Massachusetts, not Virginia, was the first colony to legalize slavery

American Thinker ^ | 12/18/2021 | Bob Ryan

[ProgressingAmerica]

"Do you believe the legislative intent of the 14th amendment was to create a right to abortion and homosexual marriage?"

No, I don't believe it. I agree with you. These are lies.

Progressives are liars. Progressivism is America's cancer.

[BroJoeK]

x: "We don't have reliable numbers for the number of slaves in the state before that, but in 1790 there were 5,369 non-Whites listed, and estimates for the Black population before that aren't much higher."

The 1790 US census showed 654,000 slaves in the South, 40,000 slaves in the North about half of whom were in New York.
Massachusetts reported no slaves, but did list, as you said, 5,369 non-whites, about 1.5% of its entire population.
Estimates are that colonial New England imported about 13,000 slaves total, beginning in 1638.
For colonial Massachusetts the estimate is slaves made up 2% of its population -- a 1754 census listed 4,500 slaves, ~2% of its ~200,000 whites.

So the 1790 census of 5,359 non-whites represents a 19% growth in the non-white population, while Massachusetts whites grew nearly 90%.
There are no numbers I've seen for how many Massachusetts slaves were "sold down the river" before the 1790 census.
Presumably there were some, but the numbers in no way suggest the kind of massive slave-exporting industry found in, for example, Virginia -- which had ~300,000 slaves in 1790 and over the years "sold down the river" two million slaves to the Deep South.

But, since DiogenesLamp is a typical Democrat, he literally cannot see the beam in the eye of Southerners while he is focused, laser-like, on finding a mote (speck) in Massachusetts' eye (Matt 7:3).

[DiogenesLamp]

And no witches were “hung”, they were hanged.

Thank you for clearing that up. :)

I am surprised that you would defend and back a “judicial activist” Supreme Court.

If that's what you have gotten from any of my commentary, you are woefully mistaken. I absolutely abhor judicial activism. It is one of the primary problems this nation has faced in the last 160 years.

Judges should not make up new meanings for law. They should not be allowed to do so.

[wardaddy]

That is one of the biggest canards abolitionists pushed.

Still swallowed by neocons today

“We’re saving you from yourselves and your impoverished culture”

[DiogenesLamp]

In this instance I think you're purposefully trying to pick a fight. Just a few posts up at 49: https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4022315/posts?page=49#49 you made it clear that you know full well this isn't based on the 14th at all.

I don't know what to make of your statement here. You cite my message #49 in which I specifically say that this is the consequence of the 14th amendment as proof that I have admitted it isn't a consequence of the 14th amendment.

Yes, the f@ggot swimmer competing as a "woman" is indeed part of the legacy of court decisions based on the "equality" requirements of the 14th amendment. Also the "incorporation doctrine" portion of the 14th amendment.

You know full well it isn't based on the 14th. So stop your charade that it's based on the 14th.

You didn't know that the legal argument in Roe V Wade is the "penumbra" from the 14th amendment? Do you read articles in pro-life circles? Yes, the court cited the 14th amendment to create the "right" to abortion. They cited the 14th amendment to create a "right" to homosexual marriage and Title IX "equality" for women.

Virtually all the modern liberal crap is pinned onto the 14th amendment, and it is so utilized because the later portion of it is so badly written it can be interpreted to mean whatever the court decides they want to put in there.

Not according to you they aren't. Your specific words were "These are lies". And you are in good company! Because the 150~ year old transcripts agree with you. Those civil war amendments were slavery amendments and nothing more. They were very narrow in scope.

Exactly. That was the legislative intent when these laws were passed, but because they wrote the 14th so very horribly, it can be twisted to mean anything the courts want it to mean. And it has been so abused often.

Progressivism didn't exist until basically 1900, give or take a few years. It did stints first in the GOP for a little over a decade, ending around 1912 with the founding of the actual Progressive Party in 1912. Then progressivism found a home in the Democrat Party almost immediately thereafter.

Susan B Anthony. (Massachusetts) Elizabeth Caddy Stanton. (New York) Margret Sanger. (New York) Teddy Roosevelt. (New York).

According to historian William Leuchtenburg, "[t]he Progressives believed in the Hamiltonian concept of positive government, of a national government directing the destinies of the nation at home and abroad. They had little but contempt for the strict construction of the Constitution by conservative judges, who would restrict the power of the national government to act against social evils and to extend the blessings of democracy to less favored lands. The real enemy was particularism, state rights, limited government"

Sounds like Abraham Lincoln. Also Teddy Roosevelt is considered the first "Progressive" president. I have always said the dispute is between the "Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians." Party labels really don't matter, it is the inherent philosophy that matters. "Liberals" are Hamiltonian in philosophy and they are mostly from the Northeast during this era. "Conservatives" are Jeffersonian in philosophy and they are mostly from the South and Midwest during this era.

We really need to get an email out to that author on American Thinker. That article regarding Virginia or Massachusetts is dreadful and ought to be retracted.

It is not very well done.

[DiogenesLamp]

Progressives are liars. Progressivism is America's cancer.

And this stuff started with Hamilton.

[BroJoeK]

ProgressingAmerica: "Progressives are liars. Progressivism is America's cancer."

DiogenesLamp: "And this stuff started with Hamilton."

Nonsense, it started with Jefferson, who called himself a small-r "republican", but Federalists quickly noticed how enthralled Jefferson was with the "Democratic" French Revolution -- you know, "the blood of tyrants" & all -- and Federalists began calling Jefferson's opposition party "Democratic-Republicans", "Democratic" as in the French Revolution, guillotine, anti-Christian, etc.

Well... wouldn't you know it... Jeffersonians liked that word "Democratic", began calling themselves the "Democratics" and their political party "the Democracy" -- today they say "our Democracy", same thing.
Indeed, they forgot all about the "republican" part of their name and dropped it like a hot potato.

And well they might, since after years of claiming Hamiltonians were "monarchists" and not for "strict construction" of the Constitution, Jefferson's own people, once in political power, quickly became as monarchists and "loose construction" as any of the accusations they made against their Federalists opponents.
In other words, typical of Democrats ever since, they accused their opponents of the very thing they themselves were most guilty.

Yes, it's true, they were "Democratics" in the sense of wanting to expand their voter-base to every man "free white & 21", just as today they want to expand their voter-base to every self-identified human, US citizen or not.
Naturally, they expected their new voters to vote Democratic, and they were only rarely disappointed.

But the key fact is that once in political power, "Democratics" themselves did every "monarchist" and "unconstitutional" thing they'd accused their opponents of wanting to do -- i.e. what we call "infrastructure" spending along with protective tariffs, the national bank, Barbary Wars & not to mention the Louisiana Purchase.

So today's nonsense didn't begin with Hamilton, it began with Jefferson's false accusations against Hamiltonians, and continue today with Democrats' claims of Republican "racism", "sexism", you-name-it-ism.
Just as Jefferson in his time only cared about the Constitution when he could weaponize it against his opponents, so today with Nancy Pelosi's multiple insane impeachments of her most hated rival... who was that?

[x]

Thanks for the response. There weren't official censuses before 1790, but scholars have come up with estimates of the number of slaves in the state, and they don't really support the idea of large numbers of slaves being sold out of the state.

I suppose at various times and places, slaveowners in Northern states, anticipating emancipation, did sell their slaves South, but people repeat that without ever really looking into how widespread it was. An owner of many slaves had capital sunk in slaveowning and could get it back by selling off his slaves, but families who had a slave or two as household servants or shop help weren't going to get a windfall selling off their slaves.

It would be more practical to keep them on and come to terms with them.

[DiogenesLamp]

It would be more practical to keep them on and come to terms with them.

Based on the numbers you cited, it would appear that was the most common result.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"I don't know what to make of your statement here. You cite my message #49 in which I specifically say that this is the consequence of the 14th amendment as proof that I have admitted it isn't a consequence of the 14th amendment."

I think you need to re-read #49. When you say "They are making up fake laws", and "They are clearly not a valid interpretation of "law."", this does not strike me as the kind of comment that can support the idea that the 14th is the sum of all evil.

For the 14th to be the source of this, they wouldn't be making fake law, they'd be creating real good law. They wouldn't be using invalid interpretations of "law", they would be using sound reasoning of law. Minus the quotations there.

It has to be one or the other.

"You didn't know that the legal argument in Roe V Wade is the "penumbra" from the 14th amendment? Do you read articles in pro-life circles? Yes, the court cited the 14th amendment to create the "right" to abortion."

They could have cited a turkey. Who cares. The word "abortion" does not appear anywhere in the text of the debates that created the 14th amendment. Nor in the final product of the 14th itself either.

I don't know where the difficulty exists, other than you completely trust when progressives lie. This is not a good life choice to put your trust in progressivism.

"Virtually all the modern liberal crap is pinned onto the 14th amendment"

Liars are apt to lie. Fools believe liars.

"but because they wrote the 14th so very horribly, it can be twisted to mean anything the courts want it to mean."

I don't know if I buy that any more than the idea that the first amendment is sloppily written, or the second amendment, or any others. Progressives do this. They de-educate us using the government schools, then they quote things out of context, and the result is all of this havoc. The 2nd Amendment is in the exact opposite position as the 14th. The progressives take advantage of not educating us to destroy our liberties. Problems created become new opportunities to create new problems, which then spawn even more new exploitable problems.

Bork read through much of the debate notes and came up with many of the conclusions that I did. Perhaps you should read the notes original source. The 14th is not nearly as sloppy as we have been maleducated to think. It's "just" 150 year old language in the same way that the 1st amendment is "just" 250 year old language.

The imprecision isn't in the 14th amendment any more than the 2nd, the imprecision is in the progressives. It's by design. You have got to stop trusting progressives so much. It's sickening how much you trust them.

"According to historian William Leuchtenburg""

I don't care what a progressive historian has to say. Moving on. Garbage in, garbage out. Next.

"I have always said the dispute is between the "Hamiltonians and the Jeffersonians.""

Of course you have. You trust progressives. That much is clear and without any doubt. This idea that it's hamiltonians vs jeffersonians is progressive historiography 101. I just finished Herbert Croly's book as an audiobook just a few months ago, "The Promise of American Life". This is the ideology he espouses in that book.

I almost don't want you to read the book because I fear you'd further cement your progressive views if you read it. But that book is either the _de-facto_ source of this progressive historiography, or else Croly was the guy who elevated it to make it mainstream within progressivism. Either way, this is as foundational to progressivism as sand is to concrete and that's the book where to find it.

Whatever or not you choose, I know the source is correct here. So it is what it is. Here is both the text and audio. For a real conservative, this is incredibly valuable. https://librivox.org/the-promise-of-american-life-herbert-croly/

[DiogenesLamp]

They could have cited a turkey. Who cares. The word "abortion" does not appear anywhere in the text of the debates that created the 14th amendment. Nor in the final product of the 14th itself either.

If they had cited a "turkey" as the basis of their newly made up law, even the stupid people in the nation would have realized this was bullsh*t.

By citing the 14th as the basis for their made up law, they can claim legal authority for making it happen and most people won't bother to challenge them on their made up bullsh*t.

That's how this works. The latter portion of the 14th is so badly written that it can be interpreted by an activist court into meaning anything the activist court wants to do.

No, the 14th doesn't actually say these things, but it gives the courts so much power to "interpret" it, that they can turn it into anything they want.

If the 14th had to go through an actual valid ratification process, this never would have happened, but with the Washington DC sockpuppet "states" ratifying what Washington DC ordered them to "ratify", they could get away with writing it really crappy and giving all that power to liberal judges.

It wouldn't have passed a valid ratification process.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"By citing the 14th as the basis for their made up law, they can claim legal authority for making it happen and most people won't bother to challenge them on their made up bullsh*t."

This we can agree on. Where we part, is where you take the made up stuff seriously. If it's made up then its made up and that's all there is. It's not real. You're tilting at windmills.

"No, the 14th doesn't actually say these things, but it gives the courts so much power to "interpret" it."

I don't see how this is any different than with the second or with the attacks they are planning on building for the first amendment. (see here) You seem stuck on attacking the 14th even while admitting the 14th doesn't say these things - the ultimate irony - but you won't do the same for any of the rest and you won't do that to progressives either.

Who controls the schools? That's where this is coming from.

Help me to understand your disconnect. How can you go so far as to openly admit that the 14th does not say these things, but you still somehow cling to the premise that it does say these things? How did you end up in this place? At this point you're the only one holding you there.

"they could get away with writing it really crappy and giving all that power to liberal judges. "

Bork says this better than I can. He wrote: (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. The only significant exercise of judicial review in the past century had been Dred Scott, a decision hated in the North and one hardly likely to encourage the notion that courts should be given carte blanche to set aside legislative acts. ... 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.

You're fighting ghosts. This is a power that the progressives stole. It's not real. Bork concludes "There is no evidence that the ratifiers imagined they were handing ultimate governance to the courts." And there isn't. There is no evidence for what you believe. The 14th was not a judicial revolution, the progressives are simply liars. This is not complicated.

The progressives did this. They stole it. They manufactured it whole cloth.

[nicollo]

The Fourteenth is a beast, but, so is the Commerce Clause.

One of the authors of the Fourteenth, Roscoe Conkling, testified in an 1881 railroad case that its equal protections clause was intended to include corporations. And so onward we go in twisting and turning original intent to fit the latest expediency.

I’m with ProgressingAmerica that it was the progressives who used it the most. Regardless, starting w/ McCullough, the Court will find an excuse for whatever it wants, be it the Fourteenth, or the Fourth and Fifth for privacy and due process.

The Founders’ worst mistake was not to anticipate judicial review.