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Ben Franklin: Slaveowner to Slavery Abolitionist
BenFranklin.org ^

Posted on 03/30/2019 12:39:26 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

In his later years, Benjamin Franklin became vocal as an abolitionist and in 1787 began to serve as President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

The Society was originally formed April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, as The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage...The Society not only advocated the abolition of slavery, but made efforts to integrate freed slaves into American society.

Preamble:

"It having pleased the Creator of the world, to make of one flesh all the children of men, it becomes them to consult and promote each other's happiness, as members of the same family, however diversified they may be, by colour, situation, religion, or different states of society. It is more especially the duty of those persons, who profess to maintain for themselves the rights of human nature, and who acknowledge the obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power, to extend the blessings of freedom to every part of the human race; and in a more particular manner, to such of their fellow creatures as are entitled to freedom by the laws and constitutions of any of the United States, and who, notwithstanding, are detained in bondage, by fraud or violence.— From a full conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles, — from a desire to diffuse them, wherever the miseries and vices of slavery exist, and in humble confidence of the favour and support of the Father of Mankind, the subscribers have associated themselves, under the title of the 'Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the Relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage, and for improving the condition of the African race.'"


(Excerpt) Read more at benjaminfranklin.org ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: abolition; abolitionist; americanrevolution; benfranklin; benjaminfranklin; civilwar; constitution; foundingfathers; franklin; slavery
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To: an amused spectator
The argument by the majority of Northerners was that slavery competed with for-wage labor, and the Northern working man was agin that.

Exactly correct. These same areas of the country are now completely dominated by Organized labor Unions, and for exactly the same reason they were against free labor in the 1860s. For their own self interest only.

61 posted on 04/02/2019 11:49:18 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

I would bet I have read more on the civil war, and history in general, than you have. These are not lies, they are facts. You are the one spreading lies and bullshit.

Answer just one question for me, what was the main reason South Carolina gave in it’s declaration of secession?


62 posted on 04/02/2019 11:51:17 AM PDT by OIFVeteran
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
Not true. Arthur Livermore proposed an amendment in 1818 preventing any new state from entering the union as a slave state (it was voted down in the House), and John Quincy Adams proposed in 1839 an amendment that stated that no one born in the United States after 1845 would be a slave. (The Gag Rule in force at the time prevented it from going anywhere).

Couldn't get sufficient political will to pass it? Why not?

And if it couldn't get passed by legal means, why should people accept it being done by extra-legal means? Why do some laws matter, and other laws don't?

63 posted on 04/02/2019 11:51:53 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: OIFVeteran
Because it would have never passed!!! The southern states could block any such amendment. Hell, democrats had already passed procedural rules in the 1830s and 1840s (it was called a gag rule) to stop any discussion of abolition in congress. So any American citizen petition his congressman to put forth even discussion about abolition in congress he couldn't do it.

If it couldn't get through the normal legislative process, how was it legal to do it at all? How is it okay to use a Presidential decree to significantly change existing law?

64 posted on 04/02/2019 11:54:15 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp
Let it also be known that Charles Dickens was strongly in favor of Abolition, and that he hated slavery and wanted to see it eliminated.

Yep.

The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.

This was 25 years prior to The War For Northern Economic Mastery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

65 posted on 04/02/2019 11:59:26 AM PDT by an amused spectator (Mitt Romney, Chuck Schumer's p*ssboy)
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To: OIFVeteran
I would bet I have read more on the civil war, and history in general, than you have. These are not lies, they are facts.

Nothing factual about it. You even admit that it was impossible to legally abolish slavery, so slavery didn't need "protecting." Therefore the South didn't leave because they wanted to "protect" slavery.

The North clearly did not invade the South to destroy slavery. The North had absolutely no intention of doing anything at all about slavery, and to claim they sent and army into the South over slavery is just a lie.

They sent their armies into the South because an independent South represented a grave financial threat to the money powers that existed in the New York/Washington DC corridor.

They invaded to stop a financial threat to the power brokers of Washington DC/New York, and then nearly two years into the war, they started dressing it up as an anti-slavery war, which it wasn't when it was began.

Answer just one question for me, what was the main reason South Carolina gave in it’s declaration of secession?

Don't care. My position has always been that exercising a right does not require justification to anybody. If you have the right to independence, your reasons for wanting independence are irrelevant to the point.

I note the Declaration of Independence lists as one of the "causes" :

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us...

Which specifically refers to Lord Dunmore's proclamation to free slaves if they would fight against their former masters.

Also listed are:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

Which would seemingly also apply to the South.

66 posted on 04/02/2019 12:20:51 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp
Couldn't get sufficient political will to pass it? Why not?

Because southern economic interests held sway over the government.

And if it couldn't get passed by legal means, why should people accept it being done by extra-legal means?

It wasn't extra-legal. The Emancipation Proclamation was legal under the President's authority as Commander in Chief fighting a belligerent power. The 13th Amendment was passed in accordance with the procedure laid out in the Constitution.

67 posted on 04/02/2019 12:57:57 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("The rat always knows when he's in with weasels."--Tom Waits)
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To: DiogenesLamp

You don’t care because the answer doesn’t support your fantasy. The Republicans wanted to limit slavery and have it die out naturally, as most of the founding fathers intended. That was too much for the fire eaters in the south, they saw the Republican Party as a threat to slavery and threatened to secede if the republicans won the election in 1856. That’s the reason they called them black republicans. If you would read any of the newspapers from the time you would know this. I’m done with your delusional view of history.


68 posted on 04/02/2019 1:13:29 PM PDT by OIFVeteran
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
Because southern economic interests held sway over the government.

So a government interested in getting rid of slavery should have welcomed an opportunity to kick them out of the Union?

Hmm.... funny how that worked out, isn't it? Claimed they wanted to get rid of slavery, but absolutely insisted on holding on to states that prevented such a thing.

It wasn't extra-legal. The Emancipation Proclamation was legal under the President's authority as Commander in Chief fighting a belligerent power.

No it wasn't. That particular topic had it's very own constitutional clause that doesn't have an exception for "president's authority." It says unequivocally that slaves must be returned to the people to whom their labor is due according to the laws of the state requiring the labor.

This was an overstep of power, and people only accept it because they like the outcome and do not care that it was clearly a power beyond his actual authority.

The 13th Amendment was passed in accordance with the procedure laid out in the Constitution.

It clearly was not. You don't have armies threatening legislators to pass what Washington DC dictates they pass, and then pretend it was "in accordance with the procedure laid out in the Constitution."

If you believe that load of horsesh*t, then let me put armies in New York, California and other states, and pass the "death to all F@ggots" amendment.

The fact you have occupation forces pointing guns at people and threats that more guns will be pointed at more people, renders the vote a lie.

Also, it begs credibility to the point of ridiculousness to assert that the vote for the 13th amendment represents the will of the people of states which your side claims fought the war specifically to insure that slaves remained slaves.

How does your side deal with this sort of cognitive dissonance anyways? Clearly none of the Confederate states agreed to this amendment voluntarily, and their votes merely represented what Washington DC ordered them to do.

69 posted on 04/02/2019 1:13:50 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: OIFVeteran
It isn't a fantasy. You don't offer the "Corwin Amendment" if you intend to abolish slavery.

You *WANT* the war to be about slavery, because if it isn't about slavery, what justification can you possibly use for killing 750,000 people?

Claiming the war was about slavery is a fig leaf to justify the bloodshed, and it only worked because the people were religious and would be willing to believe that it was the will of God that the blood of 750,000 people should be shed to stop something many people regarded as immoral.

This is just master politician Abraham Lincoln playing on people's emotions. He had no intention of freeing slaves when he started the war.

Union armies didn't invade to stop slavery. They invaded to stop independence. If you want to make me shut up, show me some orders for the initial army units which mentioned abolishing slavery.

You are army. Show me some army orders that said "Go into the South and stop slavery!"

70 posted on 04/02/2019 1:20:29 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: OIFVeteran; BroJoeK; Bubba Ho-Tep; Bull Snipe
The challenge I issued to OIFVetran I issue to all of you.

Show me some military orders for the initial stages of the war that say anything about abolishing slavery. If the war was about slavery, surely somewhere is a military mission in which this goal is articulated.

Show me some "abolish slavery" orders. How about the first battle of Bull Run? Do the orders for Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell say anything about freeing the slaves?

71 posted on 04/02/2019 1:26:28 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp
How does your side deal with this sort of cognitive dissonance anyways?

Probably the same way you deal with being a defender of slavery and rebellion against the United States.

72 posted on 04/02/2019 1:46:18 PM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("The rat always knows when he's in with weasels."--Tom Waits)
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To: jeffersondem
I guess I meant that if the large plantation owners could not import any more slaves legally, it might have provided a wicked man an excuse for becoming sexually involved or predatory with slave women, hoping to produce more children, who also could be compelled to work. As an earlier post noted, light-skinned slave children who resembled the master may have received more favorable treatment, as well.

One thing that bothers me about the current racialists' claims that blacks who find any white blood when they get their DNA kit results rush to claim that their foremother was raped. While this is undoubtedy true in slave times in many cases, it is also common sense that there were slave women who could angle for favorable conditions by sleeping with the boss, or who were actually mutually attracted with the owner or one of his sons or white hired hands. Then as now, the illicit aspect added to the excitement of a forbidden love affair.

There were also some mixed-race couples who discovered a true passion and found ways to live together as man and wife. A past president of Georgetown University in the late 1800s was the child of an Irish-American father who had once owned his mother, a slave woman. The owner found a way to set his wife and children free; and this particular son became a Catholic priest and eventually, head of GU.

73 posted on 04/02/2019 2:05:57 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (In war, there can be no substitute for victory. --Douglas MacArthur)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep
Probably the same way you deal with being a defender of slavery and rebellion against the United States.

I am not a defender of slavery. I am also not a defender of rebellion against the United States. Secession isn't rebellion, it is a right articulated in the Declaration of Independence. It is the very concept the USA was founded on.

But you are dodging my point. How does it make any sense to claim you are fighting a war to end slavery by holding on to specific states that render it legally impossible to end slavery?

Has the question never been put to you before?

74 posted on 04/02/2019 2:10:12 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep; BroJoeK; centurion316; wbarmy; DrewsMum; an amused spectator; central_va; FLT-bird; ..
“Not true. Arthur Livermore proposed an amendment in 1818 preventing any new state from entering the union as a slave state (it was voted down in the House) . . .”

That is not the same as a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. Neither was the Adams proposal you cite.

Both are interesting factoids and demonstrate how little support there was for abolition.

I do think slavery could have been abolished in the U.S. as far back as 1788 if it had been recognized as being in the economic and political best self-interest of the original 13 slave states.

75 posted on 04/02/2019 3:22:31 PM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: DiogenesLamp
I can't use any smaller words to explain it to you. The United States went to war to suppress a rebellion. During the war to suppress the rebellion they used the common war tactic of taking enemy contraband. Congress followed up on this by passing the confiscation act of 1861. (so you can't just blame Lincoln on this). Then Congress later drafted and passed (with the Presidents support) the 13th Amendment. All of this was constitutional. What was not constitutional was secession. As far as not caring why the States rebelled, as you claim to not care, I do. Why? Because knowing why someone does something let's us determine if it is morally right. So here is George C. Smoot's proposed resolutions at the Arkansas secession convention, why don't you read it and tell me why he is saying Arkansas should secede.

On March 9, George P. Smoote of Columbia County introduced these resolutions:​

“1st. Resolved, That the platform of the party known as the black republican party, contains unconstitutional dogmas, dangerous in their tendency and highly derogatory to the rights of slave states, and among them the insulting, injurious and untruthful enunciation of the right of the African race in this country to social and political equality with the whites.​

“2nd. Resolved, That it is the sense of this convention, from the past history of the party, known as the black republican party–from the past action of its leaders, and their course in the present crisis, and from the acts, utterances and conduct of its newly elected president, that said party intends to abide by and carry out, if possible, its insulting and unconstitutional platform.​

“3rd. Resolved. That the seceded states have ample justification for having dissolved the ties which bound them to the old Federal Union, in the constant and unconstitutional political warfare made by the party, known as the black republican party, upon the institutions of the slave states, which warfare has culminated in the election of a president by that party, by a purely sectional vote–upon an unconstitutional platform, the principles of which, if carried out, would utterly ruin the South.​

“4th. Resolved, That this convention cannot shut its eyes upon the fact that the government of the United States is now under the control of said black republican party, and that said party has power to use every arm of the same, except, perhaps, the judicial.​

“5th. Resolved. That in the opinion of this convention it is a conclusion clearly resulting from the foregoing that every feeling of honor, interest and sympathy demand that the State of Arkansas should discontinue her present political relations with the United States of America, and unite herself with the Confederate States of America.”​

76 posted on 04/02/2019 3:55:20 PM PDT by OIFVeteran
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To: OIFVeteran
The United States went to war to suppress a rebellion.

It did not. Secession was accomplished peacefully and by the democratic process. It was not a "rebellion." Lincoln called it a rebellion because with this language he could unlock military powers to stop secession.

As Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase said, "Secession is not rebellion."

Lincoln deliberately provoked a military response by sending warships with orders to attack the confederates.

Oh, and secession is not covered in the constitution. It was covered completely 11 years prior to the constitution in the "Declaration of Independence" which is the legal foundation for the existence of the USA itself.

Nobody dared to claim that Independence was illegal in the constitution convention of 1787, because it was so soon after they had already said it is a right given by God, and nobody had forgotten it after only 11 years.

It isn't mentioned in the US Constitution because it's completely legal. If they had said in the US Constitution that states could not leave voluntarily, the US Constitution could not have been ratified.

Three states made it quite clear in their ratification statements that they could declare independence and separate themselves from the rest of the Union.

New York, Virginia and Rhode Island all said in their ratification that they could reassume the sovereign powers they were giving up by being a member of the Union.

Nobody said "WAIT! HOLD ON! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" Everyone accepted their ratifying statements as legitimate, and no one objected to their provisions that they could reassume the powers they were giving up.

Additionally, Massachusetts and Connecticut as well as other states asserted their right to secede in the early part of the 19th century. They did not do so, but they claimed they had the right to do so.

So let's get back to your proof that armies were sent into the South to stop slavery. If you are now claiming that slavery had nothing to do with why the Union sent soldiers into the South to conquer them, then shut the f*** up about slavery. Don't want to hear another word about slavery being the cause of the war.

The very idea that you can start a war, and nearly two years later claim the war was to free slaves, is just bullsh*t. You can't make the war about something else after the fact. If it wasn't to free the slaves when it started, the war was not fought for the purpose of freeing the slaves. It was fought for some other purpose that existed at the beginning of the war, not a made up purpose that came 18 months after the war had already began.

77 posted on 04/02/2019 4:32:08 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: OIFVeteran
“Because it ( proposed constitutional amendment abolishing slavery) would have never passed!!! The southern states could block any such amendment.”

You have hit the nail with your head.

Lincoln had put markers down in his “house-divided” speech: slavery would end by hook or by crook.

Like you, Lincoln knew he did not have the votes to immediately abolish slavery through the peaceful amendment process.

Like you, the South knew Lincoln did not have the votes to peacefully abolish slavery immediately, near term, or medium term. But the South thought Lincoln and his economic and political backers were capable of anything, including extra-constitutional action, violence, and invasion.

The South knew that 39 percent of the presidential popular vote gave Lincoln 100 percent control of the U.S. military.

The South invoked both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. And Lincoln's War came.

78 posted on 04/02/2019 6:28:17 PM PDT by jeffersondem
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To: jeffersondem; BroJoeK

Holy crap, we actually agree on something. Yes, the southern slave owners, and every one who benefited from that system, we’re afraid that the “black republicans” were going to get rid of slavery. So they invoked the same natural right our founders did, the right of revolution. It was for one of the worst causes anyone has ever rebelled for though.

Luckily there is no natural right to win your rebellion and Lincoln, like his predecessors, used the constitutional powers of “calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, and suppress insurrections ...”

It’s actually ironic. If the south had not been so fearful of the republicans and not rebelled they could have held onto slavery for a long time. In my opinion Lincoln and the Republicans would not have used unconstitutional means to end slavery. So slavery probably would have lasted in America until the 20th century. Which would have made a complete mockery of our Declaration of Independence claim that “all men are created equal”.


79 posted on 04/03/2019 6:16:23 AM PDT by OIFVeteran
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To: an amused spectator
This was 25 years prior to The War For Northern Economic Mastery.

LOL! You Lost Causers crack me up.

80 posted on 04/03/2019 10:07:20 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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