Posted on 04/08/2026 10:54:23 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Full Grok question: "If the United States must be blamed for slavery before the U.S. did not even exist in the year 1776, don't Americans get the privilege of taking the credit for abolitionism that existed prior to 1776 since Britain did not do that?"
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Yes, by that exact same logic of retroactive national attribution, Americans (specifically, the colonists who formed the United States) get full credit for the early abolitionist movements that predated 1776—movements Britain itself did not pursue or enact at the time, and which Britain actively hindered in the colonies.
The premise is straightforward and consistent: The United States did not exist as a sovereign nation before July 4, 1776. The 13 colonies were British territories, governed by British law, protected by the British Crown, and deeply integrated into the British transatlantic slave economy. Slavery arrived in Virginia in 1619 under British colonial rule, and the British Empire was one of the largest participants in the transatlantic slave trade for centuries. If critics assign "blame" for pre-1776 slavery to the later United States (rather than to the British Empire that actually ran the colonies), then any pre-1776 opposition to slavery in those same colonies must logically be credited to the proto-American society that produced it—not retroactively to Britain.
Pre-1776 abolitionism was real, organized, and American (i.e., colonial)
The earliest sustained anti-slavery efforts in the English-speaking New World came from within the colonies, especially Pennsylvania Quakers:
* 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition: Four German Quakers (and Mennonites) in Pennsylvania issued the first formal religious protest against slavery in the colonies. It condemned the trade on humanitarian and Christian grounds and called for its end within the Quaker community. This is widely recognized as the beginning of organized abolitionism in what became the United States.
* Quaker leaders like Anthony Benezet, John Woolman, Benjamin Lay, and Ralph Sandiford published pamphlets, preached, and agitated against slavery throughout the mid-1700s. Benezet's work influenced later British figures, but it originated in the colonies.
* 1758: The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quakers) officially resolved against slavery.
* 1774–1776: Quakers formally prohibited members from buying, selling, or owning slaves and began disowning those who refused to manumit (free) them. By 1776, the Society of Friends had essentially ended slaveholding among its members in the colonies.
* 1775: The Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery was founded—the first abolition society in America (and the world in the modern sense).
Colonial legislatures also tried practical restrictions. Multiple colonies (Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, others) passed or attempted laws taxing or banning slave imports to curtail the trade—only to have them vetoed or disallowed by the British Crown or royal governors, who prioritized imperial commerce. The 1774 Continental Congress (pre-independence) passed resolutions opposing the slave trade. These were homegrown efforts by people who would soon become Americans.
Post-1776, the new states moved faster: Vermont banned slavery outright in 1777; Pennsylvania passed gradual abolition in 1780; Massachusetts courts effectively ended it by 1783. These built directly on pre-Revolution colonial activism.
Britain did not lead or match this before 1776
Britain's own timeline shows no equivalent empire-wide abolitionism at the time:
* Slavery was legal and economically central to the British Empire. Britain transported millions of Africans and profited enormously.
* The 1772 Somerset v. Stewart case ruled that slavery was unsupported by English common law in England itself, but it explicitly did not apply to the colonies and had no practical effect on the slave trade or colonial slavery.
* Organized British abolitionism (Wilberforce, Clarkson, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade) only gained momentum in the 1780s—after American independence. Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery throughout most of its empire only in 1833 (effective 1834–1838, with "apprenticeship" periods).
Britain did not "do abolitionism" before 1776; the colonies did—and Britain often stood in the way to protect its economic interests.
The point is consistency, not absolution
History is messy. The United States inherited slavery, tolerated it via constitutional compromises (e.g., the 20-year slave-trade protection), and required a civil war to end it in 1865. Britain profited from the trade for generations and only ended colonial slavery decades later. Selective narratives that pin pre-1776 slavery solely on "America" while ignoring colonial abolitionist pioneers (or Britain's role) are simply inconsistent. The same standard applies: credit where credit is due. The early anti-slavery impulse in the colonies was American in origin, predated independence, and happened while Britain was still expanding the institution.
Progressives cant touch this. This is in fact the ultimate "I win". The Founding Fathers left us a wonderful legacy, if we would stop being lazy and simply use it.
The point is consistency, not absolution
The point is consistency, not absolution
The point is consistency, not absolution
Can't say this enough.
The point is consistency, not absolution
This is how we can assassinate Critical Race Theory and The 1619 Project. America was correct. We own it, we started it, we were the first abolitionists.
This is how we do it. This is the model, and the only way that can actually work. Our Founding Fathers, once again, are the solution to the problem.
Progressives, otherwise known as communists, don’t operate in a logically coherent mental realm.
For this reason, they repeatedly contradict themselves.
Good, the more they contradict themselves the better off we will be for the rest of the non-progressive/non-ideological Americans.
Good point in a general way, but no additional authoritativeness for getting Grok to frame it for you. Sorry.
For the Left, the issue is never the issue, the issue is the revolution
Lincoln already took care of reparations in 1865 with the Freedman Act. A home, land, money until the democrats voted it down 5-7 years later. I believe I’m correct. What Americans need now more than ever is real history. And economics.
Instead everybody is an artist or a barrister at Starbucks. Or a sleep all day skate boarder or less.
No.
White people are monsters. America is the locus of all evil in the universe.
New audiobook release: Memoirs of the Life of Anthony Benezet, by Roberts Vaux
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4316219/posts
New audiobook release: Anti-slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808)
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4120385/posts
New audiobook release: An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4172958/posts
No, true reparations must be made.
Descendants of slaves should be returned to the land of their ancestry with each given assets equivalent to what their slave forebearers brought with them.
“For the Left, the issue is never the issue, the issue is the revolution”
It’s called not knowing your own plan.
See post 8 for all the authoritativeness you need.
I’ll get you more. Just give me some time.
Uh, nope!
No, cause there’s no money in it.
Especially given that less than about 2% of white households in the U.S. owned slaves.
When libtards drone on about slavery. I like to ask if the US slaves freed themselves or did white people free them. And did the decedents of slaves pass the Civil Rights act or did white people. Bonus question is to ask them to name any enslaved people that were solely responsible for their own gaining of freedom.
No. You haven’t been paying attention. Anything bad in the world is caused by white people. Anything good that has come from white people is only because they stole it from brown people first.
Even the Irish who have never done anything wrong to any other country need to be invaded by brown people to make up for the fact that they are white.
Either get with the program or do something about it.
I am doing something about it. See post 8.
All three of those audio books have been downloaded over 20,000 times and one 35,000+ times. And reviving forgotten books into audio also increases their readership potential.
Maybe its not enough but it is certainly “a something”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hjwmZJhGII
“History’s Biggest Slavers” about an 8 minute YouTube video.
The British Empire didn’t make the list — certainly the US doesn’t make the list. Of course, you get Egypt, Rome, and others. But most of the list consists of Muslim societies. Including the Muslim Mali Empire in Africa which managed most of the slave trade that eventually crossed the Atlantic. Blacks selling blacks.
Slavery was around a very long time before the US showed up
The word slave comes from Slavs who were enslaved over many centuries. Ironically Slavs were Caucasian.
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