Replies

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.
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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.
- - - - -
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.

https://www.the74million.org/article/slave-money-paved-the-streets-now-this-posh-ri-city-strives-to-teach-its-past/

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.

https://www.economicprogressri.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SOBFRI-2017-Infographic-FINAL-PRINT.pdf

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.

https://www.sos.ri.gov/divisions/civics-and-education/for-educators/themed-collections/black-rhode-islanders

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.

woodpusher: "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."

Seriously, woodpusher, what's wrong with you?
Why do you insist on falsely equating slavery with "racism", they are two very different subjects?
Historically, not all slaves were Africans and not all slaveholders were Europeans.
In many cases, it was the reverse -- Africans owned European slaves, notably the Barbary Pirates.

Even in the 13 Colonies there were European slaves, prisoners or captives shipped here from Britain to serve out their sentences as slaves.
Plus a huge percentage of the white population suffered under a form of slavery called "indentured servitude", to pay off their debts.
So, for our Founders, slavery was not about "racism" but rather was about the immorality of holding innocent people in bondage.

woodpusher: "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."

Right, it was a compromise to preserve the Union, forced on Northern states at Southern insistence.
To claim anything else is to distort the actual history.

woodpusher: "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."

No, in fact, slavery was restricted and abolished in many places long before the 13th Amendment, and regardless of your Democrat BLM progressive ideals, our Founders knew slavery was wrong and did what they could against it.

woodpusher: "The Founders abolished slavery, then grew old and died, and then there was a war to end slavery. Got it!"

Seriously, woodpusher, why are you lying about this?
Is it just your trained Democrat mind-set which forces you to always miss the truth when a lie sounds better?

In this case, I'll repeat, our Founders legally abolished slavery in Northern states, in Western territories and in international imports.
Their practice was gradual abolition and it worked until roughly 1835 when Southerners began to defend slavery as not just a necessary evil, but as a positive good thing which should be protected and expanded wherever possible.

woodpusher: "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." "

Jefferson's proposals for government paid compensated emancipation and forced recolonizations were never approved.
What was approved and voted by Congress and several state legislatures were large sums of money to support voluntary recolonizations.

It turned out that the vast majority of freed-blacks preferred to stay in their homes in the USA, despite allegedly intolerable "racism", rather than to "return" to their "homelands" in Africa, or elsewhere.

woodpusher: "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)."

Right, Lincoln was considered a "moderate" in 1860, which is why he was nominated over more radical Republicans like the 1856 nominee, John C. Fremont.
In 1848, Congressman Lincoln did try to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which was under Congress's authority to do so.
Lincoln's attempt failed in 1848, but succeeded in 1862.

I see now that you are largely just repeating quotes you've posted before, and at the same time descending into insane nonsense like this:

woodpusher: "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."

Nothing rational there for me to respond to.

woodpusher: "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."

And here you are simply accusing me of your own behavior.

woodpusher: "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."

Even when there is no disagreement, you present it as if there is.

woodpusher: "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."

No, the truth is that slavery was 99% abolished before ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Of roughly 4 million slaves in 1860, only around 50,000 remained to be freed in December 1865.

Even by 1860, when US total territory was roughly 3 million square miles, slavery was abolished from all but 1 million square miles. Even by 1860, slavery was abolished in 2/3 of the territory and also 2/3 of the population.

Those are facts, Democrat, deny them all you wish.

woodpusher: "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."

Here you are simply driving yourself crazy by refusing to look at the actual facts, which include Rhode Island's 1784 gradual abolition law resulting in the reduction of R.I. slaves to near zero by 1830, while the R.I. freed black population remained constant around 3,500.

Rhode Island's census slave population numbers are:

1790 -- 958
1800 -- reduced 60% to 380
1810 -- reduced 90% to 108
1820 -- reduced 95% to 48
1830 -- reduced 98% to 17
1840 -- reduced 99% to 5
1850 -- reduced 100% to 0

Your repeated claims that these slaves were all "sold down the river" are not supported by any evidence I've seen.
To me those numbers suggest actuarial declines and natural longevities.

woodpusher: "Perhaps we are to believe that when they were freed, the freed blacks no longer reproduced."

Or, we might well believe what logic tells us, which is that some freed-blacks did what any freed people sometimes do, they moved to a different state to find a better life.
There were soon several they could choose from with no risk of being re-enslaved.

woodpusher: "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."

And you will yet again post endless irrelevant facts to support your ridiculous argument that the 1794 Slave Trade Act was not intended to restrict the slave trade.