Frederick R Smith has moved to Frederick R. Smith Speaks (substack.com)
As we know, detailed studies about American history and
heritage have been reduced to just a few morsels in classrooms throughout the
nation. To confirm this, some years ago I
had the opportunity to browse through the teacher’s store. This establishment was
quite large, about the size of what we would know growing up to be a “five and
dime.” Throughout this superstore, there
were rows upon rows of documents that looked like coloring books. These
booklets guide teachers that instruct grades 1 through 12. Opening a sample of
these documents revealed many illustrations but minimal text. Upon opening one
about “United States History” there was scant information about the topic at
hand. Nowhere was there any reference to our important documents but of course
there was a section about slavery. So much for the textbooks that baby boomers like
yours truly grew up with.
Before continuing, it is important to note that this author abhors
slavery. In fact, several of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. This paper is in
no way an apology but a repudiation of this terrible injustice.
Slavery was not the direct product of nor was it introduced by
the Founding Fathers. Slavery existed centuries before the founding as
President of Congress Henry Laurens explained in 1776:
“I abhor slavery. I was born in a
country where slavery had been established by British Kings and Parliaments as
well as by the laws of the country ages before my existence. . . . In former
days there was no combating the prejudices of men supported by interest; the
day, I hope, is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as
justice, every man will strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to
comply with the Golden Rule.” [1]
Slavery existed throughout the world since the beginning
of recorded history. It still exists in parts of the world today. But we rarely
hear about this modern slavery because of the god of political correctness
(hint, hint – Sudan). Nevertheless, the American Revolution was the turning
point against slavery and the Founding Fathers contributed to that
transformation. Many of the Founders complained about the fact that Great
Britain had forcefully imposed slavery upon the Colonies. For example, Thomas
Jefferson criticized that British policy:
He [King George III] has waged
cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life
and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur
miserable death in their transportation thither. . . . Determined to keep open
a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative
for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce.[2]
In a 1773 letter to Dean Woodward, Benjamin Franklin
confirmed that the British thwarted the American attempt to end slavery
because:
“. . . a disposition to abolish
slavery prevails in North America, that many
of Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, and that even the Virginia
Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing
the importation of more into that colony. This request, however, will probably
not be granted as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed. [3]
Just ask any child or young adult engaged in “social
studies” about the above and we know the result or lack of response. As such,
it can be said without any doubt the children in today’s schools do not measure
up to the academic achievement of the past. Today, we are at the bottom of the
barrel compared to the rest of the world. The main culprit for the lousy
academic achievement is the fact that much of the time spent in classrooms
involves the ideological twisting of our history.
Most people automatically think about the injustice that
African Americans suffered because of slavery. This is certainly true. And it
is also true that some African Americans today still suffer the lingering
effects of past slavery manifested by racism. However, slavery included people
of every race and color up until modern times. How many people know the following
facts?
- On the
eve of the Civil War, about 4,000 black slave owners (some writers say
these salve owners were a mixed-race), as well as American Indians owned
black slaves. Note – this author certainly accepts the fact that this
aspect is a small part of the sin of slavery in this country.
- The
elite Africans sold their own people to the international slave trade
- In
many parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East,
slavery persisted into the 20th century. Ethiopia
outlawed it in 1942, and Saudi Arabia
and Yemen
in 1962.
- Slavery has existed in Sudan for thousands of years and today the slave trade persists. The Sudanese civil war that resumed in 1983 rages on between the Arab north and the black south. Permitted and even encouraged by the Arab-dominated Khartoum government,
the military has captured countless Christian women and children from the south and sold them into slavery in the north. In the year 2000, there were over 100,000 black slaves in Sudan. Today, a comparable situation exists in the little-known nation of Mauritania.
- During
the founding of our nation, many white Europeans placed themselves into indentured servitude. These people subjected themselves to this form of slavery to obtain free passage on sailing ships. They would work without pay for seven years to “payback” their planter masters who bankrolled their transportation to the new world. Before gaining their freedom at the end of their seven-year term, masters sold indentured servants just like the black slaves. In Virginia, white indentured servants outnumbered black slaves in the seventeenth century.
- In Virginia in the late 1600s, the children of mixed couples (white women and black or
Native American men) were required by law to enter servitude for periods of up to 30 years.
- White
convicts from Great Britain were subject to shipping to the Colonies and
sold as slaves.
- North
African pirates abducted and enslaved more than 1 million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of raids. Thousands found themselves seized
every year to work as galley slaves, laborers, and concubines for Muslim
overlords. Scholars have long known of the slave raids on Europe and
historian Robert Davis has calculated that the total number captured -
although small compared with the 12 million Africans shipped to the
Americas in later years - was far higher than previously recognized. His book, Christian Slaves, Muslim
Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy,
1500-1800, concludes that 1 million to 1.25 million ended up in bondage
- The
total number of people in forced labor in the Soviet Gulag system included up
to 25 million souls dung Stalin’s regime (1927 – 53). There was an annual death rate of about
30 percent in this system.
With this background, it is proper to point out that slavery
existed throughout the world up to the time of the Civil War. Slavery was also
being eliminated outside North America during this period, but we were the only
nation that suffered a civil war, in part, due to slavery. The dichotomy of
slavery existed even in the north during the Civil War. Specifically, it was
not just Southern generals who owned slaves, but some northerners owned them as
well. Northern General, Ulysses Grant, owned slaves that not freed until the
Thirteenth Amendment (1865). Also, how many history professors bother to tell
their students that some slaves in the Colonies could bear arms to hunt for
themselves? That tidbit surely will cause gun control advocates to become
unglued.
The notable founding fathers that owned slaves then turned
against the practice in the 18th century included George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. Their moral rejection of slavery was unambiguous,
but the practical question of what to do had them baffled. That would remain so
for more than half a century. It is important to also note that there was no
repudiation of slavery during this time in Africa, Asia, or the Middle East.
The historical records show that the founders had to
compromise on the slavery issue. Slavery was the most contentious issue debated
during the Constitutional Convention and in the end, counted each slave as three-fifths
of a person in deciding the number of representatives in each state. Even
today, scholars continue to debate if the success of the Convention really
required such a veiled acknowledgment of slavery. While we will never know the
outcome if there was no compromise, we will always consider the fact the Union
may not have occurred due to some states such as South Carolina. This was
ironic as the southern states felt that slaves were not persons but compromised
to consider them as partial persons, which then gave them more representation. On
the other hand, the northerners felt that the south had an unfair
representative advantage, as there were more slaves in the south. Nevertheless,
the three-fifths clause was not a measurement of human worth but an attempt to
reduce the number of pro-slavery proponents in Congress. By including only
three-fifths of the total numbers of slaves into the congressional
calculations, Southern states denied pro-slavery representatives in Congress. It
was during the Constitutional Convention that James Madison recorded the
debates. George Mason of Virginia was an example of those from the south who
derided slavery:
“Slavery discourages arts and
manufacturers. The poor despise labor when
performed by slaves. … Every master is a pretty tyrant… [slavery] brings on the
judgment of Heaven on a country… As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in
the next world, they must be in this. By
an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishs national sins by national
calamities.”
Article 2, Section 9 of the Constitution stipulated that is
was not until 1808 that Congress could enact any commerce laws restricting
slavery. This issue finally came to a head because of the War Between the
States. In this conflict, one life perished for every six people that were
freed.
As we know, the Declaration of Independence states, “… all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is the most often referenced
statement invoked by those who wish to debase the Founders when it comes to the
question of slavery. Despite what the postmodern secular humanists may say, this
is a religious statement as it asserts that men are spiritually equal. It also
asserts that men should be equal under the law. In the face of the inherited
slavery system, this statement bars slavery man to man. The founders knew this,
and they struggled with the issue of slavery and it was around the time of the
framing of the Constitution that Congress acted to ban slavery in the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787. Slavery was an existing stain in 1776, and yes there was the
slow pace of its eventual abolition. Nevertheless, an open mind realizes that
the fact of slavery in America
need not lessen the value Declaration’s definition of equality under God and
the law. Indeed, this fact magnified the concept behind this proclamation.
By 1776, several the Founders who owned slaves were concerned
about the need to abolish the “peculiar institution” [e.g., Washington,
Jefferson, James Madison, and George Mason (see above)]. In fact, some treated their slaves very well
with Madison
being a notable example. He was concerned for the safety of any of the slaves
that he may have freed. They may have ended up in worse condition because of
the harsh treatment blacks received in society in general or they simply could
have ended up under tyrannical slave owners. It is also important to note that
slaves worked to death in the West Indies and South America and replaced them with more
imported slaves. In the colonies, slaves lived on and the slave trade dwindled
in time because the black slaves in the Colonies lived and procreate. Nevertheless,
there were legally sanctioned cruelties against slaves in the colonies such as
cutting off toes to prevent them from fleeing. Whipping in response to
disobedience was another nasty cruelty against slaves that we all should
deplore.
It is also important to note that the word “slave” is not in
the Constitution. In his notes on the constitutional convention, James Madison
recorded that the delegates “thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the
idea that there could be property in men.” There is no question that slavery
was and is wrong, and it is unsound to say that the U.S. Constitution supported
it.
Frederick Douglas the great black abolitionist writer,
publisher, and the speaker was born a slave. In 1846 he bought his freedom and he
believed that our form of government “was never, in its essence, anything but
an anti-slavery government.” He also
said, “Abolish slavery tomorrow, and not a sentence or a syllable of the
Constitution need be altered.”
A majority of the Founders opposed slavery, but it was
the leaders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia who strongly
favored it. In 1790, Elias Boudinot,
President of the Continental Congress responded to those who favored slavery
by proclaiming that:
[E]ven the sacred Scriptures had been
quoted to justify this iniquitous traffic. It is true that the Egyptians held
the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years, . . . but . . . gentlemen
cannot forget the consequences that followed: they were delivered by a strong
hand and stretched-out arm and it ought to be remembered that the Almighty
Power that accomplished their deliverance is the same yesterday, today, and for
ever. [4]
With the above and much more historical information, most of the Founders were opposed or were saddened to be a part of this stain on mankind. One of the more famous of the Founders who did not own slaves was John Adams and he said, “[M]y opinion against it [slavery] has always been known . . . [N]ever in my life did I own a slave.” [5]
Also missing from the classroom history books are the
important efforts by several of the Founders to end slavery. In 1774, Benjamin
Franklin and Benjamin Rush founded the first antislavery society. John Jay was
president of a similar society in New York. Other important Founding Fathers
who were members of societies for ending slavery included Richard Bassett,
James Madison, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll, William Few,
John Marshall, Richard Stockton, Zephaniah Swift, and many more. It is also important to note that the biggest
push to end slavery around the world came from Christian churches and lay
organizations.
Because of the efforts, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts
abolished slavery in 1780; Connecticut and Rhode Island did so in 1784; New
Hampshire in 1792; Vermont in 1793; New York in 1799; and New Jersey in 1804. Furthermore,
the reason that the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
Iowa all prohibited slavery was a federal act authored by Rufus King (signer of
the Constitution) and signed into law by President George Washington which
prohibited slavery in those territories.
Rest assured that the elitists who review books will forever
more use slavery as the core criterion when critiquing books about the U.S.
history. Like it or not, books that explore other elements of the Founding in
detail will be subject to vilification for not “fully” addressing the core
question (in their minds) of the republic’s early years. For example, the cover
of the December 14, 2003, issue of The New York Times Book Review sums it up
this way: “Never
Forget: They Kept Lots of Slaves.”
The keyword is “never.” The
agenda of the elitists now becomes clear as a glass eyeball - slavery is the
overarching element to measure the Founding Fathers. As such, certain intellectual
snobs consider them to be villains. Forget the fact that Washington worked hard
at the end of his life to ensure freedom for his slaves after his death. This
worldview also charges the Founding Fathers that did not own slaves because
they signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Should we
charge all the Supreme Court judges with the fiat legalization of abortion?
We must be honest to admit that several of the founders owned
slaves. However, are we to believe some of the wacky conspiracy theories that
the Founders were looking to perpetuate slavery or set up an elitist white
plutocracy? Certainly not and despite their inconsistency about slavery, they
created the legal system necessary to demolish this evil.
Those who were for slavery from the founding through the Civil
War argued that those poor people were less than human. This is the same (hidden) argument used by the pro-abortion crowd.
In closing, it is profoundly disturbing that there is little
in the mainstream about the slavery that exists right now in North Africa. Is
it possible because it politically incorrect to mention this modern horror
because certain elements of a certain religion are engaging in this activity? Of
course, there are those who will say that there is no oil in those countries so
that is why we do nothing. Frankly, I am tired of that demotic quip.
Major printed sources:
An
Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
by Henry Wiencek, Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux; (November 15, 2003)
Vindicating
the Founders by Thomas G. West, Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Publishing; (January 15, 2001)
James
Madison: A Biography by Ralph Louis Ketcham, Publisher: University of Virginia
Press; Reprint edition; (May 1990)
Christianity on Trial by Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett, Publisher: Encounter Books;
(2002)
Notes:
All references quoted in “The Founding Fathers and
Slavery” by David Barton at http://www.wallbuilders.com:
- Frank Moore, Materials for History Printed From Original
Manuscripts, the Correspondence of Henry Laurens of South Carolina (New York:
Zenger Club, 1861), p. 20, to John Laurens on August 14, 1776.
- Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert
Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc.,
1903), Vol. I, p. 34.
- Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Jared
Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore, and Mason, 1839), Vol. VIII, p. 42,
to the Rev. Dean Woodward on April 10, 1773.
- The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United
States (Washington, D. C.: Gales and Seaton, 1834), First Congress, Second
Session, p. 1518, March 22, 1790; see also George Adams Boyd, Elias Boudinot,
Patriot and Statesman (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1952), p. 182.
- John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the
United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1854), Vol. IX, pp. 92-93, to George Churchman and Jacob Lindley on
January 24, 1801.
It is important to make this observation about the author David Barton. Like a lot of research, we all depend on the information that is available about the topic at hand. All of Mr. Barton’s research takes a hit by the secular humanists in general as they have taken one or two of his quotes from his work that may be questionable. Nevertheless, most of the research is excellent. This is just like David McCullough’s fantastic book “John Adams.” In this book, McCullough uses a common quote about Adams that may not be correct. For just this one item there are those that trash the entire book. The intellectual giants with the pea brains need to get a life – some constructive criticism of the few questions would be more gentleman-like.
Author and Publisher, Frederick R. Smith
Editor, Sean Tinney