Posted on 03/30/2019 12:39:26 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
In his later years, Benjamin Franklin became vocal as an abolitionist and in 1787 began to serve as President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.
The Society was originally formed April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, as The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage...The Society not only advocated the abolition of slavery, but made efforts to integrate freed slaves into American society.
Preamble:
"It having pleased the Creator of the world, to make of one flesh all the children of men, it becomes them to consult and promote each other's happiness, as members of the same family, however diversified they may be, by colour, situation, religion, or different states of society. It is more especially the duty of those persons, who profess to maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who acknowledge the obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power, to extend the blessings of freedom to every part of the human race; and in a more particular manner, to such of their fellow creatures as are entitled to freedom by the laws and constitutions of any of the United States, and who, notwithstanding, are detained in bondage, by fraud or violence.— From a full conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles, — from a desire to diffuse them, wherever the miseries and vices of slavery exist, and in humble confidence of the favour and support of the Father of Mankind, the subscribers have associated themselves, under the title of the 'Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage, and for improving the condition of the African race.'"
(Excerpt) Read more at benjaminfranklin.org ...
“I would say the founders put it best, “the opinions of mankind”. Considering that no other nation in the world recognized the pretend country the rebels created I think we can determine what the opinions of mankind were.”
That is an interesting comment.
Let’s set aside for a moment your attempt to conflate the phrase from the DOI “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires . . .” with establishing formal diplomatic relations between countries.
“No other nation recognized the pretend country the rebels created” implies there is a threshold of international recognition which must be obtained before a country is entitled to its independence (hence the name of the founding document: “Trial Balloon of Independence To See How Many Nations Will Go For It”).
I don’t see the requirement for international recognition in our own DOI but I do see the founders “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.”
But let’s argue it your way. For a new nation to be legit, it must have during actual hostilities the formal recognition of how many foreign countries? Sixty?
Well, maybe the recognition of 40 countries?
At a minimum the recognition of 20 countries during hostilities?
Do you know how many nations recognized the fledgling united States of America before Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown?
In it Jefferson tells us he considers slaves citizens, which makes them subject to "all men are created equal".
This should put the lie to DiogenesLamp's repeated claims that our Founders were only interested in the rights of white Christian men.
Some Founders, and not all of them Northerners, believed "all men are created equal" meant just what it said.
And I see where this lead DiogenesLamp to backtrack from previous claims and now tell us that, oh... well... maybe **Jefferson** thought that, but no other Founders.
Except there were three principal men on the Declaration writing committee -- Adams, Franklin & Jefferson -- with Adams & Franklin clearly having no problems over "all men are created equal".
So who exactly were these 1776 great opponents of equality?
What were their names, and how great a majority did they represent?
Now just to help anyone out and get them started, I'll name one -- Rutledge from South Carolina clearly had no interest in equality for slaves.
And the others were who?
After observing slavery while a clerk in Barbados a young Hamilton came to the conclusion that the only difference in the races was how they were raised & educated.
I hate to break into the fantasy you have about the 1776 era, but the representatives of all 13 slave states were indeed only interested in the rights of white Christian men.
This effort to rewrite a document, the function of which was to assert a right to independence, into a commentary on the issue of slavery is just dishonest.
No, the declaration of independence was *NOT* about slavery. It *WAS* about asserting the right of White Christian men who ran slave states, to be independent.
The difference between you and me is that I don't try to tart up history to make it look more appealing to my modern sensibilities. I see it as it actually was, not how I would prefer it to be. In many cases it was ugly. You hide from it, I don't.
Why did you wait six days to post this?
“Why did you wait six days to post this?”
Sorry for the delay.
I have had other things to do here on the place, including annual maintenance on major equipment: I changed the air in a wheelbarrow tire.
I’m sure you understand priorities.
If we made reading the forbidden fruit, do you think that young blacks might be more eager to taste the forbidden fruit?
Or as Abraham Lincoln said; Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world."
The other thing you keep forgetting is that other people have the right to look at the reasons why your rebelling and judge those reasons as moral or immoral.
You sound like a liberal, “all the founders were racist white supremacist that just didn’t want to pay taxes.” Take that crap over to DU.
Well, a lot of the young blacks I’ve encountered in the inner city already think that way, & the effect is to discourage them, not entice them.
Studious black kids seen carrying books are accused of “acting white.”
Some have told me they can’t “afford” to go to the “lieberry.”
When I try to explain the library is free, as long as you bring the books back on time, they go on and on about how it’s “too hard” & they “ain’t got time for all that.”
They’ll insist the library is for white people, and its simple rules are designed to keep black people out— except, of course, for the Uncle Toms & uppity n***as who reject ghetto culture (& embrace European culture.)
Libraries do tend to be located in whiter, more middle class
neighborhoods. So many blacks do have a point— libraries aren’t nearby & they fear wandering in “white” areas could get them arrested.
The communists, OTOH, place THEIR bookstores & community meeting places in the worst neighborhoods, & even then they have difficulty getting the hoodrats to come in.
They’ll send their comrades out to distribute literature door to door. The comrades pay for it themselves, then try to persuade the locals to reimburse, but mostly they just give it away for free.
That’s why we see so many innercity blacks hating on the Founding Fathers & utterly ignorant of the founding documents. They’re parroting the doctrines of white communists who have set up shop in their neighborhoods.
No Confederate I know of admitted to "rebellion", but none could deny they'd formally declared war, May 6, 1861.
So by whatever name, it was still war and normal laws of War applied, including "contraband".
Lincoln's First proclamation, on April 15, 1861, did not call it war or rebellion or insurrection, merely referred to "combinations too powerful to be suppressed" by normal law enforcement.
Lincoln's second proclamation, on April 23, called it "insurrection" and ordered a naval blockade.
Lincoln's third, a speech to Congress, July 4, 1861, made no bones about it, he called it rebellion many times.
The legal case against "rebellion" is at least presentable for States of the Confederacy who declared war.
But Confederates in Union states have no such defense.
DiogenesLamp: "Second of all, how do you claim that seven states leaving the Union would "destroy" the constitutional republic?
Are you telling me the republic would collapse because it lost those slave states?
Why?"
Those seven states having declared war were joined by four more, invaded eight more States and two US territories.
That made Confederates the greatest threat to the United States since 1781.
This very nation is founded on the principle that there is. I do not understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp when we have our own Declaration of Independence which articulates this exact right.
I think people have a mental block. They grew up being taught that what Abraham Lincoln did in compelling the Northern states to attack the Southern states was proper because everyone has also been taught that slavery is such a horrible evil, that any force used to stop it must therefore be right and proper.
Because people have been taught to accept these ideas as valid, they cannot reconcile them with the idea that States have a right to be independent. Not a right to "rebel", that's a crap argument. The right is to *INDEPENDENCE.*
"...becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them...
I sound like someone who is pointing out that the Declaration of Independence was not about freeing slaves, it was about 13 slaveholding states asserting a natural right to govern themselves.
And those people who were running those states were indeed White Christian Males.
Trying to make the Declaration of Independence a commentary on slavery is just a form of lying. It was never intended to serve that purpose when it was written. Trying to force it into serving that purpose is more Liberal "living constitution" type crap.
Pick.
Actually, some were indeed interested in the abuse of Africans' rights, most notably Jefferson in his famous deleted paragraph on the subject.
Others like John Adams wrote state constitutions effectively abolishing slavery.
Ben Franklin also put his state on the road to abolition.
So it is simply incorrect to say that our Founders didn't know or didn't care how slavery contradicted their Enlightenment ideals.
DiogenesLamp: "This effort to rewrite a document, the function of which was to assert a right to independence, into a commentary on the issue of slavery is just dishonest."
Your word "dishonest" describes every post of yours which claims our Founders wanted an unlimited "right of secession" at pleasure.
In fact, no Founder proposed or supported that, ever.
So your repeated efforts to read your own fantasies into our Founders words cannot be less than dishonest.
DiogenesLamp: "No, the declaration of independence was *NOT* about slavery.
It *WAS* about asserting the right of White Christian men who ran slave states, to be independent."
Clearly that is what **you** believe, but it's not what they said, ever, period.
DiogenesLamp: "The difference between you and me is that I don't try to tart up history to make it look more appealing to my modern sensibilities.
I see it as it actually was, not how I would prefer it to be.
In many cases it was ugly.
You hide from it, I don't."
That's total nonsense & dishonesty because no Founder ever said what you insist they believed.
Those are just your fantasies, but our Founders' own words were **their** beliefs.
Thanks for a great post, I only wish you were wrong about it, but fear you're exactly right.
Yes, Jefferson was thinking along those lines. (Except as applied to his own slaves.) For what state was he a representative? Do you think his position accurately represented that of the people of Virginia?
Others like John Adams wrote state constitutions effectively abolishing slavery.
Lie. John Adams was from Massachusetts. The Massachusetts constitution of 1780 incorporated verbiage similar to the Declaration of Independence, ("All men are born free and equal") and it was upon that basis that Lying Liberal courts pretended this clause was intended to apply to slaves.
This was clearly not the intention of the Massachusetts legislature, but the courts deliberately disregarded their intentions, and "interpreted" that clause as applying to slaves. This was Judicial activism, and that is all it was. People immediately scrambled to try to salvage whatever investment they had in slaves as a result of this surprise announcement by the Liberal courts of Massachusetts.
But to claim that this was the purpose when it was written? That is a lie, or perhaps just serious ignorance.
DiogenesLamp: "This very nation is founded on the principle that there is.
I do not understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp when we have our own Declaration of Independence which articulates this exact right."
No Founder ever claimed an unlimited "right of secession" at pleasure.
All tied their 1776 Declaration to necessity and "a long train of abuses and usurpations" which they listed in detail..
All did agree that "secession at pleasure" was highly desirable, as in 1788, but only by mutual consent = 3/4 states' ratification.
They considered secession at pleasure without mutual consent as nothing but treason and all opposed that when it happened to them.
DiogenesLamp: "I think people have a mental block.
They grew up being taught that what Abraham Lincoln did in compelling the Northern states to attack the Southern states was proper because everyone has also been taught that slavery is such a horrible evil, that any force used to stop it must therefore be right and proper.
DiogenesLamp clearly has a "mental block" against the truth.
The truth he blocks out is that Confederates provoked, started, formally declared and waged war, in Union states & territories-- and then refused to stop fighting for any terms better than Unconditional Surrender.
All of that renders irrelevant DiogenesLamp's academic arguments for a natural "right of secession" at pleasure.
DiogenesLamp: "Because people have been taught to accept these ideas as valid, they cannot reconcile them with the idea that States have a right to be independent.
Not a right to "rebel", that's a crap argument.
The right is to *INDEPENDENCE.*
As usual, DiogenesLamp cannot make his case without misquoting the Declaration.
The key words he blocks out are "When...it...becomes NECESSARY".
What they meant be "necessary" they spelled out in great detail.
They meant the opposite of at pleasure.
No necessity existed in 1860.
No need for **me** to pick because Confederates claimed themselves to be a "foreign power" while Lincoln said they were just in rebellion.
At the war's end Confederates surrendered unconditionally and accepted their eventual return to the Union.
So history made its judgment and there's no need for us today to squabble over such words.
In general, "rebellion" seems correct to me, while "separate country" seems unnecessary to any argument I can think of.
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