The Founding Father of modern Conservatism called the British hypocrites about slavery

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[Pelham]

” The point is what do the facts say. The facts say that early colonial and yes some founders were fighting against the British to prevent slavery from coming to these shores meanwhile his highness fought against this abolitionist wave and imposed slavery on us anyways, against our will. “

Speaking of facts, how exactly could founders be “fighting to prevent slavery from coming to these shores” when it had arrived here some time in the 1600s?

And as for a founding era “abolitionist wave”, good luck with that. Abolitionism wasn’t even popular 90 years later when Lincoln was President.

Thomas Fleming’s “A Disease in the Public Mind” presents an excellent history of all this, in contrast to the a-historical nonsense cranked out by Dinesh and others who think that they can outdo the Left in playing the slavery/racism game.

Eugene Genovese’s “Roll Jordan Roll” is another good book. As well as Fogel’s “Time on the Cross”.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Thank you for the book recommendations. However, I generally prefer works written prior to the birth of the rot of Progressivism in the 1900s. Especially if the works are original sources.

That's why I referenced Edmund Burke's speech without some history book filter. He spelled out exactly how the colonists were doing what they could to prevent a superpower from landing slave ships on these shores. Historian George Bancroft also wrote about some of the prevention efforts in his history books, particularly his best known 1854 work History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent.

Again a speech, but Abraham Lincoln also defended the Founders against charges made by the slave owners of the south (this argument really isn't all that new) and this false distortion of history. To keep this short, if you are curious what Lincoln said it is here: http://tinyurl.com/n3aazgz

I'll ping to your book recommendations in case others would like to read these.

[ProgressingAmerica]

Here are some book recommendations from another FReeper for any interested:

Thomas Fleming’s “A Disease in the Public Mind”
Eugene Genovese’s “Roll Jordan Roll”
Robert Fogel’s “Time on the Cross”

[miss marmelstein]

Impressment isn’t slavery?? I guess it will have to do until the real things come along!

[Silentgypsy]

Thomas Fleming’s “A Disease in the Public Mind”

Thanks--just borrowed it from digital library.

[Pelham]

“Impressment isn’t slavery?? I guess it will have to do until the real things come along!”

That used to be a popular refrain for some Americans who went to Canada in the ‘60s.

Impressment was compulsory military service. We have it, it’s called the draft.

The Brits claimed that the sailors they were impressing circa 1812 were British citizens who had jumped ship to sail on American vessels.

[miss marmelstein]

It was nothing like the draft. There was no select service in which every able man registered for the draft and therefore knew in advance that he was liable to go off to war. He had no advance notice. Additionally, impressment, which was really a Royal Navy problem, often simply took sailors off the street and forced them onto ships. They gangpressed American sailors! I suggest you read some Melville before accepting that this was not a noxious practice. Laws were passed in the 1830s to stop the practice; unsurprisingly, around the same time they abolished slavery. I’m sure many noticed the similarity.

[Pelham]

Show that the sailors were bought and sold and you have a case to equate impressment with slavery.

I never said it wasn’t a “noxious practice”. I said it was compulsory military service and not slavery.

https://www.marinersmuseum.org/sites/micro/usnavy/08/08a.htm

[miss marmelstein]

You don't think gangpressing men onto ships isn't akin to forcing Africans onto ships? In that instance, it is entirely analogous to slavery. The Brits seemed to have invented the whole slave process whether white or black!

For goodness sake, it was cited as one of the reasons for the 1812 War!

[Pelham]

“You don’t think gangpressing men onto ships isn’t akin to forcing Africans onto ships?”

It’s akin to being “shanghaied”, a term I suspect you know since you are well read. But it doesn’t imply slavery. Slavery is the ownership of human beings. And impressed or shanghaied sailors aren’t owned by anyone.

Moreover gangpressing is something that England did to its own people, and had done for centuries, long before they were involved in slaving.

“The British practice of manning naval ships with “pressed” men, who were forcibly placed into service, was a common one in English history, dating back to medieval times.

“Under British law, the navy had the right, during time of war, to sweep through the streets of Great Britain, essentially arresting men and placing them in the Royal Navy.”

“Legally, foreigners were protected from the press, but this legality was often ignored, and the practice of pressing men at sea became common. In the eyes of the Royal Navy, all Englishmen were available for service even if they were on the ship of a foreign nation. Therefore, it was not uncommon for British naval vessels to stop American ships searching for English crewmen. During these searches, American sailors who could not prove their citizenship were often pressed.”

https://www.marinersmuseum.org/sites/micro/usnavy/08/08a.htm

[miss marmelstein]

I guess it depends on what the meaning of slavery is. I happen to think taking away people’s free choice to where they can work or live is slavery. Your quotes do not deter me from my opinion. If today, you found that Barbra Streisand was forcing Mexicans off the street of Los Angeles to work at Versailles...er, I mean her extensive estate at Malibu, without a means of escape, you wouldn’t call that slavery? I would. (She’s done no such thing.) In fact, here on the east coast, we’ve had examples of rich middle-eastern emigres enslaving their hired servants from the Philippines and being arrested and prosecuted for it. So, I guess it is all in the definition.

You know I love you Pelham, even if we disagree on this one!!!

[Pelham]

It may be that having been subject to the draft inclines me to see it differently. If they selected your name you didn’t have any choice in it. It was show up or jail. They ‘own’ you for the duration but it’s not slavery. It’s military conscription and that has existed for millennia.

It has its own negatives that differ markedly from slavery. You could get maimed or killed, whereas no master would willingly endanger his slaves because they were valuable. The canals in New Orleans were famously dug by immigrant Irish because no one was about to risk a slave in a trench collapse.