Discovering the Biblical Kingdom of God, Jesus & Holy Spirit
America's Choice: Constitutional Republic or Democrat-Socialism?
"Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants." (Benjamin Franklin)
The Founders and Slavery, the truth
America did not invent slavery, America ended slavery.
See also: (1)Critical Race Theory Exposed | Constitution Corner
(2)
Democrat Party true history of racism.
"Slavery had been around for thousands of years. George
Washington founded the country that got rid of slavery within 80 years.
"[If] the Constitution were intended to be, by
its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery,
slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. ...Now, take the
Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a
single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain
principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery." --Frederick
Douglass
Among those who turned against slavery
in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and
other American leaders. You could research all of 18th-century Africa or Asia or
the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there --
Thomas Sowell (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that
Defined America, 90).
See also
(1)
Black Founders
(2)
The Founding Fathers and
Jesus By Gary DeMar
Who were the first to champion abolishing slavery in America? ...Quakers had the courage to stand against slavery, even though the government of England financially benefited from it. In the early 1700s, many colonies tried ending slavery but Queen Anne would not allow it. The monarchy of England was part owner in the Royal African Company, which since its founding in 1660, shipped more slaves to the Americas than any other entity. ...Beginning in 1750, after school hours, Anthony Benezet began bringing slave children into his home where he taught them to read. He also advocated for Indian Natives and started the first school for girls in America in 1754. In 1758, at the yearly Quaker Meeting in Philadelphia, Anthony Benezet and Quaker John Woolman, convinced Quakers to publicly go on record as being officially against slavery.
...In 1770, Benezet led Quakers to found the Negro School at Philadelphia, being encouraged by both Methodist founder John Wesley and Benjamin Franklin. ... In 1764, James Otis wrote in "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved": Colonists ... are men, the common children of the same Creator ...Nature has placed all such in a state of equality and perfect freedom ... Colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black. ... Patrick Henry became one of the most out-spoken Virginia founding fathers in actively condemning slavery, as being “inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to morality.” In 1778, Henry successful lobbied the Virginia Legislature to cease the importation of slaves.
...Jefferson's original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a line condemning the slave trade of King George's Royal African Company: "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself ... 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 ...suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold." Unfortunately, the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia objected. Since the Declaration needed to be unanimous, and at the same time news arrived causing panic that the British were preparing to attack New York, the lines against slavery were deleted from the Declaration.
...In 1775, Anthony Benezet helped found the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, with 17 of the 24 founders being Quakers. It was the first society in America dedicated to abolishing slavery. In 1784, its name was changed to Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery & the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. In 1787, Ben Franklin became its president. Pennsylvania passed a law in 1780 ending slavery: "Negroes, and mulattos, as others ... after the passing of this Act, shall not be ... slaves." On February 3, 1790, less than three months before he died, Franklin petitioned Cogress to ban slavery... ...Richard Bassett, a Signer of the Constitution from Delaware, converted to Methodism, freed all his slaves and paid them as hired labor.
..In 1807, Congress passed the Slave Importation Act, signed by Jefferson, which prohibited further importation of slaves. The U.S. Coast captured numerous slave trading ships. Francis Scott Key fought a seven year legal battle to free the African slaves from the captured ship Antelope. ...In 1854, Wisconsin citizens met in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin, to form what would become the Republican Party. The original 1856 Republican platform was: "Resolved ... it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism -- Polygamy and Slavery."
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.
Slavery, Ancient & Modern; and some Champions Who Fought to Abolish It
- American Minute with Bill Federer - Slavery existed from the beginning of recorded history, with examples such as: China's Shang Dynasty in the second millennium BC, enslaved neighboring states, using many for ritual sacrifice; Egyptians used slaves to build pyramids; India's untouchable caste was relegated to cleaning sewers and handling dead things, laboring in conditions equivalent to slavery; Greeks and Romans had slaves. The movement to abolish slavery developed largely in western Judeo-Christian civilization.
Condemning slavery in all its forms, Charles Sumner wrote In 1853 the book White
Slavery in the Barbary States. In it, he documented that throughout
the Middle Ages, Muslim Barbary pirates raided coastal towns from the eastern
Mediterranean to the Netherlands, and as far north as Iceland, carrying away
white Europeans as slaves. They then sold them throughout the Ottoman Empire and
the North African Barbary states of Morocco, Algiers, Salee, Oran, Tunis,
Tripoli and Bacra, not stopping until forced to by the Barbary Pirate War of
1816. "The Saracens, with the Koran and the sword, potent ministers of
conversion, next broke from Arabia, as the messengers of a new religion, and
pouring along these shores, diffused the faith and doctrines of Mohammed ...
even ... entered Spain, and ... at Roncesvalles ... overthrew the embattled
chivalry of the Christian world led by Charlemange. (The Song of Roland)
...Algiers, for a long time the most obnoxious place in the Barbary States of
Africa, the chief seat of Christian slavery ... the wall of the barbarian world
..." ..."And Cervantes, in the story of Don Quixote ... give(s) the narrative of
a Spanish captive who had escaped from Algiers ...The author is supposed to have
drawn from his own experience; for during five and a half years he endured the
horrors of Algerine slavery, from which he was finally liberated by a ransom of
about six hundred dollars." ..."Familiarity with that great story of redemption,
when God raised up the slave-born Moses to deliver His chosen people from
bondage, and with that sublimer story where our Saviour died a cruel death that
all men, without distinction of race, might be saved, makes slavery impossible
..." ..."There is no reason for renouncing Christianity, or for surrendering to
the false religions; nor do I doubt that Christianity will yet prevail over the
earth as the waters cover the sea."
Thomas Jefferson, in proclaiming the
Declaration of Independence intentionally included "all men are created
equal" to be an incentive for abolishing slavery, and yet the
"progressive" Marxists, in their limited intellect, do not possess the
wisdom to grasp the shrewdness and insight behind the prudence of that
assertion.
"He 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. ... This piratical warfare, the opprobrium [disgrace] of
Infidel Powers [reference to Muslim slave trade], is the warfare of the
Christian King of Great Britain. He has prostituted his negative for
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain an
execrable commerce, determined to keep open a market where men should be
bought and sold, and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact
of distinguished die."
Jefferson's Attitudes Toward Slavery: ...Jefferson wrote that maintaining
slavery was like holding "a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor
safely let him go."17 He thought that his cherished federal union, the world's
first democratic experiment, would be destroyed by slavery. To emancipate slaves
on American soil, Jefferson thought, would result in a large-scale race war that
would be as brutal and deadly as the slave revolt in Haiti in 1791. But he also
believed that to keep slaves in bondage, with part of America in favor of
abolition and part of America in favor of perpetuating slavery, could only
result in a civil war that would destroy the union. Jefferson's latter
prediction was correct: in 1861, the contest over slavery sparked a bloody civil
war and the creation of two nations, Union and Confederacy, in the place of one.
How a Great Awakening Turned America's Founding Fathers Against Slavery
- By Dr. Eddie Hyatt - America's Founders are under attack. Their monuments are being toppled and their names removed from schools and other public buildings. Children are being taught that George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were evil, rich slave owners who formed this nation to protect their wealth and maintain the institution of slavery. This twisted history of America is dividing and destroying her.The truth is that at a time when slavery was being practiced in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and many parts of the world, America's founders turned against it. Dr. Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black, has written about this, saying, Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century, and then it was an issue only in Western civilization. Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and other American leaders.
You could research all of 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there (Hyatt, Abolitionist Founding Fathers, 9). The late historians, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese made the same observation, and wrote, "Perception of slavery as morally unacceptable, as sinful, did not become widespread until the second half of the eighteenth century."
The Source of the Moral Outrage Against Slavery: The rise of this 18th century movement against slavery can be traced to the great, spiritual awakening that rocked Colonial America, beginning in 1726. Entire towns were morally transformed as evidenced by Benjamin Franklin's description of this "Great Awakening" in his hometown of Philadelphia in 1739. He wrote, From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street (Hyatt, Abolitionist Founding Fathers, 14). Out of this Awakening racial and cultural barriers were breached and there arose a powerful anti-slavery movement as Awakening preachers began, not only to offer salvation to individuals, but to attack the institution of slavery as sinful and evil in the sight of God.
Positive
Proof that America was Defined by 1725, not 1619 - By Dr. Eddie
Hyatt - 1726 is the Key for Interpreting Our History: Slavery is a horrible
blight on America's past and could have defined the country, had it not been for
1726. That year, a great, spiritual awakening began, which profoundly
transformed colonial America. Racial and cultural barriers were breached and an
abolition movement was ignited that eventually brought about the end of slavery
on this continent.
Instead of being defined by 1619, America became defined by
1726 as a land of faith and freedom. The key to preserving our history
and confronting the 1619 myth is to understand what happened, beginning in 1726.
Interpreting America's history in the light of 1726 changes everything.
Here are 5 historical facts from the 1726 narrative that completely undermines
the 1619 myth about America.
...Fact #1 - Slavery Was Not Unique to America:
Slavery is a part of sinful humanity and has been practiced by many peoples and
civilizations for thousands of years. Slavery was being practiced in Africa,
Asia, the Middle East, and many parts of the world when the first African slaves
were brought to America in 1619. This is why the late Dr. Walter E. Williams,
who was Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and who happened to
be black, said that slavery in America was neither odd nor strange. He pointed
out that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, "An estimated
three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will
either in some form of slavery or serfdom." Williams pointed out that what was
unique about slavery in America was both the brevity of its existence and the
moral outrage that arose against it. ...
...Fact #2 - Moral Outrage Arose Against Slavery in
Colonial America. As documented in my book, 1726, a powerful
anti-slavery movement emerged out of the great, spiritual awakening that rocked
colonial America in the 18th century. In this "Great Awakening," racial and
cultural barriers were breached as blacks and whites worshipped together and
shared the Gospel with everyone regardless of race or status in life.
Second-generation Awakening preachers then began to viciously attack the
institution of slavery around 1750.
...The breaching of racial barriers in the Great Awakening provided
the social context for George Washington to order his recruiting officers to
accept free blacks into the ranks of the Continental Army. As a result, by 1781
one in every seven American soldiers was black. Blacks and whites fought
together for freedom from Great Britain. ...
...Fact #3 - America's Founders Rejected Slavery When it
Was Accepted Around the World: As a result of the Great Awakening and
the abolition movement it launched, virtually all of America's founders turned
against slavery at a time it was accepted and practiced throughout the world.
Dr. Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black, has written about this, saying,
Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much
less among political leaders, until the 18th century, and then it was an issue
only in Western civilization. Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th
century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and other
American leaders. You could research all of 18th century Africa or Asia or the
Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there (Hyatt,
1726: The Year that Defined America, 90).
Dr, Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia was a member of the Continental
Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. A passionate
abolitionist, he called on the ministers of America to take a bold stand against
slavery, saying, "Slavery is a Hydra sin and includes in it every violation of
the precepts of the Laws and the Gospels" (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that Defined
America, 101).
Two years before the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin
liberated his two slaves and began advocating for abolition. He joined the
Abolition Society in Philadelphia and later served as its president.
George Washington's situation was more complex because of the size
of the plantation and the number of slaves he had inherited. Nonetheless, he set
up a compassionate program to completely disentangle Mt. Vernon from the
institution of slavery. Concerning abolition, he declared, "Not only do I pray
for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly foresee that nothing
but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union by
consolidating it in a common bond of principle" (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that
Defined America, 103). ...
...Truth #4 - America's Founding Documents Are Colorblind:
Because of the Great Awakening, there are no classifications based on race or
skin color in America's founding documents. Nothing in either the Declaration of
Independence or the United States Constitution indicates that the freedoms
guaranteed do not apply to every individual.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) understood this and in his
stirring, I Have a Dream speech, he challenged America, not to dispense with her
founding documents, but instead, to live up to them. Speaking from the steps of
the Lincoln Memorial, he declared, "When the architects of our republic wrote
the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,
they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would
be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness."
Then quoting from the Declaration of Independence, he proclaimed,
"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal'" (Hyatt, 1726: The Year that Defined America, 122).
Fact #5 - Hundreds of Thousands of American Citizens
Sacrificed Their Lives to End Slavery: Where would a nation get the
moral fortitude to sacrifice a million of its citizens in order to end slavery?
The Civil War was, by far, the costliest war America has ever fought. There was
an incredible loss of property and livelihood, but nothing could compare with
the loss of life that occurred.It is estimated that at least 700,000 soldiers
lost their lives. Add to this the civilian casualties and the thousands who were
permanently maimed and injured and we arrive at the estimate of one million
casualties. The magnitude of the loss is amplified by the fact that the United
States population at the time was only 31 million.
By way of comparison, in WWII around 290,000 American soldiers lost
their lives. In the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan less than 10,000 Americans
have died. More lives were lost in the Civil War than in all wars combined from
the American Revolution through the Korean Conflict.
It was truly a devastating time. Weeping could be heard in homes throughout
America. In many homes both father and sons were missing. Hardly a family could
be found that had not lost multiple family members.
I was the moral conviction that slavery was abhorrent in the sight
of God that led hundreds of thousands of white Americans to put their lives on
the line to bring about the abolition of slavery in their land. This moral
outrage was a product of 1726 and the Awakening that began that year and the
Awakenings that came afterwards.
The Summation of it All - Yes, America's history has been
far from perfect, but where sin has abounded God's grace has abounded much more
(Romans 5:20b). 1619 represents America's sin but 1726 represents God's
grace sent forth in the form of a great, spiritual awakening. Because of 1726
and subsequent awakenings, Christian awakening is in our national DNA. Let us,
therefore, pray with confidence that another Great Awakening will sweep across
our land, renewing our faith and bringing hope, healing, and reconciliation.
#Remembering1726
This article is drived from Dr. Eddie Hyatt's book,
1726: The Year that Defined America. He is also the creator of the "1727 Project," which is a
Powerpoint presentation documenting America's birth out of a spiritual awakening
that also brought about the end of slavery on the American continent.
Slavery:
What They Didn't Teach in My High School - By Larry Elder -
...In "Prisons & Slavery," John Dewar Gleissner writes: "The Arabs'
treatment of black Africans can aptly be termed an African Holocaust.
Arabs killed more Africans in transit, especially when crossing the
Sahara Desert, than Europeans and Americans, and over more centuries,
both before and after the years of the Atlantic slave trade. Arab
Muslims began extracting millions of black African slaves centuries
before Christian nations did. Arab slave traders removed slaves from
Africa for about 13 centuries, compared to three centuries of the
Atlantic slave trade.
...My name-changing friend did not know that slavery occurred on every continent except Antarctica. Europeans enslaved other Europeans. Asians enslaved Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans. Arabs enslaved other Arabs. Native Americans even enslaved other Native Americans.
..."People of every race and color were enslaved, and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed." Sowell also wrote: "The region of West Africa ... was one of the great slave-trading regions of the continent, before, during, and after the white man arrived. It was the Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some of these slaves to Europeans or to Arabs and keeping others for themselves. Even at the peak of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans retained more slaves for themselves than they sent to the Western Hemisphere. ... Arabs were the leading slave raiders in East Africa, ranging over an area larger than all of Europe."
...10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That's right: a tiny percentage. In fact, the overwhelming percentage of the African slaves were shipped directly to the Caribbean and South America; Brazil received 4.86 million Africans alone!"
...African tribes who captured other tribes sold them into slavery. For this reason, in 2006, Ghana offered an official apology. ..."While slavery was common to all civilizations," writes Sowell, "... only one civilization developed a moral revulsion against it, very late in its history, Western civilization. ... Not even the leading moralists in other civilizations rejected slavery at all."
Did you know? Benjamin
Franklin was president of America's first anti-slavery society.
Franklin's last public act was to petition Congress on February 3, 1790, to
abolish slavery, urging them to "devise means for removing the inconsistency
from the character of the American People" and to "promote mercy and justice
toward this distressed race."
"What
to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" -By Frederick Douglass
| July 5, 1852 - ...I have said that the Declaration of Independence is
the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I
regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving
principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions,
in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. ...Fellow
Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were
great men too, great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not
often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly
great men.
...They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.
...The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. ...In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? ...The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority of Him by whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach that we ought to obey man's law before the law of God.
...Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.
...Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. ...Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain.
The Constitution Was Never Pro-Slavery - By
Allen C.
Guelzo - It was deliberately written to avoid establishing a legal
precedent for ownership of human beings. ...To read the Constitution as
pro-slavery, in the manner of Finkelman, Waldstreicher, and even
Sanders, requires a suspension of disbelief that only playwrights and morticians
could admire. Yes, the Constitution reduced slaves to the
hated three-fifths; but that was to keep slaveholders from claiming them
for five-fifths in determining representation, which would have
increased the power of the slaveholding states. Yes, the Constitution
permitted the slave trade to continue; but it also permitted Congress to
shut it off, which it did in 1808.
...Its authors, even when they turned a blind eye to slavery, did so believing that "slavery would disappear" and that "the imprint of that expectation is visible in the document they finally approved." ...But by the 1850s, [Federick] Douglass ...insisting instead that the Constitution, when "construed in the light of well-established rules of legal interpretation," must be "wielded in behalf of emancipation" as "a glorious liberty document." What convinced Douglass was the same thing that the Framers had hoped would win the day: silence. "If the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument," then why could "neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave . . . be anywhere found in it"? That is the question the anti-constitutional sensationalists have yet to answer.
Attacking Our Nation's Founders - By Walter E. Williams - Most often, the hate-America teachings are centered on the fact that slavery is a part of our history. What is left untaught is: Slavery was a routine part of human history. Blacks were the last people to be enslaved. Plus, our Founding Fathers struggled mightily over the issue of slavery. Let us look at some of that struggle.
George Washington said, "I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it." Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Patrick Henry and others were highly critical of slavery, describing it as a "disease of ignorance," "an inconsistency not to be excused" and a "lamentable evil." George Mason said, "The augmentation of slaves weakens the states; and such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful to mankind."
James Madison, in a speech at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, declared, "We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man." Benjamin Rush said: "Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. ... It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father."
In their effort to create a union, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention had to negotiate many contentious, deal-breaking issues. Slavery was chief among them. Southern states made clear that they would not vote to ratify a constitution that abolished slavery or ended the slave trade. Northern delegates wanted to end slave trading and did not want slaves counted at all for congressional apportionment. Southern delegates wanted slaves counted as whole people. That would have given the South greater political power in the House of Representatives. (Continued here.)
The
Key Facts About Slavery That the Left Conveniently Ignores -
by Walter E. Williams ...Large numbers of Christians were enslaved
during the Ottoman wars in Europe. White slaves were common in Europe
from the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages. It was only after A.D. 1600 that
Europeans joined with Arabs and Africans and started the Atlantic slave
trade. ...Southern delegates to the convention wanted slaves to be
counted as one person. Northern delegates to the convention, and those
opposed to slavery, wanted only free persons of each state to be counted
for the purposes of apportionment in the House of Representatives and
the Electoral College. The compromise reached was that each slave would
be counted as only three-fifths of a person. ...With this union,
Congress at least had the power to abolish slave trade by 1808.
According to Delegate James Wilson, many believed the anti-slave trade
clause laid "the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country."
...Many of the Founders abhorred slavery. Their statements can be
read on my website, https://walterewilliams.com/quotations/slavery/ .
...Unfortunately, these facts about slavery are not in the lessons
taught in our schools and colleges. Instead, there is gross
misrepresentation and suggestion that slavery was a uniquely American
practice.
It Was the Brits Who Instituted Slavery in the US, Not
Americans, So Should THEY be Responsible for Reparations? -
By Teresa Neumann - ...The fact is, Americans didn't institute slavery
in this country. England didn't clear up until colonials defeated the
British in the Revolutionary War. By that time, there were over 2
MILLION slaves in the American colonies. Ruled by an overseas king at
that time, colonials had no say in the law of the land.
Marika Sherwood, writing for History in Focus, said: "Britain
followed in the footsteps of the Portuguese in voyaging to the west
coast of Africa and enslaving Africans. The British participation in
what has come to be called the 'nefarious trade' was begun by Sir John
Hawkins with the support and investment of Elizabeth I in 1573. By fair
means and foul, Britain outwitted its European rivals and became the
premier trader in the enslaved from the seventeenth century onwards, and
retained this position till 1807. Britain supplied enslaved African
women, men and children to all European colonies in the Americas."
Therefore, politicians who support the notion of additional
reparations (beyond the sacrifices of the Civil War) must take their
blame game across the Atlantic to England, a nation accused of trying to
"bury" their responsibility for it.
...But it doesn't end there. The British, according to historical
documents, were simply following in the footsteps of their arch-enemies
at the time. The Portuguese and the Spanish, who ran slave expeditions to
Africa for their own countries, were responsible for sending upwards of
15 MILLION slaves to the Caribbean between 1492 and 1820. Sure, England
abolished slavery in 1834; the US in 1864. But Spain's colony of Cuba
didn't follow suit until 1886 and Portugal's New World colonies, not
until 1888.
So, they were the bad guys, right? Well, the Islamic slave trade
began long before the Atlantic slave trade. According to a New York
Times article by Adam Hochschild, the Arab world is estimated to have
enslaved 11.5 million poor souls during a dozen centuries. Why is so
little attention paid to Islamic slavery today? Says Hochschild: "One
reason, suggests Segal, a South African-born editor and the author of
''The Black Diaspora,'' is that in the Muslim world slavery never became
the publicly fought moral and political issue that it did in the United
States and Europe.
The truth about slavery
- By Larry Elder, July 12,
2018 - A man I have known since grade school changed his name, years
ago, to an Arabic one. He told me he rejected Christianity as "the white
man's religion that justified slavery." He argued Africans taken out of
that continent were owed reparations. "From whom?" I asked.
Arab slavers took more Africans out of Africa and transported them
to the Middle East and to South America than European slavers took out
of Africa and brought to North America. Arab slavers began taking slaves
out of Africa beginning in the ninth century -- centuries before the
European slave trade -- and continued well after.
In "Prisons & Slavery," John Dewar Gleissner writes: "The Arabs'
treatment of black Africans can aptly be termed an African Holocaust.
Arabs killed more Africans in transit, especially when crossing the
Sahara Desert, than Europeans and Americans, and over more centuries,
both before and after the years of the Atlantic slave trade. Arab
Muslims began extracting millions of black African slaves centuries
before Christian nations did. Arab slave traders removed slaves from
Africa for about 13 centuries, compared to three centuries of the
Atlantic slave trade. African slaves transported by Arabs across the
Sahara Desert died more often than slaves making the Middle Passage to
the New World by ship. Slaves invariably died within five years if they
worked in the Ottoman Empire's Sahara salt mines."
My name-changing friend did not know that slavery occurred on every
continent except Antarctica. Europeans enslaved other Europeans. Asians
enslaved Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans. Arabs enslaved other
Arabs. Native Americans even enslaved other Native Americans.
He accused me of "relying on white historians" who, he insisted,
had a "vested interest to lie."
What about Thomas Sowell, the brilliant
economist/historian/philosopher, who happens to be black? Sowell writes:
"Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most
astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a
worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was
slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century.
"People of every race and color were enslaved -- and enslaved
others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the
Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed."
Sowell also wrote: "The region of West Africa ... was one of the
great slave-trading regions of the continent -- before, during, and
after the white man arrived. It was the Africans who enslaved their
fellow Africans, selling some of these slaves to Europeans or to Arabs
and keeping others for themselves. Even at the peak of the Atlantic
slave trade, Africans retained more slaves for themselves than they sent
to the Western Hemisphere. ... Arabs were the leading slave raiders in
East Africa, ranging over an area larger than all of Europe."
I asked my friend if his anger over slavery extended to countries
like Brazil. "Brazil?" he said.
Harvard's Department of African and African American Studies
professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. -- who also happens to be black --
wrote: "Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade
to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database,
12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million
survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the
Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans
were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That's
right: a tiny percentage. In fact, the overwhelming percentage of the
African slaves were shipped directly to the Caribbean and South America;
Brazil received 4.86 million Africans alone!"
African tribes who captured other tribes sold them into slavery.
For this reason, in 2006, Ghana offered an official apology. Emmanuel
Hagan, director of research and statistics at Ghana's Ministry of
Tourism and Diaspora Relations, explains: "The reason why we wanted to
do some formal thing is that we want -- even if it's just for the
surface of it, for the cosmetic of it -- to be seen to be saying 'sorry'
to those who feel very strongly and who we believe have distorted
history, because they get the impression that it was people here who
just took them and sold them. It's something we have to look straight in
the face and try to address, because it exists. So we will want to say
something went wrong. People made mistakes, but we are sorry for
whatever happened."
Over 600,000 Americans, in a country with less than 10 percent of
today's population, died in the Civil War that ended slavery. "While
slavery was common to all civilizations," writes Sowell, "...only one
civilization developed a moral revulsion against it, very late in its
history -- Western civilization. ... Not even the leading moralists in
other civilizations rejected slavery at all."
And, no, after all this, my friend did not reconsider his name
change.
American Minute with Bill Federer - Slavery - a long shameful
history
...Ancient cultures made slaves of those captured in battle, as seen in Babylon, Persia, Greece, China, India, and Africa.
...Israelites were made to be slaves by powerful Pharaohs of Egypt for four hundred years.
...Julius Caesar conquered in Gaul and brought so many captured "slavic" peoples into to Rome that the term "slav" gained the connotation of permanent servant - "slave." Over half of Rome's population were slaves.
...The timeline of slavery added a new chapter in 711 AD, when Muslim Moors conquered Spain, then invaded Portugal and France, followed by the coasts of Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean. Over a million Europeans were carried off into Islamic slavery. In 1189, Muslims raided Libson, Portugal, and enslaved 3,000 women and children. In 1191, Muslims attacked Silves, Portugal, and enslaved 3,000.
...Muslim raiders enslaved an estimated 180 million Africans over its 1,400 year expansion.
...Muslim slave markets existed in:
...North Africa:
...West Africa:
...Swahili Coast:
...Horn of Africa:
...Arabian Peninsula:
...Indian Ocean:
...Tragically, Muslim slave markets continue, with news reports giving shocking details of ISIS enslaving captured women, many of whom are Christian or Yazidi.
...Liberal academia defended this practice, as reported on February 7, 2017, where Georgetown University Professor Jonathan Brown, holder of the Al-Waleed bin Talal Chair in Islamic Civilization, delivered a lecture explaining how slavery and non-consensual sex (rape) are acceptable under Islamic sharia law.
...Over the next two centuries, the number of slaves tragically grew from "20 and odd" to an estimated 4 million by 1860.
...A lesser known chapters of slaves brought to America occurred in the 1600s when King James I, followed by Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, sold over 500,000 Irish Catholics into slavery onto plantations in the West Indies, Antigua, Montserrat, Jamaica, Barbados, as well as Virginia and New England. Additionally, many poor Europeans sold themselves as "indentured servants" -- a temporary slavery -- for seven years, in exchange for transportation to America. From 1714-1756, thousands of oppressed Irish sold themselves as indentured slaves in return for passage, usually to Pennsylvania, hoping to take advantage of William Penn's promise of toleration.
...Indian tribes would sell captives from other tribes into slavery. ...Some Native Americans owned African slaves. In 1842, there was an African slave revolt in Cherokee Territory. After colonial conflicts with American Indians, some were sold into slavery in the West Indies.
...Christian missionaries and movements, especially Quakers, Moravians, and Methodists, were a continual voice of conscience against slavery.
...Jefferson pushed through legislation ending the importation of slaves into the United States, telling Congress, December 2, 1806: "... to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe."
...When Democrats wanted to expand slavery into this new Louisiana Territory, it resulted in "Bleeding Kansas."
Prior to the Civil War, America was divided into 5 categories:
1. Radical Northern Republicans: whose attitude was slavery is wrong--end it now.
2. Moderate Republicans: whose attitude was that slavery is wrong but the country should transition out of it gradually over time.
3 Practical Neutral Voters: who cared little about the value of human life. They were more concerned about their pocketbook, jobs, wages, economy and tax-tariff issues.
4. Moderate Southern Democrats: whose attitude was slavery is wrong, but it was settled law and the nation should just live with it. People should have the choice whether or not to own a slave--just treat your slaves nice.
5. Extreme Southern Democrats: whose attitude was slavery is good and should be expanded into new Territories and States.
Slavery was ended in the United States after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment.
George Washington's evolving views on the difficult subject of
slavery - by
Tara Ross - Washington himself wrestled with the subject for years,
although he never took a public stance against slavery. Should he have
done so? Some scholars speculate that he never did take a public
position because he was worried about breaking up the Union before it
ever got off the ground. Either way, Washington's views were changing,
and his actions reflected this evolving perspective. He quit selling
slaves without their permission. He would not break up families, even
when he had too many slaves and ran into cost inefficiencies at Mount
Vernon.
He softened his position on allowing black men to serve in the Continental Army during the Revolution. He met with the first black American poet, even giving her the respectful title, "Miss Phillis." (See September 1 history post.)
Towards the end of his life, he would speak of slavery as the "only unavoidable subject of regret" in his life. Maybe it is unsurprising that he freed his slaves in his will? None of us are perfect, and I suspect future generations will find plenty wrong with the things that we have done. But I hope they will also find things that we did right.
One thing that the Founders did right: Fifty-five of them met in a room in Philadelphia. They were learned men, students of history. They had studied various political systems. They were free from partisan interests. (Their biggest bias was in favor of their own states.) They lived at a unique point in history, and they came together with the goal of creating a uniquely successful government. And they did just that. In this author's opinion, we do our country a disservice when we ignore the good things that these men did because we wish that they had overcome one (really) big flaw more quickly.
Were The Founding Fathers Racist? - By Jeff Dunetz - Many in the progressive world, believe that America's Founding Fathers were racist. Usually to prove their point they cite Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution: "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons."
Those "other persons" was a reference to the black slaves. To the liberals, that 3/5th figure is an indication that our Founding Fathers were a bunch of racists who thought that the African slaves were only 60% as good as a Caucasian.
That is a simplistic and false answer. The Founders from the northern colonies strongly opposed slavery. They insisted on counting the slaves as less than "full persons" to prevent the slave states from getting too many congressman and electoral votes to dominate the government and prevent slavery from ever being abolished.
The slave states wanted their slaves to be counted as a full person so they could dominate the House of Representatives and the Presidency. This would allow Southern whites to have the benefit of counting the slaves, while controlling the political power of the slaves who were not allowed to vote. The Northern States did not want them counted at all, to prevent the South from becoming too powerful. The "three fifths of all other persons" is meant to refer to the slave population as a whole, not to the humanity of each individual.
...In Federalist
#42 he [James Madison] writes: It were doubtless to be wished, that
the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves had not been
postponed until the year 1808, or rather that it had been suffered to
have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to account, either for
this restriction on the general government, or for the manner in which
the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be considered as a great
point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may
terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long and
so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that
period, it will receive a considerable discouragement from the federal
government, and may be totally abolished, by a concurrence of the few
States which continue the unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example
which has been given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it
be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before them of
being redeemed from the oppressions of their European brethren! Attempts
have been made to pervert this clause into an objection against the
Constitution, by representing it on one side as a criminal toleration of
an illicit practice, and on another as calculated to prevent voluntary
and beneficial emigrations from Europe to America. I mention these
misconstructions, not with a view to give them an answer, for they
deserve none, but as specimens of the manner and spirit in which some
have thought fit to conduct their opposition to the proposed government.
Benjamin Franklin freed his slaves and was a key founder of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Alexander Hamilton opposed slavery, and along with John Jay and other anti-slavery advocates, he helped found the first African free school in New York City. Jay helped found the New York Manumission (literally voluntary freeing of slaves) Society and, when he was governor of New York in 1798, signed into law the state statute ending slavery as of 1821.
...Slavery will always be a horrible chapter in American History, but the "three-fifths compromise" was not. It was not a measurement of human worth; it was an attempt to reduce the number of pro-slavery proponents in Congress. By including only three-fifths of the total numbers of slaves into the congressional calculations, Southern states were actually being denied additional pro-slavery representatives in Congress and electoral votes for selecting the president.
How to Understand Slavery and the American Founding by Matthew Spalding, Ph.D. - Slavery was indeed the imperfection that marred the American Founding. Those who founded this nation chose to make practical compromises for the sake of establishing in principle a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "The inconsistency of the institution of slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented," John Quincy Adams readily admitted in 1837. Nevertheless, he argued: 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 and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. "In the way our Fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction," Abraham Lincoln observed in 1858. "All I have asked or desired anywhere, is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the Fathers of our government originally placed it upon."
Were the Founders Committed to Eradicating Slavery? By
Mike Kelsey - It is
commonplace to dismiss the Founders as racists who may have attacked slavery
from time to time in writing but never in action. Critics of the Founders
often claim that, since the Constitution did not abolish slavery, the
Founders were unconcerned with actively fighting the institution in their
lifetime, even if they may have wanted slavery to disappear at some vague
point in the future. This argument is both misguided and naive. On this day
in 1787, the Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, which
established the first official U.S. territory. Together with the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance is
one of the four "organic laws" of the United States and, as such, is
critical for understanding the Founders, actual views concerning slavery.
The final article of the ordinance declares unwaveringly that "there shall
be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory." By a
firm majority, Congress had officially repudiated slavery. Significantly,
the resolution caused five states to enter the Union as free states (Ohio,
Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin). Furthermore, the ordinance was
reaffirmed by the newly created U.S. Congress in 1789, two years after the
ratification of the Constitution. The Northwest Ordinance reveals that,
despite the compromises they made to preserve the Union, the Founders were
firmly committed to immediately halting the spread of and eventually
eradicating the institution of slavery. Posted in Featured, First
Principles
The Constitution Did Not Condone Slavery by Ken Blackwell: Abraham Lincoln revered the Constitution and said that the fact that it nowhere mentioned the words slavery, slave, African, or Negro was a silent but powerful admission that the Founders were ashamed of the existence of slavery among them. They hid it away, Lincoln said, as "an afflicted man hides a wen or tumor." Abolitionist editor and orator Frederick Douglass also did not agree. He emphasized eloquently that not one word would have to be changed in the Constitution if only the states would follow George Washington's example and voluntarily give up slavery. Lincoln and Douglass were right.
James Madison explained why there was no mention of
slavery in the Constitution. The framers were unwilling to admit in the
federal charter there could be property in men. The idea that our
Constitution "condoned" slavery and was therefore an immoral document
unworthy of being viewed with reverence is a stock liberal claim. It is
false. Most of the Founders wanted to abolish the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade. Jefferson had denounced that "execrable traffic" in his first
draft of the Declaration of Independence. But South Carolina and Georgia
delegates would not go along and, significantly, some in New England
recognized the powerful influence of merchants whose ships included
slavers.
...When, as President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson
urged Congress to act before January 1, 1808 to ban the Slave Trade, he
denounced it in the strongest language ever used by any president prior
to Lincoln. He called it a violation of the "human rights of unoffending
Africans." The great work of William Wilberforce in abolishing the Slave
Trade in the British Empire would have been fruitless unless Jefferson
had acted simultaneously in America.
Then, there's the Post's ritual repeating of the falsehood that the Founders viewed black people as "three fifths of a person." That is a wholly tendentious misreading of the Three-Fifths Clause. Don Fehrenbacher is a leading authority on this. In his penetrating study, The Slaveholding Republic, he writes: "[The] fraction 'three-fifths' had no racial meaning. It did not represent a perception of blacks as three-fifths human." It was a compromise on methods of levying taxes and apportioning representation in Congress. Further, the Three-Fifths Compromise reduced the power in Congress of slaveholding states while giving an electoral bonus to any state that voluntarily emancipated its slaves. When seven of the original thirteen states abolished slavery, they were allowed to count free black people in the census for purposes of representation in Congress.
It is especially galling to have liberals attack Republican Members on these matters. They forget that it was Republicans who gave us the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, those great guarantees of civil rights. Every vote cast against those amendments was cast by a Democrat. It was Republicans who passed the first anti-lynching bill in the House, in 1922. Those bills were routinely killed by Senate Democrats until 1957. The Democratic Party did much to overcome its legacy. Starting in 1948, with Mayor Hubert Humphrey's powerful call for civil rights at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, right up to Lyndon Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act that had first been offered by President Kennedy, the Democrats deserve credit. But in all that time, they were competing with a Republican Party whose civil rights credentials were solid and understood. Without Sen. Everett Dirksen's solid phalanx of Republicans, the Democrats' filibuster against the Civil Rights Act could not have been broken.
Thank-You Letter From Amistad Rebellion Slaves to John Quincy
Adams Released by ABC
Digital - A handwritten thank-you note written by freed slaves to
former President John Quincy Adams has resurfaced ahead of the 175th
anniversary of the Amistad Rebellion. Adams had formally retired from
public life in 1840 when he decided to take on a Supreme Court case in
order to represent a group of 53 Africans who were bound to be sold into
slavery.
"Dear friend I call you my Father because you set us free," one of
the men who was freed as a result of the ensuing Supreme Court case
wrote in a letter to Adams that has been shared through the Amistad
Research Center at Tulane University. The letter, which included notes
from four different men who were kidnapped by the slave traders, was
released as part of the commemorations around the uprising, which took
place on July 1, 1839.
The uprising and court case was later the subject of a 1997 Steven
Spielberg hit (Amistad)
starring Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins and Matthew McConaughey. The
individuals from Sierra Leone were kidnapped and were headed to Spain,
by way of Cuba, as part of the international slave trade. After
switching boats in Cuba, they fought back and killed a number of their
captors on the schooner, La Amistad. The boat crashed off the shore of
Long Island in July 1839 and the kidnapped individuals were taken into
custody. A well-publicized court case ensued, as Spain laid claim to the
men but abolitionists were working to free them as wrongly-kidnapped
citizens of Sierra Leone.
The letter has a number of religious references and notes that the
package included a Bible that the men from the boat signed and sent to
the former president-turned-public defender. "We love you very much & we
will pray for you when we rise up in the morning & when we lie down at
night," one wrote. "We hope the Lord will love you very much & take you
up to heaven when you die. We pray for all the good people who make us
free. Wicked people want to make us slaves but the great God who has
made all things raise up friends for Mendi people he give us MR Adams
that he may make me free."
Lincoln Said It Best
- The Founders put slavery on the path to ultimate extinction, Abraham
Lincoln said. But the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 threatened to bring
about slavery's resurgence by opening up new territories to slaveowning.
In 1854, Lincoln made this argument in a series of speeches on behalf of
candidates opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. "In these addresses
Lincoln set forth the themes that he would carry into the presidency six
years later," writes Princeton's James M. McPherson in the Battle
Cry of Freedom. McPherson summarizes Lincoln's argument:
The founding fathers, said Lincoln, had opposed slavery. They adopted a Declaration of Independence that pronounced all men created equal. They enacted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 banning slavery from the vast Northwest Territory. To be sure, many of the founders owned slaves. But they asserted their hostility to slavery in principle while tolerating it temporarily (as they hoped) in practice. That was why they did not mention the words "slave" or "slavery" in the Constitution, but referred only to "persons held to service." "Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution," said Lincoln, "just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time." The first step was to prevent the spread of this cancer, which the fathers took with the Northwest Ordinance, the prohibition of the African slave trade in 1807, and the Missouri Compromise restriction of 1820. The second was to begin a process of gradual emancipation, which the generation of the fathers had accomplished in the states north of Maryland.
Here's what Lincoln said of the Founding Fathers in his 1854 Peoria speech: The argument of "Necessity" was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only as it carried them, did they ever go. They found the institution existing among us, which they could not help; and they cast blame upon the British King for having permitted its introduction. BEFORE the constitution, they prohibited its introduction into the north-western Territory---the only country we owned, then free from it. AT the framing and adoption of the constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word "slave" or "slavery" in the whole instrument. In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a "PERSON HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR." In that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States NOW EXISTING, shall think proper to admit," &c. These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time. Less than this our fathers COULD not do; and NOW [MORE?] they WOULD not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther, they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress, under the constitution, took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity.
In 1794, they prohibited an out-going slave-trade---that is, the taking of slaves FROM the United States to sell.
In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, INTO the Mississippi Territory---this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was TEN YEARS before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the constitution.
In 1800 they prohibited AMERICAN CITIZENS from trading in slaves between foreign countries---as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.
In 1803 they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.
In 1807, in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance to take effect the first day of 1808---the very first day the constitution would permit---prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.
In 1820, finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death. While all this was passing in the general government, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation; and by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within these limits.
Thus we see, the plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the PRINCIPLE, and toleration, ONLY BY NECESSITY.
In Lincoln's famous 1860 Cooper Union speech, he noted that of the 39 framers of the Constitution, 22 had voted on the question of banning slavery in the new territories. Twenty of the 22 voted to ban it, while another one of the Constitution's framers--George Washington--signed into law legislation enforcing the Northwest Ordinance that banned slavery in the Northwest Territories. At Cooper Union, Lincoln also quoted Thomas Jefferson, who had argued in favor of Virginia emancipation: "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...."
To be sure, the Founding Fathers weren't abolitionists. But they were overwhelmingly antislavery.
I eagerly await George Stephanopoulos's "fact check" of Honest Abe.
("Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." --Abraham Lincoln )
...Three weeks after the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln met on October 6, 1862, with Eliza Gurney and three other Quaker leaders, saying: "We are indeed going through a great trial-a fiery trial. In the very responsible position in which I happen to be placed, being a humble instrument in the hands of our Heavenly Father, as I am, and as we all are, to work out His great purposes, I have desired that all my works and acts may be according to His will, and that it might be so, I have sought His aid ...But if, after endeavoring to do my best in the light which He affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me, He wills it otherwise. If I had my way, this war would never have been commenced. If I had been allowed my way, this war would have ended before this. But we find it still continues; and we must believe that He permits it for some wise purpose of His own, mysterious and unknown to us ... ... and though with our limited understandings we may not be able to comprehend it, yet we cannot but believe, that He who made the world still governs it."
"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)
"[T]here is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]." George Washington (letter to Robert Morris, 12 April 1786) Reference: Washington's Maxims, 157.
"[Y]our late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view to emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country; but I despair of seeing it."
George Washington (letter to Marquis de Lafayette, 10 May 1786) Reference: Washington's Maxims, 159."I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery." Patrick Henry (letter to Robert Pleasants, 18 January 1773) Reference: The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six, Henry Commager and Richard Morris, 402.
Valentine's Day: A Day to Remember Frederick Douglass by Nick Rizzuto - On July 5th of 1852 (before the civil War), Douglass, who referred to himself as a "black, dyed in the wool Republican," addressed the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York. During his passionate speech, Douglass said, "Take the Constitution according to its plain reading. I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it." Douglass continued his Independence Day address by proclaiming that, "Interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document." ...What makes Douglass' praise for the constitution even more unlikely was that he did so according to its "plain reading"; or in other words, as it had been written. He spoke these words before America fought a Civil War to decide once and for all the issue of slavery and even before a single piece of Civil Rights legislation had passed through congress. Douglass did not complain about the lack of specifics in the constitution that indicated what the government "must do on your behalf," as then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama famously did in a 2001 interview. Nor did he decry that it was a "charter of negative libertie" which, as President Obama has stated he believes, "represented the bias of the founders."
A Southern View of Black History? (WallBuilders)
Today, most Americans are taught Black History from a southern point of
view. That is, they are exposed to the slave trade and the atrocities of
slavery that were common in the South but hear nearly nothing about the
many positive things that occurred in the North. For example, who has
been taught about
Wentworth Cheswell -- the first black elected to office in America,
in 1768 in New Hampshire? Or the election of Black American Thomas
Hercules to office in Pennsylvania in 1793? Or that in Massachusetts,
blacks routinely voted in colonial elections? Or that when the
Constitution was ratified in Maryland, more Blacks than Whites voted in
Baltimore? Such stories are absent from textbooks today.
History is properly to teach the good, the bad, and the ugly -- all
of it; but students today usually get only the bad and the ugly, rarely
the good. For example, students are regularly told that the first load
of slaves sailed up the James River in Virginia in 1619 and thus slavery
was introduced into America, but few learn about the first slaves that
arrived in the Massachusetts Colony set up by the Christian Pilgrims and
Puritans. When that slave ship arrived in Massachusetts, the ship's
officers were arrested and imprisoned, and the kidnapped slaves were
returned to Africa at the Colony's expense. That positive side of
history is untold today.
Similarly, most Americans are unaware that American colonies passed
anti-slavery laws before the American Revolution, but that those laws
were vetoed by Great Britain, who insisted on the continuance of slavery
in America. In fact, several Founders who owned slaves while British
citizens freed them once America declared her independence. Sadly, we
have been taught to identify Founding Fathers who owned slaves but are
unaware of the greater number who opposed slavery or worked with
anti-slavery societies.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson & Slavery in Virginia by David Barton - It is ironic that two prominent Founding Fathers who owned (inherited) slaves (Thomas Jefferson and George Washington) were both early, albeit unsuccessful, pioneers in the movement to end slavery in their State and in the nation. Both Washington and Jefferson were raised in Virginia, a geographic part of the country in which slavery had been an entrenched cultural institution. In fact, at the time of the Founders, the morality of slavery had rarely been questioned; and in the 150 years following the introduction of slavery into Virginia by Dutch traders in 1619, there had been few voices raised in objection.
...As Jefferson and Washington sought to liberalize the State's slavery laws to make it easier to free slaves, the State Legislature went in exactly the opposite direction, passing laws making it more difficult to free slaves. (As one example, Washington was able to circumvent State laws by freeing his slaves in his will at his death in 1799; by the time of Jefferson's death in 1826, State laws had so stiffened that it had become virtually impossible for Jefferson to use the same means.) What today have become the almost unknown views and forgotten efforts of both Washington and Jefferson to end slavery in their State and in the nation should be reviewed.
...Not only was Washington born into a world in which slavery was accepted, but he himself became a slave owner at the tender age of 11 when his father died, leaving him slaves as an inheritance. As other family members deceased, Washington inherited even more slaves. ...Yet, not only did Washington refuse to sell slaves or to break up their families but he also felt a genuine responsibility to take care of the slaves he held until there was, according to his own words, a "plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished." One proof of his commitment to care for his slaves regardless of the cost to himself was his order that: Negroes must be clothed and fed . . . whether anything is made or not. 18 Not only did George Washington commit himself to caring for his slaves and to seeking a legal remedy by which they might be freed in his State but he also took the leadership in doing so on the national level. In fact, the first federal racial civil rights law in America was passed on August 7, 1789, with the endorsing signature of President George Washington.
...Jefferson, too, sought similar goals, but by living twenty-seven years longer than Washington, Jefferson faced additional hostile State laws which Washington had not. But before reviewing Jefferson's words and actions regarding slavery, a brief review of the overall trend of the laws of Virginia on the subject are in order. In 1692, Virginia passed a law that placed an economic burden on any slave owner who released his slaves, thus discouraging owners from freeing their slaves. That law declared: [N]o Negro or mulatto slave shall be set free, unless the emancipator pays for his transportation out of the country within six months. 24 (Subsequent laws imposed additional provisions that a slave could not be freed unless the slave owner guaranteed a security bond for the education, livelihood, and support of the freed slave in order to ensure that the former slave would not become a burden to the community or to the society. 25 Not only did such laws place extreme economic hardships on any slave owner who tried to free his slaves but they also provided stiff penalties for any slave owner who attempted to free slaves without abiding by these laws.)
...In 1782, however, Virginia began to move in a new direction (for a short time) by passing a very liberal manumission law. As a result, "this restraint on the power of the master to emancipate his slave was removed, and since that time the master may emancipate by his last will or deed." 27 (It was because of this law that George Washington was able to free his slaves in his last will and testament in 1799.)
...Furthermore, recall that Virginia law did not recognize slave families. Therefore, if a slave was freed, the law made it almost impossible for him to remain near his spouse, children, or his family members who had not been freed, for the law required that a freed slave promptly depart the State or else reenter slavery: If any slave hereafter emancipated shall remain within this Commonwealth more than twelve months after his or her right to freedom shall have accrued, he or she shall forfeit all such right and may be apprehended and sold. 31 It was under difficult laws like these-under laws even more restrictive than those Washington had faced-that Jefferson was required to operate. Nevertheless, as a slave owner (he, like Washington, had inherited slaves), Jefferson maintained a consistent public opposition to slavery and assiduously labored to end slavery both in his State and in the nation. Jefferson's efforts to end slavery were manifested years before the American Revolution. As he explained: In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live [Albemarle County, Virginia], and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal [crown] government, nothing [like this] could expect success. 32
...Significantly, Thomas Jefferson helped end slavery in several States by his leadership on the Declaration of Independence, and he was even behind the first attempt to end slavery nationally. In 1784, Jefferson introduced a law in the national Continental Congress to abolish slavery in every State in America. His proposal had stated: That after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty. 36 Unfortunately, Jefferson's law fell one vote short of passage.
...Nearly twenty-five years later, Jefferson bemoaned that ending slavery had been a task even more difficult than he had imagined. In 1805, he lamented: I have long since given up the expectation of any early provision for the extinguishment of slavery among us. [While] there are many virtuous men who would make any sacrifices to affect it, many equally virtuous persuade themselves either that the thing is not wrong or that it cannot be remedied. 38 Jefferson eventually recognized that slavery probably would never be ended during his lifetime. However, this did not keep him from continually encouraging others in their efforts to end slavery. For example, in 1814, he wrote Edward Coles: Dear Sir, -Your favor of July 31 [a treatise opposing slavery] was duly received and was read with peculiar pleasure. The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor to both the head and heart of the writer. Mine on the subject of slavery of Negroes have long since been in possession of the public and time has only served to give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.