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To: BroJoeK; jmacusa; DiogenesLamp; central_va; Pelham; woodpusher; rustbucket
“”Consent of the governed” in jeffersondem’s lunatic mind means only “consent of slaveholders”.”

The phrase “consent of the governed”, you will be surprised to learn, is not of my own making. It is a concept I find in the Declaration of Independence.

I don't want to get into too much detail about the phrase because it would just create more confusion for you. I will say this: from the context of the Declaration I do not believe the signers of the document intended “consent of the governed” to imply they were intent on making electors, jurists, or university presidents out of merciless Indian Savages.

Now, about the fact that 13 of the 13 original states were slave states: I rejoice in your revulsion.

I condemn slavery in the strongest possible terms.

That said, I will continue to use, and to celebrate, the Pythagorean Theorem despite my concerns over uneven wage and hour laws in ancient Greece.

84 posted on 09/29/2021 5:53:30 PM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: jeffersondem; jmacusa; DiogenesLamp; central_va; Pelham; woodpusher; rustbucket; x
jeffersondem: "I will say this: from the context of the Declaration I do not believe the signers of the document intended consent of the governed” to imply they were intent on making electors, jurists, or university presidents out of merciless Indian Savages."

Or, notably, from Mexican banditti**, both of which had nations of their own in which they were free to vote, or not, according to the laws & customs of their own nations.

African slaves were a quite different matter, unlike white indentured servants, Africans were slaves-for-life and indeed for the lives of their descendants.
They had no "nation" of their own, no representatives beyond the 3/5 rule for their slave-masters.

Every Founder, without exception, recognized it as a problem, and expressed the desire that slavery should be eventually abolished.
That's how they reconciled "All men are created equal" with their most obvious contradictions.

And many Founders had already begun abolition by the time of the Constitution Convention in 1787, many more soon followed.
Even Southerners like Thomas Jefferson did what they could to abolish slavery in the Northwest Territories and outlawed international imports of slaves.
So abolition was serious and many freedmen could also vote, thus providing "consent of the governed", as the Declaration said.

But by 1860 abolition had completely ended in the South and there was no "consent of the governed" among African slaves.
And when their consent was finally asked, post-war, none, not one, expressed the idea that secession, Confederacy and war against the United States was a good idea.

So while our Lost Causers may still fantasize the Cavaliers of secession, Confederacy & war were glorious ancestors, the fact remains that the majority of their fellow Southerners never agreed and never legally consented.

** "Ruthless Indian savages" and "murderous Mexican banditti" are famously found in the 1861 Texas "Reasons for Secession" document.
So, it happened that a Union Colonel named RE Lee was in charge of protecting Texans against such dangers, but Texas secessionists thought he'd done such a poor job of it, they included those items as reasons for their declaration of secession.

Now here our FRiend jeffersondem has once again weaponized "Indian Savages" and presumably "Mexican banditti" this time to justify denying "consent of the governed" for African slaves.
But African slaves were a very different category, and recognized as such by every Founder.

85 posted on 09/30/2021 5:29:38 AM PDT by BroJoeK (future DDG 134 -- we remember)
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