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

[Ditto]

Again, you may consider yourself smarter than everyone here, but you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Former Confederates could and did vote, as well as former slaves under the Reconstruction acts. You have no idea what happened during Reconstruction and your Birth of a Nation rendition is total BS. The US government was fare easier on the former Confederates than any prior government in history had been on rebels.

[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "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?"

Centuries long irrigation farming in the Gila and Salt River basis of Arizona, including Indian slaves and cotton, proved it could be done and was viable for Southern plantation style slavery -- certainly so in the eyes of Southern visionaries like Pres. Pierce's Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis.

And Davis was far from the only one -- as early as 1845, influential Southerners met in Memphis, Tennessee, to plan and advocate for a transcendental railroad southern route to California.
The 1845 Memphis Convention members included:

1. SC Sen. John C. Calhoun,
2. Alabama's Clement C. Clay Sr.,
3. Tennessee Sen. John Bell,
4. Mississippi Rep. and future California Sen. William Gwin,
5. Southern Gen. Edmund P. Gaines, and
6. then SC Railroad executive James Gadsden.

According to historian David Devine, James Gadsden had long championed a southern railroad to “export slavery west of Texas”.

Then a Mississippi planter, Jefferson Davis was not at the meeting but soon, as a Congressman & Senator, Davis joined Southern voices calling for a transcontinental railroad Southern route.

This article discusses Davis's plans:

"Taking Slavery West in the 1850s
Before the Civil War, pro-slavery forces in the South—particularly the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis—tried to extend their power westward.

"Soon after the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, [historian Kevin] Waite writes, then-Senator Davis began talking up the westward expansion of slavery.
He argued that enslaved people could farm the lower Colorado River area and perhaps mine gold that might be found around the Gila River."

Other Memphis Railroad Conventions were held in 1849 and 1853, the latter sponsored by Sec. of War, Jefferson Davis.

In 1850, Davis addressed Congress regarding the Western Territories, saying, among other things:

"We have a right to claim that our territory shall increase with our population… and it is but just, and fair, and honest that it should be accorded to us without any restriction or reservation…"

And specifically, on slavery out west, Davis said:

"As a property recognized by the Constitution, and held in a portion of the States, the Federal Government is bound to admit it [slavery] into all the Territories, and to give it such protection as other private property receives."

Finally, in 1853, now Secretary of War Jefferson Davis sent James Gadsden to Mexico to buy the Gadsden Purchase land.
At the same time, Davis sent future Union Army Gen. McClellan to survey railroad routes for it.

So, it's indisputable that powerful Southern interests, such as Jefferson Davis and James Gadsden, expected to expand slavery into southern territories, as far west as California.
By the time of the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, that dream was close to fulfilment.

[BroJoeK]

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

Men wearing Confederate uniforms declared themselves to be non-citizens of the United States and waged bloody war against the USA for four long years.

Such men were not law-abiding citizens and so were not allowed to vote.

Now, howl whatever nonsense you want, those are the facts.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Directly proportional to profitability."

Having nothing to do with "profitability", since that varied from year to year, depending on weather, crop diseases, commodity prices, etc.

What mattered was overall numbers of slaves compared to total populations, and 15% seems to be the upper limit for peaceful emancipations & abolition.

• More than 15% and slaveholders responded with organized violence against abolition.

• More than 90% and slaves revolted and killed their slaveholders, as in Haiti ~1800.

So, your obsession with "profitability" as opposed to reality is simply your Marxist indoctrination once again exposing itself for all the world to see.

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK: "In Brazil, slavery was just as profitable as in the United States . . .”

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

Take your pick -- Brazil and the USA were analogous, though far from identical.

1. In 1830, Brazil's slave population peaked at around 25% of its total population, these were concentrated in commodities like sugar, coffee, rubber and gold mining.

2. In 1830, the US's slave population averaged 15% of its total population, but in some Southern states that number was 25% and more.
   These were concentrated in commodities like cotton, tobacco, sugar and rice.

3. Unlike the US, Brazil's slave population was not self-sustaining.
   Unsafe working conditions, disease & malnutrition led to high mortality and low birth rates among Brazil's slaves.
   One result was that after international imports of new slaves were outlawed in 1850, Brazil's slave population began to decline naturally.

4. Brazil's declining slave numbers led to increasing numbers of European immigrants, and so the population balance fell from 25% slaves in 1830 to just 5% in 1888 at the time of total abolition.

So, the answer is: Brazilian slavery was plenty profitable, when slaves were readily available, but after 1850 slaves were increasingly fewer and harder to keep.

[DiogenesLamp]

Former Confederates could and did vote

Do you not know what a "Vichy Collaborator" is?

You want to do everything you can to deny *THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE* was canceled by the Occupation army.

[DiogenesLamp]

Centuries long irrigation farming in the Gila and Salt River basis of Arizona, including Indian slaves and cotton, proved it could be done and was viable for Southern plantation style slavery -- certainly so in the eyes of Southern visionaries like Pres. Pierce's Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis.

And now you have repeated this claim, but provided no evidence for it. Zachary Taylor believed the whole theory was impossible, and he should know because he went all through those areas during the Mexican/American war.

[DiogenesLamp]

Men wearing Confederate uniforms declared themselves to be non-citizens of the United States and waged bloody war against the USA for four long years.

You say that as if it changes the rights of citizens, or the rights of states.

Lincoln claimed the states not only didn't leave, but couldn't leave. That legal argument requires *ALL* rights of the citizens who couldn't leave, to be respected.

You don't get to claim "they can't leave" to justify starting a war with them, and then claim "they left" after you've won it.

If your position is that they could not abjure their role in the Union, then their rights cannot be ignored.

Such men were not law-abiding citizens and so were not allowed to vote.

What particular "law" did they violate?

There is no written law against leaving, and in fact the evidence indicates the founders *APPROVED* of states "abolishing" their existing governments and forming a new one more to their liking.

They said so.

And don't start with me with your "BroJoeK gets *VETO* power over the citizens of each state" argument.

[DiogenesLamp]

Having nothing to do with "profitability", since that varied from year to year, depending on weather, crop diseases, commodity prices, etc.

The fact that profits vary year to year is no sort of argument to prove *PROFITS* did not motivate them.

So, your obsession with "profitability" as opposed to reality is simply your Marxist indoctrination once again exposing itself for all the world to see.

The ignoring of "profits" is the Marxist argument. Capitalists fully understand the need for profits, and consider it a good thing.

Trying to pretend they don't matter is the Soviet view.

[Ditto]

Do you not know what a "Vichy Collaborator" is?

Yes I do. Apparently you don’t. The Union Army in the South after the Civil War can not be compared to the NAZI army in France. That you continue making this comparison shows how screwed up and sick you are.

You ignore the fact the ex-confederates were allowed to vote.. You continue to say they couldnt. You ignore the fact that there were no mass concentration camps, that no one was “ disappeared”. You ignore the facts of history and continue to spout your imaginary fractured fairy tail history.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes I do. Apparently you don’t. The Union Army in the South after the Civil War can not be compared to the NAZI army in France.

In *YOUR* opinion. When people invade and murder your people, they are rightly considered *EVIL* by the people they are subjugating.

You don't get it. They had absolutely *NO RIGHT* to invade and murder people. *THEY* are the bad guys.

That you continue making this comparison shows how screwed up and sick you are.

It shows that *I* can see and understand both sides of an issue, while you are brainwashed into being able to only see the side you've been propagandized to believe.

You ignore the fact the ex-confederates were allowed to vote..

And you ignore the fact they were *COLLABORATORS* who defied the actual will of the majority to support the hated occupation government.

You ignore the fact that there were no mass concentration camps, that no one was “ disappeared”.

There were concentration camps in France? I've never heard of that. I think you are making that up.

And yes, people were "disappeared." Clement Vallandigham was one of them. I think Lincoln had 35,000 political prisoners.

[Ditto]

You know you are nuts. Where’s that $50 Billion you kept talking about. Did the evil yankee soldiers steal that too?

[Ditto]

There were concentration camps in France? I've never heard of that. I think you are making that up.

Here you go smart guy.

After the anti-Jewish legislation of October 1940, the Vichy regime broadened its actions to arrest and detain Jews in its territory. They were incarcerated in 15 concentration camps which included the camps of Gurs, Le Milles, Rivesaltes and St. Cyprien. By the beginning of 1941 some 40,000 Jews had already been arrested. In addition to those arrested, some 35,000 Jewish men were conscripted by force into the “Labor Corps”, or Compagnies de Travail. Almost all the foreign Jewish men, more than a third of the population of foreign Jews in France, were either conscripted into the Labor Corps or incarcerated in concentration camps.

The concentration camps provided only meager nutrition and faulty sanitary facilities. The prisoners had no possibility of appealing their internment or of trying to alleviate their conditions. The food provided was not enough to sustain even a bare minimum of existence. Hundreds of prisoners died due to disease, cold and starvation; thousands of prisoners reached a state of malnourishment.

During the period of German occupation 26 concentration camps operated in the Occupied Zone. The central concentration camp in France was Drancy, not far from Paris. Following the German occupation in 1940, Drancy was initially used as a camp for French and British prisoners of war. Beginning in the summer of 1941, when the roundup of Paris Jews began, Drancy was used to imprison Jewish detainees. From March 1942 Drancy became a transit camp for Jews who were being deported to the East.

In the vicinity of Paris and in Northeastern France there were additional concentration camps run by the Vichy regime. Among these were Pithiviers, Beaune-la-Rolande, Besançon, Compiègne and others. Of the 54,000 Jews who passed through the camp of Compiègne, 50,000 were deported to their extermination. The Jews who had been arrested in the big waves of arrests, in May 1941 and July 1942, were interned in Pithiviers. Just as in the case of Drancy and Compiègne, beginning in July 1942, thousands of Jews were deported from Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande to Auschwitz.

The concentration camps in France continued operating during the summer of 1944, which marked the height of the battle for Paris and the Allied campaign to liberate France.

Source: https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/france/camps-in-france.html

Of course you know everything about the Vichy government and I know nothing. And you know everything about Reconstruction, and I know nothing.

Jerk.

[BroJoeK]

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

Coming from one who supports Lost Causer ideology regardless of facts, that's pretty rich.

As for alleged errors in my "quick google list" of cases, that list is intended to show the Preamble's "legal status", not it's "legal authority", IOW, cases where the Preamble was referenced.

And there are plenty of others where the Preamble was taken seriously, if not decisively, in a court's rulings.
Yet another google/AI search produces the following list:

1. Chisholm v. Georgia (1793)
   Two Justices cited the Preamble to argue that the Constitution was ordained by “the people,” and therefore the states were subject to federal judicial authority in pursuit of the Preamble’s goals -- like “establish Justice” and "form a more perfect Union"

2. Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee (1816)
   Justice Story referenced the Preamble to argue that the Constitution was established by the people, who had the right to limit state powers inconsistent with the “objects of the general compact”

3. McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
   Chief Justice Marshall quoted the Preamble to emphasize that the Constitution was created by the people to promote national interests like “general Welfare” and “common Defence”

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

Now you're just arguing legal semantics, definitions of words and expressions.
But even in your own metaphor, "a mission statement, not a rulebook", a good mission statement is a powerful expression of what an organization exists to do and accomplish -- so, it ain't nothin'.

Some other terms applied to the Constitution's Preamble include:

1. rhetorical flourish
2. constitutional compass
3. philosophical crown
4. hortatory language
5. ornamental, aspirational or precatory, etc....

None of these terms imply you can casually dismiss the Preamble, or the DOI's "flowery language" as meaningless.

woodpusher: "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."

Of course, all our anti-Americans just love to trash Thomas Jefferson over slavery, and can never resist mentioning his sister-in-law Sally.

Regardless of your mocking Jefferson, the facts remain as I've stated them: Jefferson, like all Founders I can find records on, opposed slavery in principle, and in practice tried to restrict or abolish slavery wherever and whenever he could, including:

1. Northwest Territories
2. Atlantic slave trade
3. Proposed national compensated abolition

woodpusher: "“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."

Exactly right!

That proves my point that the Constitution's Preamble is not just a "rhetorical flourish" or "flowery language" to be ignored in practice, but rather a mission statement guiding politicians and justices alike in deciding what is, or is not, constitutional.

Agreement is a good place to end. 😉

[Ditto]

And yes, people were "disappeared." Clement Vallandigham was one of them. I think Lincoln had 35,000 political prisoners.

Some disappearance.

Meanwhile, Lincoln preferred to be rid of Vallandigham, and Union cavalry escorted him to Confederate lines in East Tennessee and turned him over to the enemy. He traveled through the Confederacy and eventually settled in Canada, where he continued to oppose the Lincoln administration and ran for governor of Ohio, managing his campaign from a hotel in Windsor, Ontario. He eventually sneaked back into the United States in disguise and helped draft the 1864 Democratic National Convention platform plank attacking Lincoln's “suppression of freedom of speech and of the press” and called for a “cessation of hostilities.” Lincoln tolerated his presence and reined in General Burnside. The Supreme Court refused to hear Vallandigham’s case in 1864, stating that it had no jurisdiction to review the judgments of military commissions.

Disappeared without a trace…. LOL. Even the Confederates couldn’t stand the SOB. They pawned him off on the Canadians.

[DiogenesLamp]

You know you are nuts. Where’s that $50 Billion you kept talking about. Did the evil yankee soldiers steal that too?

It was 5 billion, and yes. Yes they did steal it. More besides, but I usually don't go into the post war theft. Others have written reams on the topic.

[DiogenesLamp]

Well I didn't know they had camps in France, but I do know a lot of French collaborated with the Nazis to help subjugate their fellow citizens.

You know, just like the reconstruction era in the Southern states.

[Ditto]

It was 5 billion, and yes. Yes they did steal it. More besides, but I usually don't go into the post war theft.

LOL. Wow. A Yankee outrage you don’t want to pontificate on.

[DiogenesLamp]

I never said he didn't turn up again. The point was Lincoln's goons arrested him for a freedom of speech issue, and illegally tried him, and illegally sent him to the enemy ranks, where I suppose they thought he might be shot before he got there.

None of this was legal. Neither was arresting the Maryland Legislature, or Union goons attacking the Missouri Legislature.

Like I said, 35,000 political prisoners.

You know, like a dictatorship.

[Ditto]

So many myths.