Arkansas rejects Obama - AGAIN

The K. Ryan James Blog ^ | 1/28/2009 | K. Ryan James

[fidelio]

(T)he Arkansas General Assembly rejected a congratulatory resolution for Barack Obama because it contained divisive language describing our country as founded by “slave owners”:

(snip)

WHEREAS, a nation founded by slave owners and seared by civil war and generations of racial strife made a leap in the march toward equality and delivered a smashing electoral college victory to the forty-seven year-old first-term senator from Illinois, who forged a broad, multi-racial and multi-ethnic coalition;

[Tex Pete]

Glad they rejected it. What garbage!

[mgc1122]

I’m surprised the sponsors of this non unifying bit of racial hubris didn’t also ask for 40 acres and a new Lexus to ease the suffering ...

[Vigilanteman]

a nation founded by slave owners being ruled by a descendent of slave traders doesn't have much of a ring to it, does it?

[popdonnelly]

May I state the obvious. Not all the “founders” were slaveholders. Not everybody who fought the British were slaveholders. If Arkansas can’t get history straight, they shouldn’t be making pronouncements about the past.

[mnehring]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but only two or three of the fifty or so founding fathers (Declaration signers) where actually slave owners. The Constitution itself even laid the groundwork for ending slavery, only delaying the decision until 1808 in order to have several States on board to ratify the Constitution.

[Julia H.]

Great for them.

Now let’s count the seconds until Obama revokes Arkansas’ statehood.

[randomhero97]

Zero is a descendent of slave traders? Just asking, but do you have any sources. I would really like to use this information against the one’s nuthuggers.

[Verginius Rufus]

I don't know the figure for how many of the Signers owned slaves, but 21 of the 56 came from states south of Delaware (which of course was a slave state until 1865), and probably a fair number of those 21 owned slaves. Slavery wasn't illegal anywhere in the 13 colonies, just much less widespread in the Northern colonies. (Martin van Buren's father, for example, was a N.Y. slaveowner.)

The provision specifying 1808 had to do with forbidding the importation of additional slaves, not the ending of slavery where it was established. If the Southern states in 1787-1789 had seen the Constitution as a threat to slavery, they would not have ratified the document.

[mnehring]

Not to many where listed as property owners though. There where a lot of shopkeepers, clerics, accountants, and lawyers. Not occupations wildly known as slave owners.

[mnehring]

I’ve read the 1808 prevision was the door to end slavery, it was the most they could get and have the Southern states ratify.. knowing that no more slaves could be imported, they hoped it would end it via attrition.

[Vigilanteman]

Without knowing Zero's Kenyan genealogy, I couldn't prove it. But the Arabic part of him (Hussein) and the geographical area in Kenya/Sudan/Ethiopia is where the modern slave trade originated, courtesy of the religion of peace.

Most African-Americans who have slaves in their pedigree originated from west central Africa. These people became the victims as the religion of peace spread from northeast Africa, the only part of the world which still sanctions slavery today.

Many of the Europeans who were Johnny-come-latelys to the odious slave trade patted themselves on the back for saving lives of people sold into slavery who would otherwise have been killed by the ROPers.

[Verginius Rufus]

The information must be out there somewhere—I don’t know if anyone has assembled all the data for the Signers of the Declaration or the men who signed the Constitution (which leaves out several men who played important roles at the convention but refused to sign the final document).

[Verginius Rufus]

It was mainly South Carolina and Georgia delegates who prevented an immediate ban on importing slaves—a lot of the actual slaveholders from the other states hoped that the institution would die out in time but they had to humor SC and GA.

[mnehring]

Sounds like an interesting FReeper research project, especially in light of all the lines the left uses about the founders being slave owners.. (I think it has been done though..)

[Verginius Rufus]

Since slavery is one of the most-studied topics in American history, I agree that it’s likely someone has already researched this question.

[Verginius Rufus]

During the same centuries when some Europeans were either participating in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, or availing themselves of slave labor in the New World, other Europeans were being enslaved by Muslims—taking a voyage in the Mediterranean meant risking winding up a galley slave, and people living near the coasts were sometimes carried away in pirate raids and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire. One of the Turkish admirals at Lepanto in 1571 was actually an Italian renegade who had been enslaved as a young man.

[Vigilanteman]

You are correct. One of the most fascinating accounts of European slaves escaping from Muslim captors is recorded here. It should be made into a movie.