"but what about the south?"
Hugh Lawson
In the academic field of American Studies, there used to be lots of
books and articles on the American character or the (American)
national character. You now, America is like this, blah, blah, blah.
Concerning such generalizations about the America character, one could
often contest them by asking, "But what about the South." If America
was rich, the South was poor; if law-abiding, the South was violent;
if equalitarian, the South was hierarchical; and so on. The point was
perhaps to reveal overgeneralization in the study of the national
character.
Barbara Kingsolver launched one of the generalizations yesterday when
being interviewed on NPR. Americans, she said, equate patriotism with
the idea that "we live in a perfect country. . . . a finished product,
not a work in progress." Immediately I thought, but what about the
South?
Do Northerners say the South is a perfect part of the perfect America?
Do they say the South is "a finished product, not a work in progress"?
Of course they don't. The South is always being weighed in the
balance, and found wanting.
So can the defective South be reconciled with the idea of a perfect
country? Perhaps it can, if non-southerners see the South as the
Other, as not fully part of "America" (quotes intended).
What happens perhaps is this. "America" is an idealization of what are
thought to be the excellent qualities of the Virtuous Part of the
United States, the Virtuous Part being the US with "the South" left
out. Once this idealization is set up, then it can be used to prove
that the South indeed does not fit the "American character".
It is seen perhaps as an anomalous member of the Union, "Uncle Sam's
other province", or the Evil Twin Brother of American history, the
bastard at the family reunion.
So when somebody says that Americans believe "we live in a perfect
country", they should be asked, do those Americans believe that the
South is a perfect part of this perfect country?
HL
scott s.
news:87ocnfk...@desktop.xx.yy:
>
> So when somebody says that Americans believe "we live in a perfect
> country", they should be asked, do those Americans believe that the
> South is a perfect part of this perfect country?
don't think it has anything specific to do with the "south", rather
those people who are seen as bitter clingers to their guns and
religion.
scott s.
.
Hugh Lawson
For that we have "religious right" and "gun nuts".
HL
Hugh Lawson
the end. Before you start reading it, I want to make clear that I
support legal marriage rights for gays.
The author of the following quotation writes from a gay POV.
> Does it suck that we don’t have the same rights?
> Yes. I don’t care what they end up calling it, we absolutely should
> be entitled to all of the same rights as straight people whether it
> be about shacking up with someone for life or not losing your kids
> because you left your hetero life partner for a homo one. But we need
> to realize that you will never get the entire country to recognize gay
> marriage if we have to vote state by state. The south has literally
> fought to keep black people enslaved, it will damn sure figuratively
> fight to keep gays from ruining God’s sanctified union.
http://open.salon.com/blog/mungular/2009/05/27/what_pisses_me_off_about_gay_marriage
Do you see how the author tries to give a nationwide phenomenon a
phony location in "the South"?
Now IIRC, the gay-bashers are strong all over, including 31 states
where popular votes have outlawed gay marriage. There are only 11
"former CSA" states.
Why does the author suddenly lurch toward blaming "the South"?
Perhaps it's because many Americans, especially northerners, have
trouble admitting that anything is wrong with "America". But the
perfect "America" of their imagination is something that "the South"
doesn't belong to. Thus, as more than one writer has observed, this
means that this "South" can serve as a half-foreign warehouse of alien
and evil tendencies that threaten to infect "America."
Or as it might be put, the South is the serpent in the garden of
American innocence. Note: I don't support this way of thinking, I'm
just saying that it exists.
Once you start noticing this sort of thing, you will see it very
frequently.
HL
Hugh Lawson
http://www.common-place.org/vol-10/no-01/tales/
Anne Farrow records her reaction upon discovering that Connecticut was
involved in the slave trade:
I knew that Connecticut was a powerhouse in the West Indies
trade—a story that scholars Thomas Truxes and Joseph Avitable
are making clearer every day—with huge investments in
exportable goods, ships for transporting those goods, and a
trade system that was creating New England's first fortunes,
but no one had suggested to me that my state was also on the
front lines of the slaving trade or that men from the
Connecticut colony were on the ground in West Africa, buying
men, women, and children.
I don't know why I was so dismayed to learn about
Connecticut's role in the slave trade.
One explanation for her dismay comes forward when the concept of the
South as Other in Northern thought is taken seriously. Perhaps many
northerners have based their own regional self-respect partly upon an
image of "the South" as an opposite Other, the serpent in the garden
of American innocence. "We're good because we're not like Them. Thank
you God for not making us like those (white) Southerners." Ooops.
There is the old slave trade, part of the serpent, slithering into
ante bellum Connecticut.
If you read Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic, you'll find
recorded there Horwitz's discomfort upon learning that there were Jews
in the Confederate army.
Hu. Lawson
Mike Stone
"Hugh Lawson" <hla...@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
news:874op0w...@desktop.xx.yy...
>
Connecticut.
>
> If you read Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic, you'll find
> recorded there Horwitz's discomfort upon learning that there were Jews
> in the Confederate army.
>
>
He'd never heard of the one in the Confederate _Cabinet_?
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
"Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of
Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work
strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby in the
reservoir, he turns to the cupboard only to find the vodka bottle empty".
P G Wodehouse - Jill the Reckless
Hugh Lawson
> "Hugh Lawson" <hla...@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:874op0w...@desktop.xx.yy...
>> If you read Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic, you'll find
>> recorded there Horwitz's discomfort upon learning that there were Jews
>> in the Confederate army.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> He'd never heard of the one in the Confederate _Cabinet_?
Good question, Mike. Read Horwitz's book and see what you think of it.
Hugh
F. C. Jameson
wrote:
I read it and it was a good book. There was one small thing about
the book -- and Mr Horowitz -- that troubled me. Do you recall him
visiting Shelby Foote ? What I found disturbing was the fact the
Horowitz mentioned that Foote had his phone number listed in the local
phone book. That was not a nice thing to do. I wonder how many
crazies called Mr Foote before he could get an unlisted number ?
Apparently Foote had listed his number for years and he must have
preferred it that way. I wonder why Horowitz did that ?
Hugh Lawson
> On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:46:16 -0500, Hugh Lawson <hla...@triad.rr.com>
> wrote:
>
>>"Mike Stone" <mws...@aol.com> writes:
>>
>>> "Hugh Lawson" <hla...@triad.rr.com> wrote in message
>>> news:874op0w...@desktop.xx.yy...
>>
>>>> If you read Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic, you'll find
>>>> recorded there Horwitz's discomfort upon learning that there were Jews
>>>> in the Confederate army.
>>>
>>> He'd never heard of the one in the Confederate _Cabinet_?
>
>>Good question, Mike. Read Horwitz's book and see what you think of it.
>
> I read it and it was a good book. There was one small thing about
> the book -- and Mr Horowitz -- that troubled me. Do you recall him
> visiting Shelby Foote ? What I found disturbing was the fact the
> Horowitz mentioned that Foote had his phone number listed in the local
> phone book.
I forgot that point. I don't think Horwitz treated his informants as
peers of himself, but as oddities whose descriptions would spice up
his book.
It was fun reading, but I don't take it seriously as a study of its
purported topic. I'm interested in the book, not for what it says
about its topic, but for what it shows about its author's ideas about
"the South".
Hu.
F. C. Jameson
wrote:
I think Foote threw Horowitz out of gear when he likened the KKK of
the 1870s to the French resistance. If I recall right, Horowtiz is
a big city boy who could have no concept of the culture and people of
the rural South.
"The Klan takes some careful talking about, it's easy to misinterpret
what I'm fixing to say," Foote cautioned. "But in some ways the Klan
was very akin to the Free French Resistance to Nazi occupation. To
expect people who fought as valiantly as these people did to roll over
and play dead because there was an occupying army is kind of crazy."
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2216324122&topic=1661
I suppose it's hard for any of us today to put the old South into
perspective. It no longer exists and has not existed even in small
areas since (imo) the 1970s (My last experience with it.)
From "Seeds of Time"
"If one is to know the historical background of Southern thinking, if
one is even to begin to understand the South, one must realize that
its extreme ruralism is one of the two essential keys to the vault
that has held, for more than a century, its Pandora's box of
prejudices and predilections that so baffle the urban mind. The
presence of the Negro in massive numbers is, of course, the other
essential key."
Hugh Lawson
> If I recall right, Horowtiz is
> a big city boy who could have no concept of the culture and people of
> the rural South.
I believe he could if he studied it.
[ snip ]
> I suppose it's hard for any of us today to put the old South into
> perspective. It no longer exists and has not existed even in small
> areas since (imo) the 1970s (My last experience with it.)
I don't think it's impossible, or even very difficult, to put it into
perspective. You select a perspective (viewpoint) and then examine
the facts of the Old South from that viewpoint. You can choose, say
midwestern Democrat, pro-slavery northern Presbyterian, or whatever.
First you have to learn the viewpoint you select. A few weeks of
steady reading ought to accomplish that, for a reader with say an
undergraduate history major knowledge of US history.
I think you can get a good idea what ACW-era Republicans thought about
the old South from Eric Foner's _Free Soil, Free Labor, Free
Men_. There are plenty of books documenting the view of old south
writers and politicians on their region.
There are many books on the Old South intellectual outlook.
It also takes an effort to build a view of the South as it was in the
1930s, etc.
I'd say that reading up on these topics is easier than for example,
learning a new language, or taking up introductory calculus.
Hu.
F. C. Jameson
wrote:
>F. C. Jameson <Crackerch...@gmail.com> writes:
I suppose I have read more books on the South than most. But what I
feel taught me most was by reading old newspapers from the 1850s.
Some at the library and some on the internet. Historians don't seem
to consider this a good source.
What bothers me about historians is that I can't dismiss the idea that
their research tends to prove that which they wanted to prove. I'm
not saying the lie, but I think they are human and seek to find
arguments that will boost their ideas.
I'm no historian -- nor even a scholar -- but let me give my
experience as an example. I'm retired and in 2005 I decided to
find out for myself why my ancestors supported secession. Actually,
like most, I only wanted to find facts that would bolster my theory
that they fought to defend the rights of the states. As long as I
read the various historians, I could find ample arguments to back my
theory.
But then a terrible thing happened. I began to read old newspapers
and periodicals -- and I was shocked to find that my theory was wrong.
I learned that the large slave holders of the late 1850s wanted to
re-open the African slave trade. That was the only way they could
profitably expand their operations to the Western territories. They
also wanted to make treaties with slave countries in Central America.
It was a big dream among the people who represented the great wealth
of that day.
But the funny thing is that I had never read that tidbit in any
history books. All arguments had always come down to -- "The
South loved slavery and even poor people were prepared to die to
defend and support it" (northern view) or "It was all about honor"
(Southern view). IMO neither is why my ancestors supported
secession. They supported it because they had far more faith in
their local leaders honesty than they should have had.
Hugh Lawson
[ snip ]
> But the funny thing is that I had never read that tidbit in any
> history books. All arguments had always come down to -- "The
> South loved slavery and even poor people were prepared to die to
> defend and support it" (northern view) or "It was all about honor"
> (Southern view). IMO neither is why my ancestors supported
> secession. They supported it because they had far more faith in
> their local leaders honesty than they should have had.
This would get the poor whites separated from accountability for
slavery (and perhaps white racism?). And one way to do this is to
describe them as erring by trusting leaders. This theory would make
them only too trustful, and often we think of being trustful as a good
quality.
What about the idea that the poor whites had a stake in slavery, even
if they never owned a slave? After all, slavery kept the slaves
mostly out of their way, and out of competing with them for land,
status, and other goods.
Georgia Governor Brown made this explicit in his rationale. Where, he
asked, will the poor white man get land except by renting it? And if
the slaves are freed, then the poor whites must compete with landless
blacks for what is available for rent.
That would mean, not that the poor whites loved slavery, but that they
feared the consequences of emancipation. And it was a realistic fear,
for under the system of farm tenancy that ensued, the poor whites and
the poor blacks got about the same deal from the landlords--this
according to Gavin Wright.
Hu. Lawson
F. C. Jameson
wrote:
>F. C. Jameson <Crackerch...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>[ snip ]
>
>
>> But the funny thing is that I had never read that tidbit in any
>> history books. All arguments had always come down to -- "The
>> South loved slavery and even poor people were prepared to die to
>> defend and support it" (northern view) or "It was all about honor"
>> (Southern view). IMO neither is why my ancestors supported
>> secession. They supported it because they had far more faith in
>> their local leaders honesty than they should have had.
>
>
>This would get the poor whites separated from accountability for
>slavery (and perhaps white racism?). And one way to do this is to
>describe them as erring by trusting leaders. This theory would make
>them only too trustful, and often we think of being trustful as a good
>quality.
I think being "too" trusting is not a good trait. At least by modern
standards. I suspect the only reason they trusted their wealthy
neighbors is because of their tribal culture going back to the
borderlands of England and Scotland. (See Albions Seed) Trust in
wealthy neighbors is a clan trait.
>What about the idea that the poor whites had a stake in slavery, even
>if they never owned a slave? After all, slavery kept the slaves
>mostly out of their way, and out of competing with them for land,
>status, and other goods.
>
>Georgia Governor Brown made this explicit in his rationale. Where, he
>asked, will the poor white man get land except by renting it? And if
>the slaves are freed, then the poor whites must compete with landless
>blacks for what is available for rent.
Reading Browns' letter of December 1860, I was most impressed by his
threat that if slaves were freed, the Georgia farmer would have to
pay taxes of about $30 a year for ten years for reimbursement to the
Planters. Those same folk only paid about $1 a year.
>That would mean, not that the poor whites loved slavery, but that they
>feared the consequences of emancipation.
Exactly ! And who was responsible for this hatred of blacks ? I'd
suggest the large slave owners had intentionally -- over years --
promoted this fear just for this reason. You will recall that the
Planters had decided that the best way to protect slavery was to
encourage the Yeoman to buy a slave. Even if they (the planter) had
to finance the sale of a cheap slave over a period of time. This
was suppose to give the poor man a stake in slavery so he would
volunteer to die to protect it. Which is essentially what happened.
It was a premeditated ploy to get the Plain Folk killed.
>And it was a realistic fear,
>for under the system of farm tenancy that ensued, the poor whites and
>the poor blacks got about the same deal from the landlords
Tenancy and it's evil twin -- share cropping -- probably harmed more
blacks and poor whites than slavery did. And it was basically the
same families who gave us both.
>--this
>according to Gavin Wright.
Thanks.
Old South, New South : revolutions in the southern economy since the
Civil War.
I see my library has a copy. I'll pick it up next week. Sounds
interesting.
>Hu. Lawson
You are probably right, Hugh. I'm only interested in my theory
because clannish loyalty (and deference to leaders) did exist -- and I
have never seen anybody else offer it. The only way to accept it is
to understand the Scotch-Irish culture of the 1800s. And the concept
of "politics of deference".
To tell the truth, when I started this hobby five years ago, I had
no idea my Scotch-Irish ancestors were from the border lands. I
thought they had straggled over from various parts of Britain. It's
been an interesting discovery. And it answered a lot of questions
I had wondered about from observing people while I was growing up in
the South.
Hugh Lawson
> Reading Browns' letter of December 1860, I was most impressed by his
> threat that if slaves were freed, the Georgia farmer would have to
> pay taxes of about $30 a year for ten years for reimbursement to the
> Planters. Those same folk only paid about $1 a year.
I wasn't much impressed by this argument, because it assumed a whole
politcal program: if anybody ever frees the slaves, it will be
compensated, and paid for by taxation.
But the argument that emancipation would create freedmen competition
for the poor whites in the land-rental market relies on nothing but
market forces.
> And who was responsible for this hatred of blacks ? I'd
> suggest the large slave owners had intentionally -- over years --
> promoted this fear just for this reason.
The problem with this theory is the existence of deep racial prejudice
in the free states where there was no planter class. My opinion is
that white supremacy was the dominant viewpoint of the US white
population on the black/white issues. The native Americans were
thought to be vanishing.
[ snip ]
Glad to see you're still studing these issues.
Hu. Lawson
scott s.
news:0radg512upi72tsic...@4ax.com:
> But then a terrible thing happened. I began to read old newspapers
> and periodicals -- and I was shocked to find that my theory was
> wrong. I learned that the large slave holders of the late 1850s
> wanted to re-open the African slave trade. That was the only way
> they could profitably expand their operations to the Western
> territories. They also wanted to make treaties with slave
> countries in Central America. It was a big dream among the people
> who represented the great wealth of that day.
>
> But the funny thing is that I had never read that tidbit in any
> history books.
OK. Try William Freehling, "Road to Disunion V2", Oxford Press 2007.
chapter 11: Caribbean Delusions
chapter 12: Reopening the African Slave Trade
chapter 13: Reenslaving Free Blacks
scott s.
.
plainolamerican
Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, a champion of liberal Reform Judaism and "the
most active and renowned rabbi in the United States" in the nineteenth
century [SACHAR, p. 196], actively supported the enslavement of
Blacks, called Abraham Lincoln an "imbecile," and argued that Blacks
were "beasts of burden." [LINDEMANN, p. 210] Other of his words were
later engraved on a memorial tablet in the Memorial Hall of Temple
Emanu-El, the great Reform Judaism synagogue in New York City:
"American Judaism. A religion without mystics or miracles.
Rational and
self-evident, eminently human, universal, liberal and
progressive. In
perfect harmony with modern science, criticism, and philosophy
and in
full sympathy with universal liberty, justice and charity.
There are no
better American citizens than the Jews and no religion better
befitting a
free people than Judaism." [GOLDSTEIN, D. p. 68]
"They came with ships carrying African blacks to be sold as slaves.
The
traffic in slaves was a royal monopoly, and the Jews were
often
appointed as agents for the Crown in their sale ... [LIEBMAN,
in SEC.
LIFE, p. 55] ... [The Jews] were the largest ship chandlers in
the entire
Caribbean region, where the shipping business was mainly a
Jewish
enterprise ... The ships were not only owned by Jews, but were
manned
by Jewish crews and sailed under the command of Jewish
captains."
[SEYMOUR LIEBMAN, New World Jewry, 1493-1825 , in MARTIN,
p. 113]
"The West India Company, which monopolized imports of slaves
from
Africa, sold slaves at public auctions against cash payments.
It happens
that cash was mostly in the hands of Jews. The buyers who
appeared
at the auctions were almost always Jews, and because of this
lack of
competitors, they could buy slaves at low prices. On the other
hand,
there was also no competition in the selling of the slaves to
the
plantation owners and other buyers ... Profits up to 300 per
cent of
the purchase value were often realized with high interest
rates ... If it
happened that the date of such an auction fell on a Jewish
holiday the
auction had to be postponed." [Arnold Wiznitzer, Jews in
Colonial
Brazil, in SEC. LIFE, p. 29]
"Just as a disproportionately large number of Jews were slave
owners, a disproportionately large number of Jewish merchants
sold
slaves as they would any other goods. Several of these
merchants
were prominent in their communities: an acting rabbi, the
president
of a congregation." [ROBERTA FEUERLICHT, in SEC LIFE, p. 179]
Hugh Lawson
> OK. Try William Freehling, "Road to Disunion V2", Oxford Press 2007.
>
> chapter 11: Caribbean Delusions
> chapter 12: Reopening the African Slave Trade
> chapter 13: Reenslaving Free Blacks
These topics have long been present in the regular narrative of US
history, starting with the the slave-power consipiracy idea.
Google "slave power conspiracy".
But still, compared with Honest Abe, Grant and Lee, they are lower-level
topics, and IMHO it would be easy for an amateur to overlook them.
Hu. Lawson
F. C. Jameson
wrote:
Thanks. I got today. Looks interesting. I had read the first
volume.
I noticed the second sentence of the chapter Reopening the African
Slave Trade -- says:
"In both Thomas Jefferson's era and William L. Yancey's the African
slave trade issue achieved illuminating (and neglected) importance".
I would say the issue of "Re-Opening" has been neglected much too much
by most popular writers on Southern history. Had it been emphasized
over the years, the average Southerner's attitude toward the
secession would be quit different. IMHO
F. C. Jameson
wrote:
>F. C. Jameson <Crackerch...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>
>
>> Reading Browns' letter of December 1860, I was most impressed by his
>> threat that if slaves were freed, the Georgia farmer would have to
>> pay taxes of about $30 a year for ten years for reimbursement to the
>> Planters. Those same folk only paid about $1 a year.
>
>I wasn't much impressed by this argument, because it assumed a whole
>politcal program: if anybody ever frees the slaves, it will be
>compensated, and paid for by taxation.
>
>But the argument that emancipation would create freedmen competition
>for the poor whites in the land-rental market relies on nothing but
>market forces.
>
>> And who was responsible for this hatred of blacks ? I'd
>> suggest the large slave owners had intentionally -- over years --
>> promoted this fear just for this reason.
>
>The problem with this theory is the existence of deep racial prejudice
>in the free states where there was no planter class.
That is a good point. I hadn't looked at it that way. Maybe I
overdo it, but I do think many people might look at Southern history
differently if they understood how important money and expansion was
to some segments of the Old South population. As a layman, all I
ever heard was "honor" and "states rights".
>My opinion is
>that white supremacy was the dominant viewpoint of the US white
>population on the black/white issues. The native Americans were
>thought to be vanishing.
>
>[ snip ]
>
>Glad to see you're still studing these issues.
I find it very interesting. I'm hobbled because I was never
involved in scholarly research. (or any other research:-)
Let me pose one question. I don't want to be sacrilegious -- but
can someone of our generation -- whose family was in the South long
before the CW -- love the South and respect and honor our ancestors
-- and not morally support the memory of the old Confederacy ?
Are not the most important things about the South -- culture, weather,
fauna, flora, traditions, etc -- more important than a four year
government ?
I did get that book by Wright. Maybe it will help to enlighten me.
Hugh Lawson
> Let me pose one question. I don't want to be sacrilegious -- but
> can someone of our generation -- whose family was in the South long
> before the CW -- love the South and respect and honor our ancestors
> -- and not morally support the memory of the old Confederacy ?
You can have whatever feelings you like. I don't often think about
things like "honoring ancestors". I don't "morally support the memory
of the" CSA. I love persons, not abstractions like "the South".
In my book, a southerner is somebody who answers "yes" when asked the
question, "Are you a southerner?"
Hu. Lawson
Hugh Lawson
> I would say the issue of "Re-Opening" has been neglected much too much
> by most popular writers on Southern history.
IMO the reason for the lack of attention to re-open is that it didn't
get anywhere politically AFAIK.
There is a reason for this. Reopen would have lowered the prices of
slaves, and thus reduced the net worth of anybody presently owning
slaves.
Hu. Lawson
F. C. Jameson
wrote:
>F. C. Jameson <Crackerch...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>> Let me pose one question. I don't want to be sacrilegious -- but
>> can someone of our generation -- whose family was in the South long
>> before the CW -- love the South and respect and honor our ancestors
>> -- and not morally support the memory of the old Confederacy ?
>
>You can have whatever feelings you like. I don't often think about
>things like "honoring ancestors".
But that's one of the Big Ten.
>I don't "morally support the memory
>of the" CSA. I love persons, not abstractions like "the South".
What about persons who made a fool of themselves, got themselves
killed and lost the family farm ?
>In my book, a southerner is somebody who answers "yes" when asked the
>question, "Are you a southerner?"
I'm not dogmatic, but that requirement is a little too lax.
That's very similar to the citizenship requirements Obama supporters
advocate.
"Hey, are you an American ?"
"Si, senor".
Hugh Lawson
> What about persons who made a fool of themselves, got themselves
> killed and lost the family farm ?
Sir, you are talking about some of my beloved relations. ;-)
Whatever their flaws, I don't turn my back on them.
>>In my book, a southerner is somebody who answers "yes" when asked the
>>question, "Are you a southerner?"
>
> I'm not dogmatic, but that requirement is a little too lax.
Being southern a personal feeling of belonging in a community with
others who also consider themselves southern.
It is not an honorific, in my defn. There are thousands of
unquestionable southerners in the penitentiary, etc.
But F.C. you remain free to set up a more tightly bounded community;
you could call them "F.C. approved southerners". But most of the
southerners I know would not consent to be so labelled.
> That's very similar to the citizenship requirements Obama supporters
> advocate.
>
> "Hey, are you an American ?"
>
> "Si, senor".
Piffle.
Hugh "voted for Obama, and would do it again" Lawson