Replies

>> When the Republicans were trying to end slavery, the Democrats were fighting them tooth and nail to keep it in place. When is the Democratic Party going to apologize for its critical role in maintaining slavery and forcing a horrific war to end it? And why is their historical role never mentioned in all the talk about “apologies” for slavery? <<

And as one of the NAY voters mentioned, "What I have a problem with is apologizing for something I didn't do," said Rep. Jay Love, a Montgomery Republican."

There are no ex slave owners alive today to apologize and there are no ex-slaves to apologize to. The members of the state legislature have nothing to apologize for, they weren't cheerleaders for slavery during any time in their career.

Therefore the only appopiate "apology" for be the Alabama DemocRAT party to issue a formal statement apologizing to ALL Americans for ITS historial role is promoting, defending, and working their butts off to uphold the "right" of enslaving other human beings.

I won't hold my breath waiting to see THAT "apology".

Incidentially, the Chicago City Council voted 49-1 to last year for a non-biding resolution to "research" the possiblity of paying out "slave reparations". There's only one Republican on the Chicago City Council. Wanna guess who the lone "nay" vote was?

Platform of the Alabama Democratic Party

Adopted at Montgomery, January, 1860

Resolved by the Democratic Party of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That holding all issues and principles upon which they have heretofore affiliated and acted with the National Democratic party to be inferior in dignity and importance to the great question of slavery, they content themselves with a general re-affirmance of the Cincinnati Platform as to such issues, and also endorse said platform as to slavery, together with the following resolutions:

Resolved further, That we re-affirm so much of the first resolution of the Platform adopted in Convention by the Democracy of this State, on the 8th of January, 1856, as relates to the subject of slavery, to wit: “The unqualified right of the people of the slaveholding States to the Protection of their property in the States, in the Territories, and in the wilderness in which Territorial Governments are as yet unorganized.”

Resolved further, That the Territories of the United States are common property, in which the States have equal rights, and to which the citizens of every State may rightfully emigrate with their slaves or other property, recognised as such in any of the States of the Union, or by the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved further, That the Congress of the United States has no power to abolish slavery in the Territories, or to prohibit its introduction into any of them.

Resolved further, That the Territorial Legislatures, created by the legislation of Congress, have no power to abolish slavery, or to prohibit the introduction of the same, or to impair, by unfriendly legislation, the security and full enjoyment of the same within the Territories; and such constitutional power certainly does not belong to the people of the Territories in any capacity, before, in the exercise of a lawful authority, they form a Constitution preparatory to admission as a State into the Union; and their action in the exercise of such lawful authority certainly cannot operate or take effect before their actual admission as a State into the Union.

Resolved further, That the principles enunciated by Chief Justice Taney, in his opinion in the Dred Scott case, deny to the Territorial Legislature the power to destroy or impair, by any legislation whatever, the right of property in slaves, and maintain it to be the duty of Federal Government, in all of its departments, to protect the rights of the owner of such property in the Territories; and the principles so declared are hereby asserted to be the rights of the South, and the South should maintain them.

When will the Alabama RAT party apologize for THAT?

At no time in history did the Alabama GOP ever endorse such a position, so Alabama Republicans have nothing to “aplogize” for.

The irony here (is irony the right word?) is that if it weren’t for the historical fact of slavery (and the forced emigration associated with it) African Americans alive today would not even exist. Here’s how I figure it: Suppose your parents had been prevented from meeting. The simple fact would be that you would never had been born. The same holds true for either set of grandparents. If say your maternal grandfather was prevented from meeting your grandmother at the hoedown in 1922, your mother would never have been born, and consequently, neither would you. It works at every link of your ancestral chain. If any of your ancestors, stretching back to Adam and Eve, not met and procreated, YOU would not exist. Slavery (despite its inherent evil) created the pairings that created modern day African Americans. African Americans can justifiably rail against the historical crime of slavery, but the truth is that without slavery, Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Willie Mays, and Clarence Thomas would never have existed.