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Founding fathers.. the original abolitionists?
http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detail.php?ResourceID=11 ^
Posted on 02/06/2003 4:12:43 PM PST by cyborg
GOOD ARTICLE READ IT!
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
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As I was listening to a christian radio program today speak about the christian heritage on the US, I got upset. None of these christians ever speak of the fact that the foundings fathers owned slaves. I even wrote a email asking the possible "conflicts" of ideals and how could a christian own slaves? My family never owned slaves, and I'm not black but I do get asked everyday by customers, actually more insulted, when I play christian music... How could black people be christians? Christianity taught slaves to be weak... let's see Pierre Toussaint was a weak lily livered black Catholic slave... and the slaves were really muslims until the christians got to them... and worst of all the foundings fathers were a pack of slave owners and rapists. Also, when I get asked by friends how could I celebrate Fourth of July and Columbus Day given what the founders were supposedly like. I got frustrated and gave up and discovered today my own personal root of bitterness.
I read this article today, and was extremely blessed by it. I believe (I hope!) it will bless my black American friends who hold a lot of bitterness and unforgiveness in their hearts. Some of us do appreciate being in America. I do believe that we need to jettison the race based pimps like Jesse Jackson (worse than Al Sharpton!) and allow God to work in the hearts of everyone (myself uncluded) to look beyond trifles like race and see things for what they are. Well I sound like I'm sermonizing but I had this on my mind since I was discussing this with another FReeper last night. Do we really want racial healing, I MEAN REAL RACIAL HEALING in the spirit of Christ? Not as Jesse Jackson wants it, not as the advocates of voluntary segregation want it. Are we ready to seriously lay down our own agendas, racial hostilities, and unite as Americans? The terrorists struck the WTC and didn't consider the race/ethnicity of anyone there. There was a lady covered in ash and she said in an interview, " Oh I thought I was a strong black woman filled with black pride... " I thought to myself, well now who is this woman depending on for her strength, humanity or GOD?
Enough of my rambling preaching... hope everyone likes the article.
1
posted on
02/06/2003 4:12:43 PM PST
by
cyborg
To: cyborg
I did enjoy the article, thanks!
One person they did not mention was Benjamin Franklin. He was also very much against slavery (and in case anyone questions his status as a Founding Father, Franklin was one of the only people to be present at the signing of the Declaration, the signing of the Constitution, AND the signing of the Treaty of Paris).
2
posted on
02/06/2003 4:51:40 PM PST
by
Dianna
To: Dianna
He was another renaissance man... just bought the Old Farmer's Almanac. The founding fathers were brilliant men. I don't know in what underhanded way I'm going to honor them on President's Day, but I will see!
Maybe I will wear my J.Peterman catalog replica of Thomas Jefferson's shirt. No one will be the wiser.
3
posted on
02/06/2003 4:54:31 PM PST
by
cyborg
To: cyborg
4
posted on
02/06/2003 6:05:55 PM PST
by
azcap
To: azcap
Is this your company? That's an awesome website! The second tee describes why we are in such trouble now.
5
posted on
02/06/2003 6:11:38 PM PST
by
cyborg
To: cyborg
read later
To: cyborg
I don't know in what underhanded way I'm going to honor them on President's Day, but I will see! Why do you want to be underhanded with your honors? BTW, I think your idea of TJ's shirt from J. Peterman is terrific. Those are neat shirts -- I wish I had one.
To: cyborg
BTW, I've printed off the article to put in my genealogy book because my ancestors shared VA with Washington & Jefferson and fought in the Revolution. I have a few family stories that I could tell about those days. and your article is correct. There was a great deal of discussion and dispute about how to solve the slave problem during the post Revolutionary days.
To: Dianna
Very interesting article. I was made aware of George Washington's dilemma several years ago when I read a biography of him. Many people who cannot understand how George Washington, who came to despise slavery, could own slaves should read this article.
George Washington actually had a surplus of slaves at his Mount Vernon estate and as a result, he was suffering financially. But he couldn't emanicipate them without breaking the law and he refused to sell them because he knew that they would likely go to masters who would not treat them as well as he did. Washington could have been a much wealthier man had he simply sold his surplus slaves. But on principle, for the reasons stated, he refused.
BTW, John Adams is another founding father who never owned slaves and thought slavery to be an evil institution.
9
posted on
02/06/2003 8:21:22 PM PST
by
SamAdams76
('Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens')
To: afraidfortherepublic
I am going to dig through a box to find that shirt. My mother probably trashed it because I wore it to death. The JPeterman catalog doesn't have it anymore, but the Internet is a BIG place ya know?
Anyway, I've told this story before to other FReepers but I'll tell you too. At the height of the PC movement, there were a lot of people espousing views enunciated in the horrible book written by Randall Robinson (The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks). I addressed the Thomas Jefferson Sally Hemmings controversey. I said it was probably true, but what was so horrible about Thomas Jefferson liking a slave? I wrote that a lower status doesn't convey rape and that it was likely consenual and she certainly wasn't ugly like Whoope Goldberg since she was almost as white as Jefferson. Well I got roundly cursed out by the president of the Black Student Union, calling me ugly names and how dare I write such an article. If i was living back in his day, I'd be enslaved too (since I'm a 1/4 black like Hemmings) and TJ would rape me too. Needless to say, I quit the newspaper and stopped talking about this stuff.
Now it's like being in college all over again, because where I work the people are very hateful, bitter, and even racist. I don't like to use that term often. Just the other day, I almost got fired for putting a pic of Al Pacino up at my desk. So why would I let it be known that I'm wearing a replica of Thomas Jefferson's shirt? I have zero freedom of speech, but I can't be dictated as to what I can wear.
The point is that I work with/serve a lot of angry, bitter black people and I have to be careful what I say. If I got cursed out for putting the American flag on 9-11, I'd get killed for my shirt.
10
posted on
02/06/2003 11:26:01 PM PST
by
cyborg
To: cyborg; fporretto; Goetz_von_Berlichingen; Sparta; OWK; Sir Gawain
Nope "the loudest cries for liberty come from the drivers of Negros". The sheer hypocrisy of this and the in fact very low taxes and unintrusive nature of the British Adminstration would have made me a definite Tory. In my cynicism I'd merely see the revolution as an attempt by the Founders to put themselves in power, I think Franklin and Jefferson were sincere in their intentions but I dunno about the rest of them...
I also have a strong preference for heiriditary princes over any popular government political office attracts the worst kind of men. Monarchs with as bad a record as popular governments( and communist facist governments invoke the will of the people to justify themselves so they must be considered the bastard offspring of republics and democracies) have existed but they are very rare historically and almost none since the time of the enlightment( King Leopold of Belgium). Taxes were lower under George III then George Washington.
11
posted on
02/06/2003 11:34:18 PM PST
by
weikel
(Your commie has no regard for human life not even his own)
To: weikel
Of course there are those that dispute whether we should have had the Revolutionary War in the first place but then..who cares? I'm not in charge. God is. Even with these dumbass taxes, something great can be had out of financial frustration.
But I think you're right about most people's motives. Politics is one big power grab anyway.
12
posted on
02/06/2003 11:38:34 PM PST
by
cyborg
To: afraidfortherepublic
Wallbuilders is a great resource for things like this article. You definately would appreciate his book "Lives of the Signers".
13
posted on
02/06/2003 11:42:31 PM PST
by
cyborg
To: weikel
It is an article of faith of the state religion of the U.S. that the Founding Fathers were fighting for the freedom of all people -- yes, including the slaves -- but that full implementation was inadvertently, almost accidentally, delayed for 75 years.
Yet the U.S. would fight a war of conquest against Mexico specifically to create more slave states, and the valiant defenders of freedom and goodness at the Alamo were esentially a gang of immigrants who rejected the Mexican government's prohibition of slavery. Yup, a bunch o' dammed furriners refusin' to respect the laws of the host nation. Ship 'em all back, sez I!
And as soon as they "won their freedom" they could import their "peculiar institution" into the formerly free land of Texas. Obviously the implications of that sophistical "all men are created equal" were lost on them.
Abraham Lincoln is included in our official pantheon as the Great Emancipator because, purely as a strategic device, he freed the slaves in enemy territory. Yet it is conveniently forgotten that the British government also freed the slaves in enemy territory during the War of Independence, and any escaped slave whose former owner had been a rebel against the crown was manumitted as soon as he reached the British lines. So, why aren't General Cornwallis or George III known as Great Emancipators?
I suspect that if there had been no revolt against colonial rule ("slavery to the British Empire," as the author so melodramatically puts it) in 1776, there probably would have been one in the 1820's after Parliament formally outlawed slavery throughout the Empire.
If that had been the course of history, I wonder what casuistry the later American historians would have employed to demonstrate that the rebels were "fighting for freedom."
To: Goetz_von_Berlichingen
"If that had been the course of history, I wonder what casuistry the later American historians would have employed to demonstrate that the rebels were "fighting for freedom."
Whether "they" were fighting for freedom or not is lost on most Americans.
Remember, in 2003, Everybody and Nobody is an AMERICAN.
To: Warrior Nurse; rdb3; mhking
This might be of interest to you
16
posted on
02/07/2003 10:51:52 AM PST
by
Cacique
(Censored by Admin Moderator!)
To: Jakarta ex-pat
The truth is, I suspect, that the American War was fought for the freedom of "the right people." The populist grandstanding of Tom Paine and others was just so much window dressing in order to convince the bucolics and rude mechanicals that they actually had a stake in the outcome. One does, after all, need a regular stream of cannon fodder. At the risk of sounding like a Marxist, Tom Paine was the Judas Goat of the plutocrats. At some level he realised this after all was said and done, and left the country -- perhaps the spiritual ancestor of Leon Trotsky?
After hostilities had been concluded, the New England merchants and Southern slaveholders had become the de jure rulers of the new states, in addition to their previous de facto role. Once this "revolution of the haves" was successfully accomplished, the army was disbanded with uncharacteristic haste, and the veterans were sent home with little more than the clothes on their back, a fistful of de-valued paper, and the "thanks of a grateful nation."
And the local aristocracy went back to business as usual, commissioning marble busts of themselves in the guise of Roman senators.
To: Cacique
18
posted on
02/07/2003 11:15:31 AM PST
by
rdb3
(The ballad of a menace...)
To: cyborg
I am going to dig through a box to find that shirt...I think that the Monticello catalogue still sells that shirt. I haven't received a JPeterman catalogue for quite some time. That shirt is stunning and I wish I owned one.
I'm so sorry that your co-workers act so ugly to you. I can see why you want to be quiet in your protests. Hopefully you will find a job where your co-workers are more open minded.
As far as TJefferson and SHemmings, I don't know what to think. I'm guessing that the story is probably true because Sally was a half sister of Tom's late wife and very beautiful. also she had a baby 9 months after each of his visits. Jefferson made a special place for her at Monticello all of her life. He gave her the quarters that he had built for his wife and himself when they were building the main house (after his wife had died.) It's a little apartment set at the end of a collonade leading to the main house -- very beautiful and romantic. He also educated and elevated her children to prominent roles in the operation of the plantation -- one of the Hemmings sons was the craftsman who designed (under TJ's direction) and built much of the unusual furniture that is there.
It is curious that TJ freed all of the children, but did not free Sally at his death. There may be something that we do not understand. He may have been concerned that there would be no one to care for her if he freed her and nowhere for her to go. There was very little money left at his death and most of his belongings had to be sold by the surviving family to settle his debts.
My understanding is that the slaves (and the debt that accompanyed them) were inherited from his wife. They had been purchased by Jefferson's father in law originally and there was still a lot of money that had to be paid back, so they couldn't be freed. Slaves often were financed like farmers finance crops nowdays -- almost like an ongoing mortgage. Jefferson could not free them because too much debt was still owed. At least, that is what I have been told.
To: afraidfortherepublic
I think that the Monticello catalogue still sells that shirt. I haven't received a JPeterman catalogue for quite some time. That shirt is stunning and I wish I owned one.
DG: Thanks! My mother wants to take a trip down South. When I originally bought the shirt, I paid $50 for from the JP catalog, but I wouldn't mind paying more to buy it from the Monticello people. I assume some portion of profits go to memorial upkeep.
I'm so sorry that your co-workers act so ugly to you. I can see why you want to be quiet in your protests. Hopefully you will find a job where your co-workers are more open minded.
DG: That is what bitterness and hate will do. I am not perfect either, but sometimes too much is enough. One day I hope to find a place to work where people are very enlightened, professional, and (hopefully) a bit more conservative.
As far as TJefferson and SHemmings, I don't know what to think. I'm guessing that the story is probably true because Sally was a half sister of Tom's late wife and very beautiful. also she had a baby 9 months after each of his visits. Jefferson made a special place for her at Monticello all of her life. He gave her the quarters that he had built for his wife and himself when they were building the main house (after his wife had died.) It's a little apartment set at the end of a collonade leading to the main house -- very beautiful and romantic. He also educated and elevated her children to prominent roles in the operation of the plantation -- one of the Hemmings sons was the craftsman who designed (under TJ's direction) and built much of the unusual furniture that is there.
DG: This is the story of my life almost. There are people who don't want to admit Jefferson was a human being, and will make excuses. If people put aside the slavery issue, he wasn't doing anything than lots of men weren't doing even to this day (adultery, having children on the side). I think he was just more tasteful about it. And probably why I never foung the whole relationship offensive was because this is my family situation almost. My father's wife died, and my mother was fresh off the banana boat and he snatched her right up and pretty much catered to her every need. This relationship lasted for 35 years until my dad died. Any black person like Randall Robinson who cares about whether TJ slept with Hemmings, doesn't want to admit the possibilty that Hemmings loved him, and he loved her. As I tell a lot of my black friends, I do believe that he would have married her if they were living in today's age. Another premise I have is that people want to protray everything about slavery as evil, that the South was evil, and TJ was evil for owning slaves. For more often that not, white slave owners weren't sleeping with slaves. And more often that many black Americans I talked to care to admit, that many times if a white slave owner's wife died, he usually took on a slave wife or lived with a mulatto woman (esp. in New Orleans).
It all comes back to general resentment and bitterness. Time for people to get over it wouldn't you say?
20
posted on
02/08/2003 7:38:47 AM PST
by
cyborg
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