Historical Update...circa 1987.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Many thanks to you both.

It's kinda pervertedly in fashion right now to hate on the Founders. It shows a profound lack of understanding - and an incomplete education in our schools.

[EDIT: that sounds harsher than it actually is]

Pete

Pete I am sorry if this offends but when it comes right down to basics I don't hate them.

But regardless of their other accomplishments I cannot respect any man who would own one of his fellow humans. Let alone tens or hundreds of them.

Because of my beliefs I am tasked to love my neighbour as myself so in their case I am forced to swallow hard and hate the sin not the sinner.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

You think the founders thought Africans had rights to happiness? Africans didn't have rights to jack shit. The founders were only slightly less likely to give a shit in that sexually satisfied slave-owner Jefferson's hat for Africans happiness than they were for the womenfolk's happiness.

"Get back in the kitchen and finish that fuckin' flag Dolly."

Ike I do believe that 'serve and obey' is still in some marriage vows. I will believe that women have achieved equality when those words are struck out. Equality in name if not in fact.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

You think the founders thought Africans had rights to happiness? Africans didn't have rights to jack shit. The founders were only slightly less likely to give a shit in that sexually satisfied slave-owner Jefferson's hat for Africans happiness than they were for the womenfolk's happiness.

"Get back in the kitchen and finish that fuckin' flag Dolly."

It is as wrong to stereotype, damn and hate a group you call 'the founders' as it is to stereotype, damn and hate any other group.

[piece-itpete]

In the Founders case many were enlightened enough to believe what they were doing was wrong, very different from later in our history (and before in world history). It was commonly believed to be dying out on its own and might well have if not for the cotton gin.

Not to give legitimacy to this or that. But it is very, very hard to stand in another times shoes.

A while back I read an excellent article in either the Smithsonian or Atlantic (darn grey matter) that talked about slavery and the revolution, and basically came to the conclusion that without slavery our form of government would never have succeeded, not because of the institution but because the founders knew what people actually did to hold others in bondage and so could protect the people from those actions. This does make some sense.

If one can put that aside for a moment though, why did Lincoln believe the Union was more important than slavery?

Pete

[piece-itpete]

Looking for that article I found this:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histor...st=&c=y&page=1

Not the one but very good nonetheless.

Btw I agree with him on Washington.

Pete

[nailer]

Nice article Pete.

Peter Kolchin's "American Slavery: 1619-1877" is a good read.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

In the Founders case many were enlightened enough to believe what they were doing was wrong, very different from later in our history (and before in world history). It was commonly believed to be dying out on its own and might well have if not for the cotton gin.

Not to give legitimacy to this or that. But it is very, very hard to stand in another times shoes.

A while back I read an excellent article in either the Smithsonian or Atlantic (darn grey matter) that talked about slavery and the revolution, and basically came to the conclusion that without slavery our form of government would never have succeeded, not because of the institution but because the founders knew what people actually did to hold others in bondage and so could protect the people from those actions. This does make some sense.

If one can put that aside for a moment though, why did Lincoln believe the Union was more important than slavery?

Pete

Because Lincoln did not conceive of 'The union" as merely the national government of the United States. He conceived of it as 'government of the people, by the people, for the people.' If that could be preserved, slavery could be ended, but if it was lost. slavery would be safe indefinitely, and indeed, free to expand, and ultimately destroy the rump of the democratic experiment.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

It is as wrong to stereotype, damn and hate a group you call 'the founders' as it is to stereotype, damn and hate any other group.

Would you damn and hate nazis? Would you damn and hate the Klan. Oh heavens...don't tell me I'm guilty of stereotyping the Klan. My sincere apologies to David Duke for expressing my damnation and hate.

I don't seem much difference between Jefferson and his fellow slave owners and the Klan.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

In the Founders case many were enlightened enough to believe what they were doing was wrong, very different from later in our history (and before in world history). It was commonly believed to be dying out on its own and might well have if not for the cotton gin.

Pete

I would suggest that all the founders were educated and enlightened enough to know exactly what they were doing when they established the Constitution with slavery intact. Educated and enlightened enough to identify their own hypocrisy and duplicitousness. Prior to the cotton gin, slave trade was just a way for some racists to make some money, and a handy convenience for most cotton producing plantation owners. But after Whitney's invention, those cotton producers had a way to really make slavery pay...make them a ton of money.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

Would you damn and hate nazis? Would you damn and hate the Klan. Oh heavens...don't tell me I'm guilty of stereotyping the Klan. My sincere apologies to David Duke for expressing my damnation and hate.

I don't seem much difference between Jefferson and his fellow slave owners and the Klan.

That's pretty much the problem. The difference between Jefferson and 'the Klan' is just gigantic.

When did Jefferson ever call for a program of terrorist murder against anyone who threatened the ascendancy of the white aristocracy?

When did David Duke ever say anything like this?

“...never [enter] into dispute or argument with another. I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by argument. I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, & shooting one another. ... When I hear another express an opinion which is not mine, I say to myself, he has a right to his opinion, as I to mine; why should I question it? His error does me no injury, and shall I become a Don Quixote, to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion? ... There are two classes of disputants most frequently to be met with among us. The first is of young students, just entered the threshold of science, with a first view of its outlines, not yet filled up with the details & modifications which a further progress would bring to their knoledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered & rude men in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. ... Consider yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.”
― Thomas Jefferson

(Hmmm...perhaps I will change my username....)