Posted on 07/13/2004 8:03:30 AM PDT by Mike Bates
A recent column, for those of you so thoughtless as to have missed it, was about what it might have been like if some of today’s liberals were involved with drafting the Declaration of Independence.
I wrote that many of the Founding Fathers were geniuses who shared their talents in forming this, the greatest of all countries. I revere them.
This is not a universally held view. A local man reminded me of that with correspondence he sent:
"Just like the bullies that Republicans are. Take advantage of someone weaker than you and make it seem like you did something special. Well I am sooooo glad that my God says that the meek shall inhabit the earth and that the first shall be last . . ..
"The writers of the declaration of independence wanted to be on high but God will lay them low for the crimes against mankind and the Indians. The writers of that document were racist, sexist, elitist and mostly criminals. Sounds like the current day government. Hmmm.
"Not one single person died as a result of Clinton’s follies! How many kids have died as a result of Bush’s lies?"
Nice transition there from bashing the Founders to defending Clinton’s "follies." It’s not always follies, of course.
Sometimes it’s peccadilloes or foibles. Or indiscretions or frailties. Anything that focuses on sex rather than his more serious transgressions in office.
But I digress. The reader charges most of the Founders were criminals. No doubt they were in the eyes of the English king, but I’m unaware of anything beyond that.
The accusation that the Founders were racist is much more widespread. It’s practically an article of faith in many college history courses.
The Most Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke to it in a 2002 speech at Michigan State University: "Democracy as we know it did not begin in Philadelphia, where a bunch of white men wrote the laws. These men’s wives were not allowed (to vote), these laws were made at a time when only white men had the right to vote."
Here it’s obligatory to note that what the Founders intended to establish was a republic, positively not a democracy. They knew the difference, even if Mr. Jackson doesn’t.
Perhaps I should cut him some slack. We all know how deeply immersed he is in spiritual matters. Perhaps he hasn’t had the time to learn the distinction.
Were the Founders racist? Some of them owned slaves. Some of them at times defended slavery. That’s part of our history, one we can’t change.
At the same time, it’s worth noting how some of the Founders viewed slavery. Years before the Declaration, Benjamin Franklin denounced the "constant butchery of the human species by this pestilent detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men."
John Adams called termed slavery a "foul contagion in the human character." Another signer of the Declaration, Benjamin Rush, helped start the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.
George Washington wrote about slavery: "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 declared: "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free."
Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration included a blistering indictment of England’s king for promoting the slave trade in the colonies. That portion was removed when Southern delegates objected.
We should keep in mind the world in which our Founding Fathers were born. Despotism, tyranny, the abuse of power and slavery were the rule. The concept that individuals held God-given rights had not been widely accepted in much of the world.
The Founders compromised. They deleted Jefferson’s language on slavery to win approval of the Declaration of Independence. Yet in winning agreement, they set the framework for the core philosophy of the Declaration to be more fully realized.
Alan Keyes has written: "Jefferson, and with him the leading lights of the Founding generation, had the decency to acknowledge what few in the course of human history before that era had ever acknowledged — that slavery was wrong. Speaking this truth was the first step toward changing the life of America — just as acknowledging the principles of justice is always the first step toward doing justice."
The Declaration if Independence wasn’t perfect. No creation of mere mortals will ever be. Still, the Declaration and the Constitution launched a system of government that ultimately ended slavery.
In the long run, the aspiration of human equality articulated in the Declaration was to a great extent achieved. Not bad for a bunch of purportedly racist, sexist, elitist and mostly criminal white men.
"I think there are quite a few who could "match them". "
"I'd be interested in seeing your list."
There was no "list" in 1774, yet they appeared when needed, and two years later changed world history forever. I understand the question, and I don't have a list of names for you to peruse.
Try making a "list" of hero's, before the battle is fought. My point is we have a big supply, living and working in obscurity right this minute. Tomorrow they might be called upon, they might not.
But that doesn't change the belief they walk among us.....just as the Founders did 230 years ago....most in relative obscurity.
"But they were Men, with feet of clay, just like any one of us."
"A tad bit harsh in your assessment, methinks. Sure, they had their faults and vices, but feet of clay? I think not."
Delude yourself. Humans are not perfect, we all have "feet of clay". To insist that isn't the case is to lie to one's self.
Simple question: If slavery was a dying institution, why did the south so agitate for it's expansion?
Simple question: If the states were sovereign, why did the Union invade?
feminist "theory" is based upon the frankfort school and lacan.
both reject the enlightenment.
our constitution is an enlightenment document.
They weren't. Show me where in the Constitution it says they were. I see lots of stuff telling what the states can't do--coin money, enter into treaties, keep troops in time of peace, etc. (Article 1, Section 10)--all of which doesn't sound very sovereign to me. Article 4, Section 4 also gives the federal government power over state governments by ensuring their nature. They were invaded because they were in rebellion. They were invaded because they fired on U.S. troops at Ft. Sumter.
Now you answer my question.
Not entirely accurate.
1. The Constitution of 1787 called for the end of slave trade after the year 1808.
2. It imposed a tax on slaves imported during that interval.
3. It counted slaves to 3/5 of a person in terms of apportionment for Congressional representation.
4. In 1887, it is likely that all the slave states (There were still Northern slave states as well) with the exception of South Carolina and Georgia would have agreed to a gradual ending of slavery in the United States. Virginia and North Carolina had very active and growing abolition societies at the time and legislative pressures in all the northern slave states was becoming overwhelming.
5. The Northwest Ordnance acts of 1787 and 1788 forbade slavery in the territories north of the Ohio river.
There was pressure and sentiment across the nation at the time to end slavery. By the 1830s, events and economic realities (long fiber cotton) reversed much of that sentiment
The North's gradual emancipation was just moving freedman elsewhere. They didn't want Blacks in their cities and were just as happy to relocate them overseas or to the western territories. The north abandoned the system of chattel slavery for industrial sweatshops. They sold their slaves South to the agrarian class when it was convenient and only after they made profit on the slave trade.
One more time: why did the South want to expand slavery?
Listen, son. I am not an advocate of slavery, I don't excuse it, but I have the advantage of hindsight that our forefathers did not. You sound like a liberal on a conservative board.
Are you going to make that old Yankee elitist argument that the North was morally superior to the South?
Some of the founding fathers were not so great -- namely, Tom Paine, Benedict Arnold, if you consider them such. And Andrew Jackson is totally undeserving to be on the $20 bill, although he's not really a founding father.
I'll wager you have a suggestion as to who could replace Old Hickory.
Washington, Jefferson and other forefathers condemned slavery. From 1820 to 1861, southern political leaders fought not only to expand it, but to shut down any discussion of the matter in congress through the gag rule. Why did the south want more slavery? And given that it was increasingly profitable, what do you think would have eventually caused them to give it up peacably?
You sound like a liberal on a conservative board.
Just a guy who knows a bit about history, including the unsavory bits. You, on the other hand and given your screenname, sound like an unreconstructed Lost Causer.
Not a bit. I already conceded that the north held slaves well into the 19th Century, exploited free labor, and was frequently hypocritical. On the other hand, all the pressure against slavery came from the north. Or are you going to argue that there was a strong abolitionist movement in the south?
Flames are you got. If you know so much about history, why are you asking me all the questions?
Technological advances and efficiency. Must be a city-boy - visit a farm and you will understand.
Read my homepage, you'll learn more.
I also know how to write coherent sentences.
If you know so much about history, why are you asking me all the questions?
Because I want to hear how you'll try to spin the answers. Call it cheap entertainment. Instead, though, you keep throwing out different straw men (state sovereignty, bad industrialists, yankee slave traders, or, when you get lazy, that I'm a liberal/elitist yankee.)
Your posts are well-crafted to solicit suitable responses. Let me turn it around on you. What do you think it would have taken for the North to let the South peacefully co-exist? The North was beating the war-drum in 1861 and it wasn't to free slaves.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.