At the Framing, all 13 states undeniably embraced the lawfulness of slavery in the United States.At the framing? Embraced? No. Deniably. This language is terrible and misleading. Slavery was a huge issue at the convention and it was only in regard to union/compromise that slavery was accepted.
Slavery was embraced as lawful by all thirteen original states. The African slave trade itself was run out of the northern states, notably Rhode Island and New York, and the Constitution protected that trade for twenty years from prohibition or excessive taxation. It was made the organic law, over and above anything Congress could touch.
U.S.Const. Art. 4, Sec. 2
No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
U.S. Const., Art. I, Sec. 9
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
Do you seriously think you can persuade Black people there was no racism at the time of the Framing? Can you tell Black people that the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution was not racist?
At the Framing, about 20% of the thirteen-state population was slaves.
U.S. Const., Art I, Sec. 2, Cl. 3
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.
Who were those three-fifths of all other persons? Can you actually keep a straight face and tell Black people that they were not treated differently at the Framing?
At the Founding is a different and much more telling question. By the time of the framing, after slavery had been had around a decade to set in, more states/colonies became embracing colonies whereas in the beginning there were only two. Georgia and South Carolina.
At the Founding, slavery was lawful in all thirteen colonies. English law made it so.
There is a difference between slavery in the states at the Founding and abolition of the importation of slaves via the African slave trade. Virginia was the first of the English colonies to import slaves, and they opposed and eliminated the African slave trade in 1778. They did not eliminate slavery until 1865.
Gradual abolition in the North acted as ethnic cleansing. It didn't free anybody, but would free the children of slaves in the future if they remained. It worked as planned and the slaves were sold South, except in those Union states that retained slavery until after the war and up until the 13th Amendment, with the last holdout being New Jersey which resisted for an extra few weeks after the Amendment into 1866.
Your claim that there were only two embracing slave states at the time of the Framing is patent nonsense.
Your intimation that anyone wanting to free the slaves was not racist is a further example of patent nonsense. Many wanted to get rid of the slaves. They, as Lincoln, wanted to get rid of them to Africa, South America, Central America, the nearby islands, anywhere but here.
Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people [Blacks] are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. 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; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers.
Jefferson might have been a little bit racist there.
Maybe that message sounds less racist when coming from Lincoln.
In our greedy chase to make profit of the Negro, let us beware, lest we 'cancel and tear to pieces' even the white man's charter of freedom"
The White Man's Charter of Freedom was Lincoln's description of the Declaration of Independence.
Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, CW 2:276
Thenceforward, for sixty-one years, and until in 1848, the last scrap of this territory came into the Union as the State of Wisconsin, all parties acted in quiet obedience to this ordinance. It is now what Jefferson foresaw and intended—the happy home of teeming millions of free, white, prosperous people, and no slave amongst them."
Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, CW 2:249
Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these territories. We want them for the homes of free white people.
Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, Illinois, CW 2:268
Have we no interest in the free Territories of the United States—that they should be kept open for the homes of free white people?
Lincoln, August 27, 1856, Kalamazoo, Michigan, CW 2:363
Sustain these men and negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave n------.
Lincoln, August 31, 1858, Carlinville, Illinois, CW 3:78
Is it not rather our duty [as White men] to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories?
See Forced Into Glory, by Lerone Bennett, Jr., p. 251. Mr. Bennett was an editor with Ebony magazine for about a half century.
This is a pivotal point, one that has been masked by rhetoric and imperfect analysis. For to say, as Lincoln said a thousand times, that one is only opposed to the extension of slavery is to say a thousand times that one is not opposed to slavery where it existed. Based on this record and the words of his own mouth, we can say that the "great emancipator" was one of the major supporters of slavery in the United States for at least fifty-four of his fifty six years.
- - - - -
If it were left up to the colonies themselves without foreign intervention, at least 4 of the colonies would've at a minimum abolished the slave trade, and probably two would've abolished the whole thing in total by the time the calendar reaches Independence Day.
That is pure fantasy. Upon independence, any State could have abolished slavery. After the Constitution was adopted, the Congress could have abolished slavery in the District at any time on a simple majority vote. It did not happen until 1862. While the war was fought to preserve the Union, slaves were bought and sold at the stocks down the street from the White House. It was not until the war was to be sold as a war to end slavery that the all-Union Congress decided to end slavery in the District.
Do you seriously believe that buying and selling people in the nation's capital was not racist?
Upon independence, all 13 original colonies were free to abolish slavery in their state. What, they were ready to abolish slavery only until there was nothing to stop them from abolishing slavery?
But the empire couldn't help it's meddling. The big slave empire. They didn't start embracing abolitionism until after Franklin was dead.
Benjamin Franklin, d. 17 Apr 1790. That is after the Constitution was adopted and the Fugitive Slave Clause was repeated. Benjamin Franklin signed it.
When I say that slavery was forced on the U.S., I mean it.
Slavery was forced on the Colonies by England. Who forced it upon the States after independence? Were they not free and sovereign states?
The nascent states found themselves with many slaves and did not know what to do with them. They did not welcome them into the community. Even free Blacks were not welcomed into the community. Freeing the slaves could have been accomplished with compensated emancipation, but what to do with the free Blacks? They were not welcome in the States or the Territories. Lincoln was an early officer of the African Colonization Society, but it became obvious there were not enough ships in the world to colonize the slaves back to Africa. Not that Lincoln didn't keep looking for a way until the day he died.
"How do selective quotes from centuries ago speak to the state of racism today?"That depends on whether or not you fully trust and sincerely respect the headlines published by the New York Times. How about that Ibram X. Kendi, good guy, right? Let us know all about it. I don't know about anybody else but I really want to hear about your friend Kendi. The more paragraphs you can provide the better.
But if you are putting all of your trust and your hopes in the Times or any other outlet of progressive thought, well, that brings up a brand new ball of wax to discuss now doesn't it?
I am not the one identifying with progressing, or anything progressive in my handle. I rather choose to identify as paleo-conservative, where the Constitution does not morph and change with the times to fit the whims of some progressive mind. History is what actually happened, not some fantastic tale of fiction.
I do not read the New York Times or Ibram X. Kendi, but it seems he is your friend. If you choose to be dispossessed of your ridiculous ideas about the absence of racism at the Founding, Framing, and thereafter, read Forced Into Glory, by Lerone Bennett, Jr.
I try not to embarrass conservatives by preaching the absurdity that there has never been any racism in America, and it is not just ani-Black racism.
John F. Marszalek, Sherman's Other War The General and the Civil War Press; Memphis State University Press, 1981, pp. 168-69.
But, to some St. Louis friends, he confided: "I like n------ well enough as n------, but when fools and idiots try and make n------ better than ourselves, I have an opinion."
Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 698
The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, as originally framed by the House of Representatives, lacked the opening sentence. When it came before the Senate in May, 1866, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, moved to amend by prefixing the sentence in its present form (less the words "or naturalized"), and reading,"All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State herein they reside."
Mr. Cowan objected upon the ground that the Mongolian race ought to be excluded, and said:
"Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? . . . I do not know how my honorable friend from California looks upon Chinese, but I do know how some of his fellow citizens regard them. I have no doubt that now they are useful, and I have no doubt that, within proper restraints, allowing that State and the other Pacific States to manage them as they may see fit, they may be useful; but I would not tie their hands by the Constitution of the United States so as to prevent them hereafter from dealing with them as in their wisdom they see fit."
Mr. Conness, of California, replied:
"The proposition before us relates simply, in that respect, to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the Nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States. . . . We are entirely ready to accept the provision proposed in this Constitutional Amendment that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of [169 U. S. 699] the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others."
Still, due to the Chinese Exclusion Laws, Chinese citizens were ineligible to become naturalized U.S. citizens until World War II, when we were at war with Japan. The Chinese Exclusion Acts were slightly racist. Also racist was the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent.
Nor did brown or red people get a pass.
When we shall get Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge will be in favor of the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for themselves and all others; because we know the Judge has a great horror for mongrels, [laughter,] and I understand that the people of Mexico are most decidedly a race of mongrels.
— Lincoln, October 7, 1858, Galesburg, Illinois, CW 3:235
https://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo9.html
In 1851 the Santee Sioux Indians in Minnesota sold twenty-four million acres of land to the federal government for $1.4 million. By August of 1862 thousands of white settlers continued to pour into the Indian lands even though none of the money had been paid to the Santee Sioux. There was a crop failure that year, and the Indians were starving. The Lincoln administration refused to pay them the money they were owed, breaking yet another Indian treaty, and the starving Sioux revolted.A short "war" ensued, with Lincoln putting one of his favorite generals, General John Pope, in charge of federal forces in Minnesota. Pope announced that "It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux.... They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made." (Similar statements were being made at the time by General William Tecumseh Sherman, who said that to all Southern secessionists, "why, death is mercy").
The Santee Sioux were overwhelmed by the federal army by October of 1862, at which time General Pope held hundreds of Indian men, women, and children who were considered to be prisoners of war. The men were all herded into forts where military "trials" were held, each of which lasted about ten minutes according to David A. Nichols in Lincoln and the Indians. They were all found guilty of murder and sentenced to death even though the lack of hard evidence was manifest and they were not given any semblance of a proper defense. Most were condemned to death by virtue of the fact that they were merely present during a battle, during a declared (by the Indians) war.
Minnesota political authorities wanted the federal army to immediately execute all 303 of the condemned men. Lincoln, however, was concerned that such a mass execution of so many men who had so obviously been railroaded would be looked upon in a bad light by the European powers who, at the time, were threatening to support the Confederate cause in the War for Southern Independence. His compromise was to pare the list of condemned down to 39, with a promise to the Minnesota political establishment that the federal army would eventually kill or remove every last Indian from the state. As a sweetener to the deal Lincoln also offered Minnesota $2 million in federal funds.
On December 26, 1862, Abraham Lincoln ordered the largest mass execution in American history in which the guilt of the executed could not be positively determined beyond reasonable doubt. (The cartel of "Lincoln scholars" actually praises Lincoln for this act, claiming that it is yet another example of his humanitarianism and his "culture of life." He may well have killed 39 innocent people, they say, but it could have been much worse). [I believe the actual number hanged was 38]
Here is the record of one of the trials.
Case 238: Ta-hoh-pe-wa-kan[The complete record of testimony follows.]
Prisoner states — I went with a party which pick up things which the whites left behind.
Louis LaBelle being sworn says — The prisoner was among those who were on horseback in the battle referred to in case 236 — He had a horse and was up on it when I saw him, belonging to the soldiers. (See case No. 236)
[Ta-hoh-pe-wa-kan was found guilty and was sentenced to be hanged.]
Not to be left out of all this were the Jews or Israelites.
O.R. 17, p.330
LA GRANGE, TENN., November 9, 1862.
Major-General HURLBUT, Jackson, Tenn.:Refuse all permits to come south of Jackson for the present. The Israelites especially should be kept out.
What troops have you now, exclusive of Stevenson's brigade?
U. S. GRANT,
Major-General.
O.R. 17, p. 337
LA GRANGE, November 10, 1862.
General WEBSTER, Jackson, Tenn.:Give orders to all the conductors on the road that no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward from any point. They may go north and be encouraged in it; but they are such an intolerable nuisance that the department must be purged of them.
U. S. GRANT,
Major-General.
O.R. 17, p 424
GENERAL ORDERS,
HDQRS. 13TH A. C., DEPT. OF THE TENN.,
Numbers 11.
Holly Springs, December 17, 1862.The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.
Post commanders will see that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters.
No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.
By order of Major General U. S. Grant:
JNO. A. RAWLINS,
Assistant Adjutant-General.
It is known that Jefferson's first act as a young legislator (or at least let's say one of his first) in the VA House of Burgesses was to get rid of slavery.
It is still better known that Virginia did not get rid of slavery and neither did Jefferson personally. He remained a slave owner until he died. He freed the family of Sally Hemings, but those were blood relatives. Consult again the quote of Thomas Jefferson supra. And see the estate sale notice following his death.
At least 130 people never believed Jefferson ended slavery. The attempt to sell that line of bilge is an embarrassment to all conservatives.
He of course rips the King a new one in the Declaration Draught....
He, of course, was being tended to by his slave Jupiter at the time.
There's the whole Northwest Ordinance thing previously accounted for above, and finally culminating in the 1808 ban on the trade when he was President.
Yes, there was the heroic effort to keep the territories for free, White people only, free of black or other colors, or as Lincoln said so eloquently, "Sustain these men and negro equality will be abundant, as every white laborer will have occasion to regret when he is elbowed from his plow or his anvil by slave n------."
What did Article Six of the Ordinance of the Northwest Territories say? Have you ever read it? Its Fugitive Slave Clause speaks loudly to the complete absence of racism. /s
Article the Sixth. There shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary Servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishent of crimes, wereof the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.
Just focusing on acts, publicly and verifiable. Can you point to any time Jefferson advanced legislation, got all involved in and worked up about, or otherwise, and was a supporter of the institution of slavery?
When he was boinking 14-year old Sally Hemings. For his entire adult life he owned slaves, lots of slaves.
In the Jefferson draft of the Kentucky Resolutions:
5. Resolved, That in addition to the general principle, as well as the express declaration, that powers not delegated are reserved, another and more special provision, inserted in the Constitution from abundant caution, has declared that “the migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808;” that this commonwealth does admit the migration of alien friends, described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens: that a provision against prohibiting their migration, is a provision against all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be nugatory: that to remove them when migrated, is equivalent to a prohibition of their migration, and is, therefore, contrary to the said provision of the Constitution, and void.
Try to be serious.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 by Senator Lyman Trumbull, and the 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause by Senator Jacob Howard, and the relevant Congressional debate explicitly indicate the authors' intent to include people of all colors.And Article 4 of the Confederation.(1777-1789) Don't act like it's new.
Not a problem. Why you cite a document that contained a Fugitive Slave Clause is a bit of a mystery.
Art. of Confed., Art. 4, Sec 1
Article IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different states in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from Justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any state, to any other State of which the Owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any state, on the property of the united states, or either of them.
Can you keep a straight face while telling Black people that does not refer to Black slave property? Who were the people who were not free citizens?
Denying a history of racism is simply embarrassing. It happened. We have gotten better. It is not official government policy any more. That does not mean it never existed, or that it has been totally eradicated.