Gangs of New York- Draft Riot Scene

The Mob: I thought I was reading Livy for a second. One notices a more systemic attempt if one looks at a map of old New York and the addresses discussed. Far more planned out and more disciplined in execution than say the LA riots. The rich and their colored scabs were targeted and to the extent possible liberated from this world or at least its goods. There were some 126 killed, 11 lynched negroes, and some 2000 person injured in the riots. Much more here: http://www.google.com/search?q=new+york+draft+riots+of+1863&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Mobs are different from gangs. They do white collar as opposed to "blue collar" crime.

Most blacks on the east coast are hustlers, not gangsters.

Metal Gear wrote:Mobs are different from gangs. They do white collar as opposed to "blue collar" crime.

Most blacks on the east coast are hustlers, not gangsters.

In the sense it was being used 'mob' means the masses particularly the poorer masses. It is not being used to mean 'gangsters' in our modern sense.

AlbertCurtis wrote:The rich and their colored scabs

The whole point of massive Irish immigration was to serve that same essential function. The resentment towards the African-American population, in the context of the case in question, had less to do with their economic role in society (after all, in the South, their function as slaves was even more economically detrimental to the prospects of free White workers) than it did with the fact that many White northerners resented the notion of going to war for their collective emancipation.

Admin wrote:

AlbertCurtis wrote:The rich and their colored scabs

The whole point of massive Irish immigration was to serve that same essential function.

Well actually there was NO over arching 'point', this would imply that there was a plan, but the effect of the historical currents of that time were more or less as you say, a depression of wages more or less across the board, was caused by mass Irish immigration; a depression that would ONLY get worse with the added free negroes who went north after the war I might add...

The resentment towards the African-American population, in the context of the case in question, had less to do with their economic role in society (after all, in the South, their function as slaves was even more economically detrimental to the prospects of free White workers) than it did with the fact that many White northerners resented the notion of going to war for their collective emancipation.

I do not view it as an either/or situation, or at least not in these terms, to my mind it is more of a matter of the two above multiplying each others effect upon the 'native' population. Look at it like this: A group of persons are lowering your wages; then you are commanded to die for those like him a thousand miles away, so that MORE of them can come on in and lower your wages further....yeah violence is pretty certain, among any thinking group of people.

AlbertCurtis wrote:Well actually there was NO over arching 'point', this would imply that there was a plan

The "point" of immigration was to solve, what employers felt was, a chronic "labor shortage." Capitalists in the emerging industries of the United States were having a difficult time attracting and retaining domestic citizens to be wage slaves in their factories—due to the fact Americans, at that time, could easily get land in the newly acquired Western states and live a relatively isolated, agrarian lifestyle—and thus were encouraging the Federal government to increase immigration as much as possible. This is a structural features of capitalism, since inflating the size of the labor market ultimately depresses wages and disciplines labor.

Celtiberian wrote:

AlbertCurtis wrote:Well actually there was NO over arching 'point', this would imply that there was a plan

The "point" of immigration was to solve, what employers felt was, a chronic "labor shortage." Capitalists in the emerging industries of the United States were having a difficult time attracting and retaining domestic citizens to be wage slaves in their factories—due to the fact Americans, at that time, could easily get land in the newly acquired Western states and live a relatively isolated, agrarian lifestyle—and thus were encouraging the Federal government to increase immigration as much as possible.

'Employers' as an abstract have NO feelings, again they are NOT real in the sense that Bob the Butcher is real. Is there a group of people that employ people? Yes, surely, however the group as such has NO feelings and is not a person of any kind.

That aside, your analysis of the cause(s) of early immigration to America neglects the undisputed fact that land speculators, largely based in New England, New York City and the Deep South had a great deal to do with those people going and enjoying a rural agarian life style.

The Northern ones would have been 'employers' in the largest sense -- at such manufactures as were then in place, and that was sparse -- and the Southern ones were largely slave holders, BUT both where largely land owners one being based upon the proto-urban areas and the other more rural: shipping the free White population off to the boonies was to their mutual advantage -- it left the better, low fertile farm land to be tilled by their slaves, and indentured servants, and brought in monies for capital enterprises, and sent the new arrivals to be a picket against the native tribes, who were not peaceful in the least. That is the same basic 'group' or more precisely groups of interlocking groups, hired them if they were as you say it 'wage slaves', OR if they 'went West' as the saying goes.

Also America in 1781 had a very low population density and perhaps 10 major cities of consequence; it was NOT industrialized to any great extent as the English Crown had keep it as much as possible dependent upon British manufactures. America began as an agricultural colony.

The South because it relied upon cotton and slaves never did become independent of foreign manufactures and when it went to war with the north, could not supply its munitions or other basic needs, for instance shoes or boots -- not wise.

AlbertCurtis wrote:

Celtiberian wrote:

AlbertCurtis wrote:Well actually there was NO over arching 'point', this would imply that there was a plan

The "point" of immigration was to solve, what employers felt was, a chronic "labor shortage." Capitalists in the emerging industries of the United States were having a difficult time attracting and retaining domestic citizens to be wage slaves in their factories—due to the fact Americans, at that time, could easily get land in the newly acquired Western states and live a relatively isolated, agrarian lifestyle—and thus were encouraging the Federal government to increase immigration as much as possible.

'Employers' as an abstract have NO feelings, again they are NOT real in the sense that Bob the Butcher is real. Is there a group of people that employ people? Yes, surely, however the group as such has NO feelings and is not a person of any kind.

That aside, your analysis of the cause(s) of early immigration to America neglects the undisputed fact that land speculators, largely based in New England, New York City and the Deep South had a great deal to do with those people going and enjoying a rural agarian life style.

The Northern ones would have been 'employers' in the largest sense -- at such manufactures as were then in place, and that was sparse -- and the Southern ones were largely slave holders, BUT both where largely land owners one being based upon the proto-urban areas and the other more rural: shipping the free White population off to the boonies was to their mutual advantage -- it left the better, low fertile farm land to be tilled by their slaves, and indentured servants, and brought in monies for capital enterprises, and sent the new arrivals to be a picket against the native tribes, who were not peaceful in the least. That is the same basic 'group' or more precisely groups of interlocking groups, hired them if they were as you say it 'wage slaves', OR if they 'went West' as the saying goes.

Also America in 1781 had a very low population density and perhaps 10 major cities of consequence; it was NOT industrialized to any great extent as the English Crown had keep it as much as possible dependent upon British manufactures. America began as an agricultural colony.

The South because it relied upon cotton and slaves never did become independent of foreign manufactures and when it went to war with the north, could not supply its munitions or other basic needs, for instance shoes or boots -- not wise.

A nation's immigration policy does not simply generate spontaneously. It is implemented in the political sphere, but we know that under capitalism the true course of action is predetermined in the economic sphere by the capitalist class. Immigrants were granted access to American shores en masse due to the demand for labor by capitalists. If one studies the history of immigration policies in any country in the West, one comes to realize that all initial and subsequent "waves" of modern immigration were the result of economic incentives. This is quite transparent with regard to the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, etc.

Rev Scare wrote:A nation's immigration policy does not simply generate spontaneously. It is implemented in the political sphere, but we know that under capitalism the true course of action is predetermined in the economic sphere by the capitalist class. Immigrants were granted access to American shores en masse due to the demand for labor by capitalists. If one studies the history of immigration policies in any country in the West, one comes to realize that all initial and subsequent "waves" of modern immigration were the result of economic incentives. This is quite transparent with regard to the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, etc.

So here are the basic rules for becoming a naturalized citizen in the early republic:

March 26 1790 An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.(a) (repealed by act of January 29, 1795, ch, 20)
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled.

That any alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of at least one year, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States, which oath or affirmation such court shall administer, and the clerk of such court shall record such application and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States. And the children of such persons so naturalized dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. ...

http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=226

great amount of information about legal proceedings of congress here: http://rs6.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/lwsl.html

The act that replaced this can be found here.

http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=537

Couple those with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Ordinance_of_1785

The Ordinance of 1784 was a resolution written by Thomas Jefferson (delegate from Virginia) calling for Congress to take action. The land west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River was to be divided into ten separate states.[2] However, the 1784 resolution did not define the mechanism by which the land would become states, or how the territories would be governed or settled before they became states. The Ordinance of 1785 put the 1784 resolution in operation by providing a mechanism for selling and settling the land,[3] while the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 addressed political needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance

Arguably the single most important piece of legislation passed by members of the earlier Continental Congresses other than the Declaration of Independence, it established the precedent by which the United States would expand westward across North America by the admission of new states, rather than by the expansion of existing states.

Further, the prohibition of slavery in the territory had the effect of establishing the Ohio River as the boundary between free and slave territory in the region between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.

And later: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Act

The Homestead Act is one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "Homestead" –typically 160 acres (65 hectares or one-fourth section) of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River. The law required three steps: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, including freed slaves, could file an application to claim a federal land grant. The occupant also had to be 21 or older, had to live on the land for five years and show evidence of having made improvements. The original Homestead Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862.

Because much of the prime low-lying alluvial land along rivers had been homesteaded by the turn of the twentieth century, a major update called the Enlarged Homestead Act was passed in 1909. It targeted land suitable for dryland farming, increasing the number of acres to 320. In 1916, the Stock-Raising Homestead Act targeted settlers seeking 640 acres (260 ha) of public land for ranching purposes.[7]

And you have a lot of encouragement to settle outside of urban centers away from were industry normally congregates, and further to be more or less 'free', no? Why? Why was not the way West shut off and so any immigrants forced more or less to stay on the Eastern sea board? If the goal was to solely ensure a wage earning under class for industry, which is again largely an urban phenomena, why make the corral so porous, and why encourage them to not remain as wage slaves?

AlbertCurtis wrote:So here are the basic rules for becoming a naturalized citizen in the early republic:

Policies at that point in the country's history are largely irrelevant, as the U.S. was not yet industrialized and thus modern capitalism was not yet an institutionalized phenomenon (large scale agricultural production via slave and indentured labor was the order of the day). As the country evolved past that model — and began to move towards modern industrial capitalist production — our immigration policies followed suit. Once modest immigration policies, based upon a framework encouraging the expansion of the American republic's domain, evolved into a policy of expanding an emerging industrial labor force.

Admin wrote:

AlbertCurtis wrote:So here are the basic rules for becoming a naturalized citizen in the early republic:

Policies at that point in the country's history are largely irrelevant, as the U.S. was not yet industrialized and thus modern capitalism was not yet an institutionalized phenomenon (large scale agricultural production via slave and indentured labor was the order of the day).

The beginning of a thing is the most important part to grasp; it can NEVER be irrelevant to a full understanding. What a thing starts as helps to shape the things that will follow. In fact it could be argued that was is inherent in a thing is ALL it can ever express.

As the country evolved past that model — and began to move towards modern industrial capitalist production — our immigration policies followed suit. Once modest immigration policies, based upon a framework encouraging the expansion of the American republic's domain, evolved into a policy of expanding an emerging industrial labor force.

The reality is that most immigration did not go to the urban areas until a very long time after the Revolution, maybe 1900ish, maybe just a tad latter than that, and this is AFTER America was a very industrialized nation. If the goal was to capture a servile labor force, allowing them to 'flee over the mountain' does not make much sense, in the first instance now does it? Much like one does not put men in prisons to allow them to escape, you do not bring in cheap labor to merely allow it to use the Homestead act(s),and thus become land owners free and clear.

IN Europe, Britain particularly laws were passed that expelled the people off of the lands and forced them into more or less being either indentured servants or early wage workers -- 'enclosure of the commons' I believe is the phrase used to describe the events in case you are interested. Why was this NOT done here, if the goal was much the same? And NO it was not, at least not by affirmative law it was not. And why if the goal was to ensure a servile landless urban industrial work force was the Homestead Act allowed to stand in place for some 100 years -- the very same 100 years industrial capitalism was in fact built I might add.

AlbertCurtis wrote:The beginning of a thing is the most important part to grasp; it can NEVER be irrelevant to a full understanding. What a thing starts as helps to shape the things that will follow. In fact it could be argued that was is inherent in a thing is ALL it can ever express.

Let's not obscure the matter at hand with such abstractions. What I argued was that almost all of the history you cited was irrelevant to the point made by' Rev Scare'. He was specifically referring to a time in American history when a specific form of economic interest stood to benefit from a particular policy (in this case, immigration benefiting the bourgeois class).

The reality is that most immigration did not go to the urban areas until a very long time after the Revolution, maybe 1900ish, maybe just a tad latter than that, and this is AFTER America was a very industrialized nation.

America was not an industrialized country at the time of the revolution. During the Civil War epoch, the country was in the process of industrializing, but was by no means a "very industrialized nation". (The Southern states, for instance, did not begin to move towards serious industrial development until after the Civil War.)

If the goal was to capture a servile labor force, allowing them to 'flee over the mountain' does not make much sense, in the first instance now does it? Much like one does not put men in prisons to allow them to escape, you do not bring in cheap labor to merely allow it to use the Homestead act(s),and thus become land owners free and clear.

As I previously noted, much of the policy that corresponds the aforementioned framework was implemented before the United States had reached any meaningful level of industrial development. Also, part of the overall idea of providing immigrants with incentives to settle the frontiers was to pursue a policy of political conquest throughout the North American continent. (Another part of it was indeed ideological — owing its origins to Jeffersonian Democracy.) Cases of similar policies being pursued during (primarily early) points the country's industrialization period were based on similar sorts of considerations. (Manifest Destiny was an extremely popular belief within the United States throughout much of the 1800s.)

IN Europe, Britain particularly laws were passed that expelled the people off of the lands and forced them into more or less being either indentured servants or early wage workers -- 'enclosure of the commons' I believe is the phrase used to describe the events in case you are interested. Why was this NOT done here, if the goal was much the same?

No one is suggesting that the international bourgeoisie is some monolithic entity, single-handedly shaping every policy of every capitalist country in some homogenized fashion. What I am suggesting, however, is that capitalist countries function in a capacity in which the overarching interests of capital and the policies of the state happen to coincide to a significant extent. The nature of the relationship between capital and the state will differ depending upon a given context. (For example, that relationship within the context of the contemporary United States obviously differs from the relationship within, say, Pinochet's Chile.) This, however, does not mean that the interests of capital are not of decisive relevance to the affairs of the state.

Therefore I do not expect the United States, as a capitalist country, to have pursued every policy that capitalist Britain did in its sad history anymore than I expect to see Chiquita Banana death squads on U.S. soil.

And NO it was not, at least not by affirmative law it was not. And why if the goal was to ensure a servile landless urban industrial work force was the Homestead Act allowed to stand in place for some 100 years -- the very same 100 years industrial capitalism was in fact built I might add.

This entire point of yours is little more than a red herring. Capital may not have stood to benefit from such policies as the Homestead Act anymore than it stood to benefit from the Wagner Act. The fact that such policies were implemented, however, does not mean that the bourgeois class did not stand to benefit from numerous other policies enacted during the same time periods; nor does it discount the fact that (bourgeois) interest groups were involved in shaping those other policies. On this point, there can be no doubt that capital was/is one of the primary forces behind the state's position regarding immigration.

So the fact that there may have been some policies in place which served to undermine the relative extent by which capital stood to benefit from mass immigration does not somehow nullify the fact that capital had an interest in maintaining an open immigration policy. Sure, the outcomes may not have been as ideal as they would have been otherwise, but that is inconsequential to the overall point. What you're arguing is akin to arguing that capital should have no culpability in the case of a country repealing its minimum wage laws if the same country has a law on the books that upholds workers rights to collectively bargain.