Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: DiogenesLamp
I'm aware that Jefferson was just the writer. Why it was struck down is more important though. They needed a unanimous document because they worried that a lack of unity was death. "Join or Die"

You are conflating a multitude of reasons for the top reason and concluding that the other multitude from #2 down must not then be relevant anymore. Try to remember that the "solitary" Declaration is a container for 27 grievances.

It doesn't matter if slavery was #4 on the list or #24 on the list, the fact remains that it was there.

And as for "dragging" slavery "into the document". Not only was that done by Jefferson himself in the original draft, but the British Empire responded in kind. They too recognized that the colonists were upset over it because the colonists spent years lobbying the king to stop the trade.

The British government in 1776 funded a response to the Declaration(which I recently wrote about), titled An Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress.

The New York Times uses the British Empire's propaganda in order to smear the US (1619 Project)

Even the king and his men recognized that slavery was somewhere on that list of reasons for the separation.

92 posted on 08/31/2019 6:59:31 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (We cannot leave history to "the historians" anymore.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies ]


To: ProgressingAmerica
I'm aware that Jefferson was just the writer. Why it was struck down is more important though. They needed a unanimous document because they worried that a lack of unity was death. "Join or Die"

And you don't think getting into a completely unnecessary philosophical discussion about slavery when all 13 states were slave states would cause any problems for "unity"?

Be for real. The dumbest thing anyone could have done would be to bring up some irrelevant extraneous issue when you are trying to make an argument that you deserved independence from the King.

Whatever was the individual delegates opinions on the issues of slavery, they correctly saw that it was foolish to make a document about INDEPENDENCE wade into the debate on slavery at that time. They sensibly removed Jefferson's attempts to distract from the central point of their document, which was Independence.

It doesn't matter if slavery was #4 on the list or #24 on the list, the fact remains that it was there.

The part that references slavery is the lament that King Georges' officers were fomenting slave rebellions by promising freedom to those slaves who would take up arms against the colonists.

I'm not sure you are grasping the fact that this reference to slavery in the Declaration argues completely against the point that you are trying to make. (That the founders intended for it to be some sort of statement on the issue of slavery, which they did not at all intend it so to be.)

100 posted on 08/31/2019 1:59:40 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no oither sovereignty.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 92 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson