Correct! Anthony Johnson was his name back in 1621.
We still have black slave owners in the US today.
Jesus Christ: You can't impeach Him and He ain't gonna resign.
Posted on 06/01/2016 2:20:33 PM PDT by Kaslin
Slavery in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries was for many, as good a treatment as the lower classes in India, or in many European countries had it at the time. My ancestors the Irish were treated horribly, as were my ancestors the Germans IN AMERICA in the 19th century by the Swedes and Norwegians. As I am sure Swedes and Norwegians were by Germans at times. WE ALL have been slaves.....GET OVER IT.....
The Constitution never would have been ratified then, and the great experiment in self government, the common law, individual rights, and equal justice under the law, would never have happened. It was so radical that it will never happen again after we fall. It is so radical, that it has already been destroyed.
When observing that the Founders were “slave owners,” one must consider the historical context within which those Founders found themselves, as well as the enormous contributions they and their generations made toward eradicating slavery from these shores and creating a constitutional republic which could, ultimately, affirm and protect the rights of ALL people:
Of special interest in that regard is Jefferson’s “Autobiography,” especially that portion which states:
“The first establishment in Virginia which became permanent was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade and continued it until the revolutionary war. That suspended...their future importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the (Virginia) legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year 1778, when I brought a bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.”
Jefferson also observed:
“Where the disease [slavery] is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the northern States, it was merely superficial and easily corrected. In the southern, it is incorporated with the whole system and requires time, patience, and perseverance in the curative process.”
He explained that, “In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live [Albemarle County, Virginia], and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal [crown] government, nothing [like this] could expect success.”
Here is another quotation, cited in David Barton’s work on the subject of the Founders and slavery, which also cites the fact that there were laws in the State of Virginia which prevented citizens from emancipating slaves:
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. . . . The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded who permits one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep for ever. . . . The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. . . . [T]he way, I hone [is] preparing under the auspices of Heaven for a total emancipation.”
A visit to David Barton’s web site (www.wallbuilders.com) provides an essential, excellent and factual written record of the Founders’ views on the matter of slavery.
One source he does not quote, I believe, is the famous 1775 Edmund Burke “Speech on Conciliation” before the British Parliament, wherein he admonished the Parliament for its Proposal to declare a general enfranchisement of the slaves in America.
Burke rather sarcastically observed that should the Parliament carry through with Proposal before it: “Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation (England) which has sold them to their present masters? from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic?” He continued: “An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves.”
Ahhh, how knowledge of the facts can alter one’s opinion of the revisionist history that has been taught for generations in American schools (including its so-called “law schools”!!)
Human beings are allotted ONLY A TINY SLIVER OF TIME ON THIS EARTH. Each finds the world and his/her own community/nation existing as it is. If lawyers and judges educated themselves (in this day of the Internet) on the history of civilization and America’s real history, and if they used that knowledge and the resulting understanding, to do as much on behalf of liberty for ALL people as did Thomas Jefferson and America’s other Founders, the world in the next century would be a better place.
Remember, Thomas Jefferson was only 33 years old when he penned our Declaration of Independence which capsulized a truly revolutionary idea into a simple statement that survives to this day to inspire people all over the world to strive for liberty!
I’d pay if the proven descendants are deported with their “reparations”; we’ve been paying for 50 years now with no discernible benefit.
The US had legalized slavery for about 80 years (from independence until 1863); it ended 150 years ago. Using the terms 300 or 400 years (as blacktivists like Al Sharpton are prone to do) makes any further points meaningless; it exposes an agenda and willful ignorance.
Correct! Anthony Johnson was his name back in 1621.
We still have black slave owners in the US today.
Jesus Christ: You can't impeach Him and He ain't gonna resign.
The word SLAVE comes from the word SLAVIC, the first recorded slaves. They keep arresting sex (slave) traffickers in Houston and LA all the time. It still goes on. It was NEVER right and never will be, yet it continues... Underage girls are often the victims (sex slaves)...
AMEN!
EXCELLENT COMMENT!
“What I don’t buy is people of slave ancestry being now 6 generations removed using that as an excuse to steal and grift my money through copious social programs and engage in murder, theft and rape. We now are at a point with Oblameo, where the great, great, great, great grandchildren of slaves now act the slave masters.”
My ancestors were German, French, Scottish, Dutch, Irish, Cherokee, and at least one I know of was a freed black slave here in USA. So I feel guilty and responsible for everything everywhere LOL
That covers a lot of crap that the democrats promote, from Y2K to Glowbull Warming! They want money, power, control...
The sugarcane leaves are sharp and cut you up. The slaves who worked the sugar plantations had it extra bad. But my white ancestors didn’t live any better than most slaves. 8 kids, one room shack, no electricity or plumbing... but they grew up strong and healthy, picking cotton in the Okla sun...
You forgot to mention the regret over the cotton pickin business and Eli Whitney lol.
Comments w/o reading the piece make you look a little foolish.
Britain issued two emancipation declarations during the Revolutionary War. Dunmore’s Proclamation and the Philipsburg Proclamation.
In light of the fact that slaves would have been freed had the war for independence failed, what’s your opinion on who should have prevailed? King George or slaveowner George Washington?
He's being sarcastic. Many other countries practiced it, only the United States is still suffering for it, even though the United States fought a war to end it.
Us, without question.
First, whether England would have retracted or modified those-—as they did the Priclsmation of 1763-—is obviously an open question.
Second, those were narrow and specific, while the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment are general and timeless.
Nice post.
The truth about slavery in America is that most people did not own slaves.
Slavery has been around for thousands of years. There were slaves in America because English slave-traders brought them to NORTHERN slave ports, and the majority went to the South to pick cotton. The men that sold these slaves to English and Portuguese slave-traders were BLACK tribal leaders from whatever African country they came from. Some of the largest slave-holders in the country were BLACK free slaves. There has been no slaves in this country for 160 years. A total non-story kept alive by liberal white guilt.
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