not to mention that slavery would of become cost prohibitive with the coming onset of mechanization and the industrial revolution...
Posted on 03/22/2008 3:58:29 PM PDT by Mr Rogers
Due to the recent hullabaloo involving Wright's sermons and liberation theology, I did some reading about slavery in the US, and discovered a number of things I hadn't heard before.
1 - Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence criticized King George for permitting the slave trade:
"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 & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: 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 has deprived them by murdering the people on 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.(3)
Jefferson's committee wanted to keep this passionate paragraph, and Adams considered it the best part. But Congress struck it from the Declaration, substituting the vague and self-serving charge "He has excited domestic insurrections among us."
This was a political compromise required to get the southern colonies to agree.
(http://www.lectorprep.org/jefferson_and_slavery.html)
2 - Just 4 years after winning the Revolutionary War, the Constitutional Convention debated slavery in the US. Many wanted to immediately ban the importing of slaves, but that would cost the votes of the southern states. As a compromise, importing slaves was permitted for another 20 years. In 1808, as soon as Congress could legally do so, importing slaves was outlawed.
"The Founding Fathers, however, could not resolve the issue of Slavery which divided the Colonies and was preventing agreement on the remainder of the Constitution. Accordingly, they made the decision to keep the status quo and leave it to future generations to resolve this issue.[12] As a result, the original Constitution contained four provisions tacitly allowing slavery to continue for the next 20 years. Section 9 of Article I allowed the continued "importation" of such persons, Section 2 of Article IV prohibited the provision of assistance to escaping persons and required their return if successful and Section 2 of Article I defined other persons as "three-fifths" of a person for calculations of each state's official population.[13] Article V prohibited any amendments or legislation changing these provisions until 1808, thereby giving the States then existing 20 years to resolve this issue. The failure to do so led to the Civil War.[14]"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution)
Note the slave holders outsmarted the anti-slavery forces. In most places, banning the importing of slaves ended slavery - the death rate was too high for it to be self-sustaining. Slaveholders in the south, however, adjusted the proportions of male/female and improved living conditions. This allowed them to breed more slaves, and the slave population increased greatly after importing slaves was banished.
3 - The 3/5th person rule was NOT a statement that blacks were not really people. Slaveholders WANTED blacks counted as people, because their states would be represented in Congress based on the number of people present. Anti-slavery folks were appalled, and wanted no slaves to be counted as people, since they couldn't vote for themselves. Again, this was a compromise position.
4 - Very few of the slaves taken from Africa ended up in the USA - only about 600,000 out of 10 million or more. The vast majority went to South America or the Caribbean. It is a bit of a reach to criticize the US Government for failing to end slavery in Brazil!
5 - Independent US government really began with victory in 1783, with the last British troops leaving New York City on November 25, 1783.
Just 4 years later, slavery opponents tried to end the importing of slaves.
25 years later, importing slaves became illegal. By that time, many northern states had outlawed slavery.
82 years after the USA began, slavery ended.
It has now been 143 years since slavery was outlawed. 36% of the USA's history allowed slavery, although it was strongly contested.
This year, 2008, celebrates 200 years since it became illegal to import slaves. It was only legal for 11% of our total history.
Lynching - From Wikipedia:
"In the 1870s, Democrats regained power through affiliated militia terrorism of black and white Republicans, assassination of community leaders and political activists, and intimidation and restriction of voters at the polls. Even after the Democrats regained power throughout the South, between 1880 and 1951 the Tuskegee Institute recorded lynchings of 3,437 African-American victims, as well as 1,293 white victims.
...After increased immigration to the US in the late 19th century, Italian-Americans also became lynching targets, chiefly in the South. On March 14, 1891, eleven Italian-Americans were lynched in New Orleans after a jury acquitted them in the murder of a New Orleans police chief [16] David Hennessy. The eleven were falsely accused of being associated with the Mafia. This incident was the largest mass lynching in U.S. history.[17] A total of twenty Italians were lynched in the 1890s. Although most lynchings of Italian-Americans occurred in the South, Italians did not immigrate there in great numbers. Isolated lynchings of Italians also occurred in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado.
Particularly in the West, Chinese immigrants, East Indians, Native Americans and Mexicans were also lynching victims. The lynching of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest was long overlooked in American history. Attention became focused on the South. The Tuskegee Institute, which kept the most complete records, noted the victims as simply black or white. Mexican, Chinese, and Native American lynching victims were recorded as white.[18]
Researchers estimate 597 Mexicans were lynched between 1848 and 1928. Mexicans were lynched at a rate of 27.4 per 100,000 of population between 1880 and 1930. This statistic was second only to that of the African American community, which endured an average of 37.1 per 100,000 of population during that period. Between 1848 and 1879, Mexicans were lynched at an unprecedented rate of 473 per 100,000 of population.[19]"
===================================================
During a 70 year period, roughly 3400 blacks were lynched. That was undoubtedly evil, but how does its impact compare to this:
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20203888/)
"WASHINGTON - Nearly half of the nation’s murder victims in 2005 were black, and the number of black men who were slain is on the rise.
A majority of the black murder victims were relatively young — between 17 and 29, the Justice Department said in a study released Thursday.
The department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics report offers a snapshot of racial disparities among violent crime victims. Black people represented an estimated 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2005, the latest data available, but were the victims of 49 percent of all murders and 15 percent of rapes, assaults and other nonfatal violent crimes nationwide.
Most of the black murder victims — 93 percent — were killed by other black people, the study found. About 85 percent of white victims were slain by other white people."
============================================
From other statistics presented in the story, nearly 8000 blacks were murdered in 2005 alone. This means some 7400 blacks, mostly young men, were murdered by other blacks in just one year.
During the 70 years without a federal anti-lynching law, 3400 black men were murdered by whites. In 2005 alone, over twice that number were murdered by other blacks.
It also seems to me that someone who cares about the well being of black in the USA ought to spend less time decrying slavery and complaining about the impact of lynch mobs, and more time addressing the current appalling murder statistics.
Interesting! Thanks!
Bookmarked
And in 1913 it was reinstated:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
Let’s hope this is a nonstarter. Slavery is a shameful part of American history, even if there was controversy about it, it was legal. There was eventually a war waged in part to end it.
As for the humanity of the slaves, well no slaveholder could view property as fully human.
Your post is quite disturbing, on many levels.
Fascinating! Thanks for researching and compiling!
when to blacks apologize for taking white slaves?
""In the 1870s, Democrats regained power through affiliated militia terrorism of black and white Republicans, assassination of community leaders and political activists, and intimidation and restriction of voters at the polls. Even after the Democrats regained power throughout the South, between 1880 and 1951 the Tuskegee Institute recorded lynchings of 3,437 African-American victims, as well as 1,293 white victims."
If any of the Racist Preachers would care to look at this statistic they would see that, in addition to the many thousands of Whites who died fighting in the Civil War, there were many who gave their lives later, in the attempt at Reconstruction. And they were mostly REPUBLICANS!
These Race Baiters are revisionist racists and they have done a very good job of confusing many of their fellow Blacks.
Your post is disturbing me in three ways! S/F
It’s easy: you owe reparations. Period. See?
“These Race Baiters are revisionist racists and they have done a very good job of confusing many of their fellow Blacks.”
And their white sympathizers.
Since that is still happening in Africa, TODAY, not soon.
I would suggest that blacks and everyone else re-read world history and remember all the cultures and people who were made slaves and were slaughtered throughout time. One can start with the Jewish people. As I recall, throughout time, armies conquered lands and made slaves of the people they conquered. Considering world history, one would think that all of us could stay enraged all the time over past history. As a Jew, the Holocaust comes to mind.
I would suggest that blacks and everyone else re-read world history and remember all the cultures and people who were made slaves and were slaughtered throughout time. One can start with the Jewish people. As I recall, throughout time, armies conquered lands and made slaves of the people they conquered. Considering world history, one would think that all of us could stay enraged all the time over past history. As a Jew, the Holocaust comes to mind.
“Your post is quite disturbing, on many levels.”
Why? I found it informative.
Why do you find it disturbing that the majority of the USA wanted to end slavery, but lacked the political power to do so - or that they tried political methods before resorting to war 70 years later?
The slaveholders obviously did not consider their slaves to be fully human, but oddly enough wanted them counted as people so they could increase their political power. It sounds odd, but it was the people trying to end slavery that had to press for slaves to be counted as non-humans. Politics has strange twists.
I made no defense of either slavery or lynching. Both were obviously evil - although it was the democrats who opposed federal anti-lynching laws. However, in terms of impacting black Americans today, I point out black on black murders (93% of the total) are killing twice as many young black men each year as were killed by lynching during its 70 year evil reign. Inner city black churches should spend less time complaining about slavery (ended over 140 years ago) and more on ending the suicidal tendencies in inner city society.
Rev Wright can complain as much as he wants about white people holding back blacks, but it is black men who are killing young black men in terrifying numbers. If he was less wrapped up in hate, he would be better able to see where the problem really lies!
not to mention that slavery would of become cost prohibitive with the coming onset of mechanization and the industrial revolution...
In a prophetic letter decades earlier ,
President Thomas Jefferson expressed
the fears of many of his contemporaries over conflicts
of states’ rights, westward settlement, federalism and slavery.
“This momentous question,
like a fire bell in the night,
awakened and filled one with terror,
I considered it at once as the knell of the Union.
It is hushed indeed for the moment.
but this is a reprieve only,
not a final sentence . . .
we have the wolf by the ears
and we can neither hold him
nor safely let him go.”
Complete B.S.
White victims were hung, not lynched.
Only black people can be lynched, not the white devils.
You have got to get your PC correct lexicon out if you are going to post about slavery
Only being half sarcastic
Booker T. was so right on target and ahead of his time that it’s scary. There is a class of colored people who have gotten filthy rich keeping the sore of past grievances picked and festering due to their own greed and selfishness. The people of this country have paid and paid and paid for slavery - and the dirty little secret is that, until the white man is destitute, this class of colored people will not be what they think is “happy”.
Rush commented yesterday on how the Asian immigrants came to this country and seized every opportunity and in one generation are on top of the game. The black race is in a “we are owed” trap and a lot of them don’t feel like they even have to try, and all they have to do is become arrogant and angry the more the white man tries to do to help matters. Now, they belong to the Democrat Party which owns them, and it is sad.
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