The Sin of Slavery

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:

1. 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.
2. Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Assoc., 1903), Vol. I, p. 34.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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