Posted on 08/28/2019 7:21:47 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
In his 1861 "Cornerstone Speech", Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander H. Stephens said the following:
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other — though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.
Now you know that if the VICE PRESIDENT of the Confederacy was saying this about the Founding Fathers rejection of slavery, he had plenty of agreement on it. In other more detailed(line by line) words, Abraham Lincoln agreed that the Founders rejected slavery. In his Peoria Speech, Lincoln said the following:
AT the framing and adoption of the constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word "slave" or "slavery" in the whole instrument. In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a "PERSON HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR." In that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States NOW EXISTING, shall think proper to admit," &c. These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time. Less than this our fathers COULD not do; and NOW [MORE?] they WOULD not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther, they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress, under the constitution, took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity.
In 1794, they prohibited an out-going slave-trade---that is, the taking of slaves FROM the United States to sell.
In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, INTO the Mississippi Territory---this territory then comprising what are now the States of Mississippi and Alabama. This was TEN YEARS before they had the authority to do the same thing as to the States existing at the adoption of the constitution.
In 1800 they prohibited AMERICAN CITIZENS from trading in slaves between foreign countries---as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.
In 1803 they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.
In 1807, in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance to take effect the first day of 1808---the very first day the constitution would permit---prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.
In 1820, finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death. While all this was passing in the general government, five or six of the original slave States had adopted systems of gradual emancipation; and by which the institution was rapidly becoming extinct within these limits.
Thus we see, the plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the PRINCIPLE, and toleration, ONLY BY NECESSITY.
Now isn't it interesting that the New York Times in its 1619 project disagrees with both the Confederates and Lincoln? What must it be like to have such a low quantity of shame?
This "Cornerstone Speech" does many things, but most importantly, it shows quite distinctly that there is a lineage break from the Constitution to the Confederacy. Not that the New York Times cares for facts, anyways. But I know that you do.
Read the whole thing, don’t cherry pick. Jesus Christ you Johnny Reb wannabes. Fighting a war you started and lost 154 years ago. Give it up.
Not in the *DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE* they didn't! They intended the Declaration to serve *1* purpose, and that was to articulate a legal and moral right to break away from England.
It was never intended by any of the representatives of the 13 states to be an expression of opinion on the issue of slavery.
That is a later day lie that has become popular because people *want* it to be true, but it is however not true at all.
In 1776, the document going to King George III was *NOT* a commentary on slavery. It was a legal and moral claim to the right of *INDEPENDENCE* and it was nothing else.
Whatever the founders other feelings on the matter of slavery, it was not their intention to express them in the Declaration of Independence.
The wealthy Liberal Elite have risen up in a lot of other large Cities too, but make no mistake. The heart of the beast is New York, the Ivies are it's nursery, and Washington DC is it's store front.
New York establishes the narrative because *THEY* have control of the mass communications systems which inform the public.
That is an interesting comment and brings to mind that you - or maybe just someone that thinks like you - said that the phrase “all men are created equal” was written into the Declaration of Independence to ensure that contemporaneous native Americans could live in Cambridge and teach at Harvard.
If true, they would have also been handy to serve as jurors in cases involving Native American property disputes, fair housing commissioners, and PTA chairs. And to run as governor of the State of Massachusetts Bay.
If I have misstated your view, just tell me bluntly: in context, the Declaration of Independence was not intended to apply to merciless Indian savages.
You are correct, but including the issue of slavery was given consideration as one of the reasons for breaking away from England. Here is the passage deleted from the final Declaration of Independence. This was written by Jefferson.
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
It didn’t apply to women or blacks either, did it? Whats your point? Got a problem with The Declaration of Independence? Take it up with Congress. But it’s a little too late now, isn’t it?
It was in Jefferson's original draft. The other members of the committee wisely struck all that out of the document. Instead was left in a comment about the King's men provoking slave revolts, so it ended up with a mildly pro slavery statement in it.
But let us not underestimate the influence it had later on greatly expanding the abolition movement. Those five words "all men are created equal" exerted far more power on the subsequent direction of the country than the lament about the King's men fomenting slave rebellion.
I am convinced that Jefferson almost singlehandedly launched the abolition movement into the dominant force which it eventually became.
Had those words not been put in there, I think much of what happened in terms of abolition, would not have happened as it did.
I believe I know of one signer of the Declaration, that upon contemplating those words for time, eventually decided to free his own slaves.
But as I said, that wasn't the document's purpose when it was created, despite the fact that Lincoln made efforts to mislead people that it was with his "four score and seven years..." speech.
The thesis of the Declaration is that states have a right to be free, which is pretty ironic since Lincoln was commemorating an occasion in which the battle was won by the forces trying to subjugate a collection of states that wanted independence.
Interesting discussion, all.
Bookmark for future rereading and reference.
“I believe I know of one signer of the Declaration, that upon contemplating those words for time, eventually decided to free his own slaves.”
That was not Thomas Jefferson. He only freed 10 of the over 600 slaves he owned in his lifetime. Five while alive and five in his will after his death.
No, it was someone else who’s name I no longer recall. This guy freed *ALL* of his slaves, and it wasn’t long after the Declaration was written and signed.
I’m sorry. I read right over your “not” statement. You are correct. It was *NOT* Thomas Jefferson.
You might want to understand for yourself that the Declaration of Independence makes no moral judgements about slave holding states wanting Independence from Unions.
If it worked for the 13 slave holding colonies against the United Kingdom, which was over 1,000 years old, why would it not be valid for a very young country that was only "four score and seven" years old?
The more you study Jefferson the less enamored with him you become.
Jefferson should be admired. He was instrumental in the founding of our nation. Strip the marble off his statues and we find a man. Just like any man, he had weaknesses and fallibilities. That does not make him any less worthy of our honors toward him. JMO.
Yes in modern times it was deemed necessary to emphasize “democracy” over “republic”. So he’s built up to near secular deity status and the other Founding Fathers are ignored or reduced to the “background”.
The wealthy New York merchants and businessmen were not opposed to slavery for the most part.
In the 1850’s America had a one party Democrat controlled government. The Democrats were trying to create a slave based economy in the midwest and the west. Most Americans did not want a backward, slave based economy.
The idea that the slave based south was the primary source of American wealth is simply not true. The manufacturing and innovation in the north made it far more prosperous.
During the Civil War the south was unable to adequately supply their army. The South was mostly poor, backward and uneducated. There were a few wealthy plantation owners but there was not the level of prosperity that was in the north and the midwest.
Most southerners opposed secession. It was pushed through by a small group. By the end of 1864 there was no support left in the south for the Confederate government and soldiers were deserting in large numbers.
Lincoln and most Americans would never have gone to war just to end slavery. The Republicans did not want to abolish slavery. They wanted to prevent a slave based economy in the Midwest and west. And they wanted to preserve the union.
The American revolution had nothing to do with slavery. Slavery was far more common and prosperous in other British colonies than in the 13 colonies that would become the U.S.
The British were far more involved with slavery.
In the 1770’s slavery was not a big part of the economy.
The conflict between the north and south went back to Jefferson vs. Washington and Hamilton.
Jefferson wanted an agricultural society with a few wealthy plantation owners and many poor, subsistence farmers. Washington and Hamilton wanted a manufacturing economy and a large and prosperous middle class. A slave based economy was part of the Jeffersonian plan.
The point of my post 64 was in support of your earlier comment: “Read the whole thing, don’t cherry pick.”
As far as your claim the DOI didn't apply to women or blacks . . . I'll let someone that knows more than me comment on that.
Many of the men we admire are coated in marble. we refuse to see the living breathing human being under the marble.
When facts are presented to the contrary, we recoil in horror. A good example from some years back, was the fact that R.E.Lee had a couple of recalcitrant slave whipped for their insubordination. Eye witness accounts and a bill paid to the Sheriff that whipped the slaves was insufficient to sway the true Lee loyalists from their view that Lee was a perfect example of Nobility and Humanity. They were unable or unwilling to strip the marble off of the statue.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.