Posted on 07/11/2015 5:44:41 AM PDT by NOBO2012
Separate but equal is, as I’ve said, an oxymoron. The separate part gets done, but not the equal part.
I wonder if Nikki Haley has any political future in South Carolina after the complete cave in by the GOP?
I suppose that now the flag is gone in South Carolina, all hatred and violence will hence forth decease. Wishful thinking!!!!
His phrasing resonated then, and still does today. He had the ability to make the listener feel good.
In the passage you quote, it wasn't until the first sentence that I disagreed with what he was saying: “I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men. . .”
I'm not comfortable saying this but “no they did not.” Slaves were not considered citizens by the founders and the founders did not include any provision to engraft them.
Lincoln did a good job papering-over the conflicts he had with the founding fathers. He was - well - Linconesque.
I have bought 2 confederate battle flags in the last month, never owned one before, but I will proudly display them as my First Amendment Right, God given, unalienable right! Not as a racist, but as a sign of rebellion against these dictator wanna’ bees!
> It was Christians that were shot, or hadn’t you noticed?
Reread my post. I kow it was Christians thar were shot. I’m just saying that if it were a black kid that shot them and he was waving a Confederate flag in a photo it wouldn’t have received the same type of knee-jerk reaction and there would no mention of flags being taken down.
bkmk
Maybe they were "exercising their freedom of expression."
The idea that they couldn't change a fifty-year old law smacks of "self-censorship."
As Lincoln pointed out in the 1850s, if the Founders intended to exclude slaves or Africans from the intent of the Declaration, none of them ever said so.
In fact, many of them, including Jefferson, agonized in letters about the obvious conflict between their words and deeds. If the Declaration had simply never been intended to apply to blacks, there would have been no such conflict.
If you can find a couple of quotes from the Founders to show that they did not intend to include blacks or slaves, I’ll be glad to say I was mistaken.
If you can’t find such quotes, will you do the same?
My mistake and apologies.
> My mistake and apologies.
No prob. We’re all on the same team...: )
Seems like you and I have marched over similar ground before. You and I both know the Declaration of Independence embraced human bondage (obliquely - but still unmistakeably).
And the Constitution, without using the words “slave or slavery” provided for the institution in several articles.
Chief Justice Roger Taney, while not a founding father, wrote a 200-page decision in the 7-2 Dred Scott decision in which he and the majority relied heavily on the intent of the founders.
Below are excerpts from the decision courtesy of the Department of History, University of Washington.
“The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time in this country, or who might afterwards be imported, who had then or should afterwards be made free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endue him with the full rights of citizenship in every other State without their consent? Does the Constitution of the United States act upon him whenever he shall be made free under the laws of a State, and raised there to the rank of a citizen, and immediately clothe him with all the privileges of a citizen in every other State, and in its own courts?
“In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument.
“It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken….
“We refer to these historical facts for the purpose of showing the fixed opinions concerning that race, upon which the statesmen of that day spoke and acted. It is necessary to do this, in order to determine whether the general terms used in the Constitution of the United States, as to the rights of man and the rights of the people, was intended to include them, or to give to them or their posterity the benefit of any of its provisions.
“The language of the Declaration of Independence is equally conclusive:
“It begins by declaring that, ‘when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.’
“It then proceeds to say: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among them is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’
“The general words above quoted would seem to embrace the whole human family, and if they were used in a similar instrument at this day would be so understood. But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind, to which they so confidently appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.
“Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men-high in literary acquirements-high in their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed to embrace the negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.”
This controversial decision inflamed the north but it is hard to see how the court could have ruled otherwise. At that time Supreme Court members did not view themselves as legislators. It would be left for Congress and the states to pass a constitutional amendment. That would happen immediately following the invasion and destruction of the South.
To be more accurate, Taney claimed he based his opinion on that of the Founders. Lincoln and a great many others disputed the point with considerable success, notably in the dissents in the Dred Scott case.
I suggest you read the dissents, which point out the multiple factual and legal inaccuracies in the majority decision.
Dred Scott is probably the worst single decision prior to Roe. It was similarly an attempt to use raw judicial power to impose a “final solution” of a politically explosive question.
Worked even less well than Roe.
I do notice that you’ve attempted to dodge my question. The Founders are not on record stating that the principles of the Declaration of Independence do not apply to Africans.
Similarly, in the Constitution they avoided the use of the term and made it very clear slavery was a state not a national institution.
“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degree that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers.” - Thomas Jefferson
“In answer, I say, that, at the time I drew that constitution, I perfectly knew that there did not then exist such a thing in the Union as a black or colored citizen, nor could I then have conceived it possible that such a thing could have ever existed in it; nor, notwithstanding all that has been said on the subject, do I now believe one does exist in it.” - Charles Pinckney
Finally someone gets it!
Chrstianity can be The Ultimate Target or The Source of the Revolution depending on whose chrstianity it is. At present Black Protestantism (which actually has a Southern Fundamentalist worship style) seems to be the Most Left Wing Thing In Existence, making Pol Pot look downright reactionary in comparison.
tWell, Charley was incorrect. Black free men were legally full citizens in five states, including the franchise. One of those states was North Carolina, just to his north. Which allowed black men meeting the property qualifications to vote till a new state constitution was enacted in 1835.
To be fair, in some of these states the franchise may have been more theoretically than practically effective.
I’m not sure your Jefferson quote meets the specifications, as it does not deny that black men have the right to be free, only that they can’t live together with white men, a quite different idea.
But the Pinckney quote does qualify, no matter how ignorant he was of the facts.
Pinckney may or may not be correct, but his words clearly show his intent - the goal post you established.
You need to move your goal post . . . way back. Out of range.
I did say “a couple,” but that would be overly picky.
So I’ll cheerfully agree that at least one of The Founders did not intend to include blacks.
However, I’d also like to point out that Pinckney referred to black “citizens,” while Lincoln noted that the specific liberties referenced in the Constitution, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” do not necessarily require full citizenship or the franchise.
Indeed, many white men in 1776 or 1787 did not have the vote because they did not meet the property or other qualifications.
Also, seems to me the Jefferson quote supports my position.
That is good counsel. I think I'll stop referencing the Dred Scott decision until I've read the dissents - and the majority opinions. My comments thus far have been from reading summaries and excerpts.
I am curious why you think “Dred Scott is probably the worst single decision prior to Roe.”
I do find your opinions insightful.
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