Contours

Of Tyranny

Henry VIII

Henry VIII has been one of the most studied of English monarchs; a man who was indeed larger than life. In popular lore he is one of the best known of English rulers. Certainly he has been filmed multiple times. From the film The Private Life of Henry VIII, to Anne of a Thousand Days, to A Man for All Seasons and The Other Boleyn Girl there is an army of film portrayals of Henry VIII.1

“Freedom” Under a Tyranny

Isaiah Berlin

One of the most important attributes of tyranny and living under a tyranny is that intelligent people are forced to “trim their sails” in order to survive. Thus they are forced to compromise their intellect in order to stay both safe and alive. The corollary  that goes with that is that the holders of power can dictate what is “reasonable” and “rational” and their holding of power over people enables them to enforce their views against the will and intellect of others.

Another One Bites the Dust

Thoughts on the fall of Gaddafi

Gaddafi in better days

One of the common historical tropes of the last two centuries or so has been the rise and fall of the dictator. We recently have been given a veritable feast of falling and fallen dictators with the ongoing Arab Spring. Bloody and chaotic though it has been it has removed many of the world’s longest lasting dictators.1

“The Banality of Evil”

Adolf Eichmann  

In 1963 Hannah Arendt wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,1 a book from which the term “The Banality of Evil” entered into popular consciousness. Like a lot of such influential works it seemed to have been far more discussed than actually read. I have discussed Hannah Arendt’s works before, in that case it was her Origins of Totalitarianism.2 Here her focus is how one single individual reacted to the stress of being caught up in a totalitarian institutional structure and in this case contact with that institution led to a disastrous erosion of his personal integrity and morality.

Hannah Arendt was struck by the contrast between the pathetic and small man that she saw and heard in the trial in Jerusalem and the monstrousness of the deeds he organized and presided over.

Eichmann was and remained in her eyes a paltry, insignificant, man. A boring small minded bureaucrat, whose imagination was limited and whose obliviousness was positively awesome. Eichmann did not impress her as some sort of paragon of evil. He was simply pathetic.

Arendt for example quotes Eichmann has saying regarding his guilt:

With the killing of Jews I had nothing to do. I never killed a Jew, or a non-Jew, for that matter –I never killed any human being. I never gave an order to kill either a Jew or a non Jew; I just did not do it.3

This helps in Arendt’s eyes set up the image of a small minded petty man whose lack of imagination is and was breathtaking. Of course it is also self-serving nonsense. It ignores basic law in which if for example you give a gun to someone knowing that the person you give it too will kill with it and who they will kill, you are guilty. Certainly in this case helping to round up people so that they can be murdered is murder. The fact that you didn’t pull the trigger is irrelevant to the question of guilt. Eichmann is being a moral retard here.

Eichmann was born in 1906 in a small German town in the Rhineland. To be blunt there is absolutely nothing about his life that sticks out until 1932 when he joined the Nazi party. Before his trial, while he was being questioned Eichmann mentioned that he had several Jewish relatives and friends and on one occasion helped one relative, who was half Jewish according to the Nuremberg laws immigrate to Switzerland and he later helped a Jewish couple emigrate at the request of another relative. Eichmann used those examples to show that he didn’t hate Jews. Of course other Nazi’s could have made the same claim on the same basis. It can be dismissed as self serving and if not that self deceptive.4 it is also ironic that after Eichmann joined the Nazi party he briefly had a Jewish mistress.5

In 1934, in the hope of securing good employment Eichmann joined the S.D., or Security service for the S.S. He swiftly became the S.D. expert of “Jewish Affairs”.6

A detailed outline of his career which was to involve him in one of the greatest crimes in history has he with ruthless efficiency organized the hunting out, deportation to their deaths of millions of men women and children need not be given here.7

A few highlights should be remembered which are pertinent to Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of Eichmann. According to Eichmann on July 31 1941 Eichmann had a meeting with Reinhard Heydrich head of the Reich Security Office and a SS General. According to Eichmann Heydrich told him that “The Fuhrer [Hitler] has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews”.8 Later Eichmann was at the infamous Wannsee meeting that helped plan the full implementation of the “Final Solution”.9

Perhaps the incident that most characterized Eichmann’s whole personality is the process by which in 1944 he negotiated and organized the deportation of the Hungarian Jewish community and the zeal with which he carried it out in the teeth of a rapidly deteriorating military situation.10

During the closing period of the war Eichmann despite Heinrich Himmler’s express order to stop the killings, Eichmann continued to zealously carry out his task.11

Perhaps the most telling indication of Eichmann’s actual state of mind regarding the acts he was involved with is the following quote attributed to him:

I will jump into my grave laughing, because the fact that I have the death of five million Jews [or "enemies of the Reich," as he [Eichmann] always claimed to have said] on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction.12

How Eichmann’s claim, repeated at trial, makes much of difference to the horror of the quote is a mystery. For in the Nazi ethos and world view Jews by definition were enemies of Germany. (Of course given that Eichmann was involved in rounding up Jews for killing during the war those were the only “enemies of the Reich”, he could possibly be referring to.

After the war Eichmann managed to hide and with the aid of various individuals and organizations he was able to escape to Argentina were he was kidnapped by Mossad agents (Israeli Secret Service), taken to Israel, tried in 1961 and executed in 1962.13

Hannah Arendt covered the trial for The New Yorker magazine and she was fascinated by the extraordinary mediocrity of the man.

Hannah Arendt viewed Eichmann has a bureaucrat and in her opinion:

He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing.14

Further Hannah Arendt says:

Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been further from his mind than to determine with Richard III “to prove a villain.” Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all.15

In Arendt’s opinion Eichmann was the boring faceless mass man who had no real ideas of his own, who could immerse himself into a task and quite forget the consequences and nature of what he was doing. Eichmann raised all sorts of issues for Hannah Arendt because:

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.16

Hannah Arendt’s view of Eichmann has been criticized for being unconvincing at least in part. It is further thought that in some sense she was fooled by Eichmann into thinking he was just a faceless bureaucrat. It is interesting that Hannah Arendt’s own work provides some of the evidence that Eichmann was anything but a faceless bureaucrat.

For example Hannah Arendt does quote Eichmann’s infamous line about jumping into his grave happy. She however introduces the line with:

Bragging was the vice that was Eichmann’s undoing. It was sheer rodomontade when he told his men during the last days of the war: [then the quote]17

Quite unconvincing. But then Hannah Arendt seems to accept Eichmann’s portrayal of himself as not “really” hating Jews. So of course this comment which if anything indicates hatred must be whisked away with an airy dismissal. Similarly Eichmann’s zeal in continuing his job after Himmler had ordered it stopped is similarly dismissed as indicating a lack of imagination and an eagerness to please the man Eichmann thought has his true leader Adolf Hitler.18

Eichmann during his trial repeatedly stated ad-nauseum that he had no personal hatred of Jews. Not surprisingly given Eichmann’s own behavior the court in Jerusalem didn’t believe him. What is surprising is Hannah Arendt’s willingness to credit this. It is and remains unbelievable. What also is clear is that Hannah Arendt deliberately downplayed / ignored evidence that indicated that Eichmann did in fact hate his victims. For example that quote from Eichmann in which he talked about the “satisfaction” it gave him knowing he had helped to murder five million human beings, indicates not a mindless bureaucratic attitude towards his task but as a fanatic who carried out his task with zeal. Eichmann’s “explanation” that he referred to “enemies of the Reich”, is simply an admission that the quote was accurate, in reflecting his fanaticism, for by definition in the Nazi world view Jews by definition were “enemies of the Reich”, including helpless men, women and children. So Eichmann’s clarification is nothing more than a coded evasion that he probably hoped his Judges would not notice.19

Further the evidence indicated that Eichmann performed his task with zeal and energy. The evidence indicates that Eichmann could not rest until his task was performed.20

As for Eichmann’s defence that he was merely obeying orders it can be dismissed as self serving tripe, so is his absurd declaration that this absolves from feeling any guilt. In his interviews before the trial and during the trial itself Eichmann portrayed himself as a mere conveyor of orders and that as such his mere obedience to orders made him guiltless of any crime. In this carefully constructed mythos Eichmann argued that only those who gave the orders to him were guilty of anything and that he was guilty of nothing. Further there was no question of him even for a moment questioning these orders. In fact Eichmann argued that to do such a thing was simply unthinkable. The implication being that to disobey an order was in his eyes so mortally threatening that it constituted something in his eyes morally unthinkable. Eichmann further took upon himself the attitude that he was the victim of his superiors taking advantage of him. Whining self centeredness seems to have characterized Eichmann during the trial.21

In Eichmann’s presentation of himself he also argued that he was so constricted by his orders that he had little room for maneuver and of course refusing to carry out his orders was of course unthinkable and quitting unthinkable. That would be dereliction of duty, abandoning ones post.22

It was more than anything Eichmann’s continual repetition of this that helped to convince Hannah Arendt that Eichmann was a mindless indeed thoughtless bureaucrat who simply didn’t know what he was doing. It is also a self serving lie. It is absolutely clear that Eichmann knew what he was doing and further that he had an enormous amount of discretion which he exercised with great ruthlessness in the service of violent anti-Semitic notions he had since early on.23

All of this was part of Eichmann’s campaign to show that because he was not motivated by hatred, did not intend to “really” harm his victims, that he was innocent. In other words because his inner state of mind was pure his actual deeds were irrelevant. That this is contemptible is of course obvious. Eichmann was arguing that because he didn’t “really” hate his victims and “really” didn’t intend them harm he was innocent. Rather like a murderer saying since I bore no malice against the person I stabbed knowing full well they would die; I am innocent!

Eichmann’s statement above that he never killed anyone is of course an evasion and a deliberate self serving lie. He organized the rounding up of people so they could be murdered and he full well knew it. Just like someone who arranges for someone to be a spot X so they can be killed is a murderer, so is Eichmann. The fact that he didn’t personally kill someone is irrelevant to the issue of his guilt. As for all this showing Eichmann’s lack of imagination. I don’t think so. It shows instead Eichmann’s cunning, his desperate attempt to avoid taking responsibility in a court of law. This is the tactic of a petty murderer trying to avoid taking responsibility for his acts. In Eichmann’s case this also involved arguing that his inner “purity” of motive that was abused by his superiors made him innocent regardless of his deeds. It was and remains pathetic.

As for the superior orders defence considering how he disobeyed Himmler’s orders to stop in the fall of 1944 that can be dismissed as a self serving lie also. The fact that he carried out his task with zeal and a lot of discretion, to say nothing of gratuitous cruelty indicates he wanted and desired to carry out his orders. His claim that it was simply unthinkable not to carry out his orders is again a self serving attempt to hide the fact he approved of what was done and carried it out to the best of his ability. Also his pose as a victim was also just that at pose and a lie and an excuse for him to feel sorry for himself. If he had been truly opposed to these orders, as he claimed he would have found a thousand bureaucratic ways to sabotage them not carry them out with zeal. It was not lack of imagination that stopped him from doing so but simple desire to carry out his orders. The experience of numerous European countries during World War II in which their bureaucratic machines slowed down and sabotaged the Final Solution indicates what he could have done if he had “really” opposed it. Finally he could have quit at anytime. He choose not to do so not because it was unthinkable but because he wanted to continue his task.24

It appears that the pathetic gyrations and rationalizations of Eichmann convinced Hannah Arendt that Eichmann was indeed a thoughtless, unimaginative bureaucrat who bore no ill will against his victims. Thus it seems that Eichmann did indeed “fool” Hannah Arendt into thinking that he was “banal” and “ordinary”. In Eichmann Hannah Arendt saw not an ogre of horror but an unthinking everyman for whom her contempt was unbounded.

But if Eichmann “fooled” Hannah Arendt he outsmarted himself. For she concluded that the death sentence was just.

Why? Let me quote Hannah Arendt who is here delivering what she suggests as a verdict for the court:

“We are concerned here only with what you did, and not with the possible non criminal nature of your inner life and of your motives or with the criminal potentialities of those around you. You told your story in terms of a hard-luck story, and, knowing the circumstances, we are, up to a point, willing to grant you that under more favorable circumstances it is highly unlikely that you would ever have come before us or before any other criminal court. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that it was nothing more than misfortune that made you a willing instrument in the organization of mass murder; there still remains the fact that you have carried out, and therefore actively supported, a policy of mass murder. For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and Support are the same. And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations - as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world - we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang."25

Hannah Arendt argues that Eichmann’s (alleged) lack of base motives, his lack of hatred for his victims, his very ordinariness make him if anything more guilty and responsible and hence the death penalty even more appropriate.

Further Hannah Arendt argues that death is appropriate not because Eichmann deserves death - after all considering the scope and scale of his crime his personal death is ludicrously insignificant as a punishment – but because his presence among us is so defiling and polluting that he must be removed by death from among us.

If in Eichmann’s case the evil he personified is less banal than Hannah Arendt thought there still remains on earth far too many individuals who are in spirit and deed like Adolf Eichmann.

 

Hannah Arendt

 

1. Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, rev’d edition, Penguin Books, London, 1965.

2. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1973.

3. Arendt, 1965, p. 22.

4. IBID, pp. 27-32.

5. IBID, p. 30.

6. IBID, pp. 36-39.

7. See Wikipedia, Adolf Eichmann Here, and Arendt, 1965, pp. 151-219.

8. Arendt, 1965, p. 83.

9. IBID, pp. 112-124.

10. Adolf Eichmann and Arendt, 1965, pp. 194-202.

11. IBID, Arendt, 1965, pp. 145-147.

12, IBID, pp. 46, a slightly different version is available from Adolf Eichmann. It goes:

I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.

13. Arendt, 1965, pp. 234-243, Adolf Eichmann.

14. Arendt, 1965, p. 287.

15. IBID.

16. IBID, p.276.

17. IBID, p. 46.

18. IBID, pp. 194-204.

19. For the Nazi world view regarding Jews see Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Vintage Books, New York, 1997, pp. 80-128, Jackel, Eberhard, Hitler’s World View, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 1972, pp. 47-66, Herf, Jeffrey, The Jewish Enemy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 2006, pp. 50-91, Dawidowicz, Lucy S., The War Against the Jews, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975, pp. 3-22, Weiss, John, Ideology of Death, Elephant Paperbacks, Chicago, 1996, pp. 271-287, 325-341.

20. See Adolf Eichmann, Lozowick, Yaacov, Malicious Clerks, in Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem, Ed. Aschheim, Steve E., University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 2001, pp. 214-225, Cohen, Richard I, A Generation’s Response to Eichmann in Jerusalem, in Aschheim, pp. 253-277, at 266.

21. Arendt, 1965, pp. 135-150.

22. IBID.

23. Footnote 20, see also Arendt, 1965, pp. 195-205. Regarding Eichmann’s anti-Semitism he had been a member of an anti-Semitic fraternity in 1930 and further in the mid 1930’s had authored viciously anti-Semitic reports as part of his job full of standard Nazi propaganda. See Lozowick.

24. Footnote 20, Arendt, 1965, pp. 162-180.

25. Arendt, 1965, pp. 278-279.

Pierre Cloutier

To Good to be True
The alleged stopping of Euthanasia in Germany in 1941
Main Administration Building of the Asylum at Hadamar

At the beginning of the movie The Mad Women of Chaillot (1969) there is brief written prologue that goes:

This is story about Good Triumphing over Evil. Of course it is a fantasy.1

In this posting I am examining another fantasy of Good triumphing over Evil. In this case it is an historical fantasy of the triumph of Good over Evil, and like most such fantasies it is not altogether false but is distorted and conceals more than it reveals.

It is also a fantasy that helps people feel good and downplays just how really difficult it is to do good and by neglecting the failure, or more accurately turning failure into success it lies. However it does serve the purpose of helping to hide a shameful series of moral failures and in making people feel good about themselves and how supposedly easy it is to do good in difficult circumstances.

The example I’m giving is the Hitler’s order to stop the Euthanasia campaign in August of 1941 due to a sermon by a Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Munster (Hereinafter Galen), (1878-1946). In August 1941 Galen gave his sermon and then arranged copies of his sermon to be widely distributed. The public disquiet was so clear that Hitler then ordered that the Euthanasia campaign be halted shortly after Galen gave his sermon. Thus many lives were saved and a brutal regime was forced to back away from its plans to kill even more. It is a nice appealing story which is however so distorted as to be a lie.2

Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Munster

The so-called Euthanasia murder policy had been set in motion in August of 1939 its purpose was to kill, mentally and physically handicapped individuals deemed to be burdens on the state and the most common description of the individuals marked for destruction was “useless eaters”.3 Already the Nazi state had sterilized more than 360,000 individuals and was proceeding to the next step.4

Sometime in early 1939 Hitler gave oral instructions to begin the killing of handicapped children, later in the year sometime in August 1939 and again orally Hitler gave orders to begin the killing of handicapped adults.5

During all this there was a considerable amount of preparation and planning done before the mass killings began, which took time but already some killing was already taking place.6 The killing of children was called Kdf and the murder of adults was called T-4. Those were the names of the programs for the murder of the mentally ill in Germany they do not include the murder of the handicapped in areas outside of Germany.

In fact the first mass killings of the mentally and physically handicapped occurred shortly during and shortly after the invasion of Poland. Beginning on September 22, 1939 and continuing for a few weeks c. 2000 mental patients from various Polish asylums were murdered in a wood near the town of Kocborowo. They were shot by specially trained SS death squads. In a grim forecast of what was to come inmates from a hospital in the town of Owinska were stuffed into a sealed room and killed by carbon monoxide gas. The massacre of mental and handicapped patients continued until more than 12,000 had been killed.7

When August 1939 Hitler gave the go ahead to start the mass murder of the handicapped it took some time for the program to set up. However it started in 1940 and continued well into 1941.

Although they used a variety of methods, like injections, starvation etc., the chief method of murder was gas. People would be sent too frequently by bus or truck to one of 6 different facilities and then after being “processed” they would be murdered by gas, in specially constructed chambers.

Now it is known that operation T-4 had a goal of terminating the lives of c. 70,000 people which was the goal that the Nazi’s, in this case specifically Hitler, selected for the program.8 The program was also centralized in terms of co-ordination and control and most of the killing in 1940-1941 was done in 6 centralized facilities. The program of murder was subject to bureaucratic centralized control and many if not most of the people staffing the program were Nazi fanatics or at least psychopathic in their attitudes towards their victims.9

The killing centers were Grafeneck, Brandenburg, Hartheim, Sonnenstein, Bernburg and Hadamar. The inmates were told by the staff arranging them to be murdered, various stories, like they were going out on an excursion, that they were going to be medically examined and such like to put their minds at ease. At Hadamar the victims, who had been taken to the facility in buses, usually grey painted postal buses, were disembarked in one of a series of wooden garages and taken to the main building via a specially constructed wooden corridor. In the main building they were undressed and given military overcoats and then examined by a Doctor who would help in thus fabricating plausible causes of dearth to give to their loved ones.

The victims were then escorted into the basement / cellar. They were told they were going into a shower and jammed 60 at a time, into a small room and there by the turn of valve they were gassed to death by carbon monoxide gas. The victims took up to an hour to die. Experiencing terror, panic and the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as severe headaches, dizziness, nausea, and shortness of breath. It was not a pleasant death.

Gas Chamber at Hadamar

After fans got rid of what was left of the gas, “disinfectors”, cleaned up and disentangled the bodies. Those who had been marked before hand of potential interest would be autopsied in another room and their brain or other organs of interest sent to various Universities for more research. Gold teeth would of course be removed. The bodies were then burned in crematoria and the ashes randomly distributed into urns to be sent to the family. Bones would be crushed, if they did not fully burn.

People could see the thick cloud of ash from the asylum chimney after each transport to Hadamar and quickly but two and two together. Arrangements were made for families to have Urns with ashes and to deceive them into thinking the ashes came from near were the patient had been in an asylum. Further Doctors had ready a list of 62 possible reasons for death to send to the relatives of the deceased giving the fabricated “reason” for their loved one’s death. They used a carefully designed form letter that had space for a few personal details, to send these lies to the bereaved. Enclosed with this fraudulent letter would be 2 death certificates listing the false cause of death.10

Sometimes it is best to let the facts speak for themselves. I have nothing to add to the above description.

The six killing centers murdered the following numbers of people between 1940-1941.

Grafeneck – 9,839
Brandenburg - 9,772
Hartheim - 18,269
Sonnenstein - 13,720
Bernburg – 8,601
Hadamar - 10,072
Total - 70,273 11

Now the figures listed above are only for German patients murdered in Germany and exclude those murdered abroad; for example those killed in Poland. In this phase of the killing program it is rather sickening to report that c. ½ of the victims were in private or ecclesiastical institutions. It just wasn’t the state institutions that were corrupted by this murderous idea but private institutions including those run by various churches.12

The corrupting ideology behind the Euthanasia murder program was eugenics the idea that lives of certain classes of handicapped individuals were devoid of value and burden on the community at large and so ought to be terminated. The language of Euthanasia was used, but it was not allowing people, legally competent, who suffered from debilitating or terminal diseases to consent to or in fact take those own lives but simple murder. It can be stated without contradiction that “Euthanasia” was used as a smoke screen to hide the fact that it was murder. The fact that those carrying out the murders went to extraordinary efforts to deceive both patients and their families indicates that the killers knew that they were engaged in murder pure and simple.13

Has mentioned above in late August 1941 Hitler gave a stop order for T-4 and this was shortly after Galen gave a sermon and distributed copies of a hard hitting sermon. Not surprisingly many people have assumed a link and in fact they are not wrong, however they are wrong to assume it stopped the killing. The story of Galen’s sermon is as follows.

Galen was made Roman Catholic Bishop of Munster in 1933 and from the get go had a rocky relationship with the Nazis, who he regarded has upstart oafs. He was especially offended by what he saw as Nazi attacks on the church. It appears that Galen had been in receipt of information regarding the Euthanasia program since July 1940, but kept quiet for the time being. It is not completely clear why he kept quiet although it appears that like other members of the Church hierarchy who knew about the program he was concerned that any protest would simply backfire on the church. It appears that he considered going public in August 1940 but was talked out of it by Cardinal Bertram who was concerned about the possible negative effect on the church.

In July 1941 Galen was incensed about the seizure of Jesuit property in Munster by the Gestapo for state purposes decided to act.14 On August 3, 1941 Galen gave his sermon. In it he said:

If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill “unproductive” human beings, then woe betide us all when we become old and frail! If one is allowed to kill unproductive people, then woe betide the invalids who have used up, sacrificed and lost their health and strength in the productive process. If one is allowed forcibly to remove one’s unproductive fellow human beings, then woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids …Woe to mankind, woe to our German nation, if God’s holy commandment “Thou shalt not kill!”, which God proclaimed on Mount Sinai amidst thunder and lightening, which God our Creator inscribed in the conscience of mankind from the very beginning, is not only broken, but if this transgression is actually tolerated and permitted to go unpunished.15

…

We are not talking here about a machine, a horse, nor a cow …No, we are talking about men and women, our compatriots, our brothers and sisters. Poor unproductive people if you wish, but does this mean that they have lost their right to live?16

The Nazis were infuriated by Galen’s sermon and seriously considered arresting him and sending him to a concentration camp. Galen’s sermon was made illegal and possession of copies of it a crime and several people associated with the production, creation and distribution of the sermon jailed or sent to concentration camps along with people who had it in their possession. Copies were smuggled out of Germany and the allied powers dropped copies of it over German cities. There was even before Galen’s sermon a serious level of unease over the Euthanasia program, despite the effort to conceal and hide it. The Sermon raised the level of public awareness and unease. Creating a problem for the Nazis. Which wasn’t helped by the fact Galen tried to have murder charges levelled against some of those involved.17

Hitler was furious but decided to bide his time. Hitler said:

I am quite sure that a man like the Bishop von Galen knows that after the war I shall extract retribution down to the last farthing. And if he does not succeed in the meanwhile in getting himself transferred to the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, he may rest assured that in the balancing of our accounts no “t” will remain uncrossed, no “i” left undotted.18

Fortunately for Galen Hitler and the Nazis lost the war and were therefore unable to extract vengeance on him.

Aside from infuriating Hitler and creating problems for the Nazis just what effect did Galen’s sermon have on T-4 and the Euthanasia killings? It appears that it played a role in stopping the program, so that Hitler gave a oral stop order in late August 1941, but was not the sole reason and probably not as important as two other reasons. First the T-4 killings had already achieved their goal in terms of the number of killings. Secondly the personal associated with T-4 were needed for the vastly greater killings being planned for in the east, of which the so-called Final Solution, was just a part.19

Also Kdf, the murder of children, was continued on Hitler’s express orders. Also continued was the murder of Concentration camp inmates and prisoners, under the Euthanasia banner called 14f13. Finally only the T-4 program stopped, not the killings. Instead of a centralized bureaucratic system with a few killing centers the program was decentralized and a lot was left to local initiative, strongly urged by the state.20

This is the so-called period of “Wild Euthanasia”, in which the killing was to a large extent decentralized and left to local initiative. The preferred methods of killing was not the mass gassing of the previous period but hunger and / or drug overdoses. Basically patients were frequently starved to death or deliberately given diets that caused severe bodily deterioration so that moderate injections of drugs would kill them.

This included such practices as feeding the patients diets without protein or other essential foods like fats, so that they would die more easily. Sometimes patients were simply, starved to death by not being fed at all. The usual deception and lying was done to conceal how the patient actually died from the bereaved relatives. This campaign continued right until the end of the war.21

An example of how “efficient” “Wild Euthanasia” could be is that between August 1942 and March 1945 4,817 patients were sent to Hadamar of those 4,442 died. A death rate over 90%.22

The records that were kept for the “Wild Euthanasia” killings are not very complete but it appears to have been considerably more than were killed in T-4. The absolute minimum figure seems to be 100,000.23

Aside from those killed above in both the T-4 gassing's and “Wild Euthanasia” there were those killed by starvation and / or medication before the end of T-4 those numbered c. 20,000. To this must be added those killed in KdF at least 5,000 and those killed in 14f13 c. 20,000.24

The above figures total 215,000 people murdered, and this figure is probably too low, and even so they do not include the tens of thousands non-Germans killed in the Euthanasia program in areas conquered by Germany. For example the over 10 thousand killed in Poland in 1939-1940, or the over ten thousand killed in the Soviet Union or the c. 40,000 killed in France. It appears that only c. 40,000 mental patients survived the war in Germany.25

Thus this series of programs, under the Euthanasia euphemism, altogether murdered at least 275,000 human beings and the actual figure is probably over 300,000. Compared to other massacres carried out during World War II by the Nazis this may seem small but remember it is over a ¼ of a million human beings and probably close to 1/3 of a million.

At most c. 95,000 were murdered before the stop order of August 1941 most of the victims were murdered, even in Germany, after the stop order was given. The stop order was not to stop the killings but to stop the mass gassing's of inmates. The killing was ordered to go on by other methods and did so with great, indeed horrible success.

Galen’s very brave public statement although infuriating to the Nazi authorities and very embarrassing did not stop the killing. What it helped to stopped was a particular mode of killing that it must be remembered had already achieved its stated goal when it was stopped and further its practitioners were being prepared for another campaign of murder so that they were willing to for gore for the time being. Also as I’ve said before the killing did not stop at all it went on and on using other methods. Galen’s protest despite postwar myths did not stop the Euthanasia campaign. That particular hopeful myth must be laid to rest. To quote:

Hitler’s stop order of August 1941 did not end the destruction of those considered “unworthy of life.” The belief that his stop order ended the killings is based on postwar myth. The stop order applied only to the killing centers; mass murder of the handicapped continued by other means. Moreover the stop order did not apply to children’s euthanasia, which had never utilized gas chambers. As with children, after the stop order physicians and nurses killed handicapped adults with tablets, injections and starvation. In fact, more victims of Euthanasia perished after the stop order was issued than before.26

Two Victims of the Euthanasia programs

1. I’m relying on my memory since it has been 30+ years since I’ve seen the movie.

2. An excellent example of this myth is A Lost Chance to save the Jews, in The New York Review of Books, April 27, 1989, by Conor Cruise O’Brien at Here. See also O’Brien’s response to a letter critiquing his view of the stop Euthanasia order at Here, dated October 26, 1989.

3. Chorover, Stephan L, From Genesis to Genocide, MIT Press, Cambridge MASS, 1979, quoted on p. 101.

4. Evans, Richard J., The Third Reich at War, Penguin Books, London, 2008, p. 77.

5. Friedlander, Henry, The Origins of Nazi Genocide, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC, 1995, pp. 39-41, 62-64.

6. Burleigh, Michael, Death and Deliverance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 93-129, Friedlander, pp. 62-80, Evans, pp. 77-90, Muller-Hill, Benno, Murderous Science, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988, pp. 39-45.

7. Evans, pp. 75-77.

8. IBID, pp. 99-100.

9. Burleigh, pp. 93-161, Muller-hill, pp. 39-65.

10, Burleigh, pp. 144-153, Friedlander, pp. 107-110.

11. Friedlander, p. 109.

12. Burleigh, p. 173.

13. IBID, pp. 43-92, 183-219, Friedlander, pp. 23-38, Chorover, pp. 93-104, Muller-Hill, pp. 7-13, Lifton, Robert Jay, The Nazi Doctors, Basic Books Inc., New York, 1986, pp. 22-44.

14. Burleigh, pp. 175-178.

15. IBID, quoting Galen, p. 178.

16. Lifton, quoting Galen, p. 94.

17. Burleigh, pp. 178-180, Evans, pp. 97-101, Lifton, pp. 90-95.

18. Burleigh, quoting Hitler, p. 178.

19. Friedlander, pp. 151-163, Lifton, pp. 135-148, Evans, 100-101, Sereny, Gitta, Into That Darkness, Andre Deutsch, London, 1974, pp. 79-90.

20. Friedlander, pp. 39-61, 131-163, Lifton, pp. 96-102, 134-146, Burleigh, pp. 93-129, 220-266, Evans, pp. 524-530, Muller-Hill, pp. 15, 63-65.

21. IBID.

22. Evans, p. 527.

23. Muller-Hill, p. 65, Friedlander, p. 151, Chorover, p. 101.

24. Lifton, p. 142, Friedlander, pp. 61, 150.

25, Muller-Hill, p. 65, Evans, 528-530, Burleigh, pp. 220-237, Friedlander, pp. 151-163, Chorover, p. 101.

26. Friedlander, p. 151.

Pierre Cloutier

Moral Cretinism Part III
Longing for Big Brother


Maurice Merleau-Ponty

In two previous postings I looked at two other examples of morally cretinistic points of view. Both of them were intellectually lightweight as well as being morally bankrupt. In this example we have something that is intellectually heavyweight but just as much morally bankrupt and yes cretinistic.

The piece I will look at today is one of the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, (1908-1961).1 The work is Humanism and Terror.2 The book is in many respects a typical work of the French twentieth century philosophical school(s). It is in many places highly obtuse and rather difficult. Further it must be remembered that Merleau-Ponty was in many respects an Existential thinker, much concerned with the issue of responsibility and how people relate to each other. Also Merleau-Ponty’s writings are extremely important for twentieth pcentury philosophical notions of reality, epistemology, and phenomenology.3

Humanism and Terror is quite simply an apologia for the Stalinist terror. The fact that it is relatively complex in argument and that then Communists also denounced the book, mainly because it was not sufficiently subservient to Communist / Stalinist shibboleths,4 should not detract from the fact that the book is basically an apologia for terror.

Now in many respects Humanism and Terror, is an aberration in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career. Shortly after writing it he abandoned much of its argument and reverted back to a position of being highly critical of the Soviet Union and Stalinism in general.5

It is important to set the book into its context in order to understand why Merleau-Ponty went off the rails so to speak. In this case it is important to remember that France had just emerged from the Second World having been occupied for most of it (1940-1944), and that the French Communists had been heavily involved in the resistance to the Nazi occupation. Also important was the role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. All of this gave Communism and the Soviet Union enormous prestige in the minds of many intellectuals in Europe.

To this was allied the desire to avoid entanglement in another war after the recent appearance of the last devastating one. For a while it appeared that after the war it might be possible for France and much of Western Europe to become a “third way” between the Soviet Union and America. Any strong alliance with America would foreclose this possibility. So there was intellectual resistance to a firm alliance with the rising wave of anti-Soviet antagonism. Finally in many respects many intellectuals saw in rising anti-Soviet agitation something very similar to the rise of Nazism. Of course the belief, not unfounded, among many intellectuals that there was a movement towards a preventive war against the Soviet Union was also a factor in generating pro-Soviet intellectual beliefs. This is combined with a fear that the emerging western alliance against the USSR would preclude any sort of independent policy for Europe.6

Now Merleau-Ponty, wrote his book in large part in response to Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon,7 which is Arthur Koestler’s great novel about the Great Purges in Russia. It important to remember that Arthur Koestler, a former Hungarian Communist who became quite disillusioned about Communism because of the Great Purge, was the object of sustained hysterical attack from Communists and fellow travellers because of his book. Nowadays it is rather hard to see, or more accurately read, what the fuss was about. Anyone reading the novel would note right away that compared to what we do know about the Great Terror the horrors in the novel, albeit real, are pretty tame.8

What seems to have truly infuriated Merleau-Ponty about Koestler’s novel is that Koestler’s “hero” Rubashov seems to have had a very crude and limited understanding of Marxism. Merleau-Ponty also commits the error of assuming that the alleged Marxist crudities of Rubashov are in fact Koestler’s own ideas about Marxism. In fact Merleau-Ponty seems to assume that Soviet Marxists, those in power at least, have ideas about Marxism similar to his own.

Of course Koestler’s novel has stood the test of time rather well. Merleau-Ponty’s work, not so well. So let us get started with looking at Merleau-Ponty’s work.

Let us start with the following from the Author’s Preface:

Any serious discussion of Communism must therefore pose the problem in Communist terms, that is to say, not on the grounds of principles but on the ground of human relations. It will not brandish liberal principles in order to topple communism; it will examine whether it is doing anything to resolve the problem rightly raised by communism, namely to establish among men relations that are human.9

Right away Merleau-Ponty is tipping the scale. There is no reason to automatically assume that the problem must be posed in Communist terms for to do so is to predetermine the outcome right away. This is called loading the dice and fixing the race. What is also of interest is Merleau-Ponty’s relative lack of interest in determining whether or not more “human relations”, (which he does not clearly or more than cursory defines) exist in the Soviet Union. This effort to fix the outcome before hand is intellectually indefensible.

This is the spirit in which we have reopened the question of Communist violence which Koestler brought to light in Darkness at Noon. We have not examined whether in fact Bukharin led an organized opposition nor whether the execution of the old Bolsheviks was really indispensable to the order and the national defense of the U.S.S.R. We did not undertake to re-enact the 1937 trials. Our purpose was to understand Bukharin as Koestler sought to understand Rubashov. For the trial of Bukharin brings to light the theory and practice of violence under communism since Bukharin exercises violence upon himself and brings about his own condemnation. So we tried to discover what he really thought beneath the conventions of language.10

We learn from this passage that bluntly Merleau-Ponty is not interested in the innocence or lack of innocence of the accused; nor is Merleau-Ponty interested in mere fact as it pertains to the trials. Merleau-Ponty is simply interested in what the trial tells us about high abstract theories of justified and unjustified violence. Of course this rejection of mere fact has to be done otherwise Merleau-Ponty would have to consider the fact that the statements made by Bukharin made at his show trial are complete gobblygook he was forced to utter and are no more revealing of his “real” ideas than a confession extracted under torture.

It is of interest that it is utterly clear that Bukharin’s answers, statements etc at his trial have been revealed to be concoctions stage managed to justify the trial and death sentence.11 In order to use Bukharin’s statements Merleau-Ponty must with great intellectual discipline avoid all questions of the validity Bukharin’s testimony. As it is it is valueless. At the time that Merleau-Ponty could easily have been aware that Bukharin’s testimony was likely worthless, as is testimony in all such farcical show trials, but in pursuit of his “higher” truths Merleau-Ponty choose to ignore that.

Later Merleau-Ponty says:

Thus we find ourselves in an inextricable situation. The Marxist critique of capitalism is still valid and it is clear that anti-Sovietism today resembles the brutality, hybris, vertigo, and anguish that already found expression in fascism. On the other side, the Revolution has come to a halt: it maintains and aggravates the dictatorial apparatus renouncing the revolutionary liberty of the proletariat in the Soviets and its Party and abandoning the humane control of the state. It is impossible to be an anti-Communist and it is not possible to be a Communist.12

The above quote is one of the reasons why Communists at the time disliked intensely Merleau-Ponty’s essay despite its apologetic nature. As will become clear it is also clear that at the time of writing this Merleau-Ponty longed to become a Communist and love Big Brother.

Thus later when discussing violence in Revolutions Merleau-Ponty says:

In reality the most serious threat to civilization is not to kill a man because of his ideas (this has often been done in wartime), but to do so without recognizing it or saying so, and to hide revolutionary justice behind the mask of the penal code. For, by hiding violence one grows accustomed to it and makes an institution of it. On the other hand, if one gives violence its name and if one uses it, as the revolutionaries always did, without pleasure, there remains a chance of driving it out of history.13

Aside from the absurd reference to the revolutionaries committing acts of violence without pleasure which is pure propaganda about so-called pure minded, selfless revolutionary leaders, which is nothing but suck up nonsense, it is simply not true that lawless violence is not inherently corrupting. What Merleau-Ponty is talking about is in fact lawless violence. He is right that once that, violence, becomes institutionalized it becomes dangerous, but the bottom lined is that Revolutionary violence is institutional violence also and as such rather dangerous. Especially if the practitioners of said violence are glorified as selfless, disinterested saints.

In a chapter of the book Bukharin and the Ambiguity of History,14 Merleau-Ponty examines Bukharin’s trial and testimony. Amazingly Merleau-Ponty takes it seriously! This of course involves a wilful and deliberate ignorance off the facts of the trial then ascertainable. The idea that Bukharin’s testimony can tell us much about Bukharin’s “real” ideas is absurd. It is even more absurd now that we know that Bukharin was tortured and was told that his wife and young son would be arrested and murdered if he didn’t cooperate.15

Thus on page 59 Merleau-Ponty quotes Bukharin’s “testimony” as if it is unproblematic and untainted. It is obvious that Merleau-Ponty wants very much to believe that Bukharin’s testimony is in fact unproblematic, clear and untainted by such things as torture and threats of arrest and murder of his loved ones. Neither does Merleau-Ponty want to believe that it is corrupted by being rehearsed and faked to serve a specific political purpose, i.e., justifying the “guilt” of the accused and the death sentence and thus cementing Stalin’s power. Merleau-Ponty wants to believe the all powerful, all wise, all knowing and all beneficent Big Brother.

Thus although Merleau-Ponty acknowledges that Bukharin and his fellow accused were:

…up against a persistent police force and an implacable dictatorship.16

Merleau-Ponty still quotes Bukarin as saying:

“World history is a world court of judgement.”17

Merleau-Ponty assumes that this somehow represents the “real” views of Bukharin, which again illustrates nothing except Merleau-Ponty’s desire to believe Big Brother.

The airy-fairy nonsense that Merleau-Ponty assumes that Bukharin accepts his guilt for a large constellation of highly abstract theoretical reasoning based on the assumption that “History” is the ultimate justification and excuse for human actions and that if one opposes “History” one is guilty. Merleau-Ponty wants very much to believe that “History” is the ultimate judge of what is right and wrong and that those things that help “History” towards its goal are justified and thus those historical forces and personages that work towards those ends are morally justified. To but it bluntly the ends justify the means. Thus since Communists are working towards freeing humans they are justified in doing that which furthers that goal. That this would justify all sorts of human abominations and atrocities doesn’t seem to worry Merleau-Ponty very much.

That Merleau-Ponty very much wants to believe this, and surrender his intellect to Big Brother is obvious. What is also obvious despite Merleau-Ponty’s desire is that he can’t do it. Merleau-Ponty just can’t submit to Big Brother.

Of course History as not been kind to Merleau-Ponty’s fantasies regarding Bukharin’s motivations for his testimony. Instead of Merleau-Ponty’s intellectual abstractions it boiled down to torture and threats.

Thus we have Merleau-Ponty say:

The confessions in the Moscow Trials are only the extreme instance of those letters of submission to the central Committee which in 1938 were a feature of daily life in the U.S.S.R. They are only mystifying to those who overlook the dialectic between the subjective and objective factors in Marxist politics.18

The only real mystery is Merleau-Ponty’s inability to discover the dialectic between a prisoner and his jailer, mediated by endless interrogation, starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings and sundry other variations of violent coercion.

Merleau-Ponty then closes this particular chapter by quoting Vyshinsky and Stalin.19 Now Vyshinsky was the head prosecutor of the Moscow show trial and one of the chief orchestraters of that fraud. Why should Vyshinsky’s comments about the accused be taken seriously? As for Stalin anything he as to say about this Judicial Murder is not to be taken seriously. Its of interest that Merleau-Ponty resists the idea that Moscow trials were stage managed and hence valueless as telling us much about the accused. Further it is interesting that Merleau-Ponty leaves the last word about Bukharin’s guilt to his murderers. It is obvious that Merleau-Ponty really wants to believe that Bukharin was working towards effecting a “Capitalist” restoration, and thus Stalin, i.e., Big Brother was justified but once again Merleau-Ponty can’t quite go all the way and submit.

Although Merleau-Ponty denies that he is excusing Stalin by accepting Stalin’s justifications for the terror Merleau-Ponty says thing like:

But then one can say that Stalin overruled the opposition in order to prevent German militarism from thwarting the only country in the world in which socialist forms of production had been established.20

One can say all sorts of things, but about this one can say that it is self serving propaganda, much weakened by the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939-1941.

Another passage that indicate Merleau-Ponty’s deep longing to service Big Brother is:

Although the actions of the Bolsheviks cannot at every moment reflect the immediate sentiments of the proletariat, they must on balance and in the world as a whole hasten the advancement of the proletariat and continuously raise the consciousness of the proletariat’s condition because it is the initiation of truly human coexistence.21

A clear indication that Merleau-Ponty wants to join a cult; in other words an omnipotent organization that can do no wrong and that by definition all it does is “right” even if the people it supposedly represents reject it. In the end the party is the embodiment of “history” and the fulfilling of the “true” needs of human beings. Besides only “history” can really judge if the “right” thing as been done. Once again the longing to submit to Big Brother.

Merleau-Ponty then goes into a long and rather convoluted mystification on the Proletariat and how this gives the party and Marxism its driving force.22 That the Proletariat as the embodiment of the future inevitable course of human history and development, through its mouth piece the party excuses and justifies actions taken on its behalf and only the future can justify, or damn the means used. Thus we read stomach turning bromides like this:

It is no accident, nor, I suppose, out of any romantic disposition that the first newspaper of the U.S.S.R. was given the name Pravda. [Truth] The cause of the Proletariat is so universal that it can tolerate the truth better than any other.23

I suppose one can throw up now. Pravda got by the late twenties at the earliest and especially under Stalin a deserved reputation for outrageous official lying. Once again Merleau-Ponty just cannot help himself he wants Big Brother’s bullet in his brain. The fact is lying in the name of the Proletariat by Communists was almost derigure. So much for love of truth.

It is pointless to quote Merleau-Ponty further on his desire to submit it would only be tedious and annoying however one beautiful quote that illustrates once again Merleau-Ponty’s singularly obtuse refusal to pay attention to mere empirical fact is this:

Within the U.S.S.R. violence and deception have official status while humanity is to be found in daily life. On the contrary, in democracies the principles are humane but deception and violence rule daily life.24

Thus speaks the fellow traveller and obtuse fool who doesn’t wish to learn anything about real life in the Soviet Union at the time. Obviously Merleau-Ponty read all sorts of lying and deceptive accounts by Communists and others about life in the Soviet Union and took it seriously or wanted very much to take it seriously. The dream of the omnipotent state in which people were happy, especially to those on conducted tours is what Merleau-Ponty is indulging in here. Sorry but there was plenty of violence in everyday Soviet life. The violence of intrusive unaccountable officialdom and the violence of continual surveillance.25

In this essay the terrors and mass murders of the regime from Collectivization to the Purges and the labour camps and so forth that took over ten million lives are whisked away in a fog of philosophical abstraction. To call this morally cretinist is to merely call a spade a spade. Fortunately Merleau-Ponty regained his moral footing.26

As I mentioned near the beginning Merleau-Ponty’s flirtation remained just that a flirtation with Communism. Very soon he reverted back to a vastly more critical attitude, which included very rigorous and through denunciations of Soviet foreign policies and the Gulag.27

For a brief time Merleau-Ponty wanted Big Brother’s bullet in his brain, because accepting the omnipotence of the all wise party and Big Brother would have enabled him to avoid the very difficult task of thinking for himself.

Of course “History” as not been kind to Merleau-Ponty’s essay. The view that only “History” can really judge, held by the Communists at the time, and that the ends of “history” justify the means has produced the result that Communism has been swept away into the trash heap of history. History as cast it aside as a murderous aberration in the development of the human race. It was not the embodiment of “history” and its ends but a dead end.

1. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Wikipedia Here.

2. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Humanism and Terror, Beacon Press, Boston, 1969. (Originally published in 1947 in French).

3. See Footnote 1.

4. See Merleau-Ponty, pp. xiii-xlvii.

5. Judt, Tony, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals 1944-1956, University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1994, pp. 113-115, 123-127, Caute, David, The Fellow Travellers, Rev. Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1988, p. 331-332.

6. Caute, pp. 329-346, Merleau-Ponty, pp. xiii-xlvii, 178-189.

7. Koestler, Arthur, Darkness at Noon, Bantam Books, New York, 1941.

8. For details about the terror see Conquest, Robert, The Great Terror, Revised Edition, Pimlico, London, 1990, pp. 117-119. Much is not talked about very much in the novel, for example torture is almost entirely absent, and the horrors of the slave labour camps and of collectivization are also largely absent.

9. Merleau-Ponty, p. xv.

10. IBID, p. xv.

11. Conquest, pp. 341-398. We know that Bukharin was tortured and his wife and son threatened with death in order to get Bukharin to “voluntarily” confess see Conquest, pp. 364-365..

12. Merleau-Ponty, p. xxi.

13. IBID, p. 34.

14. IBID, pp. 25-70.

15.See Footnote 11.

16. Merleau-Ponty, p. 62.

17. IBID.

18. IBID, p. 68.

19, IBID, pp. 69-70.

20. IBID, p. 87.

21. IBID, p. 112.

22. IBID, pp. 115-130.

23. IBID, p. 123.

24. IBID, p. 180.

25. Caute, pp. 64-139.

26. See Conquest and Applebaum, Anne, Gulag: A History, Anchor Books, New York, 2003, Khlevniuk, Oleg V., The History of the Gulag, Yale University Press, New Have CT, 2004.

27, See Footnote 5.

Pierre Cloutier

Stephens’ “Cornerstone”

Alexander Hamilton Stephens

Alexander Hamilton Stephens, (1812-1883), Vice President of the Confederacy and all round politician was basically a moderate. His political record indicates on many matters that he was in no way a Southern extremist or a pro-slavery fanatic. In fact his moderation is abundantly indicated in much, if not all of his political record.1 It is that well attested and correct perception of Stephens as a moderate that makes his infamous Cornerstone speech both interesting and illuminating.

The Cornerstone speech was given by Stephens in a hall in the city of Savannah on March 21, 1861 and in it he discusses the principles and prospects of the new Confederate government and state.

Stephens mentions that although the new Confederate constitution is almost exactly the same as the older American constitution it as some changes that as you read Stephen’s states are for the better.

Some changes have been made. Some of these I should have preferred not to have seen made; but other important changes do meet my cordial approbation. They form great improvements upon the old constitution. So, taking the whole new constitution, I have no hesitancy in giving it as my judgment that it is decidedly better than the old.2

After this introduction Stephen’s then outlines the improvements all of which are those that were subject to sectional disputes. For example:

We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged. This old thorn of the tariff, which was the cause of so much irritation in the old body politic, is removed forever from the new.3

Thus the tariffs which sought by taxation to improve the prospects of American Business but which were considered an imposition by many Southerners, including cotton growers are deemed unconstitutional. This was of course largely opposed not simply because it was perceived to be against the interests of planters but because it was perceived to be interference in the day to day activities of planters and their economic prospects.

Again, the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power, claimed by construction under the old constitution, was at least a doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice.4

Here is another restriction upon the central government. It was believed that the power to finance and carry out internal improvements was unjust; in that monies collected at A should not go to pay improvements in B. further lurking behind this was the idea that the central government could use such leverage to interfere in “domestic institutions”, (slavery), and therefore the central government should be kept out. Only states should do internal improvements. Of course Stephens never explains how state taxation used to pay for improvements in county A as against county B were any different from a central government using tax money from state A to pay for improvements in state B.

Another feature to which I will allude is that the new constitution provides that cabinet ministers and heads of departments may have the privilege of seats upon the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives and may have the right to participate in the debates and discussions upon the various subjects of administration.5

This change is of course the adoption of a feature of the British system which has Cabinet Ministers defending their policies in Parliament and their seats. Stephens however feels that Cabinet Ministers should be only selected from the elected representatives of the Confederate Congress or Senate. So that the system is even more similar to the British system.

Another change in the constitution relates to the length of the tenure of the presidential office. In the new constitution it is six years instead of four, and the President rendered ineligible for a re-election. This is certainly a decidedly conservative change. It will remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition.6

Another indication of Confederate fear that central authority could lead to the creation of system by which the central government is used for purposes that reward “spoils” men and ambition. It is of course interesting that there seems to be little concern that state central authority could be used in the same way. Of course it is mainly just another way of protecting the “local” authority from the central government’s power.

Stephens then comes to the central focus of the improvements in the new Confederate constitution.

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."7

Now Stephens out of his own mouth utters the great central truth about Succession and the establishment of the Confederacy and the central “principle” on which it is based. He casts aside the Declaration of Independence’s statement “All men are created equal”, that they are endowed with certain “inalienable” rights. Stephens even admits that Jefferson and the founding fathers hoped Slavery would wither away eventually. Stephens further admits that slavery and the agitation around slavery were the cause of succession and hence the civil war that might come. Stephens further declares that the founders were wrong to think that slavery was wrong and should hopefully disappear. Thus in some respect the creation of the Confederacy was a revolution against the Declaration of Independence and the hopes of the Founders. All of this especially in light of what Stephens would say later and the established “correct” version created in the late 19th century, is most revealing. Here right at the beginning of the Civil War a prominent Southern Statesman, and a moderate to boot, was emphatically saying it was about slavery. Stephens is not finished however.

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the
equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.8

Thus Stephens emphatically says that the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy is human inequality and the slavery that arises from such inequality. Further that slavery was natural, good and proper for Black people. That the notion of basic human equality was false and wrong and that inequality was the great principle of the Confederacy which would one day be recognized world wide.

It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.9

Stephens again reiterates that inequality and hence slavery is the basis of the Confederate social system. I wonder what Jefferson would have thought?

May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made "one star to differ from another star in glory." The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders "is become the chief of the corner" the real "corner-stone" in our new edifice. I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we are obliged to, and must triumph.10

So Black people are created to be subordinate; to be the foundation of the Confederate system. It is a “principle” that Blacks being inferior should be subordinate, indeed enslaved, and that the Confederate government is founded on this “natural” inferiority and subordination, which of course is “best” for Black people. The Confederate government is carrying out, according to Stephens, in practice the divinely ordained principle of the “natural” subordination of the “inferior” and further this is the foundation of the Confederate government and society. What Stephens said latter about this speech is most revealing but more of that later.

The rest of Stephens’ speech is an optimistic look at the prospects of the new Confederacy and how given its wealth, size, population the prospects were very bright for both survival and expansion.

Well we all now how the story turned out; the Confederacy was crushed in a 4 year civil war by the far more powerful Union. Slavery both collapsed and was destroyed. Blacks in the former Confederacy gained certain political rights which they exercised and then came the backlash in which, so-called, “Bourbon” governments regained power and instituted mass disenfranchisement, “Jim Crow” laws, massive violence against Blacks etc., etc. During all of this a re-writing of the Civil War and the conflicts that preceded it was done. Characterized by demonizing Abolitionists, down playing or in fact ignoring slavery, disregarding black people and any perspectives they might have, combined with a romantic nostalgic idea of the “Lost Cause” and the Confederacy. A prime example of that was the novel Gone with the Wind. In this atmosphere that emerged after the Civil War many former Confederate politicians had ample scope to get a sympathetic hearing for what the war and conflict was “really” about. In other words they either lied a lot or exercised extraordinary self deception. What was said before and after the Civil War could and did differ. It was simply unacceptable to state bluntly that the Confederacy was mainly created to safeguard slavery from real and perceived threats against it so history in hindsight was rewritten to say, over and over again, ad-nauseaum that succession and the Civil War was not about slavery at all that it was a mere incident to real causes that were more honourable and not disagreeable causes like retaining and safeguarding slavery. Added to this was a copious literature stating again ad-nauseaum that slavery was nothing much to get upset about anyway. So in this conducive atmosphere of self-deception and revisionism Stephens could toss out his “explanation” of his speech. Said speech stood out like a drunken groom at a wedding it had to be ignored as much as possible, and when impossible to ignore explained away.11

As for my Savanna speech, [The Cornerstone Speech] about which so much has been said and in regard to which I am represented as setting forth "slavery" as the "corner-stone" of the Confederacy, it is proper for me to state that that speech was extemporaneous, the reporter's notes, which were very imperfect, were hastily corrected by me; and were published without further revision and with several glaring errors.12

First we hear that the Reporters notes were “inaccurate” a common tactic when a politician says something that turns out to be embarrassing later on. Of course it is rather interesting that Stephens was saying similar things at other meetings at the same time so I think it rather likely the reporter got the speech right.13

The order of subordination was nature's great law; philosophy taught that order as the normal condition of the African amongst European races. Upon this recognized principle of a proper subordination, let it be called slavery or what not, our State institutions were formed and rested. The new Confederation was entered into with this distinct understanding. This principle of the subordination of the inferior to the superior was the "corner-stone" on which it was formed. I used this metaphor merely to illustrate the firm convictions of the framers of the new Constitution that this relation of the black to the white race, which existed in 1787, was not wrong in itself, either morally or politically; that it was in conformity to nature and best for both races. I alluded not to the principles of the new Government on this subject, but to public sentiment in regard to these principles. The status of the African race in the new Constitution was left just where it was in the old; I affirmed and meant to affirm nothing else in this Savannah speech.14

This is hemming and hawing it in my opinion amounts to I said something almost exactly like I was reported saying but I didn’t say exactly that. Finally it is very easy to demonstrate that Stephens’ view of the relationship that existed between Blacks and Whites in 1787 is simply wrong. Not only were all Blacks not subordinate to all Whites in 1787 some could vote and were recognized has state citizens by some states. Further it is easy to demonstrate that some free Blacks who lived in the Confederacy were not a subordinate class to all Whites. As for the rest of it that he was merely repeating that the “African race” was in the same position under the new constitution of the Confederacy as under the old U.S.A. constitution, a reading of the speech reveals this to be, shall we say “bogus”. Stephens in the recorded speech calls the subordination, slavery, of the Black person as a clear founding principle of the new Confederate government, and admits clearly that the founders, including Jefferson, thought all men were basically equal and looked forward to the eventual disappearance of slavery. Further he states that the Founders believed as a principle in essential human equality whereas the new Confederate government was founded on the principle of inequality and that this was a great truth which would soon be recognized world wide. In other words Stephens is lying. Whether or not he was consciously lying when he wrote the above is unknown but even if he believed his own lies he was still lying.15

How can I be so sure that Stephen’s was lying? It is easy. On March 13, 1861 in Atlanta Stephens gave a speech in which he said the following concerning the Confederate Constitution and aims of its creators; that they:

…solemnly discarded the pestilent heresy of fancy politicians, that all men, of all races, were equal, and we had made African inequality and subordination, and the equality of white men, the chief corner stone of the Southern Republic.16

It is easy to demonstrate how during the various Succession crises how central the survival of slavery was to believers in Succession, how concerned so many were with securing the survival of slavery. How during the actual crisis of the succession winter of 1860-61, how central was slavery to their demands for succession. The contemporary documents, newspaper accounts talk all about what a grave threat to slavery was the election of Abraham Lincoln. About how only succession would secure slavery from attack. After the war the contemporary documentary record was ignored and the losers spent enormous time and resources rewriting i.e., falsifying history and their own deeds and words.17 Stephens’ efforts resulted in his multi-volume book A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States. The book alleged that the war was over the principle of constitutional liberty and the centralization and tyranny. That slavery was a mere question over which these two principles fought and that to call those who fought the efforts of those in the north to centralize and impose tyranny a pro-slavery party or group was utterly false.18 To describe this as untrue is to be evasive it is quite simply bold-face lies. Stephen’s cornerstone speech damns his post war apologia as simply false. In early 1861 Stephens’ could publicly state what the conflict was really about just as could other Southern politicians, Newspapers etc. After the war it was recognized that such honesty was unacceptable and it was too painful to accept in retrospect what the conflict had been mainly about so memory and history had to be “corrected” and a new improved version of reality banded about. Thus regarding the American Civil War what former Confederate politicians said about the causes of the conflict after the war should be discounted as self-serving and efforts concentrated on what they said and or did at the time. Stephens is an excellent example of this.

This last comment by Stephens illustrates to perfection the self serving nature of the post-war flood of ex-Confederate memoirs and apologia.

My own opinion of slavery, as often expressed, was that if the institution was not the best, or could not be made the best, for both races, looking to the advancement and progress of both, physically and morally, it ought to be abolished. It was far from being what it might and ought to have been. Education was denied. This was wrong. I ever condemned the wrong. Marriage was not recognized. This was a wrong that I condemned. Many things connected with it did not meet my approval but excited my disgust, abhorrence, and detestation. The same I may say of things connected with the best institutions in the best communities in which my lot has been cast. Great improvements were, however, going on in the condition of blacks in the South. Their general physical condition not only as to necessaries but as to comforts was better in my own neighbourhood in 1860, than was that of the whites when I can first recollect, say 1820. Much greater would have been made, I verily believe, but for outside agitation. I have but small doubt that education would have been allowed long ago in Georgia, except for outside pressure which stopped internal reform.19

Interestingly it is not difficult to find that yes indeed Stephens is telling the truth when he indicates that prior to the war he had problems with certain aspects of slavery. However he does not mention that he expressed his doubts privately and even then only intermittently. As for his comment about slavery should be abolished if it wasn’t for the best for both Black and White. Well considering that he said repeatedly before the war, in public, that slavery was for the best for Black and White I doubt that this post war comment is entirely to be trusted. Also he became a wealthy slave owner which would certainly indicate that his doubts about the system were not very deep when combined with his public silence of the systems problems.

It is revealing that Stephens mentions that even the best institutions and communities have problems, rather indicating that slavery wasn’t so bad after all; it just needed to be twicked. This is made clear by Stephen’s assertion that “great improvements” were being made in the conditions of Blacks, that they were becoming comfortable and even getting “comforts” i.e., luxuries. This is self serving and not to be taken seriously. It is an established fact that the life expectancy of Black slaves was significantly worst than the White life expectancy in the south. The actual exact figure is unknown but it appears to have been as little as one half White life expectancy. In other words slavery produced conditions of life has bad as the worst city slum. I frankly doubt that conditions much improved between 1820-1860 for slaves.20

Then comes the required denunciation of the Abolitionists accusing them, by their “agitation” of retarding efforts to ameliorate the conditions of slaves. This is nonsense. Stephens is trying to excuse his own and other’s silence on the matter of slave conditions. The bottom line is that the improvement of slave conditions such as recognizing slave marriage, limiting the break up of families by sale, and allowing for slave education, would have limited the power of slave owners over their human chattels and so were opposed by the great majority of slave owners. After all the slave owner owned slaves for their own profit not to benefit their slaves and limits on the ownership of their slaves would potentially limit their profits. Certainly education had in the mind of most slave owners the potential of encouraging slaves to want to be free and questioning their subordination. Stephens should have read some Frederick Douglas.

Also it is quite clear that the movement to reform slavery in the south, manumission societies etc., had almost entirely died before the advent of Abolitionism simply because the institution had become very profitable and quite dynamic. There had emerged in the South a powerful constituency interested in perpetuating the institution and getting rid of by fair means or foul any effort to attack the system and this included efforts to reform it, which was seen, rightly in my opinion, as steps towards its eventual abolition.21

Abolitionism emerged as a response to the vitality and strength of the institution and the disappearance of efforts to reform it, along with the flat out disappointment of the founder’s hope that the institution would gradually wither away.22

As I said earlier Stephens was a moderate, even during the Succession winter of 1860-61 he suggested that Abraham Lincoln could be worked with, that his election was nothing to succeed over. He had strong Unionist beliefs and became a secessionist reluctantly. In fact he voted against succession at the Georgia Succession convention. Also he supported candidates like Stephen Douglas who were considered anathema in the South. And as indicated above he had doubts about slavery.23 So it is entirely illuminating to see that this moderate said emphatically that the main cause of all this turmoil was slavery and that the foundation of the new state was the enshrining of this “subordination”. Further he stated that the idea of basic human equality was wrong and that one of the principles of the new Confederate government was human inequality. Finally that He, Stephens, agreed with all the above. If this was the opinion of a moderate and a rather extreme moderate at that for the South at the time; it doesn’t take much to guess what the less moderate, let alone the extremists must have thought. It is ironic that after the war Stephens pictured the conflict as one of liberty against tyranny considering that what the new Confederate government wanted to make safe was the domestic tyranny / despotism of slavery and that is what ultimately Stephens when he threw his lot in with the Confederate government was fighting for and although he would candidly admit it before the war afterwards it became unmentionable and was denied.

In the end this counter revolution against the American Revolution failed but its poisonous fruit continue to mar politics right to the present day.

1. See Wikipedia, Alexander Stephens, Here

2. Cornerstone Speech from Teaching American History Here

3. IBID.

4. IBID.

5. IBID.

6. IBID.

7. IBID.

8. IBID.

9. IBID.

10. IBID.

11. Stampp, Kenneth M., The Irrepressible Conflict, The Imperiled Union, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980, pp. 191-245. For a look at the causes of the Civil War that puts slavery front and cener see, Ransom, Roger L., Conflict and Compromise, Cambridge University Press, 1989.

12. Stephens, Alexander Hamilton, Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, Sunny South Publishing Co., New York, 1910, pp. 172-175, the full work can be located at Internet Archive, Here, Just the actual apologia analyzed can be found at Adena Here.

13. Dew, Charles B., Apostles of Disunion, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2001, pp. 15-16.

14. See Footnote 12.

15. For the position of free Blacks and the constitutional position of same see Fehrenbacher, Don E., The Dred Scott Case, Oxford University Press, New York, 1978, pp. 335-364. For the position of free Blacks in the South see Berlin, Ira, Slaves without Masters, The New Press, New York, 1974.

16. Quoted in Dew p. 16.

17. IBID. pp. 15-21, Stampp, pp. 191-245. For an account of the coming of the war that uses contemporary sources and emphasizes slavery see Klein, Maury, Days of Defiance, Vintage Books, New York, 1997.

18. Stephens, Alexander Hamilton, A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States, 2 volumes, National Publishing Company, Philadelphia PA, 1868-1870, pp. vol. I 9-12, vol. II 534-537.

19. See Footnote 12.

20. See David, Paul A. et al, Reckoning with Slavery, Oxford University Press, New York, 1976 for a collection of essays on the living / working conditions of slaves. See especially Sutch, Richard, The Care and Feeding of Slaves, pp. 231-301. See also Stampp, Kenneth M., The Peculiar Institution, Vintage Books, New York, 1956, pp. 237-278, Blassingame, John W., The Slave Community, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1979, pp. 249-283. For a look on how slaves were controlled that is clear eyed and shocking see Jones, Norrece T., Born a Child of Freedom Yet a Slave, Wesleyan University Press, London, 1990.

21, See Stampp, 1980, Dew, Oakes, James, The Ruling Race, Vintage Books, New York, 1982, and Slavery and Freedom, Vintage Books, New York, 1991, Channing Steven A., Crisis of Fear, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 1974.

22. Stampp. 1980.

23. See Footnote 1.

Pierre Cloutier