Thread by @Historian_Steve

1. THREAD: I am pleased to share my article on Nicholas Biddle, cotton, and slavery, published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History of Biography.

URL: muse.jhu.edu/article/793520

2. My thoughts here are organized into four larger themes:

1) the research
2) why I wrote this article
3) Some points about evidence and interpretation
4) the revisions

3. THEME #1: THE RESEARCH. This article is the product of many years of research, writing, and revision. This is not abnormal for publishing in a peer reviewed journal but for those of you who are unfamiliar with academic publishing, you might wonder, why did it take so long?

4. Well, in publishing my book, moving several times, trying to find consistent work teaching, and eventually, building up my teaching load to ten classes per year so that I could support myself financially, there was little time left for scholarship.

amazon.com/Bank-War-Parti…

5. It may be helpful to understand that I am a contingent faculty member, not on the tenure track, who typically teaches 500 students per year. Contingent faculty—among them, adjuncts, VAPs, and lecturers like myself—constitute the majority of college professors in the U.S.

6. At the CSUs lecturers are not expected to publish. For better or worse, research and scholarship are almost solely the domain of tenured or TT professors. The teaching-oriented focus of the CSU system is a product of institutional precedents established many decades ago.

7. According to the California Master Plan of 1960, the UCs were originally conceptualized as doctoral-granting, research I institutions. The CSUs would be teaching-oriented institutions that would accept more students. They would be the “people’s university.”

8. So with my busy schedule it was only sheer determination that helped me finish.

9. There is lots of research here (truly, I mean that without intending to brag). If you don’t have the time to read this article closely, I hope you will at least glance at the footnotes. 119 footnotes, many of which cite multiple sources!

10. Again, non-academics might be surprised to hear that it can sometimes take months or even years to conduct the research that supports just one paragraph in your writing!

11. I’ve mentioned before that Robert Remini, Edward Kaplan, and others who have written about the Bank War grabbed the low-hanging fruit, recapitulating the same often-used quotes, and sometimes, not even examining the primary sources on their own.
historianstevecampbell.com/blog/bucking-c…

12. This is why it frustrates me that the dude monitoring the Wikipedia page for the Bank War does not seem to distinguish between a derivative work and a scholarly monograph. There is also way too much deference by the way given to Wilentz, Remini, etc.

13. Even worse, there are respected scholarly historians today who continually cite Kaplan, not recognizing that Kaplan did exactly zero research on his own.

14. To write this article I had to figure out how the banking system worked in the antebellum era. This is a challenge in its own right.

15. It becomes all the more frustrating when authors who should be taking the time to walk you through the byzantine banking process can often leave you more confused than when you initially started.

16. The reality for me is that it took lots of time to figure out the intricacies of the banking system and explain it to others in ways that are not convoluted or abstruse. Because who needs that when so many other things nowadays compete for our attention?

17. THEME #2: PURPOSE. The formal justification for writing my article can be found in the article itself, but if you'd like a more conversational framing, let me put it this way…

18. There are flaws in the history of capitalism literature and the traditional Bank War historiography. Part of my intent is to reconcile these two approaches.

19. It is difficult to generalize about a diffuse, amorphous literature that encompasses a wide-ranging set of authors who may or may not choose to define themselves as historians of capitalism.

20. Nonetheless, if I had to characterize new history of capitalism (NHOC) scholars, I’d note the emphasis on bringing to the fore segments of the population who have often been ignored or marginalized under narratives that stressed the progress of capitalism.

21. The assumptions and methodological approaches of cultural history are prominent in the NHOC literature, tending to overshadow in my view more straightforward efforts to explain the mechanics of the economy in clear terms (though these explanations are by no means absent).

22. While I very much appreciate the work of NHOC scholars, I am convinced more than ever that what we need is a CLEAR explanation of how the economy and banking system worked; as a primer.

23. This would be especially useful for graduate students who should not have to sift through one unsatisfying or abstruse explanation after another before finding the right one.

24. To demonstrate that my yearning for clarity is not some selfish obsession, but is in fact shared by many others, see Sharon Ann Murphy's post in the @SHEARites blog:
shear.org/2017/05/16/oth…

25. Murphy has articles out in Enterprise and Society, Journal of the Early Republic, and the Journal of Southern History (that’s a lot all at once!). Here’s the thread I did on her E & S article.

https://twitter.com/Historian_Steve/status/1371275054969806852

26. Some other pts...The scholarship on Biddle tends to focus on his *political* involvement in the Bank War. When discussions of Biddle’s *economic* actions are raised, they often gloss over or ignore the twilight years of Biddle’s career from 1836—1841.

27. Biddle does appear occasionally in the NHOC literature, but only briefly, and the commentary in my view is not as comprehensive and nuanced as it could be, relying on a few famous examples.
historianstevecampbell.com/blog/my-impres…

28. Furthermore, by connecting the BUS with the domestic slave trade and Indian Removal, I am joining recent efforts to provide a more inclusive and enriching narrative of the nation’s political and economic development.

29. For years, historians have been urged not just to talk about slavery in one textbook chapter or lecture, but to integrate slavery into almost every lesson of early U.S. history.

30. So rather than portraying Biddle as the classic antagonist of Andrew Jackson or as part of a dry and unimaginative story of economic development, we can explore how his actions affected slaves and Native Americans. This is from Microfilm Reel 46 of the Biddle Papers, 10/2/38

30 B. addendum...to be precise, the above is my *transcription* of the 1838 letter. My own screenshot of the original microfilm is here.

31. Also, this article is not a repeat of my book. Sure, there is some information that appears in both the book and article, but the sentences are reworked, and you have to assume that some readers will read this article without having first read my book.

32. And even if you have read my book, there is still a lot of new material here.

33. The main focus of my book was on political patronage and newspaper editors, with a little bit of banking history by necessity. But this article focuses more on Biddle's investments in land, cotton, and slavery.

34. There have also been some articles and books published on related topics that have come out since my book appeared, and in an effort to remain current, their findings are noted in this article.

35. @ClaudioSaunt published an article in the Journal of American History. @ForretJeff published in Journal of the Early Republic, and Andrew Browning's book added to my knowledge about the Bank's involvement in the Panic of 1819.
economic-historian.com/2020/10/panic-…

36. I’ve been encouraged by @joefrancis505's work and am looking forward to reading more about the work of Emilie Connolly at Brandeis.

37. THEME #3: Some Points About Evidence and Interpretation. Only a few historians have written about the Second Bank's connections to slavery and when they have, the documentary evidence and/or commentary is not that spectacular in my view.

38. Kilbourne is one of the few exceptions but as I’ve shown elsewhere, I have multiple issues with his approach, statements, and convoluted prose.

https://twitter.com/Historian_Steve/status/1359453663568175105

39. How could I contribute to this topic and add to our understanding of Nicholas Biddle’s historical significance?

40. Well, my article contains several pieces of direct and indirect evidence pointing to the Bank's financing of the slave economy.

41. Much of the direct evidence is scarce and fragmentary. So what to do? I would maintain that in this situation, even indirect evidence is better than no evidence at all. And string enough indirect evidence together and your case can get more compelling.

42. I am happy to hear any alternative arguments or interpretations and I am not claiming that my interpretations are above reproach, but before you state them, I would ask that you read and consider the entirety of my article.

43. Here is an example of what I mean by indirect evidence.

44. In addition, Andrew Browning's book helped me conceptualize a trend that very likely occurred with the southern plantation banks. At this time it was common for a bank's senior offices to lend to themselves and their friends, even if it violated norms and regulations.

45. This would have been especially true for plantation banks because lenders and borrowers were often the very same people, or at least, the same types of people.

46. For example, a group of planters would submit mortgages on land and slaves that functioned almost like a pot of money stored inside the bank’s vaults. Planters could then take out loans from this pot to buy more land, cotton, and slaves.

47. In other words, the bank was capitalized by planters in order to lend to planters. So if Biddle was propping up plantation banks like the Union Bank of Florida or the Union Bank of Mississippi, then he was enabling planters to extend the political economy of slavery.

48. Here's another example

49. There is also evidence that slave traders participating in the infamous domestic slave trade could sometimes use the Bank's notes and credit facilities to carry out the interregional transporting of slaves.

50. See my post in @thejuntoblog @juntocast about how Henry Clay asked one of his agents to apply to the cashier of the Washington branch of the BUS to transport one of his slaves from Washington City to KY.

earlyamericanists.com/2017/01/17/gue…

51. THEME #4: THE REVIEW PROCESS. A lot of historians looked at this piece prior to publication. Two anonymous reviewers had slightly different takes.

52. The first one looked at this article manuscript earlier on in the process and was not convinced that I had presented enough evidence to persuasively show that Biddle intended to invest in slavery.

53. This person noted that the Bank's benefit to slaveholders may have occurred but that this was both unsurprising and inadvertent. After all, a lot of institutions supported slavery, including the nation's two main political parties.

54. Given the state of my manuscript at the time, I will recognize that this reviewer had a valid point.

55. Typically anonymous reviewers are experts on your topic. Many (or most) are tenured professors who have secured institutional and outside funding to research these topics, meaning their teaching loads are less compared to those of contingent faculty.

56. So I reworked my manuscript to address this reviewer's criticisms. I rewrote some of the conclusions to be less tendentious and more modest; essentially, I was now arguing that Biddle did extend the political economy of slavery but that this effect was mostly inadvertent.

57. Interestingly, a second anonymous reviewer wrote that it was hard to believe that Biddle's aid to slave owners was inadvertent. This reviewer suggested that I spend more time with the Biddle Papers on microfilm.

58. If you've ever gone through peer review, it is not at all uncommon for the reviewers to have different take-aways, different verdicts, and even to disagree with one another about which direction an article manuscript should go.

59. I am especially grateful for the second reviewer, who obviously knew that by examining the Biddle Papers more closely, I could strengthen my argument and say what I really wanted to say all along.

60. It's safe to conclude that the second reviewer was more familiar with the Biddle Papers than the first reviewer. I ordered the Biddle Papers on microfilm and had them sent to my library.

61. I remember going to the microfilm readers and a library employee remarking that I was the only person in ages who had used those machines (that's where I got that screenshot of the 1838 Biddle letter).

62. One especially gratifying moment came when a relatively unknown letter in Biddle's Papers help me place Biddle’s financial transactions in 1838 within the context of the tragedy of Indian Removal—see my article for details.

63. Most importantly, I found evidence to make a stronger connection between Biddle and slavery.

64. In the concluding pages of my article I posit that Biddle's contacts with slave owners were so frequent and spread out over large geographical areas that it is very difficult to believe that his support of the political economy of slavery was inadvertent.

65. There is an interesting philosophical conversation to be had when it comes to how historians assess the actions of the characters we study. I am talking here about the difference between intent and consequences.

66. Should we give Biddle the benefit of the doubt and only consider his intent? I see no reason to be unduly charitable to Biddle, or any other historical actor for that matter.

67. As an analogy, you might consider how we talk about racism today. If someone utters a racist statement or enacts a racist policy, but does not intend to be racist, do we let them off the hook?

68. The answer to this question may have been different only a few decades ago, but it seems that in the third decade of the twenty-first century, we have to consider consequences alongside intent and in some cases, to prioritize the consequences.

69. Someone implementing a Voter ID law (see Georgia and Texas) or 3-strikes rule may not have racism in their hearts, but if the policies adversely affect people of color disproportionately compared to whites, we can conclude that the policies are, in fact, racist.

70. Can we apply this thinking to Biddle? I believe that we can. I am not aware of any letter in which Biddle states in unambiguous terms, "I am loaning to this bank so that slaves can continue to be oppressed and exploited."

71. But would we really expect something like this in a country whose founding documents refer to slaves as "other persons"? No, a lot of the support for slavery was either assumed, swept under the rug, or couched in terms of "property" and "limited government."

72. Biddle may not have intended to strengthen slavery but his actions, when understood with all of their context, certainly had the effect of perpetuating the slave system.

73. This was a long process. There was no instant gratification—indeed, there was lots of struggle—so seeing the article come out in print is all the more satisfying. I am proud of what I have put together. I hope you find it worthwhile and useful.

Including some folks who might be interested (apologies if I left anyone out). @lepler @nelsonhist @CalScherm @Sven_Beckert @lomazoff @BatizLazo @joshrgreenberg @DanielGullotta @HC_Richardson @markcheathem @econobitch @judyzara @jbf1755 @financialhist @annmdaly1 @trap1305