women

Did the Founding Fathers oppose democracy?

In American political debate, the Founding Fathers are often evoked as the guardians of democracy and human rights. But is this completely wrong? Did these well-heeled gentlemen who framed the US Constitution really want a political system where ordinary people had a say?

The answer is an emphatic no.

A few years ago, I visited the stately home of Thomas Jefferson near Charlottesville, Virginia – a beautiful estate called Monticello. I was attending a conference on democracy where Jefferson had been lauded repeatedly as a father of freedom and rights enshrined in a written constitution. So, you can imagine how faces dropped when our guide sheepishly informed us that Monticello was in fact a slave plantation – and Jefferson not only owned about 100 slaves at any one time but had a slave mistress.

It is true that in 1776, Jefferson denounced the “execrable commerce” in slaves and was instrumental in having the words “all men are created equal” inserted into the Constitution. Early on, some southern states amended that to all “freemen”. And Jefferson himself fell silent on the issue over time. Abolitionists became exasperated at the great man’s silence leading a 19th century Abolitionist, Moncure Conway, to sneer: “Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do”.

But it wasn’t just slaves who would find no freedom in the new utopia of the United States. The poor and women could forget any prospect of the vote or having their opinions taken on board.

FIND OUT MORE: Roman slavery and American slavery – what was the difference?

Founding Fathers – no poor or women in our democracy

John Adams was appalled at the idea of those without property having the vote. “Few men, who have no property, have any judgement of their own,” he wrote. Instead, the propertyless will always be manipulated by those with property – so best they don’t get the vote!

As for women:

“…Why exclude women?  Because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience, in the great business of life, and the hardy enterprises of war, as well as the arduous cares of state. Besides their attention is so much engaged with the necessary nurture of their children that nature has made them fittest for domestic cares.”

Not that his attitude towards women being involved in politics was much different to any other privileged male of the time. And in fairness, female suffrage was still in the far distance in Europe as well as the United States.

The very idea of a Republic was a rejection of rule by the mob. Foreign Policy magazine has just published an interesting opinion piece on this. James Madison, for example, despised the notion of a hereditary monarch and rule by an aristocratic dynasty. But he sure has hell didn’t want to see it replaced with rule by the masses. Individual liberty was as much to do with wealthy individuals being protected from the rabble as it was to do with freedom of expression.

Which is why many of those who think they are acting in the spirit of Founding Fathers are doing completely the opposite. The 2021 Capitol Hill rioters may have cited the Founding Fathers in defence of their action but what they did is everything the Founding Fathers feared. In fact, the US Constitution was framed exactly in anticipation of such direct intervention by the mob in political affairs.

Madison believed direct rule by the people – such as existed in ancient Greece – unleashed populism over rationalism. He wrote in The Federalist Papers:

“In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever characters composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason.”

He hoped that America’s sheer size, even in his day, would prevent the people from being able to organise effectively to put pressure or even threaten the government. Of course, there were media outlets back then – newspapers – but they were run by the same class of people as sat in the Senate. Little could Madison have anticipated the democratic and anarchic horror of social media – with its power to organise over vast areas.

DISCOVER: American conservatives and the Portuguese dictator Salazar

President-for-life – yes, this was actually proposed!

Alexander Hamilton was lionised in a recent musical production that mocked the supposed tyranny of King George III of England. But Hamilton rather undemocratically thought that both the President and the Senate should be elected for life. Once in power, they would never have to face the people again. He thought this would lead to a better quality of decision making.

George Washington recognised the need to give the people a voice in the system. He didn’t mind the House of Representatives letting off steam on behalf of the electorate because, as he put it, things would cool off in the “Senatorial saucer”.

The Senate would be key to stopping the people running things. It would be an august assembly of the finest citizens (for which read white slave owning men). And similar types of people would sit in the electoral college and choose the President after the masses had going through the charade of making a choice.

Before 1913 and the passing of the 17th amendment, the Senate strictly speaking wasn’t even directly elected. State legislatures chose their two senators and sent them to Washington DC. Two of the Founding Fathers, Roger Sherman and Elbridge Gerry, thought the House of Representatives shouldn’t be directly elected either.

People power and democracy as we understand it was about as far from the Founding Fathers’ vision as you could get. They viewed themselves as an educated and rationally minded elite making the best decisions for an unruly nation. What they would make of the United States today is anybody’s guess.

women vote

Women denying women the vote!

You might find yourself scratching your head at this but in the early 20th century, not only were there women campaigning for the vote but some arguing AGAINST females joining the electoral register.

How could that be? Well, take for example the imposing intellectual figure of Mary Humphrey Ward. She had campaigned for an all-women’s college at Oxford university but when it came to votes for women – political equality with men – she wasn’t having it.

DISCOVER: Women in history – scandal and myth!

Ward was the highest paid female novelist in Britain in the first decades of the 20th century. The J K Rowling, in financial and fame terms, of her day. Her nephew, Aldous Huxley, went on to write Brave New World – yes, the book that the recent TV series is based on.

Ward became a leading light in the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage League, an organisation dominated by men – surprise! It commanded huge audiences at its rallies and exercised considerable influence in political circles. Ward’s opposition to women getting the vote was a combination of instincts, prejudices and some rational arguments.

It rested in part on the notion that women are ‘different’ and equality isn’t necessarily the best outcome. This is still a moot point among some feminists today.

It also underscores the hostility some feminists feel at the current time towards transsexuals. The whole ‘terfs’ versus ‘trans’ row you can witness every day on Twitter. Being a woman is a unique proposition in other words. It’s not just about having the same deal as men. And women are different – therefore equal treatment isn’t automatically progressive. The thinking runs.

DISCOVER: The vampire Countess Bathory!

Ward disliked the methods of the ‘suffragettes’, who were viewed by polite society as verging on terrorists. There was also her squeamishness about lesbians – of which there were a few among the campaigners for women’s rights. As a Victorian lady, Ward wasn’t that open minded on the issue!

Many of those who campaigned alongside her supported the use of vicious and unpleasant postcards demeaning women as essentially thick or feckless – so undeserving of the vote. They also warned men that women’s suffrage would result in them doing all the housework. Oh horror!

Ward, however, was more sophisticated in her opinions. The idea of difference being paramount comes across strongly in her writing:

Women are not ‘undeveloped men’ but diverse, and the more complex the development of any state, the more diverse. Difference not inferiority – it is on that we take our stand.

She assigned to women the roles of mother and carer. And worried that involvement in national political affairs would corrupt their true nature. However, Ward didn’t oppose women being involved in running local schools, hospitals and charities because she thought that was an extension of their domestic housekeeping role.

FIND OUT MORE: LGBT men hanged in London in the 18th century

She did support the idea of a Ministry for Women, but operating alongside parliament – not in it. And Ward suggested reserved seats for women on local councils. But whatever the subtle nuances of her position, and the popularity she undoubtedly had, the first world war proved to be a dynamo for change, demolishing all opposition to universal suffrage.

Despite continuing opposition, votes for women were eventually conceded. And by the time of Ward’s death in 1920, her views were already looking incredibly reactionary. So much so that the novelist Virginia Woolf even mocked her in a very catty obituary.

The urban gang that terrorised Georgian London!

So you think urban gangs are a modern phenomenon? Well, 18th century Georgian London was horrified by the activities of the Black Boy Alley gang who showed no mercy to their victims but came to a pretty gruesome end themselves!

Let me take you back to the early 18th century and the wickedness of a group of criminals known as the Black Boy Alley gang. They operated very near to what is now Holborn Circus – or “midtown” as estate agents like to call it. I worked around this part of London as a journalist for many years and it’s a kind of intermediate zone between the City of London in the east and the bustling shops of the West End.

The story of this gang turned up in a book published in 1817 from my large collection of old London related volumes going back three hundred years. The book is called A History and Description of London and was probably written around ten years before by David Hughson – whose real name was Edward Pugh.

DISCOVER MORE: Two LGBT men hanged in 18th century London

It consists of a series of walks through the city that includes some really nasty areas. Hughson seemed determined to expose his readers to the sleazier side of London life! The streets he mentions once led off what is now Holborn Circus roundabout towards the meat market at Smithfield. Saffron Hill is still there but Chick Lane and Black Boy Alley have gone – and maybe not surprisingly!

Black Boy Alley was where a gang operated from in Georgian London

Because under the reign of King George II (reigned 1727 to 1760), Black Boy Alley was “the terror of the whole city” – according to Hughson. The Black Boy Alley Gang used prostitutes to lure passers-by into the grubby tenements. These hapless individuals were then gagged, robbed and murdered. Their bodies were unceremoniously thrown into a ditch with all the city rubbish.

Women played a prominent role in the crimes and three were executed in 1743. These included Ann Duck and Ann Barefoot (I’m not making these names up!!). A man called George Cheshire survived an attack by both of them in nearby Chick Lane. Duck and Barefoot beat Cheshire giving him some severe cuts and bruises. In total, they stole four pence. And for that crime – both women were hanged.

Sarah Bartlet and Martha Ewers were sentenced to transportation for luring a man called Robert Copperthwait into a house on Black Boy Alley and relieving him of his watch. Lucky for him he wasn’t murdered but inexplicably decided to return and they mugged him again – this time taking his money.

FIND OUT MORE: How to talk like a Victorian Londoner

The gang included a 21-year-old local lad known as Gugg (real name William Billingsley). He had gone to the free school to learn to read and write but crime was way more attractive than working as a lamp lighter. Then there was Thomas Well, reputed to be the husband of Ann Barefoot mentioned above. At his trial, he was said to have been “much addicted to vile women and drinking, swearing, gaming and every other destructive vice”.

Then there was Dillsey (real name William Brister) and a fourteen-year-old called Scampey (real name Henry Gadd). At his trial, Scampey was asked who was his Redeemer and instead of saying “Jesus”, he scandalised the court by yelling “the Devil!”. Another gang member was a Frenchman called Sulspice du Clot who was a Roman Catholic, as was an Irish gang member, Patrick Bourk.

The Black Boy Alley gang also had two Jewish members: Benjamin David Woolfe who was born in Prague, then part of Bohemia and now the capital of the Czech Republic. And Hannah Moses was from Frankfurt. She had seen her husband executed in February 1743 in London for robbing a silversmith.

The law eventually caught up with the gang and a staggering nineteen were executed on a single day at Tyburn gallows – near where Marble Arch is today at the end of Oxford Street. The mass hanging took place on Christmas Eve 1744. Gugg, Dillsey, young Scampey, the Frenchman Sulspice and the two Jewish gang members all swung from the end of a rope in front of a large, festive crowd.

And so ended the terror of the Black Boy Alley gang!

Women in history – scandal and myth!

Not crushed to death by a horse

Women have had a tough time breaking through in history. Up against societies where men were told they ruled the roots – women had had to exercise power against all odds. Sometimes behind the scenes and other times up front.

But when women have managed to get to the top in history – they’ve been demonised or subjected to myth making and invented scandals. In short, women in history have been the subject of fake news. And the image we have of many famous female historical figures is entirely from the poison pens of male historians of the time.

WOMEN IN HISTORY: Catherine the Great

Oh, you must have heard how Catherine the Great of Russia died. The horse. The harness that broke. How it fell on top of her. What she was trying to do at the time with the horse.

I’ve heard that tale for decades going back to university. The myth that one of Russia’s most powerful historical rulers was killed when she attempted to have equine intercourse. The story, folks, is total bunkum – nonsense – 100% tripe.

But myths like this about great women persist. If anything, with social media they are reviving and spreading more than ever. This maliciously amusing lie about Catherine the Great is believed to have originated in France among catty royal courtiers who wanted to mock Russia’s ambition to be a world power. How better to do that than denigrate the late female tsar.

WOMEN IN HISTORY: The Empress Livia – wife of Augustus

Women in history have always been the subject of the most resilient myths. Ambitious, clever females have been systematically rubbished by male chroniclers. The Roman Empire is a good example. Take the wife of the first emperor Augustus. Livia was the mother of the people and brainy consort of her husband the emperor. But she was also cast as a serial poisoner.

The historian Tacitus accused her of framing and being complicit in the murder of some of her rivals. The very bitchy Roman writer Suetonius echoed these claims.

And then Cassius Dio, a very respected Roman source, went as far as to claim that she ended up murdering Augustus by smearing poison on figs she knew he would eat. These accusations were all repeated in the 20th century novel I, Claudius by Robert Graves, later made into an excellent BBC TV drama in the 1970s.

Why would Livia have poisoned as many people as these historians claimed? Because it’s alleged she was clearing a path for her son Tiberius to become the second emperor. There is no evidence whatsoever to support an association between Livia and about twenty deaths attributed to her. Yet, the crimes have stuck like glue damaging her reputation down the centuries.

WOMEN IN HISTORY: Roman female politicians

Roman women clearly exercised very real power and got trashed for doing so. The mother of Nero, Agrippina the Younger, was accused of poisoning her husband the emperor Claudius (who was also her uncle).

And then there’s the wife of Mark Antony – not Cleopatra, but a lesser known woman called Fulvia. She was hated by the great Roman orator Cicero who spoke out against her on several occasions. One unsubstantiated account has her receiving his head after he was executed for treason and piercing his tongue with her gold hairpins.

WOMEN IN HISTORY: Lucrezia Borgia

Fast forward to Italy during the Renaissance and we have the scandalous history of Lucrezia Borgia. The first shocking fact – true as it happens – is that she was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Yes, you read that correctly. The pope had a daughter. And other children. Pope Alexander indeed freely admitted to having fathered several kids from his mistresses.

His reputation has been undermined as a result with his family, the Borgias, painted as corrupt and libertine. But at the time, Pope Alexander was deemed to have been one of the most cultured and successful popes in history.

One of his children, Cesare Borgia, was an ambitious statesman who was the inspiration for Machiavelli’s book The Prince. While Lucrezia was also a very talented political operator but she was cast as …. yet another serial poisoner.

Women who murdered were normally expected to use poison. The idea being that they were too physically weak to resort to something more physical. And drugging also revealed underhand feminine guile and cunning. So, the gossip went, Lucrezia concealed poison in her ring that she slipped into her victims’ drinks.

The stories about the Borgias holding orgies and having incest spread from two very hostile sources. One was the growing Protestant faith, which viewed the early 16th century Vatican as a corrupt Babylon of vice and depravity. The other source was the radical preacher Girolamo Savonarola who accused Pope Alexander of being in league with the devil. His repeated denunciations of the papacy led to him being burned to death in 1498.

WOMEN IN HISTORY: Anne Boleyn

I’ll finish with Anne Boleyn – the second wife of Henry VIII – beheaded when she was unable to bear her king a son. Anne was ambitious but no more so than any other woman of her rank.

She was just better and brighter when it came to getting what she wanted. In the end, she paid with her head with charges trumped up against her that were clearly over the top. Incest with her brother being one calumny thrown at her.

And in addition, Catholic propagandists – who disliked the Protestant Anne – spread the entirely false rumour that she had a sixth finger on her right hand. Obviously a sign of being a witch! Anne’s remains were exhumed in the 19th century and there was no sign of an extra digit!

No sign of a sixth finger on her right hand

As you can see, being a woman in history has been tough – let’s hope it’s getting easier from here on in!

The vampire Countess Bathory!

Bathory
Don’t accept that invitation to dinner!

Countess Bathory isn’t that well known outside of her native Slovakia but she really ought to be. This was a real-life female vampire aristocrat who had young women round for dinner – and then, literally – had them for dinner.

She indulged her vampiric passions with gusto!

The other day, I met a Slovakian gentleman called Lukáš in the English town of Farnborough who had seen me on TV talking history and was very keen to share the story of this murderous noble woman from his country.

Her name was the Countess Elizabeth Bathory de Ecsed (1560 to 1614). And she is believed to have tortured and killed up to 650 women between 1585 and 1609.

Yes – you didn’t misread that – six hundred and fifty women.

Most infamously, the vampire Countess Bathory was accused of bathing in the blood of victims who were virgins at the time of their death. The reason? To remain young of course!

It may not be surprising therefore to discover that her uncle was the highest ranking official in Transylvania – the mountainous land where the fictional Dracula had his castle. Well, that’s according to the nineteenth century Anglo-Irish author Bram Stoker.

Eventually, crimes of the blood soaked countess were brought to the attention of the Holy Roman Emperor who ordered an investigation. Some three hundred witnesses all but fell over each other to spill the beans on the vampire princess.

They had seen the vampire Bathory abducting peasant girls and biting at their flesh or burning them with red hot tongs – before ending their lives.

Worse, from the point of view of the aristocracy, this ghoulish killer had even enticed girls of high birth to her castle. She had promised them lessons in etiquette. What they actually got was a lesson in why not to trust the vampire countess Bathory!

She tried to plead her innocence but the evidence was pretty overwhelming. Although the death penalty was called for, it was decided that as an aristocratic woman, she would endure something more refined but equally terminal.

The vampire Bathory was walled up in a small series of rooms with a big enough gap to pass her food. It took four years for this royal serial killer to die.