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February 12, 2007

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Upfront

The Founding Fathers and Slavery

"Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States....I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in...abhorrence." John Adams (letter to Evans, 8 June 1819) Reference: Vindicating the Founders, West (5); original  Selected Writings of John and John Quicny Adams, Koch and Peden (209)

"This is a long story and it is covered in a long essay titled 'The Real History of Slavery' in my book 'Black Rednecks, White Liberals.' Thomas Sowell

Black Rednecks, White Liberals by Thomas Sowell The question arises as to why America's Founder's established "all men are created equal," while at the same time allowing slavery to continue? From the words of the Founders, it appears they feared a race war as being more of an evil consequence then slavery, after witnessing the what happened in Santa Domingo (now Haiti). So they instead hoped slavery would be progressively eradicated more peacefully rather than by violence. Slavery is not based on racism, but on vulnerability. It was based on religion at times, but also regardless of race. Not only did whites enslave whites, and blacks enslaved blacks, and Asians enslaved Asians, Europeans also enslaved other Europeans, Africans enslaved other Africans, and Arabs enslaved other Arabs, who were vulnerable, regardless of race. Also, Christians had slaves, as well as Buddhists had slaves, and the Muslim's Koran accepts slavery as an institution.

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The Founding Fathers and Slavery by David Barton Posted: 07/26/2005 - Distributed by www.ChristianWorldviewNetwork.com

Even though the issue of slavery is often raised as a discrediting charge against the Founding Fathers, the historical fact is that slavery was not the product of, nor was it an evil introduced by, the Founding Fathers; slavery had been introduced to America nearly two centuries before the Founders. ...The Revolution was the turning point in the national attitude-and it was the Founding Fathers who contributed greatly to that change. In fact, many of the Founders vigorously complained against the fact that Great Britain had forcefully imposed upon the Colonies the evil of slavery.

For example, Thomas Jefferson heavily criticized that British policy: He [King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. . . . Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [that is, he has opposed efforts to prohibit the slave trade].

Benjamin Franklin, in a 1773 letter to Dean Woodward, confirmed that whenever the Americans had attempted to end slavery, the British government had indeed thwarted those attempts. Franklin explained that . . .. . . a disposition to abolish slavery prevails in North America, that many of Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, and that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more into that colony. This request, however, will probably not be granted as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed.

Further confirmation that even the Virginia Founders were not responsible for slavery, but actually tried to dismantle the institution, was provided by John Quincy Adams (known as the "hell-hound of abolition" for his extensive efforts against that evil). Adams explained: The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself [Jefferson]. No charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country [Great Britain] and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the Memoir of His Life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to
his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves.

Click here for complete column.

See America's Foundation

Take Action

Susan B. Anthony List - Legislative Action Required: Take Action Today!  Contact your Member of Congress  - House Committee Votes for Protecting Chickens Instead of Protecting Young Girls. In schools across America, a child can�t go on a school field trip or even get an aspirin from the school nurse without her parent�s permission. But she can be shuttled across state lines to have a major medical procedure . . . an abortion! Unfortunately, powerful leaders in today�s pro-abortion Congress think protecting chickens from interstate transport is more important than protecting our young girls. Take Action Today! Contact your Member of Congress and urge support for the commonsense Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA) Help protect young girls!

Petition (Liberty Council) to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid demanding that the new Congress immediately stop its attacks on life, liberty and our families. Please go here for details and to sign.

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Contact your senators and ask them to oppose EFCA. Ted Kennedy's anti-employee Card Check Bill to be introduced in the Senate at any moment. If passed, it would rob millions of workers of their basic right to vote on whether or not to join a union. It would replace the secret ballot with a union card check - to be openly signed under the glaring eye of a union organizer. It would place American workers at the complete mercy of the union bosses' handpicked henchmen. And it would extort billions of additional dollars in forced dues to swell Big Labor's coffers - and pad the pockets of liberal Democrats.

See also: Union Free Choice By Linda Chavez - Private sector unions are perilously close to going the way of the dinosaur, but they still have enough teeth to convince Democrats to try to cram through legislation that would imperil workers' free choice. Union membership among non-government employees now stands at 7.4 percent, its lowest rate in decades. So, the AFL-CIO, its affiliates, and several independent unions are trying to make it easier to force employers to recognize unions as exclusive bargaining agents through legislation. The misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is now at the top of the new Democrat-controlled Congress' agenda. The legislation would eliminate secret ballot elections for union representation, depriving workers of the right to reject the union without incurring the wrath of union organizers or their fellow workers.

In cased you missed it....

(Click on links for complete columns)

Overview of 2008 GOP Presidential Candidates - Ranked from acceptable to unacceptable - Conservative Times

Barack Obama: Sheep of Goat? - An in-depth look at the senator's personal faith

Clinton beginning to sound like Hugo Chavez Sher Zieve

The Psychodynamics of the Radical Liberal Mind - Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD
(See also: The Pathology of Liberalism and Are you "mainstream?"  Quiz: How Far Left or Right are You?)

Michigan court deals blow to homosexual activists Opponents of same-sex "marriage" are expressing delight over a ruling from the Michigan Court of Appeals. The decision bars public universities and governments from providing insurance to partners of homosexual employees. A three-judge panel concluded such policies violate a voter-approved ban on homosexual marriage.

ObamaNation.Com to Expose Sen. Obama /Christian Newswire / -- In anticipation of the Feb. 10 announcement in Springfield, Ill. that Sen. Barack Obama will run to become president of the United States, Christians for Social Justice has launched ObamaNation.Com, a website exposing the hypocrisy of Obama on the greatest moral issues of our time � abortion and homosexual unions.

Conservatives more generous than liberals, public policy expert finds A regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal says there is a huge divide between those who give to charity and those who don't. In his new book "Who Really Cares," Arthur Brooks documents what he calls the "Right-Left charity gap" between conservatives and liberals when it comes to donating to charities.

Heritage Foundation: An activist group in Washington State has proposed a ballot initiative limiting marriage only to fertile couples who bear children within three years. This proposal is based on a horrendous liberal misrepresentation of conservative arguments: �social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation,� said an organizer. Real arguments for traditional marriage can be found at Heritage�s FamilyFacts.org.

Radical Islam

�It might seem at first glance that the left wing of the Democratic Party should be in the forefront to fight radical Islam. Islamic radicals despise women�s rights and gay rights. I think we all know what they would do with Hillary Clinton or Barney Frank. [Their] reluctance to support the war on terror... has nothing to do with cultural relativism or multiculturalism. It has everything to do with domestic politics. Basically the left hates Bush more than it hates Bin Laden... Consider the war in Iraq. This war is tough going in Iraq. But it is even tougher going in America. The war is being lost not on the streets of Baghdad but right here in America... There is no way that Bin Laden could persuade America to give up on the war on terror and get out of Iraq and the Middle East. Fortunately for Bin Laden he has a whole political movement in the United States that is dedicated to exactly this objective.� Dinesh D�Souza on his new book, The Enemy at Home

Letting the left off the hook - Dinesh D'Souza - Why are some conservatives so determined to let liberals off the hook for 9/11? ...My book (The Enemy at Home) asks a completely secular question: why did the guys who did 9/11 do it? ...Here�s a second question: Without the weakness and inaction of the Clinton administration during the mid-to-late 1990s, would 9/11 have happened?

Counting The Cost - Luke 14:26-35 "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sits not down first, and counts the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?"