Posted on 08/04/2023 4:38:50 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
If the contents of The 1619 Project are getting under your skin, here's a new audiobook for you.
Nothing else need be said, book speaks for itself.
Book summary: Collects the speeches, writings, public statements and legislative acts of the Founding Fathers and Framers of the United States against slavery. (Summary by progressingamerica)
I'll repeat, in today's degraded political discourse there is no objective definition of "racism", there is only the weaponized epithet which Democrats use to mean, "you disagree with me about something important and that makes you a racist!" -- or "sexist", "homophobe", etc.
And a book which "Collects the speeches, writings, public statements and legislative acts of the Founding Fathers and Framers of the United States against slavery," is then good for what? I am sorry you do not know what racism is, but I am sure you are on a lifelong crusade to stamp out whatever it is of which you profess no knowledge.
The Fugitive Slave clause and the 3/5 rule were forced on Northern states....
You mean they could not say "no." Poor babies. It was a union of compulsion, they were forced into it. It was not of their own free will. Had they said no, there would have been two unions, and Virginia held the Northwest Territory.
As always, woodpusher, you misrepresent the facts. The undeniable fact is that our Founders did pass numerous laws restricting and/or abolishing slavery.
Slavery was abolished after the 13th Amendment when New Jersey finally caved in. As for your icons, we have their own words as to their meeting your Democrat BLM progressive ideals.
The Founders abolished slavery, then grew old and died, and then there was a war to end slavery. Got it!
As is firmly documented in the statements of the historical characters, they were firmly committed to removing the Black presence from the country and its territories. As Jefferson stated it, "It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers."
What did Lincoln say?
I have said a hundred times and I have no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all. I have said that always. (CW 2:492, italics added).If he said it a hundred times, he said it a thousand times:
I have declared a thousand times, and now repeat that, in my opinion, neither the General government, nor any other power outside of the slave states, can constitutionally or rightfully interfere with slaves or slavery where it already exists.. (CW 2:471)Not only did he say it but he cited evidence to prove it.
He asserted positively, and proved conclusively by his former acts and speeches that he was not in favor of interfering with slavery in the States where it exists, nor ever had been. (CW 3:96)
See Forced Into Glory, by Lerone Bennett, Jr., pg. 248-250.
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This is a pivotal point, one that has been masked by rhetoric and imperfect analysis. For to say, as Lincoln said a thousand times, that one is only opposed to the extension of slavery is to say a thousand times that one is not opposed to slavery where it existed. Based on this record and the words of his own mouth, we can say that the "great emancipator" was one of the major supporters of slavery in the United States for at least fifty-four of his fifty six years.
See Forced Into Glory, by Lerone Bennett, Jr., pg. 251. Mr. Bennett was an editor with Ebony magazine for about a half century.
Regardless of pull-quotes from selected Founders, history bears one unassailable truth: the Founders never ended slavery in their lifetime. They talked about it. They didn't do it. They never found a solution to the deportation part of the problem. As Jefferson said, following deportation, "the evil will wear off insensibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers." And after the Founders grew old and died, there came the Civil War. And after that came the 13th Amendment which finally coerced the last holdout Northern states to end slavery in the United States.
Lincoln, CW 2:276, Speech at Peoria, Illinois, March 16, 1854:
Fellow countrymen—Americans south, as well as north, shall we make no effort to arrest this? Already the liberal party throughout the world, express the apprehension "that the one retrograde institution in America, is undermining the principles of progress, and fatally violating the noblest political system the world ever saw.'' This is not the taunt of enemies, but the warning of friends. Is it quite safe to disregard it—to despise it? Is there no danger to liberty itself, in discarding the earliest practice, and first precept of our ancient faith? In our greedy chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware, lest we "cancel and tear to pieces'' even the white man's charter of freedom.Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us repurify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. Let us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right,'' back upon its existing legal rights, and its arguments of "necessity.'' Let us return it to the position our fathers gave it; and there let it rest in peace. Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south—let all Americans—let all lovers of liberty everywhere—join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.
At Springfield, twelve days ago, where I had spoken substantially as I have here, Judge Douglas replied to me—and as he is to reply to me here, I shall attempt to anticipate him, by noticing some of the points he made there.
He commenced by stating I had assumed all the way through, that the principle of the Nebraska bill, would have the effect of extending slavery. He denied that this was INTENDED, or that this EFFECT would follow.
I will not re-open the argument upon this point. That such was the intention, the world believed at the start, and will continue to believe. This was the COUNTENANCE of the thing; and, both friends and enemies, instantly recognized it as such. That countenance can not now be changed by argument. You can as easily argue the color out of the negroes' skin. Like the "bloody hand'' you may wash it, and wash it, the red witness of guilt still sticks, and stares horribly at you.
Lerone Bennett, Jr. observed,
Lincoln said in passing: "You can as easily argue the color out of the Negroes' skin. Like the 'bloody hand' you may wash it, and wash it, the red witness of guilt still sticks, and stares horribly at you".In this horrible and horribly revealing statement, which indicated unhealthy obsessions at clinical proportions, Lincoln, or Lincoln's subconscious, said that the color of blackness, like the "bloody hand" of the murderer, was a "witness of guilt"—what did Lincoln, or Lincoln's subconscious think the Black race was guilty of?—that "sticks and stares horribly at you."
Jefferson's plan was no secret. See Sen. J.R. Doolittle of Wisconsin, in the Senate, March 19, 1862. All is well because it was Dog's plan to separate the races for the highest good. The White race dominates the temperate zone and will forever. Besides, as Lincoln observed, the Black race is guilty and like the bloody hand of a murderer, it sticks and stares horribly at you. It is just your good fortune that you are incapable of knowing what racism is.
JEFFERSON'S SOLUTION.I have stood and will continue to stand for that solution of the negro question which Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, himself proposes, which, while it will in the end give universal liberty to universal man, will gradually, and peacefully separate these two races for the highest good and to the joy of both; giving to each in their own place the enjoyment of their rights, civil, social, political. That solution is in accordance with that law of the Almighty by which the black man dominates the tropics, and always will; by which our race dominates the temperate zone, and will forever. It is easier to work with Him, than against Him.
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The scale & failures of these Democrat recolonization projects were roughly equivalent to today's "green energy" spending.
Lincoln and James Mitchell, his Minister of Emigration, were Democrats. Who knew?
In July 1853, Rev. James Mitchell of Indiana desired to organize the state of Illinois for the cause of colonization. In an interview published in the St. Louis Daily Globe Democrat, August 26, 1896, Mitchell told of how a Presbyterian pastor recommended a local man to help him organize Illinois for the American Colonization Society. The pastor recommended Abraham Lincoln.
It would appear that Mitchell was quite successful in recruiting Abraham Lincoln to the cause. On August 30, 1853, the Illinois State Register said that Lincoln would speak that night on “colonization” at the First Presbyterian Church. Lincoln became one of the founding members of the Illinois State Colonization Society and one of its 11 managers. Lincoln kept up his deportation efforts until the day he died.
https://archive.org/details/ASPC0001878200
Note the following from Page 4:
Being grateful for the positions you have assumed, and the recommendations you have made, we herein respectfully submit a few reflections intended to sustain (thought feeble may be the effort) the policy proposed, and asking that, so long as God grants you place and power at the head of this great nation, you will continue to this subject the care its magnitude merits and our national dangers demand.
James Mitchell refers to the positions Lincoln had assumed, and he refers to the recommendations made by Lincoln, and identifies his own effort as one intended to sustain the Lincoln policy proposed. Being well-known to Abraham Lincoln, James Mitchell was quickly hired and made part of the administration. Mitchell’s profound reflections were seen to have such merit as to warrant being turned into a pamphlet with copies produced by the Government Printing Office. The below example of the Lincoln position on race was submitted to Lincoln by that James Mitchell. Mitchell was promptly appointed as Commissioner of [Black] Emigration. The letter of Mitchell was made into a pamphlet and copies were printed by the Government Printing Office (GPO) at taxpayer expense. Mitchell remained in the administration until Lincoln’s death. He was removed by Andrew Johnson. However, this is what was written to sustain the positions, recommendations, and policies proposed by Lincoln.
From page 25:
It further suggests that our legislation should cover the wants and well-being of both races, and that statesmen should consider, first, the good of the white race, then, the good and well-being of the black; making at least as liberal appropriations for the colonization of the Indian, upon whom millions on millions have been expended with but imperfect success in the cause of civilization, whilst the slender means of the friends of the African civilization have produced lasting results. Some affect to fear that the man of color will not remove to a separate locality. It is not to be expected that a race, which has hardly attained a mental majority, will rise in a day to the stature of the men who found empires, build cities, and lay the ground work of civil institutions like ours; nor should they be expected to do this unaided and alone. They should receive the kind attention, direction, and aid of those who understand such things; nor will the world condemn a gentle pressure in the forward course to overcome the natural inertia of masses long used to the driver’s will and rod. Let us do justice in the provision we make for their future comfort, and surely they will do justice to our distracted Republic. If they should fail to do this, there would then be more propriety in weighing the requirement of some to remove without consultation, but not till then. The more intelligent men of color can now see the necessity that rests upon us, and they will aid us in this work. We know that there is a growing sentiment in the country which considered the removal of the freed man, without consulting him, “a moral and military necessity” — as a measure necessary to the purity of public morals and the peace of the country; and this unhappy war of white man with white man, about the condition of the black, will multiply this sentiment. But we cannot go further now than suggesting, that the mandatory relation held by the rebel master should escheat to the Federal government in a modified sense, so as to enable his proper government and gradual removal to a proper home where he can be independent.
It was to be voluntary deportation unless they declined to volunteer, and then they would be volunteered.
woodpusher: "Freeing the slaves in order to remove them from an all-white paradise is not exactly a non-racist sentiment. That desire was made explicitly clear. No amount of cherry-picking quotations can make that disappear from history."And there is it again -- even when you full well know the truth, you just can't stop lying about it!
Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory, Johnson Publishing Company, Chicago, 2000, pg. 514:
More ominously, Lincoln said he was still committed still committed to an all-White nation, with a transitional period of quasi-freedom followed by the deportation of the freedmen. This is what he said:Heretofore colored people, to some extent, have fled north from bondage; and now, perhaps, from both bondage and destitution. But if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will have neither to flee from. Their old masters will give them wages at least until new laborers can be procured; and the freed men, in turn, will gladly give their labor for the wages, till new homes can be found for them, in congenial climes, and with people of their own blood and race.Here then in unexpurgated language, is Lincoln's blueprint for the American future. It's all there, all of it—his gradualism, his racism, his deeply rooted belief that this land was the White man's land—and there is no possibility of understanding him or the Proclamation without an understanding of the official plan for a new White America he unfolded in this State of the Union message.
Despite its thrice-repeated calls for deportation of Blacks, despite its passionate plea for a continuation of slavery for thirty-seven years, despite its official projection of the notion of an all- white nation, the whole American cultural structure—historians, curators, writers, editors—has endorsed this message.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:1.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext
First Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois, CW 3:14-15
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most cruel slave-masters.When southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery, than we; I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,—to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of high hope, (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially, our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south.
It is certainly not to claim that our Founders were all modern "woke" progressive Democrats!
Nobody ever claimed they could all be like you, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Marshall on the slavery issue. Not many could meet your standards, but that great pre-eminent conservative Willard Romney rose up and proposed "voluntary deportation." That is like separate but equal, but different. I had the same reception in the 21st century as it had in the 19th century.
Only when the States UNANIMOUSLY adopted the Constitution, and all that was in it, was it a case of force too powerful to resist.
woodpusher: "In the case of the really lunatic fringe who argue as if they fought to abolish slavery, and all opposed to their glorious mission from Dog were necessarily insane, it is unfortunate that they must consider the Founders as having been insane for creating a Union which incorporated and protected slavery."Such utterly insane claims are proof positive that you, woodpusher, are a true Democrat at heart, since only a Democrat could argue so insanely.
What is insane is arguing that verified, factual history, with quoted words and recorded deeds, never happened. But, here you are.... sounding like an idiot liberal Democrat.
Slavery as incorporated into the Constitution, by unanimous consent of the States, and kept there with their consent for over 75 years.
woodpusher: "Over 90% of the African slave trade did not deliver slaves to the English colonies, but to Central and South America, and to the islands. That was not curtailed by the war. Upon termination of the war, the African slave trade to the former colonies resumed."All that is mostly irrelevant, since Americans were not the only, indeed were far from the primary slave traders.
Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, French and Brits all carried more than US ships and they brought the vast majority (well over 90+%) of slaves from Africa to the Americas.
It is the slave trade with the rest of the world which is irrelevant to this discussion. About 94% of the trade did not go to the United States or the former colonies. That 94% was not affected by the curtailment of United States importation due to the Revolutionary War.
You stated, quite mindlessly, "Beginning in 1775 the Atlantic slave trade was banned or suspended during the Revolutionary War. It was only the 6% that had been going to the former colonies that was affected.
The fact remains, deny it as much as you wish, that our Founders abolished slavery wherever and whenever they could because they knew it was morally wrong and should not be indefinitely tolerated.
The fact is that the Founders did not even abolish slavery in Washington, D.C. where it only required a majority vote of Congress. The Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution remained the Supreme Law of the Land until after the Civil War. Before the Constitution, the Founders put a Fugitive Slave Clause in the Articles of Confederation and the Ordinance of the Northwest Territory. Neither Dog, nor the Evil Empire forced them to do that. Slavery was abolished after the 13th Amendment when New Jersey finally capitulated.
Articles of Confederation
IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.
In the Ordinance of the Northwest Territory
Article the Sixth. There shall be neither Slavery nor involuntary Servitude in the said territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.
In the Constitution:
No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.- - - - -
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
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no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article
Slave labor participated in every phase of building the White House. They were not freed by some insane jerk on FR.
woodpusher: "[Rhode Island] gradually eliminated slavery by selling its slaves south.It did not eliminate slavery, it ethnically cleansed Rhode Island and relocated its slaves. It continued to go to Africa, obtain slaves, and deliver them to the colonies, and later states."
You might mean Rhode Island, except that even for Rhode Island your claims are maliciously false.
Your claim of "ethnic cleansing" is utter mindless insanity.
In fact, Rhode Island's freed-black population remained constant, around 3,500, between 1790 and 1830, while slaves slowly dwindled from 958 to zero.
I've seen no evidence confirming that large numbers, or any, Rhode Island slaves were sold off "down the river".
Yes, I obviously meant Rhode Island. My quotes came from Rhode Island.
Rhode Island remained the foremost United States purveyor of slaves from the African coast. Your unsubstantiated claim has a large clash with reality. Rhode Island abolished slavery in its constitution of 1842, Art. 1, sec. 4. That constitution, replacing the charter of 1643, went into effect May 2, 1843.
Some 60% of all slave trading voyages that launched from North America — amounting to 945 trips between 1700 and 1850 — began in tiny Rhode Island. In some years, it was more than 90% and most of those journeys set out from Newport, making it the most trafficked slaving port of origin on the continent.“The streets of Newport were paved with the duties paid on enslaved people,” said the UW-Madison scholar, who wrote the book Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island.
[...]
Although the city of 25,000 people is now over 80% white and only 8% Black, in the mid-1700s, approximately a quarter of Newport’s population was Black or African, the second-highest share in the U.S. at the time behind Charleston, South Carolina.
http://smallstatebighistory.com/rhode-island-dominates-north-american-slave-trade-in-18th-century/
African enslaved persons were sparse in the colony of Rhode Island throughout the 17th century, with only 175 in total in 1680. Prior to 1696, the English Royal African Company monopolized the Atlantic slave trade. However, when this was lifted, Rhode Islanders aggressively expanded into the Atlantic trading system, and therefore, the slave trade.Within 30 years the colony of Rhode Island, and in particular Newport, came to dominate the North American slave trade. Even though it was the smallest of the colonies, the great majority of slave ships leaving British North America came from Rhode Island ports. Historian Christy Clark-Pujara, in her book Dark Work, The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island, indicates that during “the colonial period in total, Rhode Island sent 514 slave ships to the coast of West Africa, while the rest of the colonists sent just 189.” Historian Jay Coughtry in The Notorious Triangle, argues that “the Rhode Island slave trade and the American slave trade were virtually synonymous” and that “only in Rhode Island was there anything that can properly be termed a slave trade.”
http://southcountyhistorycenter.org/slavery-southern-rhode-island
The owners of these larger farms became known as “Narragansett Planters,” referencing southern Rhode Island’s nickname at the time, “Narragansett Country.” Through their connections to the Atlantic slave trade, these men began to buy enslaved African people from colonies in the Caribbean (and eventually directly from Africa) to work on their farms and increase production of goods for export. At the height of the Narragansett Planter’s operations in the mid-18th century, there were 25 – 30 large plantations, and it is estimated that between 15% and 25% of Washington County’s population was enslaved. The plantations in southern Rhode Island were very profitable. Their owners were some of the wealthiest people in the colony of Rhode Island, allowing them to develop a leisurely lifestyle that mirrored that of the upper classes in England.
black population of Rhode Island: 68,243
U.S. born: 70.6%, 48,180
foreign born 29.4% ~20,063
proving there is something in the water in Rhode Island preventing Black's from multiplying.
Rhode Island abolished slavery in its constitution of 1842, Art. 1, sec. 4.That constitution, replacing the charter of 1643, went into effect May 2, 1843."
Rhode Island began abolition in 1784: "In February 1784, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed a gradual emancipation law that increased the ratio of the free black population in Rhode Island to 78 percent by the 1790 U.S. Census; slavery was completely eliminated in Rhode Island by 1842."
An anonymous quote without a link or citation is meaningless. Quotation marks leading to an anonymous article at a notoriously unreliable site hardly qualifies as an appeal to authority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Rhode_Island_and_Providence_Plantations
In February 1784, the Rhode Island General Assembly passed a gradual emancipation law that increased the ratio of the free black population in Rhode Island to 78 percent by the 1790 U.S. Census; slavery was completely eliminated in Rhode Island by 1842.
Only proving that Wikipedia, your only source ever, could screw up a soup sandwich. This idiot thinks the Rhode Island constitution of 1842 completely eliminated slavery in 1842. If you read the constitution of Rhode Island of 1842, rather than Wikipedia, you would know that Article XIV, On the Adoption of this Constitution, states, "Section 1. This constitution, if adopted, shall go into operation of the first Tuesday of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-three."
Prior to May 2, 1843, the first constitution had not gone into effect. As I stated, Rhode Island prohibited slavery in 1843, Wikipedia and its faithful slave, BroJoeK notwithstanding.
The footnoted source states, "By 1804 slavery had been abolished throughout New England, ignoring the 1800 census, which shows 1,488 slaves in New England." By 1804 slavery had been eliminated throughout the United States, ignoring all those census reports and all those slaves.
What a wonderful statistic that the free Black population ratio rose by 78% from 1784 to 1842. Sell slaves and the free Black population ratio goes up.
Perhaps we are to believe that when they were freed, the freed blacks no longer reproduced.
The first Africans were brought to Rhode Island as part of the transatlantic maritime trade known as the Triangle Trade. Traders made rum in Rhode Island using sugar cane harvested in the Caribbean; the rum was then used to purchase African men, women, and children who were sold into slavery. Between 1700-1800, Rhode Island merchants sponsored approximately 1,000 slaving voyages, bringing over 100,000 Africans to America. While many were sold to plantation owners in the southern colonies, some were enslaved or retained as indentured servants in Rhode Island. By the 1770s Rhode Island had the greatest population of enslaved people per capita in New England.
Rhode Island would account for about 20% of all slaves brought to the English colonies which are now States.
Your documents never prove the points you're trying to make, and the points they do prove all support my arguments.
That will be tested in separate posts. I will provide complete documents and you may try to select and demonstrate which part or parts support your brainfarts.
Your insane assertion that the Founders "restricted such imports again in the 1794 Slave Trade Act" will be shown to be another turd excreted from your imagination. I will provide the entire Act from the Statutes at Large, with footnote.
Your insane assertion that the Founders "restrictions on international imports of slaves began under President Washington (1794), were strengthened under President Adams (1800)"restrictions on international imports of slaves began under President Washington (1794), were strengthened under President Adams (1800)" will be shown to be yet another turd excreted from your imagination. I will provide the entire Act from the Statutes at Large, with footnote.
Your insane claim that "Vermont was even more of a fake country than the Confederacy" will be shown to be directly contradicting a unanimous opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, your claim that "The fact remains that Vermont began to abolish slavery in its first constitution of 1777," seems strange coming with your claim that the state of Vermont did not exist in 1777. Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791 as the 14th state, and yet, and yet... Vermont had a state constitution in 1777.
The Vermont Republic was never formally recognized by any foreign government, and only ever discussed with Brits terms and conditions for becoming a province of Canada!The fact remains that Vermont began to abolish slavery in its first constitution of 1777.
[...]
Vermont was even more of a fake country than the Confederacy.
The gentle reader may believe an internet idiot or a unanimous United States Supreme Court. Whatever Britain and Canada have to do with a successful revolution by Vermont in 1777 is a mystery. Vermont was recognized as an independent state with self-appointed borders. It did not join the Union under the procedures for a territory. Vermont had a State constitution in 1777. It joined the Union in 1791 as an independent state.
Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U.S. 593, 607-608 (1933)
At 606-607
Our conclusion as to the meaning and effect of the Order-in-Council of 1764 would be decisive of the boundary of Vermont upon her admission to the Union were it not for the history of Vermont as a revolutionary government and the consequent uncertainty whether she was admitted under the second clause of Art. IV, § 3, of the Constitution as a new state formed out of the territory of New York, with her boundary accordingly determined by that of New York, or whether she was admitted under the first clause of Art. IV, § 3, as an independent revolutionary state with self-constituted boundaries.The Special Master found that attempts by the New York authorities after 1764 to interfere with the possession of the holders of the New Hampshire grants made prior to the Order-in-Council led to protest and forcible resistance which assumed the proportions of a revolutionary movement. This movement culminated in 1777 in the Declaration of Independence by the towns comprising the New Hampshire grants on both sides of the Green Mountains, which proclaimed that the jurisdiction granted by the Crown "to New York government over the people of the New Hampshire Grants is totally dissolved," and that a free and independent government is set up within the territory now Vermont, bounded "east on Connecticut River . . . as far as the New Hampshire Grants extends." From that time until the admission of Vermont into the Union in 1791, an independent government was maintained with defined geographical limits extending on the east to the Connecticut River. In view of these facts, the Special Master concluded that the Order-in-Council was nullified by successful revolution, and Vermont was admitted as an independent state with self-constituted boundaries. But he also found, as we have said, that Vermont's claims of jurisdiction to the thread of the river were restricted to the low water mark on the western side by resolutions of Congress of August 20, 21, 1781, and their acceptance by resolution of the Vermont Legislature, February 22, 1782. In addition, he found that Vermont was not recognized as an independent state by Congress either under the Articles of Confederation or under the Constitution, but that her independence was recognized by New Hampshire in 1777, by Massachusetts in 1781, and by New York in 1790.
[...]
New York, by Commissioners acting under a resolution of her legislature of March 6, 1790, gave formal consent to the admission of Vermont into the Union, and if Vermont was admitted as a state carved out of the territory of New York her boundaries on the east were those of New York, as fixed by the Order-in-Council. If admitted as a free and independent state her boundaries were those fixed by her own declaration of independence as limited by her acceptance of the conditions of the Congressional resolution of August 20, 21, 1781. That boundary we conclude was also one carrying to the river and to low-water mark.
At 611:
On April 17, 1782, a committee of Congress to which the matter had been submitted reported that the Congressional resolutions of the 20th and 21st of August had been fully complied with, and recommended that the territory of Vermont as defined in these resolutions be recognized and admitted to the Union, as a free and independent state.But action by Congress was postponed and no further progress was made towards the admission of Vermont until July 16, 1789, when the New York legislature passed an act; reaffirmed March 6, 1790, authorizing the appointment of commissioners with power to declare, upon such terms as they might think proper, the consent of New York to her admission.
[...]
In 1791 the matter of admission was again presented to Congress by commissioners selected for the purpose under resolution of the Vermont legislature of January 20, 1791, and the admission of Vermont followed by Act of Congress of February 18, 1791.
At 619-620:
We conclude that the true boundary is at the low-water mark on the western side of the Connecticut River, as the special master has found. We adopt his definition of low-water mark, which is not challenged here, as the line drawn at the point to which the river recedes at its lowest stage without reference to extreme droughts.
woodpusher: "During the Revolutionary war, we sunk their ships and they sunk ours. We did not pull into each others ports as welcome guests. The curtailment of importation of everything was effected by the state of war. That was not an action aimed at the slave trade."And yet, and yet... they did restrict imports of slaves during the war and they restricted such imports again in the 1794 Slave Trade Act.
And yet, and yet... you sub-cretinous dolt, I provided you with a link to the Act itself. An Act to restrict imports of slaves in 1794 would have been unconstitutional as being in direct conflict with the U.S. Constitution.
You are not entitled to your own fictional "facts." Stop making crap up about statutes you have been too lazy to look up in an authoritative source.
The Constitution:
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight,
BroJoeK sees an imaginary statute law that strikes down the Constitution by restricting the importation of slaves prior to 1808. Such law does not exist.
1 Stat. 347, Third Congress, Sess. I., Ch. 11, 1794, The Slave Trade Act of March 22 1794. "An Act to prohibit the carrying on the Slave Trade from the United States to any foreign place or country." Please stop citing sources you have never seen. If your source is Wikipedia, just go ahead and cite Wikipedia. Wikipedia on the law is sometimes correct.
"The African slave trade is a trade which has been authorized and protected by the laws of all commercial nations. The right to carry it on has been claimed by each, and exercised by each; and it therefore cannot be considered as contrary to the laws of nations. The slave trade remains lawful to those nations which have not forbidden it. The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66; 6 Cond. Rep. 30." At 1 Stat. 347.
Below is the full text of the Act of March 22, 1794. It absolutely has nothing whatever to do with the importation of slaves into the United States.
The reader is left to believe BroJoeK, the Professor of Wikipedia, or the words of the Statute itself, as it officially appears in Statutes at Large, Volume I, Part 1, page 347.
https://www.loc.gov/resource/llsalvol.llsal_001/?sp=470&st=image
[footnote significantly longer than the Act itself.]
Statute I.March 22, 1794
Chap. XI.—An Act to prohibit the carrying on the Slave Trade from the United States to any foreign place or country.(a)
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no citizen or citizens of the United States, or foreigner, or any other persons coming into, or residing within the same, shall, for himself or any other person whatsoever, either as master, factor or owner, build, fit, equip, load or otherwise prepare any ship or vessel, within any port or place of the said United States nor shall cause any ship or vessel to sail from any port or place within the same, for the purpose of carrying on any trade or traffic in slaves, to any foreign country; or for the purpose of procuring, from any foreign kingdom, place or country, the Inhabitants of such kingdom, place or country, to be transported to any foreign country, port, or place whatever, to be sold or disposed of, as slaves. And if any ship or vessel shall be so fitted out, as aforesaid, for the said purposes, or shall be caused to sail, so as aforesaid, every such ship or vessel her tackle, furniture, apparel and other appurtenances, shall be forfeited to the United States; and shall be liable to be seized, prosecuted ant condemned, in any of the circuit courts, or district court for the district where the said ship or vessel may be found and seized..
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That all and every person, so building, fitting out, equipping, loading, or otherwise preparing, or sending away, any ship or vessel, knowing or intending that the same shall be employed in such trade or business, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, or any ways aiding or abetting therein, shall severally forfeit and pay the sum of two thousand dollars, one moiety thereof to the use of the United States, and the other moiety thereof to the use of him or her who shall sue for and prosecute the same.
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the owner, master or factor of each and every foreign ship or vessel, clearing out for any of the coasts or kingdoms of Africa, or suspected to be intended for the slave trade, and the suspicion being declared to the officer of the customs, by any citizen, on oath or affirmation, and such information being to the satisfaction of the said officer, shall first give bond with sufficient sureties, to the treasurer of the United States, that none of the natives of Africa, or any other foreign country or place, shall be taken on board the said ship or vessel, to be transported, or sold as slaves, in any other foreign port or place whatever, within nine months thereafter.
SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That if any citizen or citizens of the United States shall, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, take on board, receive or transport any such persons, as above described, in this act, for the purpose of selling them as slaves, as aforessaid, he or they shall forfeit and pay, for each and every person, so received on board, transported, or sold as aforesaid, the sum of two hundred dollars, to be recovered in any court of the United States pro per to try the same; the one moiety thereof to the use of the United States, and the other moiety to the use of such person or persons, who shall sue for and prosecute the same.
APPROVED. March 22. 1794.
(a) The acts prohibiting and punishing the Slave trade, are: An act to prohibit the carrying on the slave trade from the United States to any foreign place or country, March 22, 1794, chap. II; an act in addition to the act entitled, "An act to prohibit the carrying on the slave trade from the United States to any foreign place or country," May 10, 1800; an act to prevent the introduction of certain persons into certain states, where by the laws thereof their admission is prohibited, February 28, 1803, chap. 10; an act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States from and after the first of January one thousand eight hundred and eight, March 2, 1807, chap. 22; an act in addition to an act entitled, "An act to prohibit the importation of staves within the jurisdiction of the United States from and after the first day of January one thousand eight hundred and eight:" April 20, 1818, chap. 91; an act to continue in force "an act to protect the commerce of the United States, and punish the crime of piracy," and also to make further provision for punishing the crime of piracy, May 13, 1820, chap. 113, sec. 4, 5.Decisions of the Courts of the United States on the acts prohibiting and punishing the Stave Trade.—A libel or information under the 9th section of the slave trade act of March 2, 1797, alleging that the vessel sailed from the port of New York and Perth Amboy, without the captain having delivered the manifest required by law, to the collector or surveyor of the port of New York and Perth Amboy, is defective; the act requiring the manifest to be delivered to the collector or surveyor of a single port. The Mary Ann, 8 Wheat. 350; 5 Cond. Rep. 471.
Under the same section, the libel must charge the vessel to be of the burthen or forty tons or more. In general it is sufficient to charge the offence in the words directing the forfeiture. But if the words are general, embracing a whole class of individual subjects, they must necessarily be so construed as to embrace only a subdivision of that class; the allegation must conform to the legislative sense and meaning. Ibid.
The prohibitions in the slave trade acts of May 10, 1800, and April 20, 1818, extend as well to carrying slaves on freight, as to cases where the persons transported are the property of the United States; and the carrying of them from one part to another of the same foreign empire, as well as from one foreign country to another, The Merino, 9 Wheat. 391 5 Cond. Rep. 623.
Under the 4th section of the act of May 10, 1800, the owner or the slaves transported contrary to the provisions of that act, cannot claim the same in a court of the United States, although, according to the laws of his own country, they may be held in servitude. But if at the time of capture by a commissioned vessel, the offending ship was in the possession of a non-conmissioned captor, who had made a seizure for the same offence, the owner of the slaves may claim them; the section only applying to persons interested in the enterprise or voyage in which the ship was employed, at the time of such capture, Ibid.
Under the slave trade act of 1794, sec. 1, it is not necessary, in order to incur the forfeiture, that the vessel shall be completely fitted and ready for sea. As soon as the preparations have proceeded so far as clearly to manifest the intention, the right of seizure attaches. The Emily and Caroline, 9 Wheat. 381; 5 Cond. Rep. 623.
The African slave trade is a trade which has been authorized and protected by the laws of all commercial nations. The right to carry it on has been claimed by each, and exercised by each; and it therefore cannot be considered as contrary to the laws of nations. The slave trade remains lawful to these nations which have not forbidden it. The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66; 6 Cond. Rep, 30.
If the slave trade is not contrary to the laws of nations, it cannot be piracy, unless so declared by statute and the obligations of such statute cannot exceed the power of the state which has enacted it. Ibid.
A foreign vessel engaged in the slave trade, captured on the high seas, in time of peace, by an American cruiser, and brought in for adjudication, will be restored, even where the vessel belongs to a nation which has prohibited the trade. Ibid.
The right of visitation and search does not exist in time of peace. A vessel engaged in the slave trade in time of peace, even if belonging to a nation which has prohibited the trade, cannot, for that cause alone, he seized on the high seas, and brought in for adjudication in the courts of another country. But if the laws of that other country be violated, or the proceeding be authorized by treaty, the capture is not illegal. Ibid.
Africans who are first captured by a belligerent privateer, fitted out in violation of our neutrality, or by a pirate, and then recaptured and brought into the ports of the United States, under a reasonable suspicion that a violation of the slave trade acts was intended, are not to be restored without full proof of the proprietary interests; for in such a case the capture is lawful. And whether in such a case restitution ought to be decreed or not, was a question on which the court was equally divided. Ibid.
The District Courts have jurisdiction under the slave trade acts, to determine who are the actual captors, under a state law made in pursuance or the 4th section of the slave trade act of 1807; and directing the proceeds of the Degrees to be paid, "one moiety for the use of the commanding officer of the capturing vessel," &c. The Josepha Segunda, 10 Wheat. 312; 6 Cond. Rep. 111.
Under the 7th section of the slave trade act of 1807, the entire proceeds of the vessel are forfeited to the use of the United States; unless the seizure be made by armed vessels of the navy, or by revenue cutters; in which case distribution is to be made in the same manner as prizes taken from the enemy. Ibid.
Upon an indictment under the stave trade act of April 20, 1818, against the owner of the ship, testimony of the declarations of the master, being a part of the res gestae, connected with acts in furtherance of the voyage and within the scope of his authority as the agent of the owner, in the conduct of the guilty enterprise, is admissible. Upon such an indictment against the owner, charging him with fitting out the ship, with an intent to employ her in the illegal voyage, evidence is admissible that her commander authorized, and direrted the fitment through the instrumentality of his agent, without being personally present. The United States v. Gooding, 12 Wheat. 460; 6 Cond. Rep. 572.
It is not essential to constitute the fitting out, under the acts of Congress, that every equipment necessary for a slave voyage, or any equipment peculiarly adapted to such a voyage, should be taken on board. It is sufficient if the vessel is actually fitted out with intent to be employed in the illegal voyage. The offence may be laid in the words of the statute. Ibid.
Nor is it necessary that there should be come principal offender, to whom the defendant might be aiding and abetting. Those terms in the statute do not refer to the relation of principal and. accessory in cases of felony, but to the actor; and they who aid and abet the act, are considered as principals. The offence must be alleged to have been committed within the United States. Ibid.
Under the act of March 22, 1794, prohibiting the slave trade, if the original object and equipment of the voyage from the United States, was to carry on the African slave trade, the forfeiture attaches, whether the vessel was then owned by American citizens or by foreigners. It is equally unimportant if the act was done by the party, suo jure, or for the benefit of another. The Margaret, 9 Wheat. 421; 5 Cond. Rep. 638.
Even if the equipments are innocent, and adapted to ordinary voyages, if there is positive proof of a guilty intention, forfeiture will attach. Nor is it necessary that the equipments shall have been completed. It is sufficient if any preparations have been made for the unlawfnl voyage. Ibid.
Under the 2d and 3d sections of the act of April, 1818, the offence of sailing from a port to engage in the slave trade, is not committed unless the vessel sails out of the port. United States v. La Coste, 2 Mason's C. C. R. 129.
If a foreign claimant of a vessel seized for being engaged in the slave trade, sets up a title derived from an American owner, he mast prove affirmatively that the case has an admixture of American ownership. United States v. La Jeune Eugenia, 2 Mason's C. C. R. 409.
The 1st section of the slave trade act of May 10, 1800, prohibits not only the transportation of slaves, but the being employed on the business of the slave trade; and therefore a vessel caught in each trade, though before she has taken on board any slaves, is liable to forfeiture. The Alexander, 3 Mason's C. C. R. 175.
The offence against the law of the United States, under the 7th section of the act of March 2, 1807, is not that of importing or bringing into the United States persons of colour, with intent to hold or sell those persons as slaves, but that of hovering on the coast of the United States with such intent; and although it forfeits the vessel and any goods or effects found on board, it is silent as to disposing of any persons found on board, any further than to impose a duty upon the officers of any armed vessels, who make the capture, to keep them safely, to be delivered to the overseers of the poor, or to the governor of the state, or persons appointed by the respective states to receive them. United States v. Preston, 3 Peters, 57.
Certain persons who were slaves in Louisiana, were, by their owners, taken to France as servants, and after some time, they, by their own consent, were sent back to Louisiana. The ships in which these persons were passengers, were, after the arrival of the vessels in the United States, libelled for alleged breaches of the act of Congress of April 20, 1818, prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States. Held that the provisions of the act of Congress do not apply to such cases. The United States v. Garonne, 11 Peters. 73.
The act of March 22, 1794, was intended to prohibit any citizen or resident of the United States from equipping vessels within the United States, carrying on trade or traffic in slaves to any foreign country. The Tryphernea, 1 Wash. C. C. R. 622.
The act of May 10, 1800, extends the prohibitions to citizens of the United States, in any manner concerned in this kind of traffic, either by personal service on board of American or foreign vessels wherever equipped, and to the owners of such vessels, citizens of the United States. Ibid.
The act of Congress declares that no person shall build, fit, equip, load, or otherwise prepare any ship or vessel, to sail from any port of the United States, for the purpose of carrying on any trade or traffic in slaves to any foreign country." And it declares that "if any ship or vessel shall be so fitted out as aforesaid, or shall be caused to sail as aforesaid, such ship or vessel shall be forfeited to the United States." And the 2d section inflicts a penalty of two thousand dollars on any person who shall build, fit out, &c., any ship or vessel knowing or intending that the same shall be so employed. Held, 1. That the forfeiture of the vessel is not incurred by the building of the vessel for the illegal purpose; aforesaid, but only for the fitting out and causing her to sail as aforesaid. 2. An information against the vessel which charges that she was built, fitted, equipped, loaded, or otherwise prepared, or caused to sail, &c., is bad for uncertainty as to which of the several offences is charged, and on such information, a forfeiture ought not to be pronounced. The Brig Caroline, 1 Brockenb. C. C. R. 384.
The act of Congress of February 23, 1803, forbidding any master or captain of a ship or vessel, to import or bring into any port of the United States, any negro, mulatto, or person of colour, under certain penalties, where the admission of such persons is prohibited by the laws of such state, does not apply to coloured seamen employed in navigating such ship or vessel. The Brig Wilson, 1 Brockenb. C. C. R. 423.
If under the act of April 22, 1818, sec. 2, 3, the offence of causing a vessel to sail from the United States, with an intent, be alleged in an indictment to be one day now last past, and on divers days before and since that day, the allegation is sufficient. United States v. La Cone, 2 Mason's C. C. R. 119.
It is not neceesaty in an indictment on the act of 1818, to aver the defendant knowingly committed the offence. United States v. Smith, 2 Mason's C. C. R. 143.
What's certain is that restrictions on international imports of slaves began under President Washington (1794), were strengthened under President Adams (1800)
The Constitution:
The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight,
BroJoeK sees an imaginary statute law that strikes down the Constitution by restricting the importation of slaves prior to 1808. Such law does not exist.
As to the Slave Trade Act of 1800, the reader is again left to believe BroJoeK, the Professor of Wikipedia, or the words of the Statute itself, as it officially appears in Statutes at Large, Volume 2, page 70.
It relates "to carrying on the slave trade from the United States to any foreign place or country." It did precisely nothing to restrict the importation of slaves into th United States.
CHAP. LI.—An Act in addition to the act intituled "An act to prohibit the carrying on the Slave Trade from the United States to any foreign place or country."(a)Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be unlawful for any citizen of the United States, or other person residing within the United States, directly or indirectly to hold or have any right or property in any vessel employed or made use of in the transportation or carrying of slaves from one foreign country or place to another, and any right or property, belonging as aforesaid, shall be forfeited, and may be libelled and condemned for the use of the person who shall sue for the same; and such person, transgressing the prohibition aforesaid, shall also forfeit and pay a sum of money equal to double the value of the right or property in such vessel, which he held as aforesaid; and shall also forfeit a sum of money equal to double the value of the interest which he may have had in the slaves, which at any time may have been transported or carried in such vessel, after the passing of this act, and against the form thereof.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be unlawful for any citizen of the United States or other person residing therein, to serve on board any vessel of the United States employed or made use of in the transportation or carrying of slaves from one foreign country or place to another; and any such citizen or other person, voluntarily serving as aforesaid, shall be liable to be indicted therefor, and on conviction thereof shall be liable to a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and be imprisoned "not exceeding two years.
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That if any citizen of the United States shall voluntarily serve on board of any foreign ship or vessel, which shall hereafter be employed in the slave trade, he shall, on conviction thereof, be liable to and suffer the like forfeitures, pains, disabilities and penalties as be would have incurred, had such ship or vessel been owned or employed, in whole or in part, by any person or persons residing within the United States.
SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for any of the commissioned vessels of the United States, to seize and take any vessels employed in carrying on trade, business or traffic, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this or the said act to which this is in addition; and such vessel, together with her tackle, apparel and guns, and the goods or effects, other than slaves, which shall be found on board, shall be forfeited, and may be proceeded against in any of the district or circuit courts, and shall be condemned for the use of the officers and crew of the vessel making the seizure, and be divided in the proportion directed in the case of prize: and all persons interested in such vessel, or in the enterprise or voyage in which such vessel shall be employed at the time of such capture, shall be precluded from all right or claim to the slaves found on board such vessel as aforesaid, and from all damages or retribution on account thereof: and it shall moreover be the duty of the commanders of such commissioned vessels, to apprehend and take into custody every person found on board of such vessel so seized and taken, being of the officers or crew thereof, and him or them convey as soon as conveniently may be, to the civil authority of the United States in some one of the districts thereof, to be proceeded against in due course of law.
SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the district and circuit courts of the United States shall have cognizance of all acts and offences against the prohibitions herein contained.
SEC. 6. Provided nevertheless, and be it further enacted, That nothing in this act contained shall be construed to authorize the bringing into either of the United States, any person or persons, the importation of whom is, by the existing laws of such state, prohibited.
SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the forfeitures which shall hereafter be incurred under this, or the said act to which this is in addition, not otherwise disposed of, shall accrue and be one moiety thereof to the use of the informer, and the other moiety to the use of the United States, except where the prosecution shall be first instituted on behalf of the United States, in which case the whole shall be to their use.
APPROVED, May 10, 1800.
(a) See act of March 22, 1794, chap. 11, and notes, Vol. i. 347.
The smoking gun is that Americans passed laws trying to put a stop to slaving 1772/pre-1772 and the empire prevented them -
Then weaponized the very slaves it forced on them, against them in 1775.
You still can't account for Loyalist slave owners with your so-called "smoking gun".
“. . . because your track record is to muddy the fingers until nothing is left but an intelligible husk of a former discussion.”
Testing the limits of your own capacity for mixed metaphors?
I look forward to your cheerful lunacy; it is often a good read.
Bttt
You seem to be under the impression that the British forced the American colonists at gunpoint to buy slaves.
The 1825 Antelope was a complicated case, not as famous as Le Armistad in 1841, but like Armistad it resulted in freedom for most of the surviving slaves.
There is no evidence that you have ever read a court opinion in your life, and any such evidence is sorely lacking here.
woodpusher's lengthy quote Chief Justice Marshall declares his repugnance for slavery in principle, but also implies that as a Justice, he cannot simply declare it abolished, because slavery is recognized in, we would say, "settled law".that, Marshall was entirely typical of our Founders and in the end, about 80% of the surviving slaves were freed.
You are a loon.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/chief-justice-john-marshall-slaves/619160/
America's 'Great Chief Justice' was an Unrepentant SlaveholderJohn Marshall not only owned people; he owned many of them, and aggressively bought them when he could.
By Paul Finkelman
June 15, 2021
Updated at 4:58 p.m. ET on June 24, 2021
[...]
Marshall's pattern of acquisition, recorded in his notebooks (which are also published in The Papers of John Marshall), began when he was a young lawyer. These record books show that in October 1783, Marshall bought a man named Moses for £74. On July 1, 1784, he paid just over £90 for a man named Ben. Three days later, on the Fourth of July, he bought two unnamed children for £30, who the editors of Marshall's papers believe were two young boys named Edey and Harry. He also paid £20 "in part for two servants." In September, he spent another £25 for unnamed and uncounted "servants." In November, he bought two more people, Kate and Esau. He also purchased Harry that year. Over 12 months, Marshall bought nine people whose names he provides, plus other unnamed and uncounted people. In November 1786, he paid £50 for two unnamed people. In April 1787, he bought Israel for £55 and in May spent another £55 for "a Woman bought in Gloster." On June 3, he made a down payment of less than £11 for two more people. As he had in 1784, he spent Independence Day in 1787 buying people—this time a woman and her child, both of whom he passed on to his father-in-law. That day he also paid money he owed on another enslaved person. In August, he paid £30 for people he had bought in Gloucester, Virginia, and bought another unnamed "negroe man" for £47.
I did not know that was typical for a Founder, but if you say so.
Marshall's political views reflected his practice of human enslavement. He vigorously opposed the presence of free Black people in his state. In 1831, in the wake of Nat Turner's rebellion in rural Virginia, he petitioned the state legislature to appropriate funds for the "urgent expedience of getting rid in some way, of the free coloured population of the Union." Marshall blamed the Turner rebellion on free Black people, which was absurd, because no free Black people were associated with the rebellion and enslaved people in the county outnumbered free Black people by more than four to one.[...]
More significant, Marshall's jurisprudence also reflected his personal hostility to free Black people. As the chief justice of the United States, Marshall wrote the Supreme Court's opinion in seven cases involving claims of Black freedom. In some of these cases, people held in slavery had won their freedom in jury trials in Washington, D.C., where only white men, many of whom were slaveholders, sat on juries. Under D.C. law, slaveholders who moved into the city had to register their enslaved people within a certain time period or the people would become free. Juries often decided in favor of Black people claiming their freedom, because the facts and the law were on their side. But in every one of the cases for which Marshall wrote the Court's opinion, the Black people lost, even when they had won in the trial court.
You think, "Marshall was entirely typical of our Founders and in the end, about 80% of the surviving slaves were freed." If your very careful research led you to that conclusion, well bless your heart.
Marshall was kind of typical for a Founder in that ten of the first twelve Presidents were slave owners. From 1789 to 1850, only eight years saw a President who was not a slave owner.
The Antelope, 10 Wheat. (23 U.S.) 66 (1825), MARSHALL, CJ
You should stop making believe you have read a court opinion that you have not read.
I know what you did. You read a Wikipedia article about the case, but Wikipedia was too complicated for you to follow. The actual Opinion of the Court was sixty-eight pages long. I would not expect you to read it before telling the world all about it.
You found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Antelope
ResultThe Supreme Court dismissed the claim by John Smith for return of the Antelope as a prize of war. It calculated that the privateer had taken 93 Africans on the Antelope and 183 from the ships flying the Portuguese flag, noting a lack of proof of the actual nationality of those ships.
One hundred twenty survivors of the Africans found on the Antelope were sent to Liberia in July 1827. The people from the Antelope were settled in a new colony, called New Georgia after their home of the prior seven years. Approximately 30 slaves were ruled to be the property of the Spanish claimants and went to slavery in Florida; since no one could determine which ship a given slave came from, the 30 were randomly selected.
It's a little hard to follow. That John Smith character was the captain of the ship that seized the slave ship The Antelope. He thought he should get to keep the slave ship. Nope.
The Decree, on the sixty-eighth page of the Opinion, stated:
DECREE. This cause came on to be heard, &c.; On consideration whereof, this Court is of opinion, that there is error in so much of the sentence and decree of the said Circuit Court, as directs the restitution to the Spanish claimant of the Africans in the proceedings mentioned, in the ratio which one hundred and sixty-six bears to the whole number of those which remained alive at the time of pronouncing the said decree; and also in so much thereof, as directs restitution to the Portuguese claimant; and that so much of the said decree ought to be reversed, and it is hereby reversed and annulled. And this Court, proceeding to give such decree as the said Circuit Court ought to have given, doth DIRECT and ORDER, that the restitution to be made to the Spanish claimant, shall be according to the ratio which ninety-three (instead of one hundred and sixty-six) bears to the whole number, comprehending as well those originally on board the Antelope, as those which were put on board that vessel by the Captain of the Arraganta. After making the apportionment according to this ratio, and deducting from the number the rateable loss which must fall on the slaves to which the Spanish claimants were originally entitled. the residue of the said ninety-three are to be delivered to the Spanish claimant, on the terms in the said decree mentioned; and all the remaining Africans are to be delivered to the United States, to be disposed of according to law; and the said decree of the said Circuit Court is, in all things not contrary to this decree, affirmed.
Prefacing the Opinion in the U.S. Reports, the reporter included what is called the syllabus. It is written by the reporter and provides a brief summary of the holdings in the case, written in simple terms for the public. Here is that syllabus:
The African slave trade is contrary to the law of nature, but is not prohibited by the positive law of nations.Although the slave trade is now prohibited by the laws of most civilized nations, it may still be lawfully carried on by the subjects of those nations who have not prohibited it by municipal acts or treaties.
The slave trade is not piracy, unless made so by the treaties or statutes of the nation to whom the party belongs.
The right of visitation, and search does not exist in time of peace. A vessel engaged in the slave trade, even if prohibited by the laws of the country to which it belongs, cannot, for that cause alone, be seized on the high seas, and brought in for adjudication, in time of peace, in the courts of another country. But if the laws of that other country be violated, or the proceeding be authorized by treaty, the act of capture is not in that case unlawful.
It seems, that in case of such a seizure, possession of Africans is not a sufficient evidence of property, and that the onus probandi is thrown upon the claimant, to show that the possession was lawfully acquired.
Africans who are first captured by a belligerent privateer, fitted out in violation of our neutrality, or by a pirate, and then recaptured and brought into the ports of the United States, under a reasonable suspicion that a violation of the Slave Trade was intended, are not to be restored without full proof of the proprietary interest; for in such a case the capture is lawful.
And whether, in such a case, restitution ought to be decreed at all, was a question on which the Court was equally divided.
Where the Court is equally divided, the decree of the Court below is of course affirmed so far as the point of division goes.
Although a consul may claim for subects unknown of his nation, yet restitution cannot be decreed without specific proof of the individual proprietary interest.
The Court found that the slaves should be returned upon a proper claim of ownership. Nobody ever came forth to provide specific proof of ownership of the slaves claimed by the Portuguese Consul. The appearance was that the owner was an American owner using a Portuguese flagged ship to skirt U.S. law; and he couldn't come forward without incriminating himself.
The Claim of the Spanish Consul resulted in restitution of slaves. The unclaimed property from the Portuguese flagged ship was to be disposed of by the United States.
The case was remanded to the lower court to dispose of the unclaimed slaves. This resulted in he United States sending off unclaimed slaves to Liberia.
woodpusher: "The Founders were in 1776. The Framers were in 1787."since many were the same people, it would not be incorrect to refer to them as the Founding Generation, or Founding Fathers, or just Founders, for short.
[BroJoeK #79] So, my argument still stands that there was a qualitative difference regarding slavery between our Founders in 1787, even the Southern-most, versus Fire Eating Democrats in 1860.
You did not refer to the Founding Generation. While many Founders were engaged in Framing the Constitution, many were not. The Framers tended to be a youthful lot and many were minors at the time of the Founding.
woodpusher: "So, not threatening secession establishes a slave owning Framer as "fully committed to restricting and gradually abolishing slavery wherever they could."That is awe-inspiring logic."
Certainly, contrasted to 1860 era Fire Eating Democrats, 1787 Federalist Pinckney was indeed awe-inspiring.
You are sickeningly hopeless.
Your argment was stated at your #74.
[BroJoeK #74] The list goes on and demonstrates clearly that our Founders were fully committed to restricting and gradually abolishing slavery wherever they could.[BroJoeK #79] Yes, in 1819, Pinckney did oppose the Missouri Compromise, which did restrict slavery's expansion in some US territories, however, unlike 1850s era Southern Fire Eaters, Pinckney did not threaten secession over these restrictions.So, my argument still stands that there was a qualitative difference regarding slavery between our Founders in 1787, even the Southern-most, versus Fire Eating Democrats in 1860.
Your absurd argument that the "Founders were fully committed to restricting and gradually abolishing slavery wherever they could" is somehow supported by stating Pinckney did not threaten to secede.
The "logic" is profoundly stupid.
I'm under the impression that the empire forced the American legislatures at vetopoint to keep their meddlesome anti-slave laws out of British slaving affairs.
Both of you have been exceptionally wise to not argue the point otherwise. And you haven't argued otherwise. It's just been dancing around this and that and some other hoopla, taking some stuff out of context, and strawmen.
I guess that's the power of original sources. All you have is the dance, nothing but the dance.
[jeffersondem #88] “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”
[ProgressingAmerica #89] I'm looking for the "free the slaves" part. I don't see it. If you mean the domestic insurrections part, no, that's not what that is referring to.
[BroJoeK #97]
We have covered this ground before and jeffersondem insists the words, "domestic insurrections" can only refer to slave revolts, nothing else and therefore our Founders were primarily, even exclusively, worried about Brits "freeing the slaves" in their Declaration of Independence.It's nonsense, of course, because there were no slave revolts in 1776, or later, but there were many "domestic insurrections" -- attacks by British loyalists against American patriots -- and that is the true meaning of this Declaration item.
As ProgressingAmerica points out, slave revolts could just as easily attack slaveholder Loyalists as Patriots and so that is not what Lord Dunmore called for in November, 1775.
Strangely, Dunmore's Declaration does not mention Loyalists rising up against the Rebels. Anyone not coming to the aid of the Crown was to suffer a penalty such as death or loss of land. It declared martial law and told all to bend the knee, and declared "all indentured Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to his Majesty’s Crown and Dignity."
Lord Dunsmore called for slaves to take up arms against their masters. Their masters were to suffer a penalty such as loss of life or land. For freedom, the slaves were to be required to join the British forces to help make that happen. For some reason the masters took umbrage.
Can you point out the part about Loyalists rising up against Rebels?
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lord-dunmores-proclamation-1775/
Declaration of John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, November 7, 1775
By his Excellency the Right Honorable JOHN Earl of DUNMORE, His Majesty’s Lieutenant and Governor General of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, and Vice Admiral of the same.A PROCLAMATION.
As I have ever entertained Hopes that an Accommodation might have taken Place between Great-Britain and this Colony, without being compelled by my Duty to this most disagreeable but now absolutely necessary Step, rendered so by a Body of armed Men unlawfully assembled, firing on His Majesty’s Tenders, and the Formation of an Army, and that Army now on their March to attack his Majesty’s Troops and destroy the well disposed Subjects of this Colony. To defeat such treasonable Purposes, and that all such Traitors, and their Abettors, may be brought to Justice, and that the Peace, and good Order of this Colony may be again restored, which the ordinary Course of the Civil Law is unable to effect; I have thought fit to issue this my Proclamation, hereby declaring, that until the aforesaid good Purposes can be obtained, I do, in Virtue of the Power and Authority to ME given, by his Majesty, determine to execute Martial Law, and cause the same to be executed throughout this Colony: and to the end that Peace and good Order may the sooner be restored, I do require every Person capable of bearing Arms to resort to his Majesty’s STANDARD, or be looked upon as Traitors to his Majesty’s Crown and Government, and thereby become liable to the Penalty the Law inflicts upon such Offences; such as forfeiture of Life, confiscation of Lands, &c. &c. And I do hereby farther declare all indentured Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to his Majesty’s Crown and Dignity. I do further order, and require, all his Majesty’s Liege Subjects, to retain their Quitrents, or any other Taxes due or that may become due, in their own Custody, till such Time as Peace may be again restored to this at present most unhappy Country, or demanded of them for their former salutary Purposes, by Officers properly authorised to receive the same.
GIVEN under my Hand on Board the Ship WILLIAM, off Norfolk, the 7th Day of November, in the sixteenth Year of his Majesty’s Reign.
DUNMORE.
(GOD save the KING.)
https://www.nps.gov/fost/blogs/the-declaration-of-independence-what-were-they-thinking.htm
The Declaration of Independence: What Were They Thinking?"...A unanimous Declaration..."
Oftentimes we know a document is important, and may understand why the document is important, but the details of the message are lost as decades (and even centuries) grow between us and the past. How many of you have listened to or read the Declaration of Independence and wondered exactly what each of the grievances (or complaints) were referencing? What were Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration Committee referencing as they created this document, which ultimately was an incredible act of treason against their King and country. As you read this, you'll see history through their eyes as you discover the meaning behind the words.[...]
Grievance 27
While this is often interpreted as one grievance it is actually two separate grievances combined into one. The “domestic insurrections” brought on by the British refers primarily to Lord Dunmore’s proclamation that any slaves that ran away from their rebel masters to join him to fight the rebels would be granted their freedom. A significant part of his force that had attacked the Virginia coast was composed of runaway slaves. The “Founding Fathers” were painfully aware of how hypocritical they were being in stating that “all men are created equal” while maintaining slavery in the colonies, so the reference is very veiled, but the threat of large scale slave revolts was a great fear for many in the colonies. The use of various Indian allies by the British all throughout the war was looked upon with as much horror by many members of Parliament as it was by the colonists.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/americas-twofold-original-sin/606163/
The 27th grievance raises two issues. The first, the king’s incitement of “domestic insurrections,” refers to slave revolts and reveals a hard truth recently brought to the public’s attention by The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project: Some of those who sought independence aimed to protect the institution of slavery. This was particularly true for Virginia slave owners, who were deeply disturbed by a proclamation issued in November 1775 by Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore, which promised enslaved people held by revolutionaries freedom in exchange for joining the British army. Virginians and other southerners feared that it would provoke widespread slave revolts.
https://allthingsliberty.com/2019/07/the-declaration-of-independence-the-twenty-seven-grievances/
Journal of the American Revolution[...]
Grievance: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
[...]
Eric Sterner: The vast bulk of the reasons for declaring independence relate to political thought and self-government. The last one, however, deals with “domestic insurrection.” The Declaration’s reference to “domestic insurrection” began as a protest against Virginia Gov. John Murray’s promise of freedom to slaves who took up arms for the British.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.The British had encouraged slave and Indian revolts against the colonists. For example, in 1775, Lord Dunmore of Virginia, swore to members of the Virginia House of Burgesses that if "any Injury or insult were offered to himself" he would "declare Freedom to the Slaves, and reduce the City of Williamsburg to Ashes." The governors of North and South Carolina also were planning similar uprisings. General Gage, commander in chief of the British army in America, tried to persuade various of the Indian tribes to attack the colonists.
Do you perhaps have a quote from one of your fellow inmates who has adopted your delusional interpretation?
There would be no point in arguing otherwise. The British were quite keen on maintaining the economic activity brought by the African slave trade, despite the preference by some colonial legislatures for people of a different stock (as you yourself have documented).
Yet, given that your vantage on this has been largely framed on moral grounds, it seems rather disingenuous to ignore the reality that it takes two to tango. A slave trade can't exist if no one is willing to buy. Yet there were numerous American colonists who were willing to buy.
A much more sober response than others, given by some. Moving on. I'm not looking for cheap points or to spend some 20 posts into the future gloating. Moving on.
"it seems rather disingenuous to ignore the reality that it takes two to tango. A slave trade can't exist if no one is willing to buy. Yet there were numerous American colonists who were willing to buy."
Patriot or Loyalist?
Besides, The people who cast the vote decide nothing. The people who count the vote decide everything. - Stalin
The people who buy the slaves decide nothing. The people who keep the market stocked decide everything.
We see the same thing in the drug trade. The addict isn't the key. The kingpin is the key. Who's the kingpin? Who's the one vetoing the laws? There you go. It all comes full circle.
“We see the same thing in the drug trade. The addict isn’t the key. The kingpin is the key.”
Problem identified: you don’t understand a market economy.
Although, this does remind me of the time Winchester sold me a model 94 and I was forced to go out and shoot somebody.
Then they forced me to shoot the witnesses.
Are you insinuating that every colonist who purchased slaves during the American Revolution were Loyalists?
The people who buy the slaves decide nothing.
So if there had been no market for African slave labor (as in, no one was willing to buy, regardless of price), you sincerely believe that the British would have kept shipping them over to their colonies?
You apparently have a strangely skewed view of Supply and Demand.
The opposite. And I'm not insinuating. I'm stating it boldly to the point of non-refutation.
Every colonist who had a shred of abolitionist leaning was also at a minimum patriot "leaning". Let alone the full scale abolitionist/full scale fire breathers like Benjamin Franklin, who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution.
Anthony Benezet, arguably the first transatlantic abolitionist, wasn't friends with many loyalists - not in the aggregate as it pertains to abolitionism. He might have had a friendly neighbor who he had dinner with. His "well known" friends: Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and the list goes on. And Robert Pleasants - who best I can tell pal'ed around exclusively with patriot leaders.
All of them Patriots in opposition to the king. All of them. Robert Carter III, the biggest manumission in American history, was patriot leaning.
I couldn't make up such a conveniently one-sided package if I tried. Anti-slavery simply wasn't British and it wasn't loyalist.
Insinuate nothing. No pale pastels here, I'll say what I say. Bold colors.
All roads lead back to Anthony Benezet. If you look at him, all of this will crack open really easily for you.
"So if there had been no market for African slave labor (as in, no one was willing to buy, regardless of price), you sincerely believe that the British would have kept shipping them over to their colonies?
The question is already mostly true anyways, simply taking into account for where most of British slave cargo went. Only 3% of it came to the North American mainland. The vast majority of the slaves went to Barbados, Jamaica, and other colonies in the West Indies. The sugar colonies under English control.
An extra 5 or 10% tax would've been absolutely devastating and the king knew it. Let me bold that so you see it.
An extra 5 or 10% tax would've been absolutely devastating and the king knew it. So did the patriots, BTW. That's why they did it. It wasn't an accident. They did it on purpose.
“Let alone the full scale abolitionist/full scale fire breathers like Benjamin Franklin, who signed both the Declaration and the Constitution.”
Wasn’t Benjamin Franklin a slave owner for most of his life?
[ProgressingAmerica #111] I'm under the impression that the empire forced the American legislatures at vetopoint to keep their meddlesome anti-slave laws out of British slaving affairs.[Ultra Sonic #113] There would be no point in arguing otherwise. The British were quite keen on maintaining the economic activity brought by the African slave trade, despite the preference by some colonial legislatures for people of a different stock (as you yourself have documented).
Of course, there was no such thing as "American legislatures" prior to July 4, 1776 unless that is a limited reference to the continent where the English colonial legislature was located. The entire colonial government existed at the pleasure of the sovereign—the King of England. The entirety of sovereignty was vested in the King. The colonies had no citizens, they had subjects of the King of England. On July, 4, 1776 (according to American law) the sovereignty of the King was replaced, in the colonies, by the People, they claiming sovereignty for themselves.
After July 4, 1776 the Evil Empire exercised no veto or other power over the States. They were no longer colonies. However, if one assumes that the powers of the Evil Empire forced the States to comply with its slave edicts after July 4, 1776, one is left looking for the date when the States stopped being forced to comply. This date surely cannot extend further than August 1, 1834. That is when the King declared that all slaves in all His colonies would be granted a general manumission. This applied throughout the Kingdom and nothing about it was voluntary. It is universally held that it had no effect in the sovereign States. If held that the King's edicts were still enforceable against the States, then the States must have said something to the effect of hell no, we're keeping our slaves and do not care what that king says.
This would leave as unexplained why slavery existed in the States between August 1, 1834 until the 13th Amendment of December 1865. It cannot be attributed to the force of an Evil Empire which had forced the abolition of slavery throughout its kingdom.
The effective law for the Evil Empire was in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, of August 28, 1833.
https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1833/act/73/enacted/en/print.html>
An Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies; for promoting the Industry of the manumitted Slaves; and for compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves.[28th August 1833.]
All Persons who on the 1st August 1834 shall have been registered as Slaves, and be Six Years old or upwards, shall become apprenticed Labourers.
Whereas divers Persons are holden in Slavery within divers of His Majesty’s Colonies, and it is just and expedient that all such Persons should be manumitted and set free, and that a reasonable Compensation should be made to the Persons hitherto entitled to the Services of such Slaves for the Loss which they will incur by being deprived of their Right to such Services: And whereas it is also expedient that Provision should be made for promoting the Industry and securing the good Conduct of the Persons so to be manumitted, for a limitted Period after such their Manumission: And whereas it is necessary that the Laws now in force in the said several Colonies should forthwith be adapted to the new State and Relations of Society therein which will follow upon such general Manumission as aforesaid of the said Slaves; and that, in order to afford the necessary Time for such Adaptation of the said Laws, a short Interval should elapse before such Manumission should take effect;’ be it therefore enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That from and after the First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four all Persons who in conformity with the Laws now in force in the said Colonies respectively shall on or before the First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirtyfour have been duly registered as Slaves in any such Colony, and who on the said First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four shall be actually within any such Colony, and who shall by such Registries appear to be on the said First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirty-four of the full Age of Six Years or upwards, shall by force and virtue of this Act, and without the previous Execution of any Indenture of Apprenticeship, or other Deed or Instrument for that Purpose, become and be apprenticed Labourers; provided that, for the Purposes aforesaid, every Slave engaged in his ordinary Occupation on the Seas shall be deemed and taken to be within the Colony to which such Slave shall belong.
II. And be it further enacted, That during the Continuance of the Apprenticeship of any such apprenticed Labourer such Person or Persons shall be entitled to the Services of such apprenticed Labourer as would for the Time being have been entitled to his or her Services as a Slave if this Act had not been made.
III. Provided also, and be it further enacted, That all Slaves who may at any Time previous to the passing of this Act have been brought with the Consent of their Possessors, and all apprenticed Labourers who may hereafter with the like Consent be brought, into any Part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, shall from and after the passing of this Act be absolutely and entirely free, to all Intents and Purposes whatsoever.
IV. ‘And whereas it is expedient that all such apprenticed Labourers should, for the Purposes hereinafter mentioned, be divided into Three distinct Classes, the First of such Classes consisting of prædial apprenticed Labourers attached to the Soil, and comprising all Persons who in their State of Slavery were usually employed in Agriculture, or in the Manufacture of Colonial Produce or otherwise, upon Lands belonging to their Owners; the Second of such Classes consisting of prædial apprenticed Labourers not attached to the Soil, and comprising all Persons who in their State of Slavery were usually employed in Agriculture, or in the Manufacture of Colonial Produce or otherwise, upon Lands not belonging to their Owners; and the Third of such Classes consisting of non-prædial apprenticed Labourers, and comprising all apprenticed Labourers not included within either of the Two preceding Classes;’ be it therefore enacted, That such Division as aforesaid of the said apprenticed Labourers into such Classes as aforesaid shall be carried into effect in such Manner and Form and subject to such Rules and Regulations as shall for that Purpose be established under such Authority, and in and by such Acts of Assembly, Ordinances, or Orders in Council, as herein-after mentioned: Provided always, that no Person of the Age of Twelve Years and upwards shall by or by virtue of any such Act of Assembly, Ordinance, or Order in Council, be included in either of the said Two Classes of prædial apprenticed Labourers unless such Person shall for Twelve Calendar Months at the least next before the passing of this present Act have been habitually employed in Agriculture or in the Manufacture of Colonial Produce.
V. And be it further enacted, That no Person who by virtue of this Act, or of any such Act of Assembly, Ordinance, or Order in Council as aforesaid, shall become a prædial apprenticed Labourer, whether attached or not attached to the Soil, shall continue in such Apprenticeship beyond the First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and forty; and that during such his or her Apprenticeship no such prædial apprenticed Labourer, whether attached or not attached to the Soil, shall be bound or liable, by virtue of such Apprenticeship, to perform any Labour in the Service of his or her Employer or Employers for more than Forty-five Hours in the whole in any One Week.
VI. And be it further enacted, That no Person who by virtue of this Act or of any such Act of Assembly, Ordinance, or Order in Council as aforesaid, shall become a non-prædial apprenticed Labourer, shall continue in such Apprenticeship beyond the First Day of August One thousand eight hundred and thirtyeight.
[...]
Thus ended slavery in Canada (and elsewhere). It is difficult to see how continued slavery in the American States can be blamed on the Evil Empire after that.
The problem seen in the States was the presence of an unwanted African population forced upon the colonies before they became states. Manumission was seen as a necessary condition precedent to deportation of the unwanted population. A major complicating factor was that these were no longer an African population. They were native born Americans. They were born in America. Their parents and grandparents were born in America. They were not aliens in any legal sense.
Digressing a bit, this problem of non-alien status became a problem after the 13th Amendment as the naturalization laws applied only to aliens and the freedmen were not eligible for naturalization. Manumission did not make one a citizen. That required the 14th Amendment.
Back to the American problem, the dilemma was what to do with a population of Black Americans. Manumission as not the unsolvable problem; the unsolvable problem was the mass deportation of a black American population.
The unsolvable problem may have been created by the introduction of slavery to the colonies, but it was unsolvable because it was logistically and legally impossible to mass deport what became an American population numbering in the millions.
In August 1862, Lincoln welcomed the first ever delegation of Black Americans to the White House, arranged by Rev. James Mitchell, his Minister of [Black] Emigration. He pitched colonization, also known as voluntary deportation.
Lincoln, Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Negroes, August 14, 1862
This afternoon the President of the United States gave audience to a Committee of colored men at the White House. They were introduced by the Rev. J. Mitchell, Commissioner of Emigration. E. M. Thomas, the Chairman, remarked that they were there by invitation to hear what the Executive had to say to them. Having all been seated, the President, after a few preliminary observations, informed them that a sum of money had been appropriated by Congress, and placed at his disposition for the purpose of aiding the colonization in some country of the people, or a portion of them, of African descent, thereby making it his duty, as it had for a long time been his inclination, to favor that cause; and why, he asked, should the people of your race be colonized, and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. You here are freemen I suppose.A VOICE: Yes, sir.
The President—Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives. Your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. You are cut off from many of the advantages which the other race enjoy. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent, not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of ours. Go where you are treated the best, and the ban is still upon you.
I do not propose to discuss this, but to present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact, about which we all think and feel alike, I and you. We look to our condition, owing to the existence of the two races on this continent. I need not recount to you the effects upon white men, growing out of the institution of Slavery. I believe in its general evil effects on the white race. See our present condition—the country engaged in war!—our white men cutting one another's throats, none knowing how far it will extend; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But for your race among us there could not be war, although many men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence.
It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. I know that there are free men among you, who even if they could better their condition are not as much inclined to go out of the country as those, who being slaves could obtain their freedom on this condition. I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the way of colonization is that the free colored man cannot see that his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can live in Washington or elsewhere in the United States the remainder of your life [as easily], perhaps more so than you can in any foreign country, and hence you may come to the conclusion that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign country. This is (I speak in no unkind sense) an extremely selfish view of the case.
But you ought to do something to help those who are not so fortunate as yourselves. There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us. Now, if you could give a start to white people, you would open a wide door for many to be made free. If we deal with those who are not free at the beginning, and whose intellects are clouded by Slavery, we have very poor materials to start with. If intelligent colored men, such as are before me, would move in this matter, much might be accomplished. It is exceedingly important that we have men at the beginning capable of thinking as white men, and not those who have been systematically oppressed.
There is much to encourage you. For the sake of your race you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people. It is a cheering thought throughout life that something can be done to ameliorate the condition of those who have been subject to the hard usage of the world. It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself, and claims kindred to the great God who made him. In the American Revolutionary war sacrifices were made by men engaged in it; but they were cheered by the future. Gen. Washington himself endured greater physical hardships than if he had remained a British subject. Yet he was a happy man, because he was engaged in benefiting his race—something for the children of his neighbors, having none of his own.
The colony of Liberia has been in existence a long time. In a certain sense it is a success. The old President of Liberia, Roberts, has just been with me—the first time I ever saw him. He says they have within the bounds of that colony between 300,000 and 400,000 people, or more than in some of our old States, such as Rhode Island or Delaware, or in some of our newer States, and less than in some of our larger ones. They are not all American colonists, or their descendants. Something less than 12,000 have been sent thither from this country. Many of the original settlers have died, yet, like people elsewhere, their offspring outnumber those deceased.
The question is if the colored people are persuaded to go anywhere, why not there? One reason for an unwillingness to do so is that some of you would rather remain within reach of the country of your nativity. I do not know how much attachment you may have toward our race. It does not strike me that you have the greatest reason to love them. But still you are attached to them at all events.
The place I am thinking about having for a colony is in Central America. It is nearer to us than Liberia—not much more than one-fourth as far as Liberia, and within seven days' run by steamers. Unlike Liberia it is on a great line of travel—it is a highway. The country is a very excellent one for any people, and with great natural resources and advantages, and especially because of the similarity of climate with your native land—thus being suited to your physical condition.
[...]
The words of Frederick Douglass provide the full flavor of the Black response of repulsion.
https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/4387
University of Rochester
Frederick Douglass Project
Douglass observed,
THE PRESIDENT AND HIS SPEECHESDouglass' Monthly, September, 1862.
[...]
The other and more important communication of the President it appears was delivered in the White House before a committee of colored men assembled by his invitation. In this address Mr. Lincoln assumes the language and arguments of an itinerant Colonization lecturer, showing all his inconsistencies, his pride of race and blood, his contempt for Negroes and his canting hypocrisy. How an honest man could creep into such a character as that implied by this address we are not required to show. The argument of Mr. Lincoln is that the difference between the white and black races renders it impossible for them to live together in the same country without detriment to both. Colonization, therefore, he holds to be the duty and the interest of the colored people. Mr. Lincoln takes care in urging his colonization scheme to furnish a weapon to all the ignorant and base, who need only the countenance of men in authority to commit all kinds of violence and outrage upon the colored people of the country. Taking advantage of his position and of the prevailing prejudice against them he affirms that their presence in the country is the real first cause of the war, and logically enough, if the premises were sound, assumes the necessity of their removal.
It does not require any great amount of skill to point out the fallacy and expose the unfairness of the assumption, for by this time every man who has an ounce of brain in his head, no matter to which party he may belong, and even Mr. Lincoln himself, must know quite well that the mere presence of the colored race never could have provoked this horrid and desolating rebellion. Mr. Lincoln knows that in Mexico, Central America and South America, many distinct races live peaceably together in the enjoyment of equal rights, and that the civil wars which occasionally disturb the peace of those regions never originated in the difference of the races inhabiting them. A horse thief pleading that the existence of the horse is the apology for his theft or a highway man contending that the money in the traveler's pocket is the sole first cause of his robbery are about as much entitled to respect as is the President's reasoning at this point. No, Mr. President, it is not the innocent horse that makes the horse thief, not the traveler's purse that makes the highway robber, and it is not the presence of the Negro that causes this foul and unnatural war, but the cruel and brutal cupidity of those who wish to possess horses, money and Negroes by means of theft, robbery, and rebellion. Mr. Lincoln further knows or ought to know at least that Negro hatred and prejudice of color are neither original nor invincible vices, but merely the offshoots of that root of all crimes and evils—slavery. If the colored people instead of having been stolen and forcibly brought to the United States had come as free immigrants, like the German and the Irish, never thought of as suitable objects of property, they never would have become the objects of aversion and bitter persecution, nor would there ever have been divulged and propagated the arrogant and malignant nonsense about natural repellancy and the incompatibility of races.
Illogical and unfair as Mr. Lincoln's statements are, they are nevertheless quite in keeping with his whole course from the beginning of his administration up to this day, and confirm the painful conviction that though elected as an anti-slavery man by Republican and Abolition voters, Mr. Lincoln is quite a genuine representative of American prejudice and Negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery, and the favor of the Border Slave States, than for any sentiment of magnanimity or principle of justice and humanity. This address of his leaves us less ground to hope for anti-slavery action at his hands than any of his previous utterances. Notwithstanding his repeated declarations that he considers slavery an evil, every step of his Presidential career relating to slavery proves him active, decided, and brave for its support, and passive, cowardly, and treacherous to the very cause of liberty to which he owes his election. This speech of the President delivered to a committee of free colored men in the capital explains the animus of his interference with the memorable proclamation of General Fremont. A man who can charge this war to the presence of colored men in this country might be expected to take advantage of any legal technicalities for arresting the cause of Emancipation, and the vigorous prosecution of the war against slaveholding rebels. To these colored people, without power and without influence, the President is direct, undisguised, and unhesitating. He says to the colored people: I don't like you, you must clear out of the country. So too in dealing with anti-slavery Generals the President is direct and firm. He is always brave and resolute in his interferences in favor of slavery, remarkably unconcerned about the wishes and opinions of the people of the north; apparently wholly indifferent to the moral sentiment of civilized Europe; but bold and self-reliant as he is in the ignominious service of slavery, he is as timid as a sheep when required to live up to a single one of his anti-slavery testimonies. He is scrupulous to the very letter of the law in favor of slavery, and a perfect latitudinarian as to the discharge of his duties under a law favoring freedom. When Congress passed the Confiscation Bill, made the Emancipation of the slaves of rebels the law of the land, authorized the President to arm the slaves which should come within the lines of the Federal army, and thus removed all technical objections, everybody who attached any importance to the President's declarations of scrupulous regard for law, looked at once for a proclamation emancipating the slaves and calling the blacks to arms. But Mr. Lincoln, formerly so strict and zealous in the observance of the most atrocious laws which ever disgraced a country, has not been able yet to muster courage and honesty enough to obey and execute that grand decision of the people. He evaded his obvious duty, and instead of calling the blacks to arms and to liberty he merely authorized the military commanders to use them as laborers, without even promising them their freedom at the end of their term of service to the government, and thus destroyed virtually the very object of the measure. Further when General Halleck issued his odious order No. 3, excluding fugitive slaves from our lines, an order than which none could be more serviceable to the slaveholding rebels, since it was a guarantee against the escape of their slaves, Mr. Lincoln was deaf to the outcry and indignation which resounded through the north and west, and saw no occasion for interference, though that order violated a twice adopted resolution of Congress. When General McClellan employed our men guarding rebel property and even when Gen. Butler committed the outrage paralled only by the atrocities of the rebels—delivering back into bondage thousands of slaves—Mr. Lincoln again was mute and did not feel induced to interfere in behalf of outraged humanity.
The tone of frankness and benevolence which he assumes in his speech to the colored committee is too thin a mask not to be seen through. The genuine spark of humanity is missing in it, no sincere wish to improve the condition of the oppressed has dictated it. It expresses merely the desire to get rid of them, and reminds one of the politeness with which a man might try to bow out of his house some troublesome creditor or the witness of some old guilt. We might also criticize the style adopted, so exceedingly plain and coarse threaded as to make the impression that Mr. L. had such a low estimate of the intelligence of his audience, as to think any but the simplest phrases and constructions would be above their power of comprehension. As Mr Lincoln however in all his writings has manifested a decided awkwardness in the management of the English language, we do not think there is any intention in this respect, but only the incapacity to do better.
Our history books generally do not report Lincoln's deportation pitch, nor the Black hostile response of repulsion. Voluntary deportation was going nowhere. Lincoln could not sell that any more than Mitt Romney could.
Lincoln's words cannot be blamed on some Evil Empire.
Wasn’t Benjamin Franklin a slave owner for most of his life?
Yes, but only from 1735 to 1790.
Franklin’s antislavery credentials have been, at the very least, remembered backwards. At most, they have been greatly exaggerated. His debt to slavery, and his early, persistent engagement with controversies surrounding slaves, have been largely ignored. He profited from the domestic and international slave trade, complained about the ease with which slaves and servants ran off to the British army during the colonial wars of the 1740s and 1750s, and staunchly defended slaveholding rebels during the Revolution. He owned a series of slaves between about 1735 and 1781 and never systematically divested himself of them. After 1731 he wrote publicly and regularly on the topics of slavery and racial identity but almost never in a straightforwardly antislavery or antiracist fashion. He declined to bring the matter of slavery to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 when asked to do so by the abolition society he served as president.
https://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/franklin-and-slavery-the-philadelphia-household-1735-1790/
Franklin and Slavery: The Philadelphia Household 1735-1790As far as we know, Franklin first purchased a slave in 1735. Throughout his lifetime there were up to 7 named slaves in the Franklin household. By the late 1780s, Franklin had become a staunch abolitionist and as part of his will, all remaining slaves were freed upon his death in 1790.
On this page, we aim to document all of the information that is available about these individuals that lived in either the home of Benjamin and Deborah Franklin or the home of Sally Franklin and Richard Bache.
It is important to first note that many details chronicling Benjamin Franklin’s involvement in slavery, such as his purchase and sale of slaves, are logged fleetingly in the massive amounts of documents he left behind. Subsequently, it was also more common for northern slaveholders to not record slave births, deaths, and marriages since slaveholding was not as prominent in production processes as it was in the plantation South.
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[The seven individual slaves are detailed]
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