AARUSH LAL
Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations most attached to liberty to repose. To be more safe, they become willing to run the risk of becoming less free.” - Alexander Hamilton
The noun “prisoners'' is one of an intriguing etymology. It is most often thought to be derived from the 12th century French noun prisoun, a term commonly translated to obtain the meaning of a state of captivity, and therefore a state of being viewed today to be heavily linked with confinement. Yet, in a nation with a prison population as vast as the United States’ one, perhaps the most intriguing paradox is that of what so many individuals are being confined from. Perhaps most notably exists a confinement away from an ability to nurture and have a positive impact on others in the nation, one away from the ability to create the nation’s latest breakthrough invention, one away from the ability to enjoy the comfort already present in the surrounding society, and most notably, one away from an ability to be the people these individuals desire to be, or to become. In other words, they are confined away from the possibility of liberty.
Indeed, through its relatively short, yet particularly impactful lifetime, the United States has obtained an ostensible air of a place of liberty, and a sense of freedom for its settlers, an air which took the form of the notion of the ‘American Dream’ through the twentieth century (essentially serving to be the brain- child of the US cold war propaganda machine) with the promises offered of the ideals of prosperity, and few barriers to opportunities for social mobility, and personal success. Yet, such an idea certainly exists in force today, with the Californian Senator Kamala Harris’s stating of the idea that “the American dream belongs to all of us” perfectly portraying the maintenance of the idea’s strength over time, in the creation of an image for, and indeed in the politics of, the nation. Yet, such a concept is hardly a very new one, with the idea of liberty which surrounds the United States today having its roots in colonial times, and therefore is largely due to the acts of the British colonists.
However, the British intention in the American lands discovered by Amerigo Vespucci was certainly centred on the acquisition of profit, and wealth; British merchants, explorers and naval officers had been attracted through the 16th century to the successes in the Southern American lands of the Spanish, who, through their colonization of much of south, central and western South America, had gained exclusive access to goods and riches of the area. The wealth acquired by the Spanish were described in careful detail in Francisan priest Bernardino de Sahagun’s 1545 codices:
“And when they reached the storehouse...thereupon they brought forth all the brilliant things...the golden nose crescents, the golden leg bands, the golden arm bands...They took all, all which they saw to be good.”
Stories therefore swarmed in Britain of the luxury and extravagance which the Spanish had access to, most notably with stories of fabled lands such as El Dorado, and although Drake and Raleigh’s privateering expeditions allowed the British to have some share in this wealth, a desire for a more permanent presence in the new world grew, leading to the eventual establishment of the Jamestown colony. Ultimately thus, renaissance views on America were borne out of the desire for wealth.
Yet, the demographic situation which the British settlers found themselves in ultimately changed this, allowing the new found American lands to start their rapid development to a place espousing an undeniable desire for liberty. Such a process was set on its way upon the British discovery that they were not in fact alone upon their arrival in the new lands; instead, surrounding the new figures was the Powhatan confederacy, with this being a collection of thirty polities owing allegiance to a central leader, Wahunsunacock. The main issue this provided to the British plan was an obstacle towards their intention to extract wealth in the same way the Spanish had in their new South American lands, which had occurred upon the capturing of local leaders and taking their wealth, allowing the assertion of themselves as the new core idols for the local people, which had ultimately lead to the formation of institutions such as the encomienda and mita ones, allowing the people to be suppressed for the benefit of the colonialists. Yet, the resistance of Wahunsunacock, and thus the contingent nature to history, prevented this from being possible, as John Smith, one of the early core explorers on the American coast, experienced upon his near- death experience with this figure in 1608, after his attempt to engage in trade with the Powhatan. The British would therefore take a completely different approach than was planned in the new colony; utilise the skills and capabilities of the people arriving to survive.
Although this took a coercive approach upon the implementation of Sir Thomas Dale’s ‘Laws Divine, Morall and Martiall’, 1618 saw the start of the of a most crucial transition- that towards inclusivity, opportunities for all, and democracy. Importantly, the ‘headright system’ gave workers the right to gain incentives for their work, allowing the emergence of economic opportunities for advancement and self promotion, whilst a 1619 law for the development of a new General Assembly allowed for all adult males to have a say in the institutions and laws governing the colonies. This birth of democracy and opportunities and freedom from the law on some accounts (the idea of freedom of speech began to emerge) thus shaped the place America is today. People desiring greater opportunities for liberty from Britain, most notably the suppressed Puritan religious sect, saw the new colonies as a place of inclusiveness, with the potential for growth. America’ eventual swarming populace arguably had such values continually living in their hopes for their new lives, as can be seen in the story of the indentured labourer, John Harrower, who had attempted to reach the colonies post “being reduced to the last shilling” in Britain, and thus obtaining a suppression of the possibility of his liberty to progress and develop in these new lands.
Indeed, America continued to develop into the 18th century with such an idea of the importance of liberty, with inclusiveness at a much increased level. This can be seen predominantly through mass enfranchisement, and the ability of some colonies to even allow the majority of their populaces to vote for central governors, including Rhode Island. Perhaps the most significant event of the nation’s history in terms of its long- term impact, the war for independence, was fought in the name of such an idea, with the eventual overcoming of British suppression certainly an instance of the eventual victory of liberty. The idea was certainly perhaps at its strongest in the 19th century upon the civil war, and the ability of the occurrence of the liberty being expanded to those of differing race. Yet, crucially, it was at this stage where American people began to view their liberty in regards to the ideas of the mature enlightenment, particularly to those of the theorist, J.S. Mill. With Mill predominantly being a neoclassical utilitarian thinker, his ideas on the importance of liberty were highly related to the ability of liberty to maximise utility, with the ability of liberty to achieve this occurring via the discovery of truth about societal procedures. This was the case in regards to the idea of freedom of speech according to Mill, with such a liberty aiming to re- affirm already pre-existing ways of life, or to perhaps alter them, perhaps violently, as the case of the civil war makes clear.
Perhaps in contrast to conceptions of liberty’s importance, figures who had profited from America’s opportunities (ostensibly the southern planter elite) were perhaps more focused on the acquisition of power and control, thus, the growing ability of liberty to attempt to find true ways of life in a desperate, and thus violent manner, is what has arguably allowed for the development of factors of the American law such as strict liability measures, granting punishments, and often prison sentences, for any acts which, even with a lack of clear intent, have contributed to stability being threatened, even in the name of more ‘true’, or progressive ways of living, as the response to protests against the Vietnam war indicated, which were certainly in the name of more developed, and thus more true ways of living, which had the potential to maximise utility. Therefore, it seems that the evolution of American liberty into a desire of the people for true ways of living, and thus utility, resulting in surely harsher and stricter regulations being introduced into American law to protect stability, has certainly caused the American legal system to become a more regulatory one, over time causing prison populations to mount.
Yet, today, an overwhelming inequality is clear in regard to the races of the inmates of America’s prisons, with the most startling representation of this appearing clear by the fact that 5.1 times more black figures are incarcerated today than their white counterparts, with this growing to a factor of 10 in some states. The prison populace of the nation is certainly amplified by such an inequality, with its origins certainly being in the desires of colonial figures. With the new land’s southern colonies, which eventually came to exist in the forms of the likes of Maryland and the Carolinas, obtaining abundancies of opportunities for the cultivation of the profitable, yet labour intensive, Tobacco, the idea of the utilisation of cheap labour, which most notably came to occur in the form of the slave trade, ultimately allowed for the southern plantations which developed, as opposed to the development of the notion of liberty in large stretches of the country with white labourers, into sites of extractive economic, and therefore political institutions- a high degree of centralised power in the hands of white elites was in place, with a complete lack of economic, and thus political pluralism, with those who failed to benefit from this
With a form of a vicious circle of extractive institutions being entered into therefore, such inequalities continued to grow, as indicated by handbills for auctions which present Black figures being observed as potential goods, allowing elite control to grow, as well as the presence of jingoistic attitudes in new generations of planter elites. Such a persistence of such institutions, and thus inequalities can be seen most clearly post the civil war, as although slavery was outlawed, the economic and political suppression of its black population was not; the power of the Southern elites from extractive practises was utilised effectively to press presidential candidate Hayes into ending the reform movement in the south, allowing southern poll taxes and unfair literacy tests to emerge, and therefore permitting for the maintenance of supremist attitudes amongst figures of the nation. Thus, upon the ‘merging’ of these two halves of the nation in 1900 out of economic necessity, attitudes which favoured the white figures of the nation pervaded the United States (such an idea is expressed clearly by literature of the time, such as in Tenessee Williams’ ‘A streetcar named desire’), potentially allowing for the emergence of figures in higher echelons of the legal system with such attitudes, resulting therefore in the development of biases in the federal system, such as the procedure of a higher likelihood of a black figure receiving a prison sentence than a white counterpart. The roots of such biases seem to stem in nothing, but the extractive institutions put in place in some areas of the United States over history, with the ostensible persistence obtaining a major impact on today’s rapidly growing US incarceration level.
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