"Why increase the sons of Africa, by planting them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawnys, of increasing the lovely white and red?" - Benjamin Franklin's (America as a Land of Opportunity, 1751)
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Last year, I spent eight (8) months on a project in the state of Virginia; my long stint gave me a great opportunity to explore its natural beauty and rich history. Truly, I enjoyed driving down its country roads and scenic mountains (bringing to life the songs by John Denver), looking into a popular cavern, visiting old plantation sites, civil war battlefields, museums, cemeteries, and last but not least, seeing the homes and/or mansions of some of America’s Founding Fathers (1781) such as George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson --all of which further piqued my interest in early American History. [All these interesting facts about the State made "Virginia is for Lovers" i.e. mountain lovers, history lovers, etc. a fitting slogan.]
One of the most common myths in American history has been the egalitarian ideas of Thomas Jefferson. An examination of Jefferson's own writings has revealed that the author of the Declaration of Independence did not believe that "all men are created equal." In an obvious contradiction to his own words in the Declaration, Jefferson owned more than 180 slaves at the time of his death.
Jefferson's racial ideology appeared most clearly in his document, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781) as shown in below post (original spellings kept - Bert). He apparently intended this writing for private circulation among French philosopes, but the appearance of a pirated edition in France led TJ to have it published in Paris in 1785. TJ's most damaging statements were made on the subject of sex.
Back in the early 1990s, a white friend claimed that the Declaration's "all men are created equal" holds true only for white people and said he was not pulling my leg. Now we see the documented proof. Please read on.
- Bert
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"History and observation both teach that....the Mongol, the Malay, the Indian, and the Negro, are now and have been in all ages and places inferior to the Caucasian." - Joseph C. Nott (1844)*********************************************************
THOMAS JEFFERSON AND NEGRO INFERIORITY
".....To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act. The bill reported by the revisors does not itself contain this proposition; but an amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered to the legislature whenever the bill should be taken up, and further directing, that they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of houshold and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, to declare them a free and independant people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed. (TJ alluding to deporting the slaves and replacing with white immigrants maybe as indentured servants - Bert).
It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.--
To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral.
The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarfskin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races?
Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oran-ootan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?
Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They seem to require less sleep.
A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.
Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.
Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move.
Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad.
The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved.
Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.--Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet (here TJ belittles the well-renowned and the only black poet of his time; but recognized by Washington - Bert). The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that poem. Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more honour to the heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general philanthropy, and shew how great a degree of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is often happy in the turn of his compliments, and his stile is easy and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of words.
But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His subjects should often have led him to a process of sober reasoning: yet we find him always substituting sentiment for demonstration. Upon the whole, though we admit him to the first place among those of his own colour who have presented themselves to the public judgment, yet when we compare him with the writers of the race among whom he lived, and particularly with the epistolary class, in which he has taken his own stand, we are compelled to enroll him at the bottom of the column. This criticism supposes the letters published under his name to be genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be of easy investigation.
The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America. The two sexes were confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child cost the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted indulgence to his slaves in this particular, took from them a certain price. But in this country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without restraint.--The same Cato, on a principle of oeconomy, always sold his sick and superannuated slaves. He gives it as a standing precept to a master visiting his farm, to sell his old oxen, old waggons, old tools, old and diseased servants, and every thing else become useless. "Vendat boves vetulos, plaustrum vetus, ferramenta, vetera, servum senem, servum morbosum; si quid aliud supersit vendat."
The American slaves cannot enumerate this among the injuries and insults they receive. It was the common practice to expose in the island of Aesculapius, in the Tyber, diseased slaves, whose cure was like to become tedious. The Emperor Claudius, by an edict, gave freedom to such of them as should recover, and first declared, that if any person chose to kill rather than to expose them, it should be deemed homicide. The exposing them is a crime of which no instance has existed with us; and were it to be followed by death, it would be punished capitally. We are told of a certain Vedius Pollio, who, in the presence of Augustus, would have given a slave as food to his fish, for having broken a glass. With the Romans, the regular method of taking the evidence of their slaves was under torture.
Here it has been thought better never to resort to their evidence. When a master was murdered, all his slaves, in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death. Here punishment falls on the guilty only, and as precise proof is required against him as against a freeman. Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's children. Epictetus, Diogenes, Phaedon, Terence, and Phaedrus, were slaves. But they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction.--Whether further observation will or will not verify the conjecture, that nature has been less bountiful to them in the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, in whose favour no laws of property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favour of others.
When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right: that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience: and it is a problem which I give to the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for him as well as his slave? And whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one, who has taken all from him, as he may slay one who would slay him? That a change in the relations in which a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right and wrong, is neither new, nor peculiar to the colour of the blacks. Homer tells us it was so 2600 years ago.
It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.--
To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral.
The first difference which strikes us is that of colour. Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarfskin itself; whether it proceeds from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two races?
Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oran-ootan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man?
Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist has discovered to be the principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They seem to require less sleep.
A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation.
Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.
Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move.
Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad.
The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved.
Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.--Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet (here TJ belittles the well-renowned and the only black poet of his time; but recognized by Washington - Bert). The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that poem. Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more honour to the heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general philanthropy, and shew how great a degree of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is often happy in the turn of his compliments, and his stile is easy and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of words.
But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His subjects should often have led him to a process of sober reasoning: yet we find him always substituting sentiment for demonstration. Upon the whole, though we admit him to the first place among those of his own colour who have presented themselves to the public judgment, yet when we compare him with the writers of the race among whom he lived, and particularly with the epistolary class, in which he has taken his own stand, we are compelled to enroll him at the bottom of the column. This criticism supposes the letters published under his name to be genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be of easy investigation.
The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially, the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of America. The two sexes were confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child cost the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted indulgence to his slaves in this particular, took from them a certain price. But in this country the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without restraint.--The same Cato, on a principle of oeconomy, always sold his sick and superannuated slaves. He gives it as a standing precept to a master visiting his farm, to sell his old oxen, old waggons, old tools, old and diseased servants, and every thing else become useless. "Vendat boves vetulos, plaustrum vetus, ferramenta, vetera, servum senem, servum morbosum; si quid aliud supersit vendat."
The American slaves cannot enumerate this among the injuries and insults they receive. It was the common practice to expose in the island of Aesculapius, in the Tyber, diseased slaves, whose cure was like to become tedious. The Emperor Claudius, by an edict, gave freedom to such of them as should recover, and first declared, that if any person chose to kill rather than to expose them, it should be deemed homicide. The exposing them is a crime of which no instance has existed with us; and were it to be followed by death, it would be punished capitally. We are told of a certain Vedius Pollio, who, in the presence of Augustus, would have given a slave as food to his fish, for having broken a glass. With the Romans, the regular method of taking the evidence of their slaves was under torture.
Here it has been thought better never to resort to their evidence. When a master was murdered, all his slaves, in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death. Here punishment falls on the guilty only, and as precise proof is required against him as against a freeman. Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's children. Epictetus, Diogenes, Phaedon, Terence, and Phaedrus, were slaves. But they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction.--Whether further observation will or will not verify the conjecture, that nature has been less bountiful to them in the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, in whose favour no laws of property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favour of others.
When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right: that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience: and it is a problem which I give to the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for him as well as his slave? And whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one, who has taken all from him, as he may slay one who would slay him? That a change in the relations in which a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right and wrong, is neither new, nor peculiar to the colour of the blacks. Homer tells us it was so 2600 years ago.
(Od. 17. 323.)
Jove fix'd it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.
But the slaves of which Homer speaks were whites. Notwithstanding these considerations which must weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity.--The opinion, that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the subject may be submitted to the Anatomical knife, to Optical glasses, to analysis by fire, or by solvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a substance, we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses; where the conditions of its existence are various and variously combined; where the effects of those which are present or absent bid defiance to calculation; let me add too, as a circumstance of great tenderness, where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them.
To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them?
This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question "What further is to be done with them?" join themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.
To our reproach it must be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natural history. I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose, that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history then, one who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department of man as distinct as nature has formed them?
This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question "What further is to be done with them?" join themselves in opposition with those who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free, might mix with, without staining the blood of his master. But with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.
Sources:Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Queries 14 and 18, 137--43, 162--63
1784
http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?d=JefVirg.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=14&division=div1
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ADDITIONAL NOTES: Slavery and the Declaration
Further information: Slavery in the colonial United States
The Declaration would have its most prominent influence on the debate over slavery.[150] The contradiction between the claim that "all men are created equal" and the existence of American slavery attracted comment when the Declaration was first published. As mentioned above, although Jefferson had included a paragraph in his initial draft that strongly indicted Britain's role in the slave trade, this was deleted from the final version.[71] Jefferson himself was a prominent Virginia slave holder having owned hundreds of slaves.[151] Referring to this seeming contradiction, English abolitionist Thomas Day wrote in a 1776 letter, "If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independency with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves."[152] In the 19th century, the Declaration took on a special significance for the abolitionist movement. Historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown wrote that "abolitionists tended to interpret the Declaration of Independence as a theological as well as a political document".[150] Abolitionist leaders Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison adopted the "twin rocks" of "the Bible and the Declaration of Independence" as the basis for their philosophies. "As long as there remains a single copy of the Declaration of Independence, or of the Bible, in our land," wrote Garrison, "we will not despair."[153] For radical abolitionists like Garrison, the most important part of the Declaration was its assertion of the right of revolution: Garrison called for the destruction of the government under the Constitution, and the creation of a new state dedicated to the principles of the Declaration.[154]
The controversial question of whether to add additional slave states to the United States coincided with the growing stature of the Declaration. The first major public debate about slavery and the Declaration took place during the Missouri controversy of 1819 to 1821.[155] Antislavery Congressmen argued that the language of the Declaration indicated that the Founding Fathers of the United States had been opposed to slavery in principle, and so new slave states should not be added to the country.[156] Proslavery Congressmen, led by Senator Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, argued that since the Declaration was not a part of the Constitution, it had no relevance to the question.[157]
With the antislavery movement gaining momentum, defenders of slavery such as John Randolph and John C. Calhoun found it necessary to argue that the Declaration's assertion that "all men are created equal" was false, or at least that it did not apply to black people.[158] During the debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1853, for example, Senator John Pettit of Indiana argued that "all men are created equal", rather than a "self-evident truth", was a "self-evident lie".[159] Opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, including Salmon P. Chase and Benjamin Wade, defended the Declaration and what they saw as its antislavery principles.[160]
During the time of the founding fathers, independence and equality were only for the whites or european migrants. Only during the time of Lincoln and the civil war that the issue of negro slaves emancipation began and came into fruition but still has to take many years to psyche the mentality of the americans. Take note that Spain were the leading traders of slaves before and during the time of Washington. US territory holds only 13 States back then. Lousiana, Southern Cali and other southern states were docking ports of slaves traders. It is the UK and US who ended Spain slave trading history. Washington live in 1732 - 1799 while Abrahan Lincoln lives in 1809-1865.
ReplyDeleteIt takes the passage of time to mature the views and philosophies pertaining to equality extending to people of other color. During the 30's to the 50's, intermarriage were odd in the american society. Even pinoys who graduated Bachelor of Law in California during the 50's and early 60's can work after finishing their degree but not allowed to practice as a lawyer. They are not allowed to take the board exam. Some restaurants in the midwest even post on doors not to allow entry to filipinos. Those were the days.
'noy r :-)
MT7:15
Dear Mr. Drona,
ReplyDeleteI just read your short essay on Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers. More than five years ago I wrote a Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" approach on Rizal and this Englishman who was not included among the favourite ICONS of generation of Americans as shown by the number places, towns, schools, institutions, libraries, parks named after Lafayette but not Thomas Paine an English pamphleteer who enriched rhetoric and patriotic words for the colonials in "their" American Crisis ad above all he gave the name: The United States of America to the newly proclaimed republic.
Please have time to download. Maraming salamat.
Jose Sison L.
Delray Beach, Fl
Hi Nonoy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback.
I agree with much of your comments. Spain and Portugal pioneered the slave trade to solve their labor requirements; England copied the practice by mid-16th century.
The English colonists brought Africans in 1619 initially like indentured servants to Virginia but by 1660 laws reduced them to slaves. England banned the slave trade in 1807, thanks to William Wilberforce.
Despite the 18th century Enlightenment and religious revival which freed many white men in America, other objections were found in order to bar Negroes from participation in the white community.
Efforts in the scientific classification of animals and plant species and humans were distorted to place Negroes in a subhuman category.
Defeat of the Southern Confederate States in the Civil War brought Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1865) that made slavery illegal and freed all slaves.
However, during the Reconstruction to 1877 the slave-owners were able to use Blacks via a "loophole" such as convict leasing (guilty and not-guilty convicts, mostly Blacks, leased as plantation laborers.
From Wikipedia:
On February 24, 2007, the Virginia General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution Number 728 acknowledging "with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians."[93]
With the passing of this resolution, Virginia became the first state to acknowledge through the state's governing body their state's negative involvement in slavery. The passing of this resolution came on the heels of the 400th anniversary celebration of the city of Jamestown, Virginia, which was one of the first slave ports of the American colonies.
On July 30, 2008, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing for American slavery and subsequent discriminatory laws.[94]
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a similar resolution on June 18, 2009, apologizing for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery".[95] It also explicitly states that it cannot be used for restitution claims.[96]
"when freed, he (the slave) is to be removed beyond the reach of (racial) mixture."
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA...what about Sally, the slave, with whom he had so many children? Ah, men...even the greatest are hypocrites.
- Bambi H.
Bambi,
ReplyDeleteThat's very true. They were hypocrites.
I suppose during colonial times, a white man's desires would bring him into contact with blacks, but his fear of social stigma would cause him to reject the fruits of such a liaison; in the colonies, the offspring of interracial relations were illegitimate and there were legal prohibitions on marriage between the races.
As you might know, Sally's black mom Elizabeth was the mistress of TJ's father-in-law (6 children with Elizabeth). Thus, Sally was a mixed race but apparently more white.
Sally had 6 (or 7)children with TJ. After TJ's death, she and two sons were freed according to his Will. She and these sons were listed as white in the census (1830). -- from Annette Gordon-Reed book "TJ&SH- An American controversy, 1997.
Thanks,
Bert
Hello Jose,
ReplyDeleteThomas Paine, an Englishman, contributed much through his writings/pamphlets during the Revolution, which was acknowledged by John Adams.
However, his defense of the French Revolution earned him to be considered anti-monarchist and was labeled an an outlaw in England; so he escaped to France where he was honored by the French revolutionaries.
When he returned to America, his radical views about religion caused him to be disliked by many and so his contributions were forgotten. He died poor and only 6 people attended his funeral.
General Lafayette was a young French nobility who volunteered and fought very well with George Washington. He also was the primary contact with the French royalty and thus obtained the French aid which was decisive in defeating the English.
Thanks,
Bert
Kamusta?
ReplyDeletePareho tayong lubos na nagmamahal sa ating lupang hinirang na Pilipinas.
Una, sana ay sagutin mo ng Tagalog ang email na ito.
2. Marami akong gusto kong pagtulungan natin na baguhin sa ating pag-iisip na nilason ng mga Kastila at Amerikano.
a. Ang Philippines ay dapat tawagin na Pilipinas
b. Ang US Aid sa Pilipinas ay kailangan na itigil, dahil nagiging sanhi lamang ito ng pagnanakaw ng mga taong gobyerno. Ngayon na ang tamang panahon na ipakita natin sa buong mundo na ang Pilipinas ay kayang tumindig sa sarili nating paa. Paano tayo kikilalanin ng buong mundo kung hanggang ngayon ay umaasa pa rin tayo sa tulong ng iba para mabuhay.
k. Tayong mga Pilipino ay dapat ipagmalaki ang ating wika. Lagi tayong gumamit ng salitang Tagalog maliban na lang kung taga ibang bansa ang ating kausap, o kaya ay Tagalog at taga Mindanao ang nag-uusap, at di sila mag-kaintindihan. Sa mga pagkakataon na ito ay dapat Engles ang usapan.
d. Ang ating mga pinuno ng bansa at kawani ng gobyerno ay laging magtalumpati at makipag debate sa paggamit ng ating pambansang wika na Tagalog.
e. Alisin na anatin sa ating isip na pag ang tao ay magaling mag Ingles ay sikat at dapat tingalain.
g. Alisin na rin natin ang pagsusuplado ng ugali na namana natin sa Kastila.
h. Higit sa lahat na iwaksi na natin na pag nakakita tayo ng Amerikano at Kastila ay para tayong nakakita ng Diyos na puwede tayong mag-paalipin. Sinong bansa ang gagalang sa mga taong kung kumilos at magsalita ay parang alipin?
i. Alisin natin sa ating isipan na ang mga taong matatangkad, maputi ang kutis at matangos ang ilong ay mga guwapo at maganda. Dapat ipagmalaki natin ang ipinagkaloob sa atin ng Paginoong Hesukristo. Huwag tayong mag papalastic surgery para gumaya sa mga hindi naman dapat gayahin.
l. Ang dapat pagtuunan ng pansin ng ating lahi ay paano tayo magsasalita at kikilos na kagalang galang sa sino man. Sinong bansa ang gagalang sa taong wala ng ginawa kundi gayahin ang iba.
Bert, alam ko na ang kalimitang sanhi ng maling salita at kilos ng ating mga kababayan ay dahil para sila mapansin o para mag kapera. Sana maniwala sila unang una sa Panginoong Hesukristo, maniwala sila sa kanilang sariling kakayahan at higit sa lahat wala sa mundong ito ang katulad niya. Dapat tayong igalang sa pagiging mabuti sa pakikipagkapwa tao, marunong tumupad sa mga pangako at hindi sinungaling.
Bert, nasa America ako ngayon, nagsimula ako sa hanapbuhay sa loob ng aking kusina nuong 1984. Kailanman ay hindi ako youmuko sa mga Amerikan para bigyan nila ako ng hanapbuhay. Ipinakilala ko sa kanila na ako ay isang Pilipino na maaasahan at may isang salita. Sa awa ng Diyos sampung taon mula ng ako ay magsimula sa hanapbuhay ay napili akong negosyante ng taon sa Trenton, New Jersey. Ang parangal ay iginawad sa akin ng alkalde ng Trenton, na si Mayor Palmer, nuong 1994. Maliban dito ay ay nakaandika ako ng walong magaganda at mamahaling Real Estate. Sinasabi ko ito di para ipagyabang, kundi ay ipaalam sa mga kababayan natin na hindi kailangang mag sinungaling, maging huwad na tao, maging uto-uto sa kapwa upang kumita ng salapi.
Bert, panahon na, lalo na ngayon na meron tayong Pangulo na dapat nating tulungan sa kanayang mga pangarap sa ating bayan. Nangarap ako nuon at hanggang ngayon na ang Pilipinas ay kikilalanin sa buong mundo na isa sa pinaka mayaman, maunlad, malinis at puno ng tao na masisipag, tapat, at hindi puwedeng itulak tulak ng sino man.
ado p.
Ado,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your inspired response.
I have a Tagalog/Pilipino version blog, which I put on hold given the lack of readers and tedious writing process. I hope at least some readers will share the postings they have read.
I have addressed some of your concerns in past postings. Anyway, note that my Mission Statement states general directions towards the goal: a sense of national community, i.e. Filipino nationalism (which we natives struggle to keep against then American colonization/post-WW2 neocolonialism and now globalization.)
This blog attempts, in my own little way, to turn back the tsunami of cultural imperialism or cultural globalization; to help recover and relieve Filipino nationalism, which is THE sine-qua-non for the socio-economic and political progress of our fellow native Malay Filipinos in the homeland.
Regards,
Bert