Rep. Ilhan Omar Claims America Was “Founded By Genocide”

The Federalist Papers ^ | 4/11/2019 | Calvin Custis

[Pelham]

I’ve read a book or two about the Founders, yet somehow this information sounds more than a little skewed towards current obsessions than that of the Founders.

You surely have a source for this idea about the nature of the Founders’ college educations; and I’m curious who is on this list of Founders.

Also, are you including those who owned slaves on the list of those opposed to slavery?

[Slyfox]

I have been doing research for the last nine years on our Founders and the subject of how they came to understand the idea of liberty. My book will be published next summer.

Their education is something that has not really been explored like it should be. Most people read what our Founders wrote and do not read what our Founders read.

By Founders I am referring to are all the men who influenced or worked with the men who signed the Documents, and including the signers.

One source

[Slyfox]

Also, are you including those who owned slaves on the list of those opposed to slavery?

I looked up the educational background of all the Founders. 50% of them graduated from an American colonial college, with only a dozen of that group graduating from a university in England. I took those two groups and compared their opposition to slavery and it came down to nearly everyone who graduated from the colonial colleges opposed slavery. The men who graduated from the British universities nearly all had no problem with slavery. I was somewhat amazed when I saw the result.

You have to know that slavery in those days was exactly like abortion is today. It is a legal institution and good luck trying to get rid of it.

When Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence he had an editorial board working with him. He had great penmanship and he had a good way with words. He wrote a first draft which included a couple of paragraghs denouncing slavery. When his editors read it they essentially said, "You know, we agree with you but this is a declaration of independence from the king so you need to focus on him. We cannot do anything about slavery right now. It will have to be left to another time."

Slave ownership is not the marker. They were stuck with the institution that the king of England had given to them. Jefferson made that point in the Declaration. But, they were powerless to change it at that time.

[Pelham]

“Their education is something that has not really been explored like it should be. Most people read what our Founders wrote and do not read what our Founders read.”

You mean other than Bernard Bailyn’s “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution”?

Forrest MacDonald’s “Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution”?

Gordon Wood’s “The Creation of the American Republic”?

Or some of Mel Bradford’s works, like “Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution”

[Pelham]

“I looked up the educational background of all the Founders. 50% of them graduated from an American colonial college, “

50% of how many? Who is on your list? You failed to provide any names.

“You have to know that slavery in those days was exactly like abortion is today.”

I must have missed the part where George Washington et al were killing their slaves. Please advise where that happened.

“When Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence he had an editorial board working with him.”

The Declaration is the public announcement of Richard Henry Lee’s Resolution For Independence which the Continental Congress began debating on June 7th. It passed on July 2nd. Jefferson was one man, and probably the junior one, of a five man committee selected to write up the Declaration in case Lee’s Resolution passed. The Committee also included John Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston.

“Slave ownership is not the marker.”

So you’re arbitrarily deciding who was or was not an opponent of slavery based upon what, exactly?