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

[woodpusher]

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.

Could you kindly identify the provision of the Articles of Confederation which relates to three fifths of anything?

[BroJoeK]

woodpusher: "Neither the operative articles, nor the Preamble, were written by the Founders.
That was the work of the Framers in 1787, after the founding."

Your distinction between "Founders" and "Framers" is meaningless since, for example, neither John Adams nor Thomas Jefferson were, strictly, "Framers" and yet both had profound influence on the 1787 Constitution.
So, I would refer to them all as the "Founding Generation" and consider their actions and words, as a whole, of one body.

woodpusher: "While it may be the absolute belief of some Framers, the Preamble was not written and voted upon by the body of Framers.
The Preamble was a rhetorical flourish, not a statement of what the Framers absolutely believed.
The Preamble has never been held to exert any legal authority."

1. First, it's most curious how often our pro-slavery apologists lean on Founders' "rhetorical flourishes" to dismiss their foundational beliefs.
   For example, according to DiogenesLamp, the Declaration's whole spiel about "all men are created equal" was just "colorful language", signifying nothing.

   Actually, equality before the law was a Founders' core belief, as they understood it, including such Enlightenment constructs as a "state of society", as referenced in Virginia's 1776 Declaration of Rights.

2. Second, while the Constitution's Preamble was not debated separately, it was voted on and approved along with the rest of the Constitution on September 17, 1787.

3. Third, a quick google search turned up the following SCOTUS exceptions to your rule about no legal status for the Preamble:
   • Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905)
     The Court referenced the government's duty to promote the “general welfare,” aligning with the Preamble’s language to justify broad police powers.

   • United States v. Kahriger (1953)
     The majority opinion nodded to the federal government’s role in promoting the general welfare.
     Yes, the ruling leaned on the Necessary and Proper Clause, but the Preamble helped justify the broader regulatory scope.

   • National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (Obama-Care) (2012)
     While not central, the Court’s broader discussion of federal responsibility to promote health and welfare echoed Preamble themes.

woodpusher: "Applying similar logic, one could take an operative clause of the Constitution and divine the Framers' absolute belief in its purport.
For example, take the Fugitive Slave Clause."

Sure, and that's exactly what Federal courts did do before 1861.

In 1788 the great ratifying debates over the new Constitution's preamble concerned the words, "We the People", which anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry saw as antithetical to the old Articles of Confederation's "We the States".
In those debates, Henry was decisively defeated, though the issue would return, with a vengeance, in early 1861.

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK: "...helped prevent a southern transcontinental railroad route, which would have opened up New Mexico, Arizona and even California to plantation style slavery."

DiogenesLamp: "No it wouldn't.
You couldn't grow anything in those areas back in those days, except perhaps near a river and then you would have to irrigate.
Modern irrigation systems make it possible to grow things there today.
Couldn't be done in 1860."

Yes, it could be done, and it had been done for centuries before 1860, using Indian slaves and irrigation in the Gila and Salt Rivers, near what is today Phoenix, Arizona.

Strategic thinkers like Mississippi's Senator, then US Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, well understood that, which is why, in 1853, he supported the Gadsden Purchase of land and a Southern transcontinental railroad route through Arizona.
It's also why he sent Confederate Gen. Sibley's military expedition into New Mexico Territory, in 1861, with orders to take that territory all the way to the coast of California.

So, what you claim was impossible, Jefferson Davis believed could be done, and tried several times to do.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "You seem to believe that the Southern states, whom most people claim fought a long and bloody war for four years just to keep their slaves... freely voted to give up their slaves, and freely voted to make these slaves citizens, and freely voted to allow these slaves to vote.
Do you not grasp how stupid that sounds?
That people would give up 5 billion dollars because they just decided to give it up?"

Of course they did!
The voters of most Confederate states elected state representatives who voted to ratify the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments.
That is a simple fact, lie as long and hard about it as you wish.

Of course, men wearing Confederate uniforms were not allowed to vote, since they had declared themselves non-citizens and waged war on the United States, for four long bloody years.

If DiogenesLamp's brain weren't so fried in Lost Causer b*ll sh*t, he'd easily understand it.
But it is, and he doesn't, sadly.

[jeffersondem]

“Yes, it could be done, and it had been done for centuries before 1860, using Indian slaves and irrigation in the Gila and Salt Rivers, near what is today Phoenix, Arizona.”

I don’t know the facts on this so instead of spouting opinion I’ll ask a relevant question.

Was irrigation farming centuries ago near the mentioned rivers - was that plantation-level farming for the purpose of competing in the international market or was that something closer to subsistence farming?

How would Arizona’s average rainfall of 13 inches per year affect the profitability of growing cotton compared to, say Georgia, with average annual rainfall of 50 inches?

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "I would have thought most business people - even farmers - would think profits are important; nearly determinative.
Acquiring agricultural inputs for the purpose of acquiring inputs without regard to profits doesn't seem like a good business plan."

Of course, however, the question here is, at what point do slaveholders rise up in violent opposition to abolition laws?
Is it based on the % of profits their slaves might bring?
No, historically that's irrelevant.

Historically, what matters is how large is the slaveholder and slave community relative to the total population?
Historically, where slaves accounted for more than 15% but less than 90% of a population, then slaveholders rose up in violent opposition to abolition.
This was notably true in US Southern slave-states, where states with 15% or fewer slave populations remained loyal Union states, while those with more than 15% joined the Confederate war against the United States.

In Brazil, slavery was just as profitable as in the United States, however, by 1888 the numbers of slaves had fallen from around 25% in 1830 to only 5% in 1888, and the result was peaceful abolition.

So, peaceful abolition did not depend on slavery's profitability, but it did depend on the overall numbers of slaves in the total population -- 15% seems to be the dividing line between peace and war.

[BroJoeK]

ProgressingAmerica: "It's all the same reasons why the Founding Fathers opposed the Empire's Slavery."

woodpusher: "Ten (10) of the first twelve (12) elected Presidents were slaveowners.
Washington and Jefferson remained slaveowners until the day they died."

Almost without exception, our Founders opposed slavery in principle and worked to gradually abolish it in practice, where possible.
They believed abolition was important, but not more important than establishing and maintaining "a more perfect Union".

• Some Founders never owned slaves

• Some Founders owned slaves and then freed them

• Some Founders did not free their own slaves, but did support restrictions on and abolition of slavery in parts of the United States, notably the Atlantic slave trade and abolition in the Northwest Territories.

• No Founder I've ever found supported slavery in principle as not just a temporarily necessary evil, but as a necessary and good thing to defend and expand wherever possible.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, it's most curious how often our pro-slavery apologists lean on Founders' "rhetorical flourishes" to dismiss their foundational beliefs.

It isn't a "foundational belief" if you don't act upon it.

It does in fact send the message that you don't even really believe in it yourself.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, it could be done, and it had been done for centuries before 1860, using Indian slaves and irrigation in the Gila and Salt Rivers, near what is today Phoenix, Arizona.

How many tons of cotton did that produce in the 1850s?

So, what you claim was impossible, Jefferson Davis believed could be done, and tried several times to do.

You are projecting your own motives onto Jefferson Davis. Whatever the reason was that he wanted that land (and I can't imagine why anyone would want more land) they are not discernable from what you have written.

[DiogenesLamp]

Of course they did! The voters of most Confederate states elected state representatives who voted to ratify the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments.

Do you really want to be this level of deceitful?

The "voters" as designated by the military occupation army, while the actual *REAL* citizens were forbidden from voting.

Vichy Government. Look it up if you don't know what it is.

[DiogenesLamp]

This was notably true in US Southern slave-states, where states with 15% or fewer slave populations remained loyal Union states, while those with more than 15% joined the Confederate war against the United States.

Directly proportional to profitability.

As I said before, and common sense will tell you this is correct, if slaves had been profitable in the North, they would have never given them up.

It is in the nature of the vast majority of people to always put their own self interests above those of others.

As I said, the North could buy their position of "moral superiority" on the cheap. Had it cost them dearly, they would have balked.

[central_va]

The Northerners didn’t free their slaves - they sold them.

[DiogenesLamp]

The Northerners didn’t free their slaves - they sold them.

That is what I believe happened, but I've had people say there is "no evidence they sold them."

I don't know if this is correct, but common sense says they this is what happened.

[jeffersondem]

“In Brazil, slavery was just as profitable as in the United States . . .”

Are you speaking of per capita or total contributions to the national economies of the two countries?

[Ditto]

The "voters" as designated by the military occupation army, while the actual *REAL* citizens were forbidden from voting.

Can’t be allowing those Darkies to vote. Is that it?

[DiogenesLamp]

Can’t be allowing those Darkies to vote. Is that it?

You are just trying to be insulting, aren't you?

The "Darkies" were not allowed to vote until 1870, which was about five years later.

They also weren't allowed to vote in the Northern states until five years later, (with some exceptions in liberal states.)

The actual Citizens of the Southern states were the ones who were not allowed to vote.

[Ditto]

The "Darkies" were not allowed to vote until 1870, which was about five years later.

In 1867, two years after the Civil War, Black males began voting in Georgia state elections. Between 1867 and 1872, sixty-nine African Americans were elected to either the state Constitutional Convention or the Georgia legislature.

Source: https://www.southerncultures.org/article/voting-rights-in-georgia/

The long campaign to establish the right for black men to vote in South Carolina finally succeeded in 1867, but that seminal event sparked a racially-charged backlash that reverberated through the generations to the present.

Source: https://www.ccpl.org/charleston-time-machine/advent-black-suffrage-south-carolina

Under the Reconstruction Acts, all adult males (white or Black) who had lived in the state at least one year and were willing to take the so-called “iron-clad loyalty oath” were eligible to vote. As a result, when Mississippi held its 1867 election of delegates to the constitutional convention of 1868, it was the first biracial election in Mississippi history. In fact, more African Americans than whites registered to vote!

Source: https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/resource/mississippi-voting-history

Want some more?

[woodpusher]

Let’s begin with your historical mash-up of Founders and Framers. They were two distinct groups, largely of different generations, pursuing different objectives. But if you prefer to mash apples and lemons into one fruit and consume them interchangeably, that’s your prerogative. Just don’t expect anyone serious to swallow it.

At the time of the Founding, James Monroe was 18. Aaron Burr was 20. Hamilton was 21. Madison was 25. These were young revolutionaries—not the seasoned architects of 1787. Conflating the Founding with the Framing is like confusing the Declaration with the Constitution. One lit the fire, the other built the furnace.

Now, onto your constitutional mythology.

Jacobson v. Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11 (1905) did not use the Preamble to justify broad police powers. The Court stated plainly:

“It has never been regarded as the source of any substantive power conferred on the Government of the United States.”

The ruling upheld a state vaccination law under state police powers, not federal authority. The Preamble was mentioned only to be dismissed. If you’re invoking Jacobson as a federal endorsement of Preamble-based power, you’re not reading the case—you’re projecting onto it.

United States v. Kahriger, 345 U.S. 22 (1953) likewise did not lean on the Preamble. The Court upheld a federal wagering tax under Congress’s taxing power, and reaffirmed that the Preamble is not a source of legal authority. Any “nod” to general welfare was rhetorical fluff, not doctrinal substance. Stretching that into constitutional justification is fan fiction.

NFIB v. Sebelius 567 U.S. 519 (2012)—the Obamacare case—didn’t cite the Preamble at all. The ruling was grounded in the Taxing Clause, the Spending Clause, and a rejection of the Commerce Clause. If you’re hearing echoes of “general welfare,” it’s because you’re shouting into a canyon of your own construction.

The Preamble is not a legal wand you can wave to conjure federal authority. It’s a mission statement—not a rulebook.

And if we’re going to invoke the Founding Generation’s ideals, let’s do so with intellectual honesty. For example, according to DiogenesLamp, the Declaration’s whole spiel about “all men are created equal” was just “colorful language,” signifying nothing.

Clearly, as Thomas Jefferson penned lofty ideals about equality while being attended by his enslaved valet Jupiter, he must have had a moment of reflection—perhaps even imagining himself and Jupiter as equals. But the thought was fleeting. When the ink dried, Jupiter remained in bondage, and Jefferson resumed his role as slaveholder. And let’s not pretend Jefferson’s relationship with slavery was purely economic. After his wife’s death, he took a particular interest in her half-sister Sally Hemings—his property by law, and by all credible accounts, his mistress by practice.

So much for “created equal.” For Jefferson, some were created to serve, and some to be served—even as he drafted the rhetoric that would inspire generations.

Finally, on “We the People”: In 1788, the great ratifying debates centered on that phrase—a deliberate rejection of the old Confederation’s limp “We the States.” Patrick Henry saw it as a threat to state sovereignty. He was right to be alarmed. The Constitution wasn’t a patch job—it was a revolution in legitimacy.

“We the People” isn’t ornamental. It affirms that the Constitution draws its authority directly from the people—not from the states, not from the government, and certainly not from the dusty remnants of the Articles. It remains the clearest rebuke to any theory that places institutions above individuals.

If you’re going to invoke the Constitution, do it with precision. Otherwise, you’re just dressing ideology in historical cosplay.

[woodpusher]

BroJoeK, your post reads like a hymn to moral intentions untethered from reality. “Almost without exception”? That’s a generous euphemism for a generation of men who, while penning lofty ideals about liberty, were simultaneously calculating the market value of human beings. If hypocrisy were a founding principle, the Framers would’ve nailed it.

Yes, some Founders “opposed slavery in principle.” And some people oppose gluttony while eating their third slice of cake. The principle is easy. The practice is what matters.

Washington owned slaves until his death. Jefferson wrote stirring prose about equality while maintaining a forced labor camp at Monticello. Madison wrung his hands over slavery’s moral stain but never freed a soul. These men didn’t “gradually abolish” slavery—they gradually died, leaving the institution intact.

As for the “black problem,” it wasn’t that they were enslaved—it was that white America couldn’t imagine them as equals. Lincoln, ever the pragmatist, floated colonization as a solution. In his 1862 Annual Message to Congress, he proposed gradual emancipation paired with deportation, suggesting that freedmen could work for wages until they were shipped off to “congenial climes” among “people of their own blood and race”. That’s not abolitionism—it’s logistical segregation.

So no, I don’t buy the narrative that lifelong slaveholders were closet abolitionists. That’s like calling a pyromaniac a firefighter because he occasionally poured water on the flames he lit. The Founders made a choice. They chose unity over justice, profit over principle, and silence over emancipation.

And I, too, am gradually moving in the direction of believing nonsense—just as Washington was gradually moving toward freeing his slaves. That is to say, not at all.

[DiogenesLamp]

In 1867, two years after the Civil War, Black males began voting in Georgia state elections.

Yeah, the OCCUPATION government let them vote, but not actual citizens. It wasn't legal, but they did it anyways.

When the 15th amendment was passed in 1870 they could vote in Northern states.

But you wanted to make some sort of stupid point about what the *OCCUPATION ARMY* did. Your point actually demonstrates *MY* point.

Actual citizens were denied the right to vote, and non-citizens were allowed to vote (like illegals, you know) and everybody pretended this was just perfectly legal.

So the illegal "voters" ratified constitutional amendments against the actual will of the citizens.

But they didn't put up with that nonsense in the North. You know... those same people imposing their morality on the Southern States. They didn't live up to it themselves.

So no, blacks didn't get to *LEGALLY* vote until after 1870, and If I recall properly, there was another hurdle requiring a couple of years of tax payments or some such before you could be registered to vote, so essentially they couldn't legally vote until 1872 or 1874.

But it's been awhile since I looked all this up, and it may be for some other reason than taxes. I just remember the 15th amendment opened the door, but they still had to meet other requirements that took several years to reach.