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

[DiogenesLamp]

There weren’t enough troops there to oppress anyone.

Yeah, that's right. They just didn't want that 5 billion dollars.

Who can blame them? I get very mad when people try to make me keep all the capital investment I spent a lifetime creating.

Why won't people let me give away everything I own? Why are they so insistent that I keep all that money?

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Sometimes I am amazed at the level of brainwashing that is still working to this day!

Lincoln was a people manipulating genius. People still don't realize he's fooled (almost) all the people, all the time.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Oh please! In 1788, thirteen states unanimously adopted the provisions in the Constitution which held slavery legal, and the fugitive slave law was the organic law in all thirteen states. 1788 is well after the Paris Peace Accords recognition of the independence of the thirteen states. The Evil Empire had no say in the matter.

Nope.

Fail.

Slavery was not invented in 1788, slavery was not invented in 1776. Stop. You have zero customers buying this garbage narrative.

The crown routinely vetoed abolitionist laws in the colonies. Had the colonies actually had the independence they desired prior to having to declare it and spark a war, at least one or two of those colonies would have been free-soil among the original thirteen that were what created the U.S.

Save your history revisionism for someone else who doesn't actually have the full text of one of the vetoes issued from the crown. Along with the colony's law that sparked said veto; along with their powerless colonial plea for redress and the inhumanity of it all.

Your kabuki theater is not working woodpusher. You require people who don't know their history. That person is not me.

Kabuki point number 1: I said the Empire's slavery was indistinguishable between the thirteen colonies and the Caribbean. You know you can't disagree, you were wise not to. And you won't be doing so in the future either.

Kabuki point number 2: I said the Founders opposed the Empire's slavery. Many of them did, I have specifically named them and you have no room at all to say that somehow slavery in the Caribbean which was the same as the thirteen colonies is somehow the fault of America. So you don't try. And why would you try, it's nonsense. The slave empire had over 20 slave colonies prior to Independence: Virginia and Jamaica being among them.

Kabuki point number 3: I said the U.S. inherited slavery against its will from the Empire. Never once do you explicitly say that slavery was in high demand among the founders. Never once. You always try to dissemble and try to find holes in the argument to justify your Civil War agenda. That's really the part that's annoying. You'll happily throw acid in the faces of the Founders for the altar of CW; but even that isn't it, it's throwing acid in the faces of the Founders like you're an Islamist while every bit of this whole lore rests somehow on the notion that the Civil War was the continuation of the legend of the American Revolution. If so, why did you throw acid in their faces? How does that work you can't have it both ways.

If slavery was not in high demand among the Founders as it is claimed in the 1619 Project, then your whole schtick falls to the ground in pieces.

You can keep on dancing. I know you'll be back with more pretzel shaped nonsense though.

[ProgressingAmerica]

This 1619 Project narrative is irrelevant.

Legal (abolitionist) mechanisms created are much more imperative than minuscule personal failings.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"Weren't you the guy bitching about how "gay marriage" and "abortion" coming out of the 14th amendment is a misreading of intent?"

I was, and still will be. Knowing that the living Founding Fathers agreed with Cushing and even promoted him, twice, means my consistency isn't in danger here.

Can you cite all of the push-back that the living Founders elicited after Massachusetts's 1783 decision? You're going to need that.

Cushing's rewards appear to be a mountain you cannot summit on this topic Mr. Zebra.

[jeffersondem]

“It (3/5ths) was not plucked out of thin air. You do not listen and do not read so your impenetrable fortress of ignorance is limitless.”

That is an interesting comment.

Three/fifths, also known as 48/80ths, was unanimously agreed to be the perfect compromise.

Can you remind me why the ratio 47/80ths and 49/80ths were rejected as being totally unacceptable?

[ProgressingAmerica]

Cool story. Now cite 1776 numbers instead. Then we can compare the two between your 1865 numbers already provided.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Actually, it's exactly like historians claiming that a slave trader is an abolitionist.

Slave trading abolitionists and slave owning abolitionists are real. Complain all you want it isn't going away.

"Who kept their own slaves in bondage."

Besides, there's this seeming hypocrisy again, quick to jump into the steamroller. But you have already made it clear that you have more loyalty to the empire than the Founders anyways, even when the crown mistreated Southerners, so this all makes sense.

Did you even know that the empire no longer actually exists? Maybe you didn't get the memo. You're protecting something so zealously that no longer even exists.

So. Here's the memo.

The British Empire is gone. You no longer have any need to protect it as you do.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"Yeah. The Americans absolutely didn't want those profits"

They said it in plain text. That's good enough for me.

I trust Americans. America First. That should not be odd to you but here we are.

[ProgressingAmerica]

The other ratio that was on the table at the Convention was 5/5ths. Why make up fake stuff?

The 5/5ths ratio was rejected because:

Wait for it.

Abolitionism. There were many abolitionists at the Constitutional Convention. Slave owners didn't debate with slave owners on how best to limit the slave power. Only fools believe such tomfoolery. They got to 3/5ths because it was a known number back in the Articles of Confederation.

It was anti-slavery people who pushed for that lower number of 3/5ths. Try all you want jeffersondem no matter how you cut the cake the 3/5ths compromise is not pro-slavery.

[ladyjane]

I’m pretty sure there were no paychecks in those days. A roof over your head, enough wood to keep you warm for the winter and food in your stomach was the most important thing then.

Doing genealogy I have found it amazing that second and third born sons would be able to hook up a wagon and move 100 miles away to find land, chop wood, build a shelter and raise a family. Life was not easy back them.

[Ditto]

Yeah, that's right. They just didn't want that 5 billion dollars.

This is a new myth for me. What the hell 5 Billion dollars are you talking about?

Are you saying the Union Army was in the south to steel $5 Billion and they had to suppress the KKK to do it? You really are getting to be nuts.

[DiogenesLamp]

I was, and still will be. Knowing that the living Founding Fathers agreed with Cushing and even promoted him, twice, means my consistency isn't in danger here.

You are being absolutely inconsistent.

I've had this argument before with BroJoeK.

If the *INTENT* was to abolish slavery, you say it plainly and clearly. You don't just put in some mellifluous language about "all men are born free and equal."

You say "Slavery is abolished." Plainly. Subject to no interpretation and no ambiguity.

That you claim to think otherwise shows me that you are lying to yourself, which is one thing I never could do.

That people liked the result is irrelevant to the fact it was absolutely made up by using a clever verbal trick, and not by being the acknowledged will of the people as expressed through an open democratic process.

Which is also something it has in common with the 14th amendment, which was also *NOT* the acknowledged will of the people as expressed through an open democratic process.

Both are examples of the exercise of power *OUTSIDE* the Democratic process. Both are examples of laws created *WITHOUT* the consent of the people.

[DiogenesLamp]

Cool story. Now cite 1776 numbers instead. Then we can compare the two between your 1865 numbers already provided.

As the constitution was written in 1787, shouldn't only those numbers be in consideration?

[DiogenesLamp]

Slave trading abolitionists and slave owning abolitionists are real. Complain all you want it isn't going away.

You have an error of logic here. You see, John Newton *STOPPED* slave trading when he became an abolitionist.

Washington, Jefferson et al, continued holding slaves, and therefore they weren't actual abolitionists.

This "do as I say, not as I do" mindset is hypocrisy.

You can't be in favor of abolition if you don't actually abolition.

[DiogenesLamp]

They said it in plain text. That's good enough for me.

If you think the only way to communicate your position is to write, then you are sadly mistaken.

Taking payments for slave labor speaks more loudly than anything they could write.

[DiogenesLamp]

It was anti-slavery people who pushed for that lower number of 3/5ths. Try all you want jeffersondem no matter how you cut the cake the 3/5ths compromise is not pro-slavery.

It's pro profit. The dispute was over how much *POWER* in congress would be distributed on the basis of representation.

The Northern states bitterly resented the idea of allowing the Southern states to claim slaves for the purpose of representation.

Now I know you want to try to portray their actions as some great moral effort, but the bottom line is it was just pure greed.

Controlling government meant laws favorable to the people who controlled it, and the interests of the South and the Interests of the North diverged long before the Civil War ever came about.

The South had control initially, but as time went on, they were doomed to lose that control as Northern populations grew quickly from immigration, and Southern populations grew slowly, because nobody who is sane wants to live in the Hot South.

The Northern population was always going to eventually dominate just from geographical considerations. As they slowly gained control of Congress, they enacted laws favorable to them, and unfavorable to the South.

[DiogenesLamp]

This is a new myth for me. What the hell 5 Billion dollars are you talking about?

It is examples like this that demonstrate you are really unprepared to engage in a debate on this subject. I bet you any other person involved in this discussion can tell you exactly what I mean when I says "they just voted to give away 5 billion dollars."

But you don't know what it means.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: " 'Don't want no black people around here.'
And people think they did it for noble reasons.
That still cracks me up. :)"

That's only because your brain is fried in b*ll sh*t and communist indoctrination.

The fact is that by the 1790 census there were ~60,000 free blacks, with populations living in every state.
Yes, some were restricted, but many were not and could choose where to live and how to earn their livings.
By 1860, freedmen numbers had exploded to over 476,000 meaning an average annual growth rate of nearly 4%.

Freed-black population growth was especially high in:

1. Alabama
2. Missouri
3. Kentucky
4. Ohio
5. Indiana
6. Illinois
7. Michigan
8. California

By contrast, US overall population growth is circa 1% today, at best, and reached around 1.7% during the 20-year "baby boom" from 1946 to ~1966.

These numbers strongly suggest that whatever official restrictions may have been passed on freed blacks, they did not prevent African Americans from moving, settling, prospering and growing in most states during the period 1790 to 1860.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "When you add together the parts of the preamble that you have subtracted it means our founders laid down corner stones to create a constitution they thought would be in their own economic and political best self interest."

Of course, that's what you and your mentor, Karl Marx, would say.
But it's still not what they said, ever.

[Ditto]

Ya I know that I am not up to your superior intellect. You have already repeated that over and over and over again. Now humor me, what the hell $5 billion are you talking about.