Letters

“No Union with Slaveholders!”

In “No Union with Slaveholders!” [May/June], Allen Guelzo praises my own and George Van Cleve’s books on slavery and the Constitution as “extraordinary and thorough” before making his own case for the antislavery aspects of the Constitution and expressing his discomfort with the implications of our books for how we see the Constitution today. Fair enough, especially in a review written for a broad audience. But in his zeal to defend the Founders, Guelzo commits a howler in stating that “none of the ratification debates (including the Federalist Papers) made slavery an issue.” My book shows clearly that several of the Federalist Papers (#38, 42, 43, and almost all of Federalist #54) defend slavery’s place in the Constitution, in response to criticisms antifederalists had already raised in the newspapers. How a reviewer could miss one of the more original parts of the book under review, even if it does go against a previous scholarly consensus, is beyond me, unless Guelzo is just more interested in defending his own preconceptions, and accusing others who disagree with them of special pleading (as he does in the review), than in what new scholarship has proven.

Allen Gulezo replies:

Let me say, as gently as I can, that my fellow Philadelphian, David Waldstreicher, may be protesting a little too much. Federalist #38 is about the legitimacy of conventions, not slavery, while Federalist #39 concerns the federal (as opposed to national) nature of the new government; Federalist #42 is a review of the federal power regulating commerce and mentions, not slavery, but the prohibition of slave trade, which Madison characterizes as an “unnatural traffic”; Federalist #43 discusses the power of the federal government to suppress insurrections, but this can only be construed to refer to slavery if it is supposed that Madison was writing, in wink-and-nod fashion, about slave insurrections; Federalist #54 is a discussion by Madison of representation, which includes the three-fifths clause, but whose overall point is “the establishment of a common measure for representation and taxation.” And in the four paragraphs of Federalist #54 where the three-fifths clause is the subject, Madison deplores “the fact, that slaves are considered merely as property, and in no respect whatever as persons.” The slave “is no less evidently regarded by the law as a member of the society, not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, not as a mere article of property.” Far from making slavery “an issue,” the Federalist Papers—like the Constitution itself—tried to tiptoe anxiously around it, while at the points where Publius did speak directly to the “issue,” it was in terms of disapprobation. That much said, Waldstreicher should understand that I am not promoting a Pollyanna version of the Constitution; the failure to confront slavery in the Convention was its greatest fault, and as a nation we paid (and continue to pay) a grievous penalty for it, and right he is to expose that. It is for that reason I assign his book as reading for my class on the Civil War, the Constitution, and Secession. My dissent lies mainly in fearing that Waldstreicher mistakes blandness for encrypted malevolence. I, too, wish the Constitution had not been so bland concerning slavery; but it was blandness, and not malevolence.

On Dogs and Malcolm Gladwell

I am grateful to Sarah Ruden for acknowledging the work of my son Malcolm Gladwell, and for giving her considered attention to his writings [“The Age Demanded an Image,” July/August]. I have one small mote to pluck from the eye of her article. It is about her comment on his upcoming book, David and Goliath.

When Malcolm was a teenager in high school, he and his friends produced a satirical magazine which they labeled Ad Hominem: A Journal of Slander and Critical Opinion. One of the rules for writers hoping to publish in the journal was this: you are not allowed to read any book you are reviewing. Ruden’s comment on David and Goliath fits well with this rule. Malcolm assures me that only eight people in the world have so far read the manuscript, and the publishers have not yet released it for review. Yet Ruden has presumed to give her critical opinion on the book, not having read it.

I dare say that by her premature comment Ruden has delivered a measure of justice. She has meted out to Malcolm the retribution due to him for the mischief of his earlier years.

Love Is Stronger Than Debt

I enjoy reading Books & Culture very much. I recently gave a gift subscription to a colleague. I found myself both inspired and vexed by Eugene McCarraher’s provocative review in your May/June issue [“Love Is Stronger Than Debt“]: inspired by the beauty of his communist vision, and vexed that he or anyone else would be so naïve as to believe such a vision could be realized in the present age.

Christian Marxists like McCarraher make the crucial exegetical flaw of confusing the “already” and the “not yet.” Only in the earliest days of the early church, under the influence of Jesus’ apostles, do we see Christians engaging successfully in the kinds of communist relationships McCarraher espouses for society as a whole (Acts 2:44-45). I believe this passage reveals the firstfruits of what Christians can expect in the eschaton, or perhaps at certain times in this age, among mature believers. But those who believe these kinds of relationships can be realized peacefully in entire states, among the redeemed and unredeemed alike, are mistaken, and history has proven that to promote such things on such a large scale is dangerous.

The writers of Scripture assume that the people of God operate in a world of financial obligation, and they promote righteousness from within that system, not an overthrow of it. (I don’t personally even see a “trajectory” toward such an overthrow.) Thus Paul repeatedly instructed believers to work so that they would have a surplus to give away (1 Thess. 4:11). He never promoted a sweeping vision of love-based interaction for the world, nor did he urge other believers to do so. I don’t see how any person with basic evangelical convictions about human depravity can realistically or responsibly advocate a radical restructuring of civilization on communist principles. The world is full of both lambs and pigs, and for every Trotsky there is Stalin happy to trample the pearls of utopia under his feet, and to turn on those foolish enough to scatter them abroad.

What’s more, I have to take issue with McCarraher’s hyperbolic, slanderous characterization of American church leaders, which was proudly displayed on the front page of the journal. While I appreciate any healthy, sensible critique of Western consumerism, especially as it affects evangelical faith, the vast majority of church leaders I know simply do not fit McCarraher’s ungenerous description. They are not fawning, jingoistic “chrapitalists.” Most are sincere, humble, educated men and women trying very hard to shepherd their flocks, and many are conscious of the harmful effects of American materialism and are trying to help their churches get free of its influence.

Thank you for producing such a stimulating and enlightening journal. Thank you also for taking time to hear this response.

Thank you for having the courage to publish something that breaks from and challenges the political and economic orthodoxy that passes for (or rather surpasses in importance) Christian orthodoxy in America these days. Agree or disagree, McCarraher forces us to confront prevalent assumptions (that to be Christian = to be a modern capitalist, Republican, or any number of ahistoric litmus tests) and turn back to search those uncomfortable Scriptures and the final Word, Jesus. I’ll be looking for McCarraher’s book and resubscribing to your print version.

I have been a subscriber to Books & Culture for a number of years and I have to say, this is the most provocative, powerful, and prophetic article I have ever read in these pages. Nearly anywhere, actually. I see why the editors chose to emblazon the cover with a direct quote.

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