Posted on 08/05/2019 7:14:31 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Most people only think of our "Founding Documents" as comprising two things: The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Some, or perhaps many, might correctly also say that the Articles of Confederation is a (third) founding document. There was actually a fourth. The Continental Congress passed on October 20, 1774 the Articles of Association, sometimes also called the Continental Association. (full text) In it, it contains this following text:
2. That we will neither import nor purchase any Slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time we will wholly discontinue the Slave Trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our Commodities or Manufactures to those who are concerned in it.
Just think, why would the progressive historians keep on erasing and erasing and erasing our history? If you erase enough of this, you can make anybody into a racist. The progressive historians benefit from book burning or the closest alternative. Then they can remake history in their own image.
The best way to do some damage to the progressive agenda is simply to read history from the original sources. Not quotes, the whole thing. That's also where they get us, is in the quotes. Again, here is the link to the full text.
"If a document 'exists' on some server somewhere but no schools teach it, does it really exist?"
As a matter of physics, nobody needs to hear the tree for it to make a sound, and as a matter of binary nobody needs to view the document to prove that it exists. But at the end of the day the book burning progressives have successfully achieved their purpose.
Sometimes the best place to hide something is to simply hide it in plain sight.
I’ve never heard of it... Thanks for posting. And I consider myself an ok decent history guy... I feel ashamed... :(
So why was it still allowed?
Was the slave trade actually suspended? For how long?
The Articles of Confederation (1777) appear to make no mention of it.
The Constitution of the United States (1789) allowed import of slaves until 1808, whereupon Congress illegalized it. I understand the practice continued.
I did not know that. Thanks for posting. I have been reading a very old book on anti-slavery/pro-slavery conflicts during the early statehood years of Illinois. The moral qualms about slavery and efforts to wind it down during the founding generation of our country need to be more well-known. A good understanding of history during that time would help people realize that there was no magic wand to make slavery go away, and would go a long way toward laying to rest the falsehood that “America was founded on racism.”
Articles of Association: 2. That we will neither import nor purchase any Slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time we will wholly discontinue the Slave Trade,....
That really put a crimp in my ancestors slave trade.
We instead “hired” the Chinese and the Irish to work on the railroad. We were first in the H-1B visa trade.
No ability to enforce.
The Articles were just too weak.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/10-reasons-why-americas-first-constitution-failed
A fair criticism.
Our Founders used it as a starting point and came up with just the right balance of strength- which balance was later destroyed in favor of the central government.
Might have something to do with this:
https://books.google.com/books?id=xY_RAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA413
“The inhabitants of Virginia were controlled by the central authority on a subject of still more vital importance to them and their posterity. Their halls of legislation had resounded with eloquence directed against the terrible plague of negro slavery. Again and again they had passed laws, restraining the importations of negroes from Africa; but their laws were disallowed. How to prevent them from protecting themselves against the increase of the overwhelming evil was debated by the King in Council, and on the tenth day of December, 1770, he issued an instruction, under his own hand, commanding the Governor, “upon pain of the highest displeasure, to assent to no law, by which the importation of slaves should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed.”
Fun fact, contrary to the Leftist narrative about America.
The Continental Association, often known simply as the “Association”, was a system created by the First Continental Congress in 1774 for implementing a trade boycott with Great Britain. Congress hoped that, by imposing economic sanctions, they would pressure Britain into addressing the grievances of the colonies, in particular repealing the Intolerable Acts passed by Parliament. But as you can see, it was voted in two years before the war with the Brittish started.
The trade boycott began on December 1, 1774. The Association was fairly successful while it lasted. Trade with Britain fell sharply, and the British responded with the New England Restraining Act of 1775. The outbreak of the American Revolutionary War effectively superseded the need to boycott British goods. So the system fell by the wayside.
rwood
A reading of this little known document indicates the provisions were designed to be punitive to English trade until there was a redress of grievances. When item two related to the slave trade is read in context of item one it is clear that stopping the slave trade was economic, not moral.
Item one reads: That from and after the first day of December next, we will not import into British America, from Great Britain or Ireland, any Goods, Wares, or Merchandises whatsoever, or from any other place, any such Goods, Wares, or Merchandises as shall have been exported from Great Britain or Ireland; nor will we, after that day, import any East India Tea from any part of the World; nor any Molasses, Syrups, Paneles, Coffee, or Pimento, from the British Plantations or from Dominica; nor Wines from Madeira, or the Western Islands; nor Foreign Indigo.
As I read it, the Association was not advocating the abolition of slavery; just importation. The need for more slaves in the colonies would be through internal growth.
Right...the 1808 clause in the Constitution served the same purpose.
By the early 19th Century there was little if any importation of slaves into the United States for the simple reason that the existing population of slaves survived long enough, and had enough children, to satisfy domestic demand. The situation in the Caribbean and South America was quite different. There conditions were so brutal that a continual supply was required.
Thank you for posting a copy of this “Act” done by the First Continental Congress. I have lived 78 years, and must say I have never heard of it. It has never been offered to me for study, either. What a find! Now I will try to put it into the sequence of President Jefferson’s Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, and finally our 1788 Constitution.
What a magnificent list of signatories. I remember reading about the Intolerable Acts passed by British Parliament and their references in the Declaration.
Political leaders are always trying to control trade. History repeats. We are today witnessing a sort of trade war with China, and the Dow Jones lost 750 points or so.
Thank you again very much for your thoughtful post!
By Abraham Lincoln.
That is when the Central government grew far more powerful than the founders had ever intended it to be.
Don’t forget the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 passed by the Confederation Congress, that forbade slavery in the Northwest Territory. The Founders banned slavery wherever they could politically get away with. It needs to be remembered.
This post is a little misleading.
The Articles of Association created an embargo of ALL goods from Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies.
It’s encouraging that the document appears to permanently ban the Slave Trade.
It would be interesting to read the documents that restored the Slave Trade.
I do not recall that the Slave Trade was discussed in any of the Founding Documents after 1774.
In any event, Congress voted to end the Slave Trade in 1808.
Unless I misread the 1808 Clause, it simply “allowed” the Congress to end the Slave Trade after 1808.
It was not a Constitutional mandate.
Correct - but it was exercised.
The Irish H1-Bs were brought even earlier, to fight the Civil War; the steady stream of immigrants into northern cities simply overpowered the South, which couldn’t replace its losses.
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