Our History

Dear Washingtonians:

In response to what I wrote in the last issue of themail about the exhibition of the Emancipation Proclamation this weekend at the National Archives, Timothy Cooper brings up what is today, and has been for several decades, the central debate in the United States over history and the nature of this nation. This is a good topic to discuss at the end of the year. Do we teach students Oliver Stone’s version of American history, in which this country is the evil empire, the worst nation ever to exist, in which no one ever had good motives? Or do we teach a version of American history that includes the good and even the heroic?

Tim brings up an argument that I’ve been having for over forty years, since Oscar Handlin and I argued over the nature of the Civil War during my honors oral examination in college. I don’t want to elevate myself to the level of an eminent American historian, but on that occasion I was right and Handlin was wrong. Handlin maintained, to oversimplify him, that the Civil War was really the result of economic competition between the industrialists of the North and the pastorialists of the South. I held, and still hold, that the cause of the Civil War was slavery, that Northerners and Southeners fought over abolishing or maintaining slavery. Handlin thought my view was naive. I thought, and still think, that his view was overly and needlessly cynical. Could both of us find evidence for our positions, and find quotes from contemporaries of the Civil War to support our positions? Could Handlin find Northerners who wrote that they didn’t care whether the slaves were freed? Of course. But could millions of men have been convinced to fight a war, to kill hundreds of thousands of men, to die themselves, for the cause of maintaining the economic superiority of large factory owners or of large plantation owners? Of course not.

There were great causes and great movements in American history, and we shortchange students when we try to convince them that there is nothing to honor in that history.

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Deborah Simmons writes in The Washington Times that "Dark-Blue DC [Is] in Dire Need of Diversity — of Ideology," http://tinyurl.com/a96bkqh. That’s true, but how do we revitalize DC politics by creating a real competition between political ideologies? When the national Republican party is in such dire straits, can it devote its energy and attention to the state Republican party in the District of Columbia? The Republicans lost the last presidential election by a couple of percentage points, and both they and the Democrats are reacting to that close election as though it was a decisive and overwhelming national rejection of everything the Republican party ever stood for. Can a party in a moment of such unsureness rebuild itself by concentrating on its weakest links? Can it afford not it?

Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com

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The City Council in 2013
Dorothy Brizill, dorothy@dcwatch.com

At 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, January 2, the swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected and reelected members of the city council (Jack Evans, Muriel Bowser, Yvette Alexander, Marion Barry, and David Grosso) will take place in Ballroom A of the Washington Convention Center. The swearing-in ceremony for the State Board of Education, statehood representatives, and advisory neighborhood commissioners will be held at 2:00 p.m. in the same location.

At an administrative meeting of the council on December 20, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson released his reorganization plan and committee assignments for the council. In 2013, for council legislative period 20, there will be ten committees including a separate and distinct Education Committee. The freshman councilmembers, Grosso and Anita Bonds, will not chair committees. With regards to the chairmanships, Mendelson’s selection of David Catania to head Education, Tommy Wells to head Judiciary, and Alexander to oversee Health have raised some eyebrows and concerns, since these councilmembers have never been associated with or been particularly concerned about the issues their committees will oversee. Moreover, Catania’s penchant for micromanaging agencies under his purview when he chaired the Health Committee, as well as Jim Graham’s controversial past handling of the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration as chair of the Committee on Human Services, which he will continue to head, could spark a small revolt when councilmembers hold their first legislative meeting, following the swearing-in ceremony, to consider and adopt Mendelson’s proposed committee structure.

At the December 20 administrative meeting, Mendelson also announced that he had selected Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie to serve as Chairman Pro Tempore of the council. McDuffie just joined the council in May, after winning the special election to fill Harry Thomas, Jr.’s, vacated seat. Mendelson’s selection of McDuffie to fill the number two leadership post on the council surprised Wilson building observers. Many observers, including myself, noted that neither McDuffie, though bright and pleasant, nor his novice staff were knowledgeable about the administrative procedures or legislative history of issues that will come before the council. By selecting McDuffie, Mendelson made a conscious decision to pass over Jack Evans, the longest serving member of the council, who had previously served as Chairman Pro Tempore for many years until replaced by then Council Chairman Kwame Brown. Longtime Mendelson observers, however, were not surprised by his selection of McDuffie. They noted that Mendelson has never been known for his leadership skills, and that he probably didn’t want to choose someone who would be in a strong position, either on the council or as a potential mayoral candidate, to challenge him. Others noted that Mendelson, as a white man leading the council, wanted to demonstrate racial balance by selecting McDuffie, a young African American, to serve as his principal deputy on the council,

Proposed council assignments for council period 20:

Phil Mendelson, Chairman, Chairman of the Committee of the Whole
Kenyan McDuffie, Chairman Pro Tempore

Workforce and Community Affairs, Marion Barry, Chairman; Yvette Alexander, Jim Graham, Kenyan McDuffie, Tommy Wells
Economic Development, Muriel Bowser, Chairman; Anita Bonds, Jack Evans, Kenyan McDuffie, Vincent Orange
Finance and Revenue, Jack Evans, Chairman; Marion Barry, Muriel Bowser, David Catania, David Grosso
Health, Yvette Alexander, Chairman; Anita Bonds, David Catania, David Grosso, Vincent Orange
Judiciary, Tommy Wells, Chairman; Anita Bonds, Muriel Bowser, Mary Cheh, Jack Evans
Business, Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Vincent Orange, Chairman; Yvette Alexander, Mary Cheh, Jim Graham, David Grosso
Education, David Catania, Chairman; Yvette Alexander, Marion Barry, David Grosso, Tommy Wells
Government Operations, Kenyan McDuffie, Chairman; Muriel Bowser, David Catania, Mary Cheh, Vincent Orange
Human Services, Jim Graham, Chairman; Marion Barry, Anita Bonds, Kenyan McDuffie, Tommy Wells
Transportation and the Environment, Mary Cheh, Chairman; Jack Evans, Jim Graham, Kenyan McDuffie, Tommy Wells

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Speed Cameras Don’t Save Lives — Not in DC
Jack McKay, jack.mckay@verizon.net

The Washington Examiner reports on December 25 ("District Traffic Cameras to More than Double Amid Record Revenues," http://tinyurl.com/af7b6ku) that Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Paul Quander has bought into the MPD claim that speed cameras save lives: "they save lives because people slow down," he says. But that plausible notion is not supported by actual traffic fatality data. As I wrote in the September 16, October 10, and October 17 issues of themail, the MPD assertion that photo enforcement can take credit for much of the reduction in traffic fatalities in DC is bogus.

If drivers were slowing down and driving more cautiously, then there ought to be fewer traffic collisions. But there’s no decrease in collisions consistent with the decrease in fatalities. Between 2007 and 2009, the number of collisions actually incread by 5 percent, while the number of traffic deaths decreased by 30 percent. Clearly the saving in lives is due to safer cars, offering greater protection to occupants collisions. If drivers were slowing down and driving more cautiously, then pedestrian deaths ought to be decreasing. But they’re not. The decrease in traffic fatalities is entirely in the occupants of cars, not pedestrians. Air bags can save people in cars from serious injury, but obviously do nothing for pedestrians.

Concerning speed cameras specifically, if speed cameras were effective in reducing traffic fatalities in DC, then one ought to see a decrease in speeding-related fatalities. But consider these numbers from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, for DC, for the years 2006 through 2010. Traffic fatalities: 37, 44, 34, 29, 24. The decline, by around half, is clear. Speeding-related traffic fatalities: 3, 8, 12, 10, 8. Basically, no change. Plainly speed cameras cannot be credited with the reduction in traffic fatalities in the District. No doubt speed cameras are effective out on high-speed highways, like the Beltway. But here in the District, where traffic speeds are low, no. The notion that speed cameras "save lives" in DC, as Deputy Mayor Quander asserts, is a myth.

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Emancipation Proclamation Revisited
Timothy Cooper, worldrights2008@gmail.com

Gary Imhoff’s good news post, "A New Birth of Freedom," refers to DC’s exhibition of the Emancipation Proclamation. We know that the proclamation served to order the Executive Branch and in particular the armed forces to free all enslaved persons in the ten southern states still in rebellion at the time and to treat them as finally and forever free, which amounted to upwards of three million slaves. A very spectacular deed, for sure. However, according to authors Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper in their tome, Empires in World History, Lincoln was not always about liberating the American slave. In fact, they argue, Lincoln fought the Civil War was first and foremost to hold the American polity together. Ending slavery was definitely secondary. Prior to war, Lincoln had declared that if it was possible, he’d "save the Union without freeing any slave." Lincoln’s administration even considered expelling slaves to distant colonies in far-flung lands, which reflected his administration’s reluctance to admit "blacks into the citizenry." But as the Union army began attracting into service more and more black soldiers and laborers, Lincoln and the Congress moved towards a blanket abolition in the form of the Emancipation Proclamation, in 1863, and then the Thirteenth Amendment, in 1865. But it was not an easy embrace of emancipation.