If the Smithsonian Institution was more interested in promoting a patriotic version of U.S. history, would it put the Abolitionist Founding Fathers on display?

PGA Weblog ^ | 8/23/25

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK regarding "all men are born free and equal": "You missed a key distinction, and it begins with understanding that the same "flowery language" appears in several important documents of the time,"

DiogenesLamp: "Unless they specifically say they were speaking of slaves held in bondage, the only rational interpretation was that they meant "White" men, and nobody else."

Says DiogenesLamp.

Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice William Cushing disagreed with you in 1783, and so did many others at the time.

Cushing was highly regarded by not just John Adams, but also by Pres. Washington, who in 1790 appointed Cushing to SCOTUS and again in 1796 appointed Cushing to be SCOTUS Chief Justice.
The Senate confirmed him, but Cushing held the post only a few days before resigning, citing health reasons.
So Cushing continued to serve as associate justice under Presidents Adams, Jefferson and Madison, until his death in 1811.

It's clear that our Founding Fathers agreed with Cushing, and not with the b*ll sh*t posted by DiogenesLamp.

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK: "Corwin changed nothing..."

DiogenesLamp: "I disagree.
It revealed that Republican politics was just a smoke screen for the masses.
What they really believed in was the continuation of that money from the South."

Then you disagree with Pres. Lincoln, who said Corwin changed nothing in his understanding of the US Constitution.

As for the rest, that's simply your Lost Causer Marxist fantasies, not real history.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Ahh, yes the NW Ordinance as well. TJ had many direct legal confrontations with slavery outside the home.

I am admittedly touchy about this; pretty much any time the Founders are disrespected.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"Cushing was highly regarded by not just John Adams, but also by Pres. Washington, who in 1790 appointed Cushing to SCOTUS and again in 1796 appointed Cushing to be SCOTUS Chief Justice."

That can't be. He was rewarded??? The 1783 Massachusetts slavery decision is said to be judicial activism, the decision was out of bounds, and of course none of the Founders were opposed to slavery - we are led to believe.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "As late as 1854 Henry David Thoreau expressed a blistering low opinion of Massachusetts morality because the state, in his opinion, was playing nice with slavery.
Said he:

“Show me a free state, and a court truly of justice, and I will fight for them, if need be; but show me Massachusetts, and I refuse her my allegiance, and express contempt for her courts.” "

Thoreau's cabin on Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts:

Thoreau was a purist, ideological, and a radical abolitionist, who died in May 1862 at age 44, after years of failing health due to Tuberculosis.

So, he lived long enough to see the Civil War's beginning, but not its duration, ending or Reconstruction.

Thoreau was not directly political and hated big government, so may well have supported post-war Radical Republicans in some respects, but Thoreau would not have liked their use of government to heavy-handedly enforce Reconstruction.

Not to be confused with Ted Kaczynski's cabin in Lincoln, Montana:

[jeffersondem]

“Thoreau was not directly political and hated big government, so may well have supported post-war Radical Republicans in some respects, but Thoreau would not have liked their use of government to heavy-handedly enforce Reconstruction.”

I agree with Brother Joe.

That's bad.

[Ditto]

but Thoreau would not have liked their use of government to heavy-handedly enforce Reconstruction.”

Ya… what kind of monster would support using the army to stop the KKK from slaughtering people. < / sarcasm >

[jeffersondem]

“Ya… what kind of monster would support using the army to stop the KKK from slaughtering people. < / sarcasm >”

Let me put that in perspective.

During one turbulent year in one Southern state the Klan shot down a person every four hours and 17 minutes - and the governor said that represented a decreasing crime rate.

Let me correct myself: that is actually the rate at which people are being shot down in the streets of one city - Chicago - so far in 2025. And 75 percent of those shot down are black.

I’m wondering if the mayor of Chicago is under the direct control of the Klan.

https://heyjackass.com/

[Ditto]

Nice attempt at changing the subject.

Now, do you think it was wrong for President Grant to use the military to stop the Klan from murdering people in the 1970s. If so, I can only assume you think it’s wrong for President Trump to use the military to stop gangsters from murdering people now.

[DiogenesLamp]

I thought that might jerk your chain.

Trying to piss on my leg and tell me "it's raining" usually has that effect, but I wouldn't brag about it.

[DiogenesLamp]

Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice William Cushing disagreed with you in 1783, and so did many others at the time.

Well firstly, Massachusetts.

Secondly, don't post his conclusion, post his reasoning. Let us see if it passes the sanity test.

[DiogenesLamp]

Then you disagree with Pres. Lincoln, who said Corwin changed nothing in his understanding of the US Constitution.

Okay, your logic is flawed here. Lincoln was absolutely right. The Constitution already said everything the Corwin amendment said *EXCEPT* that part about it henceforth being impossible to repeal or amend it. That was new.

So I don't disagree with Lincoln on this point, and I still believe that "It revealed that Republican politics was just a smoke screen for the masses. What they really believed in was the continuation of that money from the South."

[DiogenesLamp]

Ya… what kind of monster would support using the army to stop the KKK from slaughtering people.

You do know the Army is what created the KKK?

If the army had never been there, there never would have been a KKK.

And what do you think about illegal aliens voting?

[Fury]

This is ridiculous.

Slavery was an institution back in the founding of the US.

Those both for and against slavery are part of that history.

It’s ALL part of US History. ALL. OF. IT.

Can people not tell the patriotic story of the US AND discuss the issue of slavery AND the those involved in keeping it OR banishing it?

I believe part of the problem is that many people just cannot think critically. It seems to be about two tribes and neither trusts the other.

[Ditto]

You do know the Army is what created the KKK?

Do you just make this crap up on the spot, or do you have a team of comedy writers working for you? I have seen a bunch of Neo confederate BS before,but that one has to rank among the worst.

[jeffersondem]

“Nice attempt at changing the subject . . . I can only assume you think it’s wrong for President Trump to use the military to stop gangsters from murdering people now.”

You seem oblivious that you are repudiated by your own words.

[DiogenesLamp]

Do you just make this crap up on the spot, or do you have a team of comedy writers working for you?

So you don't understand what I said. I think this has been a reoccurring problem with you.

I've sorta lost interest in what you have to say on this topic. You don't seem to know various details, and you absolutely don't want to think about things you don't like.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Slavery was the abortion issue of the day: it was convenient for a Northern politician to profess to be personally opposed to slavery while also opposed to ever doing anything about it."

jeffersondem to x: "You make a good point."

Sorry, no.
For once our FRiend x seems to have forgotten his history lessons, and sadly, jeffersondem refuses to ever learn.

jeffersondem to x: "It helps to explain why 13 of the original 13 slave states voted to enshrine slavery into the United States Constitution.
No doubt there were many in the northern states that didn’t like slavery and only voted to put it into the Constitution because it was in their own economic and political best self interest."

No again.
In fact, by the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, 11 current and future states had already enacted gradual abolition laws or been declared as non-slave, including:

1787 Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, PA:

1. 1777 -- Vermont
2. 1780 -- Pennsylvania
3. 1783 -- Massachusetts
4. 1783 -- New Hampshire
5. 1784 -- Connecticut
6. 1784 -- Rhode Island
7. 1787 -- Ohio
8. 1787 -- Michigan
9. 1787 -- Indiana
10. 1787 -- Illinois
11. 1787 -- Wisconsin

In 1787, the following states had no anti-slavery laws:

1. New York (1799)
2. New Jersey (1804)
3. Delaware (1787 banned slave imports and exports from Delaware)
4. Maryland
5. Virginia
6. North Carolina
7. South Carolina
8. Georgia

New York (1799) and New Jersey (1804) would soon pass their own abolition laws, and there were leading voices in other Southern states supporting long-term restrictions or abolition of slavery, including:

1. Maryland: Charles Carroll (Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery) and Samuel Chase (DOI signer)
2. Virginia: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry (regretted & acted against slavery)
3. North Carolina: Hugh Williamson (Delegate to C.C.)
4. South Carolina: Edward Rutledge and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (supported abolition of Atlantic slave trade)
5. Georgia: Button Gwinnett (authored Georgia state constitution abolishing foreign slave imports)

Yes, some were more committed than others, but even in the cases of SC's Rutledge & CC Pinckney, while strongly supporting slavery at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, they did not oppose abolition of foreign slave imports or abolition in the US Northwest territories.

They were all willing to abolish slavery where that was possible.

By stark contrast, antebellum Southern Fire Eaters pushed to expand slavery wherever and whenever possible -- Western territories, Caribbean filibusters, Northern "sojourners", etc. -- by whatever means available:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."
A. Lincoln, "House Divided", 1858

jeffersondem to x: "We forget how mercenary northern Puritans were.
From the “Won Cause Myths” we are only told the north “fought to free the slaves.”"

Regardless of our Lost Causers' frequent & loud denials, the Union did "fight to free the slaves", because -- among other reasons -- they believed freeing Confederate slaves was necessary to preserving the Union, short-term and long-term.

jeffersondem to x: "Again, you make a good point."

[Ditto]

I've sorta lost interest in what you have to say on this topic. You don't seem to know various details, and you absolutely don't want to think about things you don't like.

Thank you Professor Knowledge. Now tell the class how the U S Army inspired the KKK to go around murdering people. I never knew the Army had that kind of power. Why did Congress see fit to pass the the Enforcement Acts to fight back against the Klan?

You are so totally full of crap.

[ladyjane]

Massachusetts likes to claim they were the first state to abolish slavery because no blacks were listed in their 1790 census. That’s because all slaves were called servants, not slaves. To this day Massachusetts has never passed a law to abolish slavery.