(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . History Nuggets: Trump's Populism Was Foretold in 1857. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-21 Thomas Macaulay was a good British imperialist who went out to India to take up the white man's burden. He was also an accomplished scholar, a Whig politician, and author the extremely popular History of England - which reflected liberal Whiggish ideas about historical progress and the evolution of society. He was not, however, optimistic about the democratic experiment then underway in America. American historian John Lord included Macaulay in his 14-volume anthology of lectures, Beacon Lights of History (available as free audiobooks from Librivox). I find the Nineteenth Century POV to be quite interesting. These gentlemen were ignorant of many things. They were barely aware of their racism and misogyny — if at all. But their experience preceded modern science, world wars, women’s suffrage, anti-colonialism, atomic weapons, and myriad other events that tint our perception of history. We still travel the same long arc of history that they did. Their observations about society and government in their time, I believe, can help us to think about those subjects in ours. Here, Macaulay expresses trepidation about universal suffrage. Lord answers him by saying that the risks are real, but worth taking. Excerpt from: BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY (1883) Vol XIII - Great Writers By John Lord, LL.D. (American Historian, 1810 – 1894) Thomas Macaulay (British Historian, 1800-1859) (Lord) Macaulay was not always consistent with his own theories, however. For instance, he was a firm believer in the progress of society and of civilization. He saw the enormous gulf between the ninth and the nineteenth centuries, and the unmistakable advance which, since the times of Hildebrand, the world had made in knowledge, in the arts, in liberty, and in the comforts of life, although the tide of progress had its ebb and flow in different ages and countries. Yet when he cast his eye on America, where perhaps the greatest progress had been made in the world's history within fifty years, he saw nothing but melancholy signs of anarchy and decay,--signs portending the collapse of liberty and the triumph of ignorance and crime. Thus he writes in 1857 to an American correspondent: (Macaulay with emphasis added): "As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the Old World; but the time will come when wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much, with you as with us. Then your institutions will fairly be brought to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million, while another cannot get a full meal. In bad years there is plenty of grumbling here, and sometimes a little rioting; but it matters little, for here the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme power is in the hands of a class deeply interested in the security of property and the maintenance of order; accordingly the malcontents are restrained. But with you the majority is the government, and has the rich, who are always in a minority, absolutely at its mercy. The day will come when the multitude of people, none of whom has had more than a half a breakfast, or expects to have more than a half a dinner, will choose a legislature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of legislature will be chosen? On the one side is a statesman preaching patience, respect for vested rights, strict observance of the public faith; and on the other a demagogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers, and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and ride in a carriage, while thousands of honest folks are in want of necessaries: which of the two candidates is likely to be preferred by a working-man who hears his children cry for more bread? There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will increase the distress; the distress will produce fresh spoliation. There is nothing to stop you; your Constitution is all sail and no anchor. Either civilization or liberty will perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth. (Lord) I do not deny that there is great force in Macaulay's reasoning and prophecy. History points to decline and ruin when public virtue has fled and government is in the hands of demagogues; for their reign has ever been succeeded by military usurpers who have preserved civilization indeed, but at the expense of liberty. Yet this reasoning applies not only to America but to England as well,— especially since, by the Reform Bill and subsequent enactments of Parliament, she has opened the gates to an increase of suffrage, which now threatens to become universal. The enfranchisement of the people--the enlarged powers of the individual under the protection and control of the commonwealth--is the Anglo-Saxon contribution to progress. It is dangerous. So is all power until its use is learned. But there is no backward step possible; the tremendous experiment must go forward, for England and America alike. “The tremendous experiment must go forward” /// [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/21/2198357/-History-Nuggets-Trump-s-Populism-Was-Foretold-in-1857?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/