J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 440

Abraham Lincoln vs. John Kelly: From the Cooper Union Speech: Hoisted from the Archives

David Glasner reaches back into our history: General Kelly v. Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln:

And now, if they would listen ��� as I suppose they will not ��� I would address a few words to the Southern people....

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ���Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!���

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me���my money���was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

And now, if they would listen���as I suppose they will not���I would address a few words to the Southern people.

I would say to them:���You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to ���Black Republicans.��� In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of ���Black Republicanism��� as the first thing to be attended to.

Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite���license, so to speak���among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.

You say we are sectional. We deny it. That makes an issue; and the burden of proof is upon you. You produce your proof; and what is it? Why, that our party has no existence in your section���gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially true; but does it prove the issue? If it does, then in case we should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. You cannot escape this conclusion; and yet, are you willing to abide by it? If you are, you will probably soon find that we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in your section this very year.

You will then begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that your proof does not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your section, is a fact of your making, and not of ours. And if there be fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains until you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. If we do repel you by any wrong principle or practice, the fault is ours; but this brings you to where you ought to have started���to a discussion of the right or wrong of our principle.

If our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our principle, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section; and so meet it as if it were possible that something may be said on our side. Do you accept the challenge? No! Then you really believe that the principle which ���our fathers who framed the Government under which we live��� thought so clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, upon their official oaths, is in fact so clearly wrong as to demand your condemnation without a moment���s consideration.

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. Less than eight years before Washington gave that warning, he had, as President of the United States, approved and signed an act of Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy of the Government upon that subject up to and at the very moment he penned that warning; and about one year after he penned it, he wrote LaFayette that he considered that prohibition a wise measure, expressing in the same connection his hope that we should at some time have a confederacy of free States.

Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in your hands against us, or in our hands against you? Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that warning of Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his example pointing to the right application of it.

But you say you are conservative���eminently conservative���while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by ���our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;��� while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers.

Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the ���gur-reat pur-rinciple��� that ���if one man would enslave another, no third man should object,��� fantastically called ���Popular Sovereignty;��� but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of ���our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.��� Not one of all your various plans can show a precedent or an advocate in the century within which our Government originated.

Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for yourselves, and your charge or destructiveness against us, are based on the most clear and stable foundations.

Again, you say we have made the slavery question more prominent than it formerly was. We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your innovation; and thence comes the greater prominence of the question. Would you have that question reduced to its former proportions? Go back to that old policy. What has been will be again, under the same conditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt the precepts and policy of the old times.

You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper���s Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper���s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper���s Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by ���our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.��� You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor.

Republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common with ���our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live,��� declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves.

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least three times as many lives were lost as at Harper���s Ferry? You can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was ���got up by Black Republicanism.��� In the present state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or even a very extensive slave insurrection is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the indispensable connecting trains.

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves for their masters and mistresses; and a part of it, at least, is true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and communicated to twenty individuals before some one of them, to save the life of a favorite master or mistress, would divulge it. This is the rule; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not an exception to it, but a case occurring under peculiar circumstances.

The gunpowder plot of British history, though not connected with slaves, was more in point. In that case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes for such an event, will be alike disappointed.

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago:

It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up...

Mr. Jefferson did not mean to say, nor do I, that the power of emancipation is in the Federal Government. He spoke of Virginia; and, as to the power of emancipation, I speak of the slaveholding States only. The Federal Government, however, as we insist, has the power of restraining the extension of the institution���the power to insure that a slave insurrection shall never occur on any American soil which is now free from slavery.

John Brown���s effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini���s attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown���s attempt at Harper���s Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.

And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John Brown, Helper���s Book, and the like, break up the Republican organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling���that sentiment���by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?

But you will break up the Union rather than submit to a denial of your Constitutional rights.

That has a somewhat reckless sound; but it would be palliated, if not fully justified, were we proposing, by the mere force of numbers, to deprive you of some right, plainly written down in the Constitution. But we are proposing no such thing.

When you make these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood allusion to an assumed Constitutional right of yours, to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. But no such right is specifically written in the Constitution. That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the Constitution, even by implication.

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

This, plainly stated, is your language.

Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer���s distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact���the statement in the opinion that ���the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.���

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave is not ���distinctly and expressly affirmed��� in it. Bear in mind, the Judges do not pledge their judicial opinion that such right is impliedly affirmed in the Constitution; but they pledge their veracity that it is ���distinctly and expressly��� affirmed there������distinctly,��� that is, not mingled with anything else������expressly,��� that is, in words meaning just that, without the aid of any inference, and susceptible of no other meaning.

If they had only pledged their judicial opinion that such right is affirmed in the instrument by implication, it would be open to others to show that neither the word ���slave��� nor ���slavery��� is to be found in the Constitution, nor the word ���property��� even, in any connection with language alluding to the things slave, or slavery; and that wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a ���person;������and wherever his master���s legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as ���service or labor which may be due,������as a debt payable in service or labor.

Also, it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man.

To show all this, is easy and certain.

When this obvious mistake of the Judges shall be brought to their notice, is it not reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken statement, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it?

And then it is to be remembered that ���our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live������the men who made the Constitution���decided this same Constitutional question in our favor, long ago���decided it without division among themselves, when making the decision; without division among themselves about the meaning of it after it was made, and, so far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken statement of facts.

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ���Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!���

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me���my money���was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

How does a Boston Irishman become a Neoconfederate anyway?

Should-Read: This from the very sharp Dani Rodrik seems t...

Should-Read: This from the very sharp Dani Rodrik seems to me to be largely wrong. The 1990s did not see dislocated workers fall into poverty: the 1990s saw, for the most part, workers pulled into higher-paying jobs and occupations by the then high-pressure economy. It was the Reagan deficits of the 1980s that started the midwest on its decline���but the idea was to blame the Japanese rather than St. Ronnie and his feckless policymakers. The China shock of the 2000s was a big deal. But the crash of 2007-2009 and the slow recovery since an even bigger one. And the long, slow decline of manufacturing and other traditionally male blue-collar jobs���a decline overwhelmingly independent of globalization���that was the biggest deal of all. I write about this. But here is Dani:

Dani Rodrik: The Trouble With Globalization: "The United States, too, could have moved aggressively to compensate dislocated workers in the 1990s, when it opened its economy to imports from Mexico, China...

...and other low-income countries in a major way. Instead, under the sway of market fundamentalists, the United States let the chips (and workers) fall where they may. By now, the compensation approach has been tarred as ���burial insurance.��� The trade adjustment assistance programs that are habitually tacked on to trade agreements have provided inadequate aid ��� and to just a sliver of the affected population. That is partly by design: politicians have little incentive to implement strong compensation programs once trade agreements are approved.

American workers have been the weak party in the bargain all along ��� if they���d had enough clout to obtain a robust safety net, they would have had the clout to reshape trade agreements in worker-friendly ways in the first place...

Must-Read: Jason Furman and Greg Leiserson: The real cost...

Must-Read: Jason Furman and Greg Leiserson: The real cost of the Republican tax cuts: "The House Republican plan will itself be incomplete...

...Spending cuts or tax increases will almost certainly still be required to pay for it. Analyses that do not account for those spending cuts or tax increases, whether they occur in the near term or in the longer term, obscure...

How 100% Truth Becomes, in Republicans' Eyes, an Unfair Attack on Them...

Live from the Wide Missouri: How things get warped, and how telling the truth in a way that Todd Akin was proud to be characterized (in private) and that his core supporters loved to hear is somehow as "attack ad":

No, no, no! The cries of "dirty pool" from "mainstream" Republicans were because of this:

McCaskill: I'm Clare McCaskill, and I approve this message.

Narrator: "The most conservative congressman in Missouri" (KC Star 7/5/12) as our senator? Todd Akin, a crusader against bigger government. He would completely eliminate the Departments of Education and Energy and privatize Social Security. Todd's pro-family agenda would outlaw many forms of contraception. And Akin alone says President Obama is "a complete menace to our civilization". Todd Akin: Missouri's true conservative is just too conservative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec4t_...

That's a very anti-Todd Akin commercial for Democrats and Independents, and a very pro-Todd Akin commercial for the Republican base that votes in primaries.

There were no McCaskill commercials run against John Brunner or Sarah Steelman���they launched lots of nasty attack ads at each other. To claim "McCaskill ran commercials against the then 'establishment' GOP favorite in its primary" gets it backwards and upside down. She ran commercials informing the Republican Base what the most conservative candidate in the race believed, and thus b both raised his chances with the Republican primary electorate (which liked what it heard) and set herself up for the general by getting her message out early.

The Republicans' only justifiable beef is with their own primary electorate...

I find it interesting that telling Republicans that there is a candidate in the race believes what establishment Republicans only say is regarded as a ���attack ad���.

It may be unwise for Democrats to inform the Republican primary base of this. And it certainly annoys establishment Republicans when it happens. But there are very, very interesting assumptions about how the public sphere of discourse ought to operate behind The characterization of Macaskill���s ad as ���attack ad���.

Somebody should take a look back at all the whining of Republicans about Macaskill and unpack what is really going on...

Live from the Kinsley, Hertzberg, Sullivan Self-Made Gehe...

Live from the Kinsley, Hertzberg, Sullivan Self-Made Gehenna: Apropos of Leon Wieseltier, their role thereof, and their silence regarding their role:

If all they have to say is "I believed that giving Leon W a green light to rampage around the office hitting on women and delighting in making them sexually uncomfortable���and worse���was part of the tithe exacted in return for my salary and my platform, and with my platform, at least, I did a lot of good that I could not have done otherwise..." then they should at least say that!

If not, people will, as Millennials say: JUDGE them...

Dr. Faustus:

Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God

And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,

Am not tormented with ten thousand hells

In being deprived of everlasting bliss?...

Paradise Lost:

Lucifer: Me miserable! which way shall I fly

Infinite wrauth and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;

And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep

Still threatening to devour me opens wide...

Should-Read: Wladimir Woytinsky (1952): Lerner's Economic...

Should-Read: Wladimir Woytinsky (1952): Lerner's Economics of Employment: A Review: "The first and most obvious objection-conforming with the idea of Functional Finance as a supplement to the ordinary budget-is...

...that, as long as inflationary and deflationary forces are in balance with each other, the government's revenues must be likewise in balance with outlays. The balanced budget is the simplest way for ensuring the desired equilibrium. It implies that each dollar the government spends for its operation must be extracted from national income by means of taxation.

Lerner ridicules this procedure, but its only alternative is a financial system in which the government prints all the money it needs and-as a completely separate operation-destroys an equal amount of the purchasing power of individuals. The latter purpose could be achieved, theoretically, by confiscation, or demolition of houses, or setting fire to selected properties. Few people will agree that such measures make more sense than the orthodox procedure.

Lerner is right when he objects to worshipping a balanced budget and "sound" currency, but his arguments are very thin when-by means of repetition-he tries to persuade his readers that the best way to run public finance is to print notes-or occasionally borrow-when money is needed for public establishments, and destroy the purchasing power of individuals when his model indicates that there is too much fat in the community.

Lerner's argument would win if it were free from such iconoclastic outbursts as the assertion that "taxes should never (Lerner's italics) be imposed for the sake of the tax revenues," that money "could be provided by an appropriate printing job", etc....

Should-Read: Heather Boushey: Equitable Growth in Convers...

Should-Read: Heather Boushey: Equitable Growth in Conversation: Kimberly A. Clausing: "Boushey: One of the arguments that you hear time and time again for why Congress needs to reduce the corporate tax rate is that doing so will boost investment in overall economic growth...

...Tell us a little bit about how strongly investment would react to a reduction in the tax rate at the corporate side?

Clausing: On the corporate side, there are a couple of considerations to keep in mind. One is that the distribution of corporate income within the tax base is highly skewed, with about three-quarters of it due to excess profits or rents. What are excess profits or rents? Well, there���s a normal return of capital, which enables a company to pay the interest costs or the equity costs of raising capital, but any income earned above that normal return is an excess profit.

For those firms that have a lot of excess profits���the Googles and Apples and General Electrics of the world���they are earning more than we normally expect for business activity. It���s not clear that giving them a windfall is going to lead to new investments. They already have more than enough after-tax profits from which to make investments.

If policymakers believe more after-tax profits are the way to suddenly spur investment, we might ask why it hasn���t already happened, since these kinds of firms are sitting on piles of cash. It���s unclear that giving them a bigger pile of cash is going to spur investment. We need companies to have desirable investments. And often what���s stopping them is not the absence of funds, but the absence of viable investments they want to make. If policymakers really think after-tax profits are what���s needed to drive investment, then we should already be in an investment nirvana, since lately we���ve had much higher profits than we���ve ever had in the past 50 years of our history.

Boushey: And yet our investment rate is quite low right now.

Clausing: Right. That���s why I don���t think after-tax profits are the answer...

Some Fairly-Recent Must- and Should-Reads...

Jason Furman: @jasonfurman on Twitter: "THREAD. New results from Penn-Wharton Budget Model show wage effects of corporate tax changes...

Tim Alberta: John Boehner Unchained: "After railing against the defund strategy, however, Boehner surveyed his conference and realized...

John Quiggin: The end of fossil fuels: "The International Energy Agency recently released data showing that world coal production fell sharply in 2016, mainly because of big cuts in China...

Dani Rodrik: Growth Without Industrialization?: "FLow-income African countries can sustain moderate rates of productivity growth into the future, on the back of steady improvements in human capital and governance...

David Glasner: Larry Summers v. John Taylor: No Contest: "'If a Fed Funds rate higher than the rate set for the past three years would have led, as the Taylor rule implies, to lower inflation...

Zeynep Tufekci: On Twitter: "Facebook and Google helped them better target fear-mongering videos: "Facebook and Google helped them better target fear-mongering videos showing 'France and Germany overrun by sharia law'���to get the ad money...

Austin Clemens: Here���s why you should interpret GDP growth estimates skeptically: "No single number can really tell us much of anything about our immensely complicated $19 trillion economy...

Iris Marechal: Weekend reading: the ���fiscal highlights��� edition: "Rex Nutting argues that the Trump-Ryan plan will actually encourage more corporate offshore tax avoidance...

Will Wilkinson: Public Policy after Utopia: "That all our evidence about how social systems actually work comes from formerly or presently existing systems is a huge problem for anyone committed to a radically revisionary ideal of the morally best society...

Bridget Ansel: The gender gap in economics has ramifications far beyond the ivory tower: "The lack of women in economics���and their segregation into certain subfields���boast ramifications beyond individual women���s careers...

Some Fairly-Recent Links:

Oliver Butterworth
Nicholas Bagley: Trump and the Essential Health Benefits
Jeet Heer: The Old New Republic & Gender: Some notes
Cameron Joseph: Once More Unto The Breach! Romney Eyes Senate Run To Fill Anti-Trump Void
FT: Xi Jinping and China���s global ambitions: Under President Xi, who consolidated his power at this week���s Congress, China is showing a new confidence globally in its cultural, economic and diplomatic model. But how ���soft��� is its ���soft power���? Here���s the best of our comment and analysis..."

Highlighted | Teaching | Reading, Videos, etc.

Must-Reads:

Jason Furman: @jasonfurman on Twitter: "THREAD. New results from Penn-Wharton Budget Model show wage effects of corporate tax changes...
Tim Alberta: John Boehner Unchained: "After railing against the defund strategy, however, Boehner surveyed his conference and realized...

Should-Reads:

John Quiggin: The end of fossil fuels: "The International Energy Agency recently released data showing that world coal production fell sharply in 2016, mainly because of big cuts in China...
David Glasner: Larry Summers v. John Taylor: No Contest: "'If a Fed Funds rate higher than the rate set for the past three years would have led, as the Taylor rule implies, to lower inflation...
Bridget Ansel: The gender gap in economics has ramifications far beyond the ivory tower: "The lack of women in economics���and their segregation into certain subfields���boast ramifications beyond individual women���s careers...
Iris Marechal: Weekend reading: the ���fiscal highlights��� edition: "Rex Nutting argues that the Trump-Ryan plan will actually encourage more corporate offshore tax avoidance...
Austin Clemens: Here���s why you should interpret GDP growth estimates skeptically: "No single number can really tell us much of anything about our immensely complicated $19 trillion economy...

Links:

Oliver Butterworth
Nicholas Bagley: Trump and the Essential Health Benefits
**Noah Smith: Japan Goes With Another Round of Abenomics - Bloomberg: "And why not? The economy hasn't been this good since the 1980s..."
Matthew Yglesias (2010): Wieseltier vs��Sullivan

Hoisted from the Archives: "95"

Out of love for the truth and from desire to elucidate it, the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology, and ordinary lecturer therein at Wittenberg, intends to defend the following statements and to dispute on them in that place. Therefore he asks that those who cannot be present and dispute with him orally shall do so in their absence by letter. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen:

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent" (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.

Yet it does not mean solely inner repentance; such inner repentance is worthless unless it produces various outward mortification of the flesh.

The penalty of sin remains as long as the hatred of self (that is, true inner repentance), namely till our entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

The pope neither desires nor is able to remit any penalties except those imposed by his own authority or that of the canons.

The pope cannot remit any guilt, except by declaring and showing that it has been remitted by God; or, to be sure, by remitting guilt in cases reserved to his judgment. If his right to grant remission in these cases were disregarded, the guilt would certainly remain unforgiven.

God remits guilt to no one unless at the same time he humbles him in all things and makes him submissive to the vicar, the priest.

The penitential canons are imposed only on the living, and, according to the canons themselves, nothing should be imposed on the dying.

Therefore the Holy Spirit through the pope is kind to us insofar as the pope in his decrees always makes exception of the article of death and of necessity.

Those priests act ignorantly and wickedly who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penalties for purgatory.

Those tares of changing the canonical penalty to the penalty of purgatory were evidently sown while the bishops slept (Mt 13:25).

In former times canonical penalties were imposed, not after, but before absolution, as tests of true contrition.

The dying are freed by death from all penalties, are already dead as far as the canon laws are concerned, and have a right to be released from them.

Imperfect piety or love on the part of the dying person necessarily brings with it great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater the fear.

This fear or horror is sufficient in itself, to say nothing of other things, to constitute the penalty of purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.

Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ the same as despair, fear, and assurance of salvation.

It seems as though for the souls in purgatory fear should necessarily decrease and love increase.

Furthermore, it does not seem proved, either by reason or by Scripture, that souls in purgatory are outside the state of merit, that is, unable to grow in love.

Nor does it seem proved that souls in purgatory, at least not all of them, are certain and assured of their own salvation, even if we ourselves may be entirely certain of it.

Therefore the pope, when he uses the words "plenary remission of all penalties", does not actually mean "all penalties", but only those imposed by himself.

Thus those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences.

As a matter of fact, the pope remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which, according to canon law, they should have paid in this life.

If remission of all penalties whatsoever could be granted to anyone at all, certainly it would be granted only to the most perfect, that is, to very few.

For this reason most people are necessarily deceived by that indiscriminate and high-sounding promise of release from penalty.

That power which the pope has in general over purgatory corresponds to the power which any bishop or curate has in a particular way in his own diocese and parish.

The pope does very well when he grants remission to souls in purgatory, not by the power of the keys, which he does not have, but by way of intercession for them.

They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.

It is certain that when money clinks in the money chest, greed and avarice can be increased; but when the church intercedes, the result is in the hands of God alone.

Who knows whether all souls in purgatory wish to be redeemed, since we have exceptions in St. Severinus and St. Paschal, as related in a legend.

No one is sure of the integrity of his own contrition, much less of having received plenary remission.

The man who actually buys indulgences is as rare as he who is really penitent; indeed, he is exceedingly rare.

Those who believe that they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.

Men must especially be on guard against those who say that the pope's pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to him.

For the graces of indulgences are concerned only with the penalties of sacramental satisfaction established by man.

They who teach that contrition is not necessary on the part of those who intend to buy souls out of purgatory or to buy confessional privileges preach unchristian doctrine.

Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters.

Any true Christian, whether living or dead, participates in all the blessings of Christ and the church; and this is granted him by God, even without indulgence letters.

Nevertheless, papal remission and blessing are by no means to be disregarded, for they are, as I have said (Thesis 6), the proclamation of the divine remission.

It is very difficult, even for the most learned theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people the bounty of indulgences and the need of true contrition.

A Christian who is truly contrite seeks and loves to pay penalties for his sins; the bounty of indulgences, however, relaxes penalties and causes men to hate them -- at least it furnishes occasion for hating them.

Papal indulgences must be preached with caution, lest people erroneously think that they are preferable to other good works of love.

Christians are to be taught that the pope does not intend that the buying of indulgences should in any way be compared with works of mercy.

Christians are to be taught that he who gives to the poor or lends to the needy does a better deed than he who buys indulgences.

Because love grows by works of love, man thereby becomes better. Man does not, however, become better by means of indulgences but is merely freed from penalties.

Christians are to be taught that he who sees a needy man and passes him by, yet gives his money for indulgences, does not buy papal indulgences but God's wrath.

Christians are to be taught that, unless they have more than they need, they must reserve enough for their family needs and by no means squander it on indulgences.

Christians are to be taught that they buying of indulgences is a matter of free choice, not commanded.

Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting indulgences, needs and thus desires their devout prayer more than their money.

Christians are to be taught that papal indulgences are useful only if they do not put their trust in them, but very harmful if they lose their fear of God because of them.

Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peter were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep.

Christians are to be taught that the pope would and should wish to give of his own money, even though he had to sell the basilica of St. Peter, to many of those from whom certain hawkers of indulgences cajole money.

It is vain to trust in salvation by indulgence letters, even though the indulgence commissary, or even the pope, were to offer his soul as security.

They are the enemies of Christ and the pope who forbid altogether the preaching of the Word of God in some churches in order that indulgences may be preached in others.

Injury is done to the Word of God when, in the same sermon, an equal or larger amount of time is devoted to indulgences than to the Word.

It is certainly the pope's sentiment that if indulgences, which are a very insignificant thing, are celebrated with one bell, one procession, and one ceremony, then the gospel, which is the very greatest thing, should be preached with a hundred bells, a hundred processions, a hundred ceremonies.

The true treasures of the church, out of which the pope distributes indulgences, are not sufficiently discussed or known among the people of Christ.

That indulgences are not temporal treasures is certainly clear, for many indulgence sellers do not distribute them freely but only gather them.

Nor are they the merits of Christ and the saints, for, even without the pope, the latter always work grace for the inner man, and the cross, death, and hell for the outer man.

St. Lawrence said that the poor of the church were the treasures of the church, but he spoke according to the usage of the word in his own time.

Without want of consideration we say that the keys of the church, given by the merits of Christ, are that treasure.

For it is clear that the pope's power is of itself sufficient for the remission of penalties and cases reserved by himself.

The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.

But this treasure is naturally most odious, for it makes the first to be last (Mt. 20:16).

On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first.

Therefore the treasures of the gospel are nets with which one formerly fished for men of wealth.

The treasures of indulgences are nets with which one now fishes for the wealth of men.

The indulgences which the demagogues acclaim as the greatest graces are actually understood to be such only insofar as they promote gain.

They are nevertheless in truth the most insignificant graces when compared with the grace of God and the piety of the cross.

Bishops and curates are bound to admit the commissaries of papal indulgences with all reverence.

But they are much more bound to strain their eyes and ears lest these men preach their own dreams instead of what the pope has commissioned.

Let him who speaks against the truth concerning papal indulgences be anathema and accursed.

But let him who guards against the lust and license of the indulgence preachers be blessed.

Just as the pope justly thunders against those who by any means whatever contrive harm to the sale of indulgences.

Much more does he intend to thunder against those who use indulgences as a pretext to contrive harm to holy love and truth.

To consider papal indulgences so great that they could absolve a man even if he had done the impossible and had violated the mother of God is madness.

We say on the contrary that papal indulgences cannot remove the very least of venial sins as far as guilt is concerned.

To say that even St. Peter if he were now pope, could not grant greater graces is blasphemy against St. Peter and the pope.

We say on the contrary that even the present pope, or any pope whatsoever, has greater graces at his disposal, that is, the gospel, spiritual powers, gifts of healing, etc., as it is written. (1 Co 12[:28])

To say that the cross emblazoned with the papal coat of arms, and set up by the indulgence preachers is equal in worth to the cross of Christ is blasphemy.

The bishops, curates, and theologians who permit such talk to be spread among the people will have to answer for this.

This unbridled preaching of indulgences makes it difficult even for learned men to rescue the reverence which is due the pope from slander or from the shrewd questions of the laity.

Such as: "Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church?" The former reason would be most just; the latter is most trivial.

Again, "Why are funeral and anniversary masses for the dead continued and why does he not return or permit the withdrawal of the endowments founded for them, since it is wrong to pray for the redeemed?"

Again, "What is this new piety of God and the pope that for a consideration of money they permit a man who is impious and their enemy to buy out of purgatory the pious soul of a friend of God and do not rather, beca use of the need of that pious and beloved soul, free it for pure love's sake?"

Again, "Why are the penitential canons, long since abrogated and dead in actual fact and through disuse, now satisfied by the granting of indulgences as though they were still alive and in force?"

Again, "Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"

Again, "What does the pope remit or grant to those who by perfect contrition already have a right to full remission and blessings?"

Again, "What greater blessing could come to the church than if the pope were to bestow these remissions and blessings on every believer a hundred times a day, as he now does but once?"

"Since the pope seeks the salvation of souls rather than money by his indulgences, why does he suspend the indulgences and pardons previously granted when they have equal efficacy?"

To repress these very sharp arguments of the laity by force alone, and not to resolve them by giving reasons, is to expose the church and the pope to the ridicule of their enemies and to make Christians unhappy.

If, therefore, indulgences were preached according to the spirit and intention of the pope, all these doubts would be readily resolved. Indeed, they would not exist.

Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace! (Jer 6:14)

Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Cross, cross," and there is no cross!

Christians should be exhorted to be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, death and hell.

And thus be confident of entering into heaven through many tribulations rather than through the false security of peace (Acts 14:22).

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