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]

All I ever see from you three in regards to the Founding Fathers is venom and spew.

I fear that you see disagreement with you regarding what the founders believed as "venom and spew", when it we are merely pointing out that you are looking at them through rose colored glasses.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"Once again, here is the logical flaw in your reasoning."

A law passed in 1795 has nothing to do with what Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1772 about the Somersett Case.

I have no logical flaw here.

[ProgressingAmerica]

You said at post 214:

"You are like the painter who is painting the King"

The king objectively used his veto pen to protect slavery. I do not even need to look at the Founders for this. All I have to do is look at the king, and nowhere else. It is simply:

Did the king do this?

It is answered this simply.

Yes.

It was just that simple. No paint is required. Three simple letters. Yes. Y, e, s.

Considering the Founding Fathers role, venom and spew is all that is left. We have what Virginia wrote, in plain text. All of this is impossible to reconcile as such with some Civil War claims of honoring the Founders, etc etc. Either one or the other is true but they cannot both be true. You admittedly choose instead to follow the money leading you to wildly inaccurate conclusions.

Why wouldn't you follow the money on the king's veto and the over 20 slave colonies that existed at the time the Somersett Case kept all that slavery around. It's because you don't want to. Again, venom and spew against the Founders. Why would you be quick to not equally venom and spew about a slave trading abolitionist, but plenty fine to venom and spew of slave owning abolitionists, the Founders? It's all the same. Its hypocrisy after hypocrisy after hypocrisy after hypocrisy after hypocrisy. And who was that veto issued against? It was Virginia, not that you cared. You position yourself as this valiant Southern redeemer but not when it comes to the king. The king was the original Abraham Lincoln and you chose his side. Southern redeemer indeed. More hypocrisy.

The thing is this. Never once have you ever placed yourself on the side of the Founders, as if you didn't think anybody would ever notice.

[jeffersondem]

Your post 366 states: “In Brazil, slavery was just as profitable as in the United States . . .”

In this post (385) you state: “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.”

Your argument that slaves with disease & malnutrition - sick to the point they cannot self sustain - create just as much wealth as healthy slaves doesn’t seem reasonable.

Nor is it plausible that workers with short work careers (maybe decades short) produce just as much wealth as workers with long work careers.

It is unseemly to talk about slave profits and, right now, I don’t remember why you brought up the comparison.

I guess it came up when you talked about your notion that 15 percent is magic.

[woodpusher]

A law passed in 1795 has nothing to do with what Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1772 about the Somersett Case.

In 1772 slavery was England's problem and Franklin boldly told them what they should do, up to a point. Franklin never addressed what to do with a milion freed slaves. It was not his problem. It was not a problem for the United States of America which did not then exist.

In 1787, when it was a problem for Franklin and the other Framers to deal with, Franklin and the other Framers voted to protect the African slave trade for twenty years. He voted for representation based on the slave population to be set at three-fifths of that population. FRanklin voted for every state in the union to faithfully observe the Fugitive Slave Clause. That is not what Franklin said; that is what Franklin did when he had to do something.

The Evil Empire was not there to make Franklin or the other Framers do anything.

The law passed in 1795 showed what Massachusetts did regarding the freed slaves. As was clearly stated, "By this law, it will be observed that all negroes, resident in Massachusetts, not citizens of some one of the States, were required to depart in two months, on penalty of being apprehended, whipped, and ordered to depart. The process and punishment could be renewed every two months." That was gradual emancipation in Massachusetts. Whip them and imprison them until they left the state. You are incapable of discussing that documented truth. Gradual emancipation was nothing more than ethnic cleansing.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Woodpusher: "In 1772 slavery was England's problem"

Oh my God. *eye roll* It was only around a week or some ago you were blaming slavery on John Jay and fighting tooth and nail about the concept that Jay or any other Founders could ever possibly have been an abolitionist. And when I said John Jay the Englishman was a slaveowner while John Jay the American was an abolitionist it got you all bent out of shape.

You Civil War people and your never ending contradictions. LOL

Will you Civil War people please just stay in Civil War topics and stop clowning yourselves? This is genuinely a huge embarrassment. It's so bad of an embarrassment that I feel embarrassed; and I'm the one who's been fighting tooth and nail to say that slavery was England, not the U.S, and that The 1619 Project is garbage.

No. Wait. I see it.

I see how you are going to kabuki dance your way out of this. You said that slavery was England's "problem", you didn't actually blame transatlantic slavery on England. No no, England never had slavery in the transatlantic era and never enslaved anybody *COUGH* *HACK* Jamaica Canada British Virginia British Massachusetts British Maryland Barbados.

You see, I'm learning your kabuki dances. You see! You see! You didn't blame England for slavery. You just said it was "their problem"! I'm in ahead of you and your incoming shenanigans.

Bring it woodpusher. Bring it.

Come back and blame Americans again in your next reply. You know you want to blame America like a dutiful New York Timeser. And throw some venom and spew at the Founding Fathers for good measure why don't you. Don't just be content to blame the Founders. Go all in. Put all your chips in. Don't hold back in your disdain for the Founding.

We want to see you take off your mask. What's really under there? Stop hiding.