England's Glorious Revolution of 1688/1689

King James II Flees to France as William and Mary Arrive to Rule

Michael Streich  

On January 22, 1689, William of Orange convened the first Parliament since the bloodless revolution of 1688. William and Mary would be crowned on April 11, 1689, the first English monarchs to rule according to the consent of the governed. The Glorious Revolution forced King James II into French exile, dependent upon the good graces of the Catholic King Louis XIV. The principles of the English revolution would alter the role of monarchy and provide inspiration for a future generation of English colonists forming the American republic.

 

The Fear of Catholicism in 17^th Century England

 

Throughout the 17^th Century, Protestant England feared a return to Catholicism. Puritans as well as other Protestant sects likened the Church of England with papist practices; it was a major source of conflict with both King James I and his son Charles I. Following the Restoration, Charles II was linked to his Catholic benefactors in France.

 

James II, however, did not hide his loyalties to the Catholic faith. As a consequence, Prince William of Orange, married to James II’s daughter Mary, was invited to invade England and rule as king. Prince William was a Stuart, related to the dynasty through his mother. In the fall of 1688, William of Orange landed in England after a stormy channel crossing and began his march to London.

 

William’s Success in Defeating King James II

 

James II might have effectively stopped William but he procrastinated. During this time, numerous nobles deserted his cause and joined William. Although the English population was not initially as receptive to William as was hoped, rumors of a possible French invasion swiftly galvanized public support.

 

Historians have also noted that King Louis XIV of France was caught unaware by William’s invasion and rapid elevation as king of England. Louis XIV might have slowed the process with a resumption of hostilities against Holland, following up on the 1672 invasion of William’s lands.

 

Finally, James refused to convene Parliament. By waiting too long, James’ inaction cost him the throne.

 

James II Flees England as a King without a Country and a Man without a Family

 

Both of James’ daughters deserted him. Mary would leave Holland to be with her husband while Anne would eventually become the last Stuart monarch. James left for France December 22, 1688 after riots broke out in London. His son James Francis Edward, the Prince of Wales, was already in France, spirited out of England by Queen Maria Beatrice.

 

William III and Mary II Rule Based on a Bill of Rights

 

William supported religious tolerance, allowing, for example, Jews and Quakers to practice their faith freely. He also championed an end to censorship. William also favored an independent judiciary. Although not written down as the American Bill of Rights, these personal liberties point to the enlightened nature of William’s 13 year rule.

 

Historian Colin B. Goodykoontz makes the point that the American Founding Fathers were more influenced by English constitutionalism that any other historical references. This included the principles in Magna Charta. William and Mary left a legacy of constitutionalism represented by a stronger Parliament, although it would not be until the 19^th Century that most Englishmen would be full participants in the political process.

 

Sources:

 

Bryan Bevan, King William III: Prince of Orange, the first European (The Rubicon Press, 1997)

Colin B. Goodykoontz, “The Founding Fathers and Clio,” The Vital Past: Writings on the Uses of History (The University of Georgia Press, 1985)

Pierre Goubert, Louis XIV And Twenty Million Frenchmen (Random House, 1972)

[Copyright owned by Michael Streich; reprints require written permission]

 

 

 Belgian Congo the Private Colony of King Leopold II, an Imperialist Sociopath

Michael Streich

Belgium is a small country, derisively called one of the “chocolate producing” countries of Europe in the 21^st Century. In the 1890’s, however, the Belgian King Leopold II was master over an immense African private fief that he called the Congo Free State. But the Belgian Congo was anything but free; Leopold’s legacy of ruthless greed committed under the guise of benevolence resulted in the deaths of at least eight million indigenous people through slave labor. Upon his death in 1909, over sixteen million Africans were still enslaved. This was his legacy: a colony to continue enriching seven million Belgians.

 

How Leopold Exploited the Congo

 

Leopold’s secret monopoly in Africa focused first on ivory and in the later 1890’s rubber. It was the trade in rubber that made him a fortune well above his investments. It was also the pursuit of profits that resulted in growing slave labor that included frequent massacres of villagers and the mutilation of workers, including women and children. By the early 20^th Century, pictures of severed hands helped to tell the story of Leopold’s Congo Free State. By 1900, eleven millions pounds of rubber were being shipped from the Congo every year.

 

Leopold’s drive for African lands was many faceted. Psychohistorians may point to his upbringing and need for acceptance. Yet in the end, it was his voracious appetite for power and control beyond the confines of tiny Belgium. Professor David Landes writes that, “…colonies paid, whether by nourishing the growth of imperialist economies or by transferring wealth from poor to rich – empire as vampire.” The Congo Free State provided Leopold with unlimited funds.

 

The Role of State Functionaries in Africa

 

Belgian officials made up the bulk of the small white population in the colony. Administrators, military officers, merchants, and Catholic missionaries were often directly and indirectly party to the atrocities committed so that millions of francs flowed into Leopold’s coffers, dummy corporations secretly set up to deflect any criticism of the King-Sovereign. To the rest of the world, however, Leopold was a philanthropist, the don of charity whose only intentions were to eliminate the African “Arab” slave trade.

 

Leopold was one of the most cunning and duplicitous men of power when it came to imperialism and the exploitation of raw materials. Worse than the industrial robber barons, Leopold was also a first-rate “con” who used propaganda, preyed on the weaknesses of others with flattery and gifts, and used the power of the media to portray himself as a benevolent champion working for the betterment of African peoples.

 

Harvesting the Wealth of Central Africa

 

By 1900, the Congo was a source of raw materials needed to fuel the industrial conglomerates of Europe and America. This was the so-called “gospel of enterprise.” Copper, tin, gold, diamonds, and other minerals joined the rubber plantations in enriching the accounts of Belgium’s king. Much of the wealth came at a staggering humanitarian cost: the taking of hostages, floggings to the point of death, rape, and child labor. Only a few consular officials from foreign powers as well as American missionaries called for immediate and drastic reform.

 

Although the Congo became an official state colony upon the death of Leopold, much remained the same. Belgium never established a working local civil service or left an enduring infrastructure at the time independence was granted in 1960. After decades of misrule by J.D. Mobutu, the nation reverted to continual civil war. Today, slave labor continues to exist in the effort to harvest rare earth minerals, often referred to as “conflict” minerals. In early 2010, BBC reported that a special UN envoy, Margot Wallstrom, referred to the Democratic Republic of Congo as the “rape capital of the world.” (April 28, 2010)

 

Imperialism and Exploitation

 

Leopold was not alone in the ill-treatment of Africans. Adam Hochschild, in his book King Leopold’s Ghost, writes that, “What happened in the Congo was indeed mass murder on a vast scale, but the sad truth is that the men who carried it out for Leopold were no more murderous than many Europeans then at work or at war elsewhere in Africa.” Historian Thomas Pakenham argues that the abuses “were not haphazard, but systemic.”

 

As with the Germans during the 1930’s and 1940’s, the first response to Belgian atrocities in the Congo was denial and disbelief. Belgians were far too civilized to perpetrate such acts of inhumanity. Yet what happened in much of central Africa under the brutal policies of Leopold II represented the first modern example of mass extermination. Like future exterminations, many eye witnesses were too afraid to speak up. Most came to accept the atrocities as the normal part of colonial rule.

 

Hochschild comments that, “In any system of terror, the functionaries must first of all see the victims as less than human, and Victorian ideas about race provided such a foundation.” These were Rudyard Kipling’s “sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.” This was the ideology that allowed an American private fighting Filipinos to write his family that shooting people was like shooting rabbits back at home. The world, then as today, cared little for the most vulnerable members of humanity. That is always left to what Leopold II referred to as “do-gooders.”

 

Leopold was a life-long womanizer, with an incorrigible lust for young women. His final dalliance involved a sixteen-year old who produced two children before his death. Although history continues to treat Leopold with disdain, Belgium must share the responsibility. Belgium never paid reparations to the people of the Congo. Historian Eric Hobsbawm, who sees the scramble for the Congo as “primarily economic,” argues that, “The atrocities of Congo…so shocked the Age of Empire…just because [it] appeared as regression of civilized men into savagery.”

 

Sources:

 

Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost (Mariner Books, 1999)

David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (W. W. Norton & Company, 1998)

Thomas Packenham, The Scramble For Africa: The White Man’s Conquest

of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912 (Random House, 1991) 

[Copyright owned by Michael Streich]

 Ronald Reagan's "Teflon" Presidency

Michael Streich

In the political climate leading to the 2012 presidential election, conservative Republicans are quick to identify with Ronald Reagan. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who has been actively courted by her many supporters to declare her candidacy for the presidential election, includes a Reagan quote in many of her speeches and writings. Ronald Reagan remains popular with conservatives because he advocated many of the same positions articulated today: less government spending, deregulation, and tax cuts. Whether the Reagan presidency was successful, however, often depends on what data is used and how it is interpreted. Ultimately, what has been called the Reagan “Great Divide” must be assessed in terms of how everyday Americans fared then and into the subsequent decades.

 

The Reagan Budget Hurt Ordinary Americans

 

John Oliver Wilson, a Senior Vice President and economist for Bank of America in 1982, noted during a speech delivered in Los Angeles that, “The defense establishment and the elderly will receive every single dollar of proposed budget increases for the next six years. There will be no increases for research and development…no increases for education…none for energy, public transportation, natural resources, and housing.” Wilson should have included health care.

 

The most significant national health threat during the Reagan presidency was the AIDS crisis. It was a disease the Reagan administration ignored. Lack of funding both on the local and federal levels contributed to the many deaths that took place in the 1980’s. Writer Randy Shilts, for example, stated that, “By the time President Reagan had delivered his first speech on the epidemic of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with the disease, 20,849 had died.” That was in 1987.  

 

“Reaganomics” was also equated with the growing gap between rich and poor in America. Corporate taxes, for example, were lowered to 8.77 percent from the Carter administration’s 12.53 percent. According to Richard Caputo, writing in the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, the Reagan years resulted in a higher percentage of both individual and family poverty. Forty percent of the nation’s personal net worth was possessed by 2.4 million people out of a population of 240 million.

 

Conflicting Assessments of the Reagan Years

 

Despite negative assessments, Peter Ferrara, who served in the Reagan administration, wrote in May 2011 that, “…the Reagan Recovery took off once the tax rate cuts were fully phased in.” This conflicts with Economist Benjamin Freidman’s 1989 statement that, “The economic expansion that began in 1983, and continues today, is the first in fifty years in which the average working American’s wage has gone not up but down compared to inflation.” This was particularly true for minorities. According to 1986 census figures, for example, nearly thirty percent of all black families lived below the poverty level. Although more women were entering the workforce, almost half earned less than $10,000; only 17.2 percent of working women made over $20,000.

 

Wilson argues that Reagan’s initial policies were based, in part, on the assumption that American “business investment would provide the main source of renewed growth.” That never happened, largely because of globalization and increased foreign competition. Much like the arguments of critics in 2011, corporations were seeking ways to trim expenses and increase profits, “hoarding” cash rather than investing in job creation. Hence the births of movements like Occupy Wall Street in 2011.

 

Balancing the Federal Budget

 

Balancing the federal budget was also part of the lofty Reagan goals. Huge defense expenditures, however, contributed to a debt of $2.1 trillion when Ronald Reagan left the White House. The preceding Carter administration ended with a national debt of $240 million. Contemporary observers draw a parallel to Reagan’s inordinate defense spending and the massive war expenditures, estimated by independent sources at $4 trillion, by the GW Bush administration. Reagan supporters are quick to point out, however, that Ronald Reagan “won” the Cold War.

 

In the process of winning the Cold War, the United States shed 11.5 million manufacturing jobs during the first Reagan administration. The trend has never been reversed. In the age group mostly likely to purchase a first home, 25-39 years of age, the Reagan years witnessed a 7 percent decline.

 

Roots of Ronald Reagan’s Popularity

 

To a large extent, Ronald Reagan’s popularity in the presidential elections of 1980 and 1984 stemmed from a concerted effort on the part of evangelical conservatives to highlight social issues. Additionally, Reagan was perceived as a strong leader who directly confronted the USSR and its minions throughout the world. Whether Reaganomics worked or not, there were many Americans that saw in Reagan the savior of the western world and the principles of free enterprise. Supporters, for example, point to successful military ventures such as in Grenada. In 2011, Reagan devotees are determined to see his vision for America realized.

 

Reagan’s influence still dominates the views of contemporary conservatives. This includes tax cuts, deregulation, a realistic plan to balance the budget, and, as Reagan frequently said, get big government off the backs of the American people. To do so, however, will require across the board balance without resurrecting the Reagan administration, such as spending cuts outlined in the Bowles-Simpson report.

 

References:

 

Richard K. Caputo, “Presidents, Profit, Productivity and Poverty: a Great Divide between the Pre and Post Reagan U.S. Economy?” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, September 1, 2004

Paul Craig, “Reaganomics: Myth and Reality,” Perspectives on Political Science, Spring 1990, Volume 19, Issue 2

Peter Ferrara, “Reaganomics Vs. Obamanomics,” The Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2009; “Reaganomics Vs. Obamanomics: Facts And Figures,” Forbes, May 5, 2011

Michael Schaller, Ronald Reagan (Oxford University Press, 2010)

Randy Shilts, And The Band Played On (St. Martin’s Press, 1987) [Shilts demonstrates the Reagan Administration’s refusal to adequately fund early AIDS research and treatment options]

Joseph Sobran, “Reaganomics Without Reagan, “ National Review, September 5, 1982

United States Census website

John Oliver Wilson, “Can Reaganomics Be Salvaged?” September 16, 1982 (Town Hall speech, Los Angeles, California)

[copyright owned by michael streich; any reprints require written verification]

 

 The Ancient City of Tarsus

Michael Streich

Often overlooked in ancient history, the strategic city Tarsus, located in southern Asia Minor, may have been one of the first great “university towns.” Often associated with its “favorite son” Paul, the city was associated with a fair crop of ancient world notables. According the legend, Adam’s son, Seth, died in the region when it was a fourth millennium BC settlement. Fertile lands, a good port, and proximity to the roads connecting Asia Minor with Syria and Mesopotamia enabled Tarsus to prosper while escaping the fate of other great ancient cities during periods of competing conquests.

 

From the Assyrians to the Romans

 

Although it is agreed that Tarsus, as a city, was first established by the Assyrians in the 9^th century BC, scholars conflict over which king was responsible. King Assurbanipal is given credit for founding the city in 820 BC, yet other ancient sources cite Sennacherib.

 

Built on the Cydnus River ten miles from the coast in the region of Cilicia, Tarsus eventually became part of the Persian Empire and furnished both tribute and fleets for Persian military adventures. Six miles from the city, the river became an expansive lake, giving the inhabitants a safe and accessible port. During the Persian period, Greek influence was already evident and would grow after Alexander defeated Darius III.

 

Tarsus also had a Jewish community, associated in large measure to the period of the Seleucids. The city is first mentioned in Maccabees. Biblical scholars suggest that Paul’s Jewish ancestry may be traced to this early period.

 

During the Roman period, the city hosted Mark Antony, who bestowed upon it duty-free status. It was at Tarsus that Cleopatra sailed her barge up the river to meet Mark Antony and plan their power struggle with Octavian. Even after their defeat, however, Octavian continued commercial preferences for the city.

 

The Latter Years under Imperial Rome

 

Tarsus was one of the few ancient cities possessing schools – perhaps the equivalent of early universities of sorts, which held the highest reputations, surpassing even the learning centers of Athens and Alexandria. According to Marcus Tod, of Oxford University and a Reader and Lecturer in Greek Epigraphy, the city became known for its schools of philosophy during the reign of Augustus and attracted students from throughout the empire. Additionally, Tarsus sent its young men to study aboard after a certain age. Paul, born in AD 10, was sent to Jerusalem to study, possibly with Gamaliel, according to Anna Edmonds, a scholar and expert on Turkish religious sites.

 

The Emperor Trajan died while visiting Tarsus with Hadrian at his side. Centuries earlier, Alexander the Great also came near death while in Tarsus after swimming in the frigid river and developing a fever. Ultimately, as the empire began to wan, silting decreased the convenience of the port. Despite attempts by the Emperor Justinian to create a new water channel in the 5^th century AD, the utility of Tarsus as a vibrant port declined.

 

Tarsus’ Greatest Citizen

 

Paul, a Hellenized Jew who inherited his Roman citizenship through his father, remains as the greatest citizen of Tarsus. It was from Tarsus that Paul would accompany Barnabas and ultimately begin his missionary journeys that would end with his martyrdom in Rome during the persecutions of Nero.

 

Although it may not be possible to definitively trace the influence of Greek thinking and philosophy with Paul’s writings, scholars note that his initial education in this “university town” must have left some marks on his ability to later fuse Greek concepts with Jewish tradition.

 

Sources:

 

Anna G. Edmonds, Turkey’s Religious Sites (Istanbul: Damko, 1998).

Michael Grant, The Ancient Mediterranean (New York: History Book Club, in association with Penguin Putnam 2002).

Marcus Niebuhr Tod, “Tarsus,” The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Volume V, James Orr, General Editor (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939) p 2914-2917.

[Copyright owned by Michael Streich; reprints require written permission]