Posted on 01/28/2011 12:48:14 PM PST by GVnana
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has gone on a three-day Bachmann-bashing binge over a speech she gave in Iowa last weekend. In the speech, Rep. Bachmann pointed out that the scourge of slavery was a horrible chapter in our country’s history, but we should give credit to our forebears who worked tirelessly to eradicate slavery. As an example, she offered up John Quincy Adams and his relentless efforts on behalf of the abolitionist movement. Here is an excerpt from her speech and Mr. Matthews’ obnoxious assault on her and his guest:
(Excerpt) Read more at bigjournalism.com ...
I’d be willing to be that despite Bachmann’s exaggeration of our founders’ intent, that she knows more about history than the entire MSNBC workforce combined.
“Slavery was doomed to extinction in 1788, (making the compromise much more reasonable) because the institution was not economically viable at the time.”
As Glenn Beck has pointed out, abolitionists of the time actually preferred that slaves be counted as 0 and the slave-owning states wanted them to count as 1. The purpose of the 3-5ths compromise was to ensure that the South did not have undue influence in the House of Representatives. It was to HASTEN the end of slavery. http://socyberty.com/issues/the-truth-about-the-three-fifths-compromise/
In short—even apart from what founders and forbearers might have done to contribute to slavery’s abolition in individual states after the Constitution was signe—the evidence is that at least some of those agreeing to the 3/5ths compromise did so motivated by the hope that this would accelerate the eradication of slavery. Compromising on this issue was far better than reaching no agreement at all (in which case an independent South might well have allied with England or again become a colony—either outcome of which might have perpetuated slavery indefinitely).
Has anyone NOT noticed the size of the cow head on this drooling, bloviating idiot?
Yet he has the temerity to call Michelle Bachman “Balloonhead”!
I think this is in Flexner’s three volume history, but my copies are now in storage in the garage. Could also be in a book titled “The Slave Communityâ€, which is also in storage now. Those two instances were so striking they have always stayed with me. True Washington was highly respected, but he also accumulated a lot of resentment from the aristocratic Southern ruling class. A clear example of that undercurrent of friction would be the 60% compromise that the delegates had to make.
Sounds like a safe bet to me :)
Not if it became a colony. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire, with (inadequate) compensation, in the 1830s.
Washington, Jefferson and every other Founder who knew slavery was wrong, also knew what they COULD and COULD NOT accomplish in THAT day and time. Had they insisted on outlawing slavery right then, there would not have been a United States because the south would not have signed on. As it was, it took nearly 100 years of tweaking and nudging things in the right direction, as well as a god-awful war to finally make it a reality.
The Founders must have been prescient regarding the principle upon which Reinhold Niehubr would later base his writing: The Serenity Prayer. Here is an excerpt:
God, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference.
Eleanor Roosevelt. She's dead.
A dubious proposition; quotes would help here.
For one thing, most of the South's "poor whites" were themselves time-expired indentured servants who could have readily indentured themselves again if they liked bondage so well. In fact, most of them either died during their terms of service, returned to Europe at the end of their service, or became public charges -- charity cases -- their best years having been spent (and their bodies too, very likely) in grinding physical labor.
Most of the Southern colonies put their indentured servants to work as field hands; worst of all was labor at clearing new land, which slaves were spared. The masters worked them furiously to get as much work out of them as they could before their time was up (typically 3-4 years, sometimes up to 7 years), balancing that against only the need to keep them alive. Chattel slaves were treated better, but only because they were assets for life.
The redemptioners who paid for their passage with service had easier voyages and shorter terms of bondage (as little as a year, with 2-4 years max typical). They and their children, after they'd served their time, were the sturdy agriculturalists who peopled Jacksonian America and presented the European visitor with a prosperity and fruitfulness no less appealing than any found anywhere in Europe -- and this by the testimony of an English gentleman.
Thus historian Richard Hofstadter, in America at 1750.
I’ll take Eleanor and the points.
Hofstadter cites from other sources the dismal statistic, that only two in ten indentured servants "made it" in the New World. The other eight failed, died, or disappeared.
The ratio seems to have been nearly reversed for the shorter-time redemptioners, so many of whom went on to become successful.
The ranks of indentured servitude did produce a number of successful men, including leaders of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary periods, some of whom had easier duties because they possessed, at the time of their importation, talent or trade skills. No such examples, however, are cited for the colonies south of Virginia. Outside New England, the labor for indentured bondmen was just too severe, apparently.
“Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire”
That’s Monday-morning quarterbacking. Hard to argue that the Framers knew this would happen more than 4 decades into the future. I think the Framers figured out that “united we stand, divided we fall.” The South was far more simpatico with England than the north, so if any alliance was made between England and North U.S. or South U.S., it would have been South U.S. etc.
In that regard, it would have been a historical irony if in a counterfactual world the South had become part of Great Britain and found itself forced to abandon slavery 35 years before the end of the U.S. Civil War. Of course, had England tried to force the South to do this, the Civil War instead would have been a war of the South against England, with the North perhaps allying with England to achieve this objective. Who knows?
A better statement would be to say they looked on slavery with envy for the material security it offered, but from the safe distance of personal freedom. In the statements I remember reading there was never a hint that these people rationally thought through the trade off that would be involved.
In our time nearly half the population is willing to accept the current healthcare reform without internalizing they are making a significant tradeoff of freedoms. The reasoning process seems consistent.
Matthews’ role as the fountainhead for the Left puts forth his daily screed of insults as if it were their daily bread. He would fail in his purpose, if he didn’t quench their appetite for the defamation of the Right. Of course such a role is easy money for Matthews. It is an easy thing to fill ignorant minds with pap; especially those who live in a fantasy world on an unicorn farm.
They did it during the civil rights movement era, so why not? Blacks settled for half a loaf, and were pleased that the statists and Socialists took half a loaf away from the whites.
Our statists have been doing a land-office business with people like that.
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