I have an essay today on Tropics of Meta about Ben Carson's new venture as head of a non-profit with a very unfortunate name:
HISTORIOGRAPHY FOR THE MASSES
April 26, 2021
Steven Lubet
Ben Carson’s Unfortunate Cornerstone
Dr. Ben Carson has a new gig as the head of something called the American Cornerstone Institute. It seems that the outfit exists primarily as a funding vehicle for the good doctor himself, but that should hardly raise an eyebrow in today’s Washington, D.C. The greater problem is that the operation’s poorly chosen name echoes an historically freighted pro-slavery declaration, issued on the eve of the Civil War.
The former presidential candidate, ex-secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and retired neurosurgeon’s not-for-profit think tank promises to “champion conservative solutions to the real problems our nation faces.” After four years of quiescence during the Trump administration, Carson now claims to have realized that values such as “compromise, compassion, and civility” have vanished from our political discourse, and he is determined to restore them.
The Cornerstone Institute is basically a one-man show. The website flogs Carson’s accomplishments, with multiple still photographs, video clips and pull-quotes touting his wisdom, insight, and principles, with no mention of anyone else. And of course, there are pitches for contributions. The Cornerstone Institute was only incorporated in February 2021, so it is too soon to obtain the IRS form with information on its top salaries, but it is a pretty safe bet that Carson is paying himself handsomely for what is essentially just a big exercise in self-promotion.
I don’t have any complaints about ex-Trump officials cashing in however they can. Carson wasn’t close enough to the president to write a tell-all book, he doesn’t seem to have the energetic people skills needed for lobbying, and he isn’t a lawyer. So that leaves think-tanking, with Carson evidently betting that he can do better on his own than he can working for one of the established right-wing outfits.
The actually disturbing thing about Carson’s endeavor is its name. “Cornerstone” seems obviously intended as a New Testament reference – although that is unmentioned on the website – but the word also has a much more poisonous association in American political history. It is odd that nobody appears to have warned Carson about it before he went public.
On March 21, 1861, Georgia’s Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the recently formed Confederate States of American, delivered what has come to be known as the Cornerstone Address, explaining the reasons for secession from the Union. He minced no words, defending slavery as the guiding principle of the Confederacy:
Our new government is founded . . . 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.
The Cornerstone Address came just seventeen days after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, at a time when only Georgia and six other states had announced their secession from the Union. As a former Whig, previously a staunch Unionist, and a one-time friend of Lincoln, Stephens’s bold pronouncement did much to brace the Confederate cause. The firing on Fort Sumter was only three weeks later, leading to the secession of four more states.
The Civil War would have happened with or without Stephens’s Cornerstone speech, but it was still a defining moment in the struggle over disunion, leaving no doubt that the purpose of the rebellion was the perpetuation of slavery.
The Cornerstone Address continues to play an important role in our understanding of the Civil War. When contemporary apologists for the Confederacy argue that secession was driven by states’ rights, tariffs, or the so-called “Lost Cause,” it takes only one look at the Cornerstone Address to refute their claims. The Confederacy was premised on White supremacy. It armies were assembled and battles were fought in the commission of treason in defense of slavery.
It is likely that Carson was unaware of the Cornerstone Address when he named his foundation. Perhaps he never studied antebellum history during his pre-med and medical school education at Yale and the University of Michigan. Even so, there may be some words that cannot be reclaimed or repurposed. Nobody today would choose “Confederacy” as the name for a respectable political organization, or “Stasi” for a government office (even though that is merely a German abbreviation for “State Security Service”). “Cornerstone” is not quite so notorious, but its historical association with slavery is nonetheless profound.
Ironically, the American Cornerstone Institute has launched its “A More Perfect Union Project,” aimed at “educating our citizens in civics and history.” The project quotes Lincoln’s reverence for the Declaration of Independence as “the immortal emblem of humanity,” without noting that the Great Emancipator gave his life to destroy Alexander Stephens’s vision for the cornerstone of a government founded on racial subordination.
In a recent oped in the Washington Post, Carson bemoaned a “subtle shift” in the national conversation about race “from equality to equity.” This is “un-American,” he said, because it assumes that “all differential outcomes between groups are solely the result of that bigotry and oppression.” From there, Carson predictably inveighed against affirmative action hiring programs, campaigns to support Black-owned businesses, and even local “anti-poverty stipends” that target people of color.
If the McCarthyist condemnation of liberal causes seems at odds with the Cornerstone Institute’s commitment to restoring civility, well, you just have to figure that Carson didn’t really mean it that way. Our goal, he says, is to “heal the divide that has polarized our great nation,” and the nasty bit must have just slipped out by accident. It seems that you can take the man out of the Trump administration, but it is not so easy to take the Trump administration out of the man.
In that light, I have a suggestion for Dr. Carson, assuming that he is truly concerned about the un-American implications of subtle language. Nothing was ever more un-American than the Confederacy, so he ought to consider dropping Alexander Stephens’s “cornerstone” in favor of a quotation from Abraham Lincoln. How about the “New Birth of Freedom Institute”?
This is a funny critique to me (but makes sense; its just odd). Surely the Bible reference is more widely known than the Cornerstone Address, which I am ashamed to say I did not know of either. It's like my HS English teacher pointing to a reference to a "house divided" as an allusion to Lincoln when another more famous person actually said it first.
I have to agree. This post is a real stretch.
"Steve's" constant condemnation of any person who dares to be a "conservative" or side with "conservative" causes seems at odds with the president's commitment to restoring civility.
We can surmise that our "Steve" has made no such commitment: any doubts? Read the post above.
Do you think America's mass exploitation of central and South Americans as cheap unskilled labor is more of a Lincoln or an Alexander type of deal, Steve?
"Nothing was ever more un-American than the Confederacy…"
What about the pro-Slavery, anti-Republicanism of the Tories who had to flee after 1783? Have you also completely failed to see the current totalitarianism of current American "progressives"/have you looked in the mirror lately?
Regarding Steve's comment about nothing being more un-American than the Confederacy those of you who question that may well do so with respect to other examples of egregious politics advocated by a sub-group (such as American Firstists in the 30s or the Ku Klux Klan). To be fair, none of these groups launched a full blown insurgency seeking independence from the Nation. Advocates of the Confederacy, then and now, are guilty of nothing less than being Anti-American. I would suggest that to be anti-American in this context also qualifies as un-American with far more accuracy than those who advocate for principles contained within the Constitution such as equality, democracy etc.
Thanks, Jeff. The Confederacy launched a treasonous war in defense of slavery, resulting in around 750,000 deaths with the majority on the Union side.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html#:~:text=For%20110%20years%2C%20the%20numbers,any%20war%20in%20American%20history.
The Union casualties were overwhelmingly young men who gave the last full measure of devotion so that our nation could have a new birth of freedom, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people would not perish from the earth.
There has been nothing more disloyal or un-American than the Confederacy.
OMG. The leftists are reduced to speaking in Lincoln's words.
This seems to be on a par with some of the lowest posts on this site. First, denigrating Carson on what I think all reasonable people would say are frivolous and specious grounds, and then the retort: "At least I'm not in favor of the Confederacy!" Stunning.
Lubet may be able to quote Lincoln without attribution or quotation marks, but he obviously fails to understand even the most basic attribute of Lincoln.
With malice toward none? With charity for all?
Nah. Let's stay in the gutter of partisan sniping, right Steve? At least you are not in favor of the Confederacy!
"Thanks, Jeff. The Confederacy launched a treasonous war in defense of slavery, resulting in around 750,000 deaths with the majority on the Union side."
Slavery was constitutional. The South seceded per the 10th Amendment to preserve slavery (Texas v White's post hoc gibberish about secession notwithstanding). Ignoring present-day American propaganda to the contrary, the North started the war in order to preserve its Union/territorial control, NOT to end slavery. The South would not have launched a war at all if it could have avoided it. The first major battle was in Virginia…
"The Union casualties were overwhelmingly young men who gave the last full measure of devotion so that our nation could have a new birth of freedom, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people would not perish from the earth."
A lot of them were Irishmen fresh off the boat who were sent to their deaths as canon fodder whilst the leaders of the Northern states bought their sons' way out of service for $300.
"There has been nothing more disloyal or un-American than the Confederacy."
What about 1776…?
Even from a Yankee Doodle perspective, though, what about: Tories till 1783; Communists (who would have torn the US Constitution to shreds and subordinated the country to the USSR: with slavery and totalitarianism for all); people who want to replace the USA with a Caliphate; etc. By which metric did you QUANTIFY who counted as the most UnAmerican here?
Moreover, the idea that current American Democrats are the constitution's defenders – who will "interpret" its clauses to mean whatever they need it to say to advance their social justice cause of the moment, who reject the very notion of a a cogent norm obtaining over generations, etc., and who claim that the "living constitution" has evolved WITHOUT ever undertaking empirical work about the relevant concept-users and norm-holders to justify their "interpretations" is precisely why many legal scholars in the rest of the West think y'all don't even have the rule of law.
Here's another "thought experiment" for you, Steve. Imagine that some/certain First Nations people, the "Indians", who inhabit what is today the USA declare next week that the entire country and its legal system is a racist imperialist edifice, one which needs to be excised "with extreme prejudice". Accordingly, they undertake violent actions across the country to try to effectuate their liberation and the removal of the regime. Would THAT be "the American" thing to do (per one perspective from/of 1776), or amongst the MOST UnAmerican thing to do? (Would it be the most "American" thing to do from non-Americans' perspectives…?). And if they did so act, would you leave Illinois, and the USA, forever, in solidarity with their efforts, or would you instead support military and police efforts to suppress/subjugate them and their supporters? (As per the penultimate paragraph, you can't play the holier-than-thou/moral high ground card when you don't even have a leg to stand on…).
A non
I think we know the answer to your last question: after arguing to "defund the police" and inciting riots designed to interfere with the operation of legitimate government functions (e.g., courthouses, police stations, state houses) for nearly a year, witness the immediate overbearing militarization of Wash DC.
When it comes to personal comfort, these ivory tower "Marxists" have no problem using government force to protect their wealth and privilege.
No supporter of slavery am I. That said, however, I was surprised to learn that the issue of whether a state had the right to secede from the Union was a fairly open question prior to the Civil War, which settled that issue by force of arms. There were good arguments on both sides.
For example, in about 1812 at the Hartford Convention some northern states threatened to secede over the issue of debts incurred by the national government to finance the War of 1812. The nullification movement (at various time asserted by both northern & southern representatives) also drew strength from the claim of a state's right to secede.
Anon, they're far more insidious than that, unfortunately. Watch as American academe increasingly copies certain other countries by blathering on about "decolonization" in a way that has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with what that term means. Instead, they will claim that, as a function of "concept drift", "decolonization" NOW (also just) means recognition and incorporation of indigenous normative systems and practices – albeit subordinated to the settler colonial legal order, and recognized ONLY to the extent that it proves to be no real threat to the latter.
It is exactly as Orwell diagnosed. The totalitarianism is palpable, and it needs to be demystified for the average American if you have any hope of saving the republic from these hubristic "sanctiramuses".
A non
It's begun, if I understand your point: Openly advocating to do away with concepts like "perfectionism," "middleclassedness," accelerated classes for the gifted kids in school (even though this policy disadvantages huge swaths of children who will supposedly be its beneficiaries), the nuclear family, being on time, etc.
In other words, do away the stuff that allows "them" to excel and distribute "their" wealth to "us" based on "our" immutable characteristics.