Posted on 07/04/2023 5:18:29 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
While Frederick Douglass is obviously not a Founding Father, his life embodied our nation’s highest ideals, and his speeches were delivered to promote these values. And on this day — the day we commemorate the inception of our nation with the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 — Douglass is one man that deserves to be associated with the Fourth of July.
Born a slave in 1818 in Maryland with the given name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Douglass was a strong-willed and intelligent man who, in spite of the laws at the time, learned to read and write.
In 1838, he escaped and eventually made his way to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he labored and was a lay preacher. Later, he became involved in the abolitionist movement, where he met William Lloyd Garrison, who took Douglass under his wing for a time.
As Douglass’s orator skills grew, so did his fame. However, Douglass and Garrison did not see eye to eye on the issue of slavery, and eventually the two parted ways.
Douglass founded his own abolitionist newspaper called “The North Star” and would go on to become the major force in the movement to abolish slavery in America — even going so far as to meet with and advise Abraham Lincoln and help recruit black soldiers for the Union army.
His earlier views were obviously denunciatory of slavery and the nation that hypocritically allowed it at its founding and promoted it with the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. However, Douglass did not ultimately accept Garrison’s doctrine that the U.S. Constitution was an inherently pro-slavery document...
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
“All other facts are not nearly so dynamic as that some of the 13 colonies were trying to move away from the slave situation and were held back intentionally.”
But after the Revolutionary War all 13 American states voted to adopt a pro-slavery U.S. Constitution. Unanimously.
It is kind of hard to blame the British for the fact that New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, and Rhode Island all voted for a pro-slavery U.S. Constitution.
Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia also voted to include slavery in the Constitution. Don’t ever forget to cast four thirteenths responsibility in that direction.
I figured there was something ridiculous working through here. If what you say is true, if the Constitution is indeed pro-slavery, then there is no such thing as American Exceptionalism. Since it’s pro-slavery as you say, that makes the Constitution racist. That also puts you in agreement with the New York Times 1619 Project.
You might want to consider the ramifications and the logical conclusions that necessarily are the result of the statements you’ve made.
To be clear, I agree with Douglass: The Constitution is anti-slavery. As such, there is American Exceptionalism. And I say the 1619 Project is full of it.
I don’t blame any individual. I blame human nature, for its inability to see the truth for so long.
Many of us were not really worthy of the genius and deep understanding of our Founders - they believed that slavery would die out, if the ideals they enshrined in our documents and national spirit were taken to heart. I don’t think they believed it would come to so bloody and destructive a war.
Obviously, many of us still are not worthy.
I agree but if you listen to the uneducated, they don’t take into consideration context. Like it or not, slavery was a means to an economic end.
When discussing reparations, Dr. Sowell is grateful of the opportunities he was given by living in America regardless as to how it was his ancestors made it to the US.
Funny how slavery pulling the country together ended up at one point tearing it apart.
Exceptionalism is not the same as abolition. The two are different.
America has long been recognized as exceptional, even during the period before the 13th amendment.
"America has long been recognized as exceptional"
America has long been without the 1619 Project too. You appear to be wanting to have it both ways. You want to carry the banner of the New York Times high and proud, and you want to carry the banner of years of old-time recognition as well. But you're not realizing the gross contradiction of the two.
You have misunderstood and imaged more.
To be clear: President George Washington was a southern farmer and used available farming methods (or do you deny that too?).
The fact he was a southern farmer does not disqualify him from greatness and respect.
What the New York Times 1619 Project has done is to convince you to accept presentism.
Get rid of presentism; and embrace southerner Richard Henry Lee, author of the Lee Resolution, the first official call for independence.
Embrace southerner George Washington, Father of Our Country.
Embrace southerner Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence.
Embrace southerner James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution.
Embrace southerner George Mason, Father of the Bill of Rights..
Embrace southerner Patrick Henry who proclaimed “Give Me Liberty . . .” and fired up America's fight for independence.
The New York Times needs to work up a whole new set of values.
Not sure if that is true, but it was certainly not made a prominent feature of his life.
Read his July.4h, 1852 Address, he defends the Decleration and the Constitution as wonderful Freedom documents, and call the nation to live up to them.
Agree with you here.
Allowed? Every single state was a slave state in 1776. I think the first state to stop slavery was Massachusetts, and they only did it through a ridiculous legal trick by an activist court. They didn't vote to get rid of it.
I'm not so sure that slavery was a big issue for the states in 1776. Later it became more significant, but I don't think it was all that big in 1776.
If the founding fathers had insisted, there was a really good chance the country was never founded.
The Committee of five stripped out all of Thomas Jefferson's anti-slavery rhetoric from the original draft of the Declaration. With all 13 states making money from slavery, it was very foolish to even put that in there. John Adams and the rest knew better than to indulge Jefferson in this topic.
There would never have been a USA if they had started out on that foot.
I would be very interested in hearing what sort of argument he came up with to claim that Article IV, Section 2 (The fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution) was "anti-slavery."
The American Constitution and the Slave - Is the Constitution pro-slavery or anti-slavery?
Both.
This is what happens when a document is written by a committee.
So riddle me this, why would these life insurance companies risk insuring slaves if they were abused or treated like machines and worked to death? Answer - because they were not.
Yeah, but not for the reasons we have been led to believe.
Before they were going to ban it, they voted to make it permanent through constitutional amendment.
Here I agree with you again.
Oh lord
Heroin for virtue signalers
I love black people too!!!!
That sounds interesting. I will have to look that up.
The CSA Nationalized whole Industries.The Mills and Mines, food and clothing Industries.
You read too much into that. They were outnumbered 4 to 1 in manpower and way overmatched in industrial production.
Nations struggling to survive will do things they wouldn't ordinarily do.
You can have him
LOL!!!
Looks like the cowardly snipers have arrived.
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