between personal and economic freedom, between rights to liberty and to property. These artificial distinctions were left for later ages to construct."

***Professor Alden has shown that the myth of present-day historians that only one-third of the American public backed the Revolution, with an equal number opposed, stems from a misreading of a letter by John Adams (John R. Alden, The American Revolution, 1775—1783 [New York: Harper & Row, 1954], p. 87). Historians of such disparate views as Robert E. Brown and Herbert Aptheker now support the view that the Revolution was a majority movement. Thus, see Brown, Middle-Class Democracy, passim, and Aptheker, The American Revolution, 1763-17S} (New York: International Publishers, 1960), pp. 52ff.