Virginia planter family with slave
On September 13, DREAM ACT Texas posted "Shared Values of a Murky Past" about the paradox of Virginia's inhospitable climate for immigration when compared to its foundation built by slavery. Marc Fisher of the Washington Post brings this up again in a thoughtful piece on Virginia Values.
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Wrapping Themselves in 'Va. Values' Could Prove Lonely for Legislators
By Marc Fisher
Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page C01
Virginia was unstoppable, the biggest, brightest, richest state in the new nation. Through the first decades of the American experiment, the Old Dominion dominated the revolution, the Constitutional Convention and the presidency. The state produced a cavalcade of daring, innovative leaders, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Marshall and George Mason.
And then, says Susan Dunn, a historian at Williams College and author of "Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison & the Decline of Virginia," it all faded...
Already in the 1820s, the seeds of today's anti-tax, anti-government attitudes were taking root. Virginia, confident birthplace of American liberty, had morphed into a conservative, nostalgic society clinging to its agricultural past, ruled by an aristocratic elite and deeply suspicious of the Yankees' investment in industry and city life.
Flash forward to last month in Richmond, where House Speaker William Howell, a Republican from Stafford County, told a group of business leaders at a $250-a-head reception that the people who've been moving to the state of late -- such as, say, immigrants -- might not be clued in on the "shared values we have in Virginia."
In this season of zesty competition to see which politician can propose the most onerous measures to take against illegal immigrants, what might those shared values be? When The Washington Post's Tim Craig called Howell to inquire, the speaker gallantly hung up on the reporter. Later, Howell's spokesman said his boss was talking about "Virginia values" -- the slogan Mr. Macaca, former senator George Allen, used in his campaigns -- such as "lower taxes, less burdensome regulations and a positive business environment."
...The state's powerful antipathy toward taxes relegated Virginia to backwater status, especially when it came to education. "I will put it in the power of no man or set of men to tax me without my consent," said legislator John Randolph of Roanoke in a typical rant against public education in 1829. Tax-supported schools would only encourage worthless fathers to spend more money on liquor rather than teaching their own kids, he said.
...Dunn sees a through line from those early decades to the state's resistance to FDR's New Deal. Virginia's senators were two of only six to vote against creating Social Security.
Virginia values? For nearly 200 years, the state has hewed to the ideals of low taxes, limited services and resistance to newcomers...
Now Howell and friends, anticipating the voters' wrath in next month's elections, wrap themselves once more in Virginia values, lashing out at immigrants every which way they can.
Will it work? Those outsiders Howell and his fellow Republicans so fear can and do vote. Just ask the state's two most recent governors, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.
E-mail:marcfisher@washpost.com
for link to entire article click title to this post
photo: http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/Dugan-1.JPG
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