Posted on 10/27/2013 3:55:04 PM PDT by Loud Mime
If your arguments had won back in Hamilton’s day, we would not have a United States. From what I learned in my studies I believe that our nation would have been divided into a minimum of three separate federations that would have become their own nations as time passed.
I dare say that Hamilton understood the ravages of slavery better than any man living today. His work in the East Indies exposed him to the ugliness that the South sought to preserve and continue to profit from. But when the argument arises, the southerners drag red herrings over the path of the argument, claiming that the federal government had too much power while they wish for us to ignore the horrible practices in the South.
No. Let’s keep it in the open for all to see. Slavery was ugly, but it was far uglier in the South.
In Jefferson’s original text of the Declaration of Independence, he addressed slavery. But there, as well as in the Constitutional Convention, the South held out for their way of life and won, for the time being.
As for the big government that you cast shame on Hamilton for developing, I have long maintained that our problem is not with the system’s design, it’s with the management. Following the WBTStates a popular feeling was that the Constitution was faulty, which eventually led to the 17th Amendment. That one amendment alone changed the mechanics of our government. It destroyed the Senate that Hamilton and the founders deemed essential for a republican form of government. So, when you use today’s government as an example of Hamilton’s bad design, you are in error.
I was badly referring to the supremacy clause. Thanks for the clarification.
ping
“Slavery was ugly, but it was far uglier in the South.”
That’s just about as a retarded statement as I have ever heard from a liberal. Moron.
No, that’s from the writings of our founders.
Sad to see that you sacrificed debate for insults, and I’m the liberal? Thanks
What a refreshing post Mr. Mick. Your Personal page rocks too! Thank you kind Sir.
"Chris Altenbernd, chief judge of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, addressed the group on Brown v. Board of Education and it's 50th anniversary, the luncheon's theme.
"He spoke about certain mistakes of our founding fathers, who gave complete rights chiefly to white men."
My response to that post follows:
Guess this well-educated (?) lawyer/judge never heard about the historical context within which America's Founders found themselves in the 18th Century. Neither must his education have provided him with the following synopsis of the enormous contributions they made toward eradicating slavery from these shores and creating a constitutional republic which could, ultimately, affirm and protect the rights of ALL people.
Judge Altenberndt should be reading Jefferson's "Autobiography," especially that portion which records:
"The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade and continued it until the revolutionary war. That suspended...their future importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the (Virginia) legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year 1778, when I brought a bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition, leaving to future efforts its final eradication."
Jefferson also observed:
"Where the disease [slavery] is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the northern States, it was merely superficial and easily corrected. In the southern, it is incorporated with the whole system and requires time, patience, and perseverance in the curative process." (Underlining added for emphasis)
He explained that, "In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live [Albemarle County, Virginia], and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal [crown] government, nothing [like this] could expect success."
One more quotation, cited in David Barton's work on the subject of the Founders and slavery, which also cites the fact that there were laws in the State of Virginia which prevented citizens from emancipating slaves, (can be found at Barton's web site shown later herein)is this one from Jefferson:
"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. . . . The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded who permits one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep for ever. . . . The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. . . . [T]he way, I hone [is] preparing under the auspices of Heaven for a total emancipation." For an excellent and factual record of the Founders' views on the matter of slavery, visit David Barton's site (wallbuilders).
A review of the factual, written history of the period in order to understand the tremendous contributions of the Founders to the "extinction" of slavery in America is essential to any meaningful discussion. Barton has utilized the record in writing that exists to inform any who wish to arm themselves with knowledge. One source he does not quote, I believe, is the famous "Speech on Conciliation" by Edmund Burke before the British Parliament, wherein he admonished the Parliament for its Proposal to declare a general enfranchisement of the slaves in America.
Burke rather sarcastically observed that should the Parliament carry through with the proposed Proposal: "Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation (England) which has sold them to their present masters? from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic?"
He continued: "An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamtion of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves."
Ahhh, how knowledge of the facts can alter one's opinion of the revisionist history that has been taught for generations in American schools (including its so-called "law schools"!!!
Human beings are allotted ONLY A TINY SLIVER OF TIME ON THIS EARTH.
Each finds the world and his/her own community/nation existing as it is.
If lawyers and judges educated themselves (in this day of the Internet) on the history of civilization and America's real history, and if they used that knowledge and the resulting understanding, to do as much on behalf of liberty for ALL people as did Thomas Jefferson and America's other Founders, the world in the next century would be a better place.
Remember, Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he penned our Declaration of Independence which capsulized a truly revolutionary idea into a simple statement that survives to this day to inspire people all over the world to strive for liberty!
Before he slams the Founders in his speeches, this judge should read the prolific writings on the founding period for a first-hand knowledge of their contributions. In his lifetime, he might then be qualified to speak about them.
I love looking at the personal pages of those who comment on federalist and philosophical threads!
OK, I’ve made note of it. It will go on the stack after Bourk’s, Krauthammer’s, Billthedrill’s, and a couple of others. Hopefully, that will be in January.
In an effort to discredit Jefferson (and the rest of our founders), the liberals made up stories that he had sexual relations with his slaves, which suits their lack of honesty and excess of political invidiocy (I made that word up from invidious and idiocy). They stop at nothing in their quest for greater government control over the citizens.
Here is the section of the original declaration of Independence that was omitted in the final draft:
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. [determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold]: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Just like the liberals fail to see the true nature of Obama's politics and the lies continually dealt to them from on-high, the old Rebels refuse to see that the WBTS was started and fought over slavery. No slavery, no war.
Well, I’ve got my eye on you too. :) Yes, the federalist and philosophical threads are priceless and the personal pages of the contributors as well. A bit of a cluster sentence, but there it is. Cheers luv!
Thank you very much!!!
I very rarely visit FR these days and post even more rarely.
Your post made today’s visit more than worth my time!
FAR to many great men’s names have been erased from our history by the revisionist who’s agenda should be plain to anyone paying attention.
America needs a rediscovery and national conversation about those ideas so that youth will be emboldened to reject the counterfeit ideas of the so-called "progressives" who promise much and deliver nothing but slavery to powerful, coercive men and women in government who believe they are the "ones" we have waited for.
I did it last year!
Thanks for the post - will digest it later!
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