Honoring Frederick Douglass On The Fourth Of July Just Makes Sense

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.

From Slave to Honored Orator

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...

I just can’t get enough of it honestly

The irony is I have spent an entire life almost completely in majority black populace or near majority and at times the salt grain in the pepper shaker

Raised by black people and worked around them

Had “close” relationships with Latino and Anglo Caribbean mulatte gals

And fought black men in groups like a lion and prevailed

Watched my cities disintegrate under their rule

And them increasingly destroy one another

I grew up when they were truthfully oppressed and was sympathetic

But the truth is and it hurts and makes people cringe as the woke love to say

Blacks in general were more constructive and functional then with 80% two parent families and less crime and overall cultural degradation

People under 55 don’t know this and don’t believe it

I did truly love them

Not in the sarcastic way I stated upthread to the virtue signalers

And I still do for the ones who act like normal English speaking people

Like me or you

An actual minority granted

Now most are victimhood whiners deflecting the unpleasant realities of the black race in general worldwide from being their acknowledged albatross

There is a war to destroy white Christian civilization in the west

Why?

It’s not complicated

WE WON

We civilized the planet and are resented for it

Like my dad and grandpa both prominent Mississippians 1935-1990s who refused to join the uptown klan called the citizens council (not the CCOC)

Both said late in life civil rights legislation excess GOPe now lauds and the great society largesse

..,,”generosity can breed dependence which can breed resentment and utterly contempt itself”

Were they wrong?

And these are men who took a moderate pro black stance when there was a price

Today there is no price unless you say something unwoke

I know. You've made that abundantly clear in several prior discussions. You give progressives a pass, and even trust them in some situations.

I don't know how you get that from anything i've written.

Yes, I believe the Civil War is the root cause of many of the problems this nation faces. No, I don't give progressives a pass. They are the primary force behind everything that has gone wrong, including the Civil War.

Progressivism is America's Cancer.

Yes.

I don't trust progressives, so I'm going to say much fewer than you'd wish to include. The vast majority of the bad court cases created out of thin air don't come from the 14th amendment. They come from the Incorporation Doctrine.

You need to look up the "incorporation doctrine." It comes from the 14th amendment. Now you are making my point for me, but you apparently didn't know the 14th is what created the "Incorporation Doctrine."

Here are a couple of links for you. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/incorporation_doctrine

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/incorp.htm

Now perhaps you will understand *WHY* I said the 14th created this mess.

- which, yes, I know, the rumor is that Incorporation is based on the 14th. But you have to distrust progressives to take that final step. There isn't any evidence for the claim. Incorporation is not based on the 14th. It's based on thin air.

The 14th is so badly written that a Judge can easily interpret it to allow him to do anything he wants. Have you *READ* the 14th amendment? It's a freaking mess!

Yes, the "incorporation doctrine" is a direct result of the 14th amendment.

The progressives did all these things. Just because progressives told me/you/us that the 14th amendment is what enables them? No. Progressives lie. They'll say anything.

Doesn't matter if they are lying, when they are supreme court Judges, they can lie if they want to. The only thing that would give them pause is the possibility of embarrassing themselves in front of their fellow lawyers, and this is where the 14th gives them an excuse to just make things up. They can cite the 14th, their liberal lawyer friends can nod their heads and say "SEE! It's LEGAL!

The obvious one is homosexual marriage. If that was actually a part of the 14th, there would be some actual evidence.

Their thinking goes like this. It applies to blacks, and homosexuals are a marginalized group like blacks, so it also applies to homosexuals.

And do you know what Vichy government is? Can a Vichy government pass legitimate laws?

The North hated the Dred Scott decision. I doubt you will disagree with that.

I'm not certain. I know the northern legal community and politicians hated it, and I know they conveyed their outrage with it to the people around them, but I don't know if the average northerner cared about it one way or the other.

As with today, the people making a stink about something do not always represent the majority. I have not studied this particular point enough to have a good feel for what the average northerner felt, but I more or less agree with you that important components of the northern society hated it.

Incorporation does not come from the 14th amendment.

I have always heard that it does. I will be interested to hear your theory on this, and I presume it has something to do with the Dred Scott decision.

I think you will argue that because Dred Scott applied the right to own slaves to all the states in the Union, this is the initial application of the "incorporation doctrine."

This is a novel claim, and does not really fall into the category of what most people regard as the "incorporation doctrine."

I think Taney's position was that Article 4 required states to accept the legal rights of other states, and that included the right to slave "property", which was protected under the rights guaranteed in the slave states.

I can see the rational for this argument, because if a state banned someone from bringing horses into their state, it would clearly be seen as an infringement on the property rights the states agreed to when they ratified the constitution.

I think Taney's logic is that so far as the law is concerned, there is no difference between slave property and other property.

I don't agree with the laws that existed in that era, but I understand how they should apply in that time period.

The problem with the "free" states is that they agreed to get in bed with the "slave" states, and didn't like that aspect of the contract they signed.

"I'm not certain. I know the northern legal community and politicians hated it, and I know they conveyed their outrage with it to the people around them"

That's all that is really required. Perhaps Kansas itself in regard to the average citizen didn't care one whit about slavery, Kansas still bled anyways.

"I have always heard that it does."

Me too. It's that unanimity, the unanimity was that initially made me certain that a lie was afoot. Progressives are really good at hiding things in plain sight. Like the unanimity about Climate Change. Again, I can't help but bring up trusting progressives with this.

I would argue that the unanimity itself is the issue. That alone should be a red flag. It's enough on many other issues, the science is settled - immediate distrust, why not this one? The incorporation is settled. Stop questioning it. Oh, but gun control. That's another one. Progressives feign plenty of unanimity on that one too. I bet you could compile your own list.

Where do you see progressives push a narrative of unanimity in order to get their way?

"I will be interested to hear your theory on this."

My problems with the civil war and progressivism links always come from that big 30 year gap. I know you like to ignore that, but I can't. It is plainly laughable that progressivism doesn't show up basically until 1900 but yet, somehow, civil war. You know when the civil war was, right?

1900. Yes, 1900. Give or take a few years, you're still at 1900 with progressivism.

As to my "theory", as you put it (that's cute of you) was crystallized after reading prominent conservatives (or at least those who challenge) on the issue, instead of keeping myself surrounded in a morass of deep progressivism or progressive-think. One such source you might consider is Henry J. Friendly, who wrote critically about the concept of incorporation and its obvious flaws. https://books.google.com/books?id=_RA2AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA636

He said that "Whatever one's views about the historical support for Mr. Justice Black's wholesale incorporation theory, it appears undisputed that the selective incorporation theory has none."

The fact that the full name of the Incorporation Doctrine is called the theory of selective incorporation - that even should be a red flag too. When are they going to incorporate the 9th and 10th? If the doctrine is absolute, then they MUST. But that they don't seem to want to makes it clear that it's nothing more than fancy judicial whims. Selective? Why is it selective? Who said it needed to be, or should be selective? Why isn't that word present in the plain text of the 14th Amendment? Selective? So who is making it up then? But I digress.

Beyond Judge Friendly, another critic was Louis Henkin, who stated it just this plainly that the theory of selective incorporation has: "no support in the language of the amendment, or in the history of its adoption, and it is truly more difficult to justify than Justice Black's position that the Bill of Rights was wholly incorporated".

https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/cmt/stlotl/stlotl.htm (Article written from Hillsdale College)

But really, what do progressives need language in the amendment itself for? They can just make it up using emanations and penumbras.

Ed Meese frequently spoke about the fallacy of the Incorporation doctrine, sometimes more specific than others. But my favorite is Judge Robert Bork. Bork wrote in his book "The Tempting of America, p. 181-183

(It is not) easy to imagine the northern states, victorious in a Civil War that lead to the fourteenth amendment, should have decided to turn over to the federal courts not only the protection of the rights of freed slaves but an unlimited power to frustrate the will of the Northern states themselves.

This is why I brought up Dred Scott. How many times have the courts frustrated the Northern States using the 14th amendment? You know as well as I do that its been many, many times. After just seeing the courts frustrate Northern interests in Dred Scott, the last thing any Northerner and in particular as you yourself stated it, the legal community and politicians, would have said:

"Hey, you know what Bill? Let's empower the courts, yeah! that will fix all of these problems!"

- said no Northerner ever. Not in those decades. Not after Dred Scott. Bork is right on this. And you don't see it in the plain text nor is it in the debates. Bork continued:

Had any such radical departure from the American method of governance been intended, had courts been intended to supplant legislatures, there would be more than a shred of evidence to that effect. That proposal would have provoked an enormous debate and public discussion.

To this effect: No debates in congress. No debates, in particular, in THE debates which created the 13th and 14th amendments. No debates in the legal community. No debates in the newspapers. It simply doesn't exist anywhere anything. There's nothing like this in the debates, nor is there anything like it (as Henkin pointed out) in the text of the amendment itself. You need an emanation of a penumbra to get there. If not emanations and penumbras, where is the evidence?

Bork concluded:

We know there is no evidence that the ratifiers imagined they were handing ultimate governance to the courts. We know that a constitutional revolution of that magnitude would have provoked widespread and heated (to put it mildly) discussion but there is no record of any such discussion. The rather sweeping mandate must be judged counterfeit.

Incorporation is counterfeit, the ratifiers of the 14th didn't create it. What's that guy's name who wrote it, John Bingham. John Bingham didn't talk about incorporation in the debates. It's not there, it's simply nowhere. It might not actually even be worthy of an emanation of a penumbra, it's that bad.

Incorporation itself even suffers from the same time gap. It took two decades for some judge (John Marshall Harlan) to discover this gift of incorporation. Two decades. How is that even possible? But of course, the progressives didn't even think to start using incorporation for another basically three decades. How can these time gaps be ignored? They cannot.

Well. Now that we have gone through all that, it's not "my theory" - or anyways I'm not the first to notice the lack of historical roots. The SCOTUS simply made up the Incorporation Doctrine because they could. It's a naked judicial power grab.

It shows up in 1861 with a group that wants to overturn everything in society the way it has been for "four score and seven years" while increasing taxes, creating more government power, and engaging in corruption.

Any boundary drawn between 1861 and 1900 is artificial. It was the same sort of people from the same areas of the country (Northeast mainly) pushing the same narrative.

But really, what do progressives need language in the amendment itself for? They can just make it up using emanations and penumbras.

Because the language of the 14th gives them cover. They even admit that their goofy decisions are based on the 14th.

This is why I brought up Dred Scott. How many times have the courts frustrated the Northern States using the 14th amendment?

I don't understand the question. Dred Scott was a decade before the 14th amendment. How could the courts have frustrated the Northern states using the 14th amendment when it didn't exist in the Dred Scott era?

We know there is no evidence that the ratifiers imagined they were handing ultimate governance to the courts.

Well this is true, they just blundered into it by trying to do too much with one amendment and then writing it very badly.

The SCOTUS simply made up the Incorporation Doctrine because they could.

And they could, because the creators of the 14th amendment did such a horrible job writing it. Also, it could not really be ratified legitimately without the Vichy military governments controlling the Southern states.

Those states would have never voted to ratify it without guns at their backs.

That's not how the constitutional amendment process is supposed to work. It's supposed to work with free will and "consent of the governed."

Military dictatorship cannot lawfully ratify an amendment.

"It shows up in 1861 with a group that wants to overturn everything in society the way it has been for "four score and seven years" while increasing taxes, creating more government power, and engaging in corruption."

This is too generic to be meaningful. Might as well say that some people did some things, and that proves stuff. Progressivism has specific goals in mind, much like(or rather unlike) communism.

Communism requires the whole proletariat thing. Workers of the world unite, revolution, kill some people, destroy the rich, blah blah. It gets really old and boring very quickly.

What progressivism doesn't have is the proletariat thing. Progressivism instead has a lust for never-ending bureaucratic despotism for as far as the eye can see, which really isn't central for the communists. The kinds of bureaucracies created under FDR, Wilson, and Teddy Roosevelt - the FDA, the FBI, USDA, FCC, the whole New Deal bonanza, OSHA, DHS, etc etc it seemingly never ends. And they're all still here with us today because the progressives defend their bureaucracies to the death. Every, EVERY, every bureaucracy is a hill worth dying on for progressives, none are left undefended. No rampart is lacking. Also they have wanted to take over our healthcare since Teddy. He was the first one to propose it. Progressivism is deeply anti-free market, that's in large part what the bureaucracies are for is to overthrow capitalism without actually overthrowing it. Even if you wanted to kick and scream in desperation that the ICC is the birth of Progressivism in 1887, that's the oldest known (now defunct) bureaucracy and it stood alone for over a decade.

Not one of these bureaucracies that we have today (nor proposals) - the most core aspect of core aspects of progressivism - goes back to 1861. Not a one. The takeover of healthcare does not go back to 1861. It goes back to 1912. And even the ICC - created before progressivism, was never actually abolished. No bureaucracy has ever to my knowledge ever been abolished. They just get re-packaged. That's what progressives do. Like when progressives re-packaged themselves as "liberal". They've never been liberal and their own words prove they hate liberalism. How did we end up with the BLM bureaucracy? Earlier land-management bureaucracies going back to TR. None of which was constitutional from day one. The progressives when called on it will swear up and down that NPR or PBS get less than one fourth of one eighth or whatever ridiculous numbers they'll throw out - ok, so let's abolish the CPB. Can't have that. The CPB is a hill worth dying on. Ideologically, progressives cannot let a bureaucracy die.

It's called the Progressive Era for a reason. The massive growth, expansion, and proliferation of bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are at the very heart of progressivism and unfortunately they have stood the test of time.

One of the biggest fundamentals is graduated taxation, commonly called the progressive tax. You're trying to tell me the progressives overturned their own tax system in 1872, and under Grant at that(!!!), that's simply impossible to believe. Grant was a Lincolnian to my knowledge. So the progressive[sic] Lincolnians killed their own income tax, I don't know how on earth you're going to explain that. Why didn't the progressives reconstitute it in 1874? What did the progressives do in 1876? What about 1879? You cannot explain this dormancy. I can. That's because it doesn't exist. They didn't exist. 1900s. You know the main meaningful years of the Freedman's bureau was basically three years, until 1868, right? So how did the progressives abolish their own agency? The Lincolnians did that? Really? How unprogressive of them. I know there were a handful of bureaus during the war. Unfortunately, that happens, there were also bureaus in the south. That's not proof that the Southerners were actually evil progressives ideologically bent on putting bureaucracy in control of all aspects of our lives. See how nebulous that statement is? Surely you caught the sarcasm in it, I don't actually believe that kind of thing. I said it so you could hear it.

You have a ton of explaining to do outside of extreme nebulous assertions. Aka emanations and penumbras. None of it aligns. It mixes worse than oil and water. There is a 30 year gap and it does not go away.

"Any boundary drawn between 1861 and 1900 is artificial."

Anybody with a calendar can prove it. It's as natural as the sun rises and the sun sets. It can all be marked on a calendar. This one in 1906, that one in 1935, that other one in 1963, EPA was founded in 1970, etc etc. Not a one bureaucracy goes back to 1861. Not a one. You're trying to tell me that the Grand Canyon doesn't exist, well, I can see it here plain as day. I can see it, that huge gap. And that gap is pretty much the same for the Incorporation Doctrine.

All of the writings that the progressives gave us about the importance of bureaucracies, the anti capitalist rhetoric cloaked in language of trusts, none of that exists in large quantities prior to the Progressive era and especially all at once.

But the one thing that definitely dies is the reverence for the country and the Constitution. Even if you want to say Lincoln was a liar, whatever, he never spewed the poison and verbal diarrhea that came out of Woodrow Wilson's mouth, Theodore Roosevelt's mouth, and many more. The systematic breakdown and search for ways around the Constitution. Nothing like it exists prior to the Progressive era. I've read parts of the 14th amendment debates. It's the exact opposite of the progressives. They tried(Failed, ok, failed. I don't really care.) to make sure the 14th would fit in with the existing system. Progressives are the opposite. They are methodical, cold, calculating, systematically acting like a cancerous thief in the night looking for weaknesses to expose, and more importantly, weaknesses that can be LEVERAGED. Exploited. At a high level, the closest thing in similarity to a progressive is a saboteur conducting a long-term espionage mission.

We could just stick with ideas if you want. Woodrow Wilson's "The Study of Administration" is basically the birth certificate of bureaucratic despotism. It was in its day a little known nothing-burger written by a nothing-burger of an academic, in 1887. But Ok, you want to say progressivism was already around for two decades, then what was the big-time theory about bureaucracies in 1886? Who wrote it? Why didn't they and their cohorts protect the income tax? Why aren't there any bureaucracies from earlier years before that? Why is there nothing but emptiness in this gap, save sparse one-offs such as Wilson's essay and the entirely-powerless ICC? And again, yeah, Incorporation. How is it that supposedly from 1865 we get this incorporation, but we get a one-off in 1897 (after being rejected [more than once, I think] by the courts), but we don't really see much incorporation until 1925, then all of a sudden 1931, 1933, 1937, it's on and on and on. It's weaponized after 1925.

That's progressivism. On, and on, and on, anything they can weaponize they will. These people never quit. So how do you explain so large a gap with people who never quit? How do you do it?

"Because the language of the 14th gives them cover.

Is that an emanation or a penumbra? I really need to know.

Did you have any reason to have doubts about the sources I provided? From Hillsdale to Bork to some of the older legal scholars?

"they just blundered into it by trying to do too much with one amendment and then writing it very badly."

You're too eager to give the courts a pass that they have not earned and do not deserve. The word "selective" does not appear in the plainly readable text of the amendment. The courts are not mentioned there. It's not that badly written that someone could find a chicken sandwich in there. You are simply too eager to give the courts a pass, when they did a blatantly bad thing - John Harlan did this. - and as it comes to the 1900s you have too much trust of the progressives. Just because they say it, does not make it true, these are people who cannot be trusted.

You're going to have to come up with some era speeches, or some documents, or something tangible. When is the last time you read large portions of the debates where the 14th amendment is actually built? Before it goes for ratification? Have you ever read them at all, just once? Just even once have you read them? And actually, you don't owe me anything so much as you owe it to yourself and that's what's a little freaky about it.

Why don't you want anything more tangible? You, why don't you want it? That's the weird and freaky part about all of this. That's a huge issue. Why don't you want something more tangible just for yourself beyond what the ~~indoctrination camps~~ I mean universities are shoveling?

Bork wrote:"We know there is no evidence that the ratifiers imagined they were handing ultimate governance to the courts.

"Well this is true"

Sir, you can't have it both ways. If there's no evidence then there's no evidence. This shouldn't be difficult. If there's no evidence then there's no evidence.

I'm just looking for something tangible. I can provide tangible progressivism stuff and its extraordinarily easy. Perhaps due to my own hard work, if you prefer to cast it in that light.(for negative or positive) I haven't recorded free public domain audiobooks of them because I enjoy these people, I've recorded the books (original sources) it to make education about their deceptions possible to whatever extent that can be done or useful comparisons. None of the Southerners said the things or did the things that progressives say and do.(recalling my earlier sarcasm statement above) None of the Northerners said the things or did the things that progressives say and do. It's the same picture. Bureaucracies during wartime are not proof of progressivism, ideological bloodlust for never-ending bureaucracies is progressivism.

"Military dictatorship cannot lawfully ratify an amendment."

This one I can actually agree with. I have my issues with re-construction. However I'm not going to mix two unmixable things just because it's convenient or I need it to be so as that only leads to tilting at windmills. It's bad and it stands on its own merit for worse. I don't see any do-overs happening with the ratifications though.

If you want to stop tilting at windmills, look more to the 1900s. I've got the books and many are now audiobooks. This is an easy one. You read Herbert Croly(TR's recommended), you read Woodrow Wilson. You'll see it. The progressives don't share much with the civil war people 40 years prior.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.