[Nosterrex]

I know that there were those that wanted to prohibit slavery, such as John Adams, but in order for the southern colonies, such as Virginia, to accept the Declaration of Independence there had to be a compromise. My question was not about whether or not slavery was right or wrong, but I was intrigued about Keyes “republican principle”.

[EternalVigilance]

Actually, the compromise, one which we’re still paying a heavy price for by the way, was to obtain the Constitution, not the Declaration.

[Poe White Trash]

Keyes here sounds a lot like Harry Jaffa. Jaffa argues that the US Constitution is anchored in natural law principles invoked by the Declaration. He sees himself as following the lead of both the Founding Fathers and Lincoln.

Of course, Jaffa’s been in a decades-long dog fight with self-proclaimed “Burkean” Conservatives like Wilmoore Kendall, Russell Kirk, M. E. Bradford and their fellow travellers. This “Burkean” group argues that Jefferson was an Enlightenment ideologue — i.e., a real stinker — and that the Declaration has no legal standing and thus no significance in connection with the Constitution. What makes this dog fight particularly vicious is that both sides think they are defending the Constitution (especially from Liberal attacks).

However, Keyes doesn’t make a very clear statement about what he finds objectionable in the “Ron Paul nationalist” position. Are the Paulites really that wedded to the idea that the sovereignty of the people is absolute? Could somebody give me a Paulite example of this?

[savagesusie]

The Republican principle was that all men were created equal. Although reality of that principle wasn't enacted until much later, the idea was always there in writing.

The fact that the "idea" of the wrongness of slavery HAD to evolve over time with education (mainly through Judaism and Christianity) the "slavery paradigm" was able to be eliminated in Western Civilization.

The fact is that Western Civilization, mainly because of the prevalent Judeo-Christian philosophy (Look into history of Wilberforce, etc.)was successful in converting the majority in the West into believing that slavery was evil.