Tag: revolutionary war

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History

The United States Wallowed in the Slave Trade Longer Than Other Nations

colonial illustration

We had stated the belief that “all men are created equal.” After that, the Revolutionary War took all of our efforts. In 1782-1790, a wave of voluntary emancipation swept the states, but this was only encouraged by conscience, not law.

In 1794, the United States was the first country in the world to pass a law that impeded the slave trade. The building and outfitting of slave ships in American harbors was outlawed.

Yes, I know. This is a far cry from the emancipation of all slaves. But remember that gradual movement toward emancipation was by far the preference of the American people.

This law ended slavery for no one, but it immediately impacted the slave trade itself. American harbors were closed to building and outfitting slave vessels.

This immediately cut the demand for slaves in Africa, where slavery had increased exponentially because of foreign demand. It also cut American cruelty during the middle passage.

The only Americans who continued the trade had to buy and outfit ships in other harbors, which was an extreme nuisance. The American slave trade was almost erased without making slavery itself illegal.

What were other results within the United States?

Southern states were fine with the law. As would be seen in later years, there were plenty of slaves already in the South to procreate more for future needs.

New Englanders who were involved in the slave trade were screaming. They had been making fortunes in the slave trade: building and outfitting slave ships then running the slave trade in those ships. However, most New Englanders were not in the slave trade and approved the law.

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History

Reconstruction Was the First Plan to Solve the “Negro Problem”

road to the future

Wrong again.

What to do about slavery and the resulting free Negroes was never far from the minds of the public and politicians.

Fernando Fairfax, a prominent Virginian, was the first known individual to write a proposal. It was called the “Plan for liberating the negroes within the united states.” (Notice the capitalization choices.) It is dated “Richmond March 6, 1790.” The text can be found in Encyclopedia Virginia.

Fairfax first reviews the arguments.

Pro-emancipation friends claim their basis on natural right and justice, considering this claim “paramount” to all other considerations. (This will be the stand of abolitionists of the Civil War era.)

The other party agrees with the claim of natural right and justice, but insists on a cohesive policy that also considers “the inconveniences which would result to the community and to the slaves themselves.” These included the right to property legally obtained at the time of purchase.

And in this explanation, we see the conflict of liberal and conservative thinking that continues today.

Liberals see in black and white, and can therefore demand something be done immediately. The results are always “unintended consequences.” Conservatives see in color, considering all shades of the problem. Therefore, they proceed slowly and often offer step by step solutions. They rarely see unintended consequences, because they have foreseen outcomes.

This is why our best government is when liberals and conservatives actually talk to each other. But liberals have no time for thoughtful consideration. They live in the present.

Fairfax next says that the general opinion is for gradual emancipation. So, there are few who agree that slavery should exist perpetually. As a conservative, Fairfax points out the unfairness and illegality of taking a person’s property by force or legislation. Therefore, the states would be required to reimburse the owners. We know that the states, at this point in time, were still struggling with debt incurred by the Revolutionary War and could not reimburse immediate emancipation.

Fairfax says that “it is equally agreed, that, if they be emancipated, it would never do to allow them all the privileges of citizens: they would therefore form a separate interest from the rest of the community.”

Fairfax provides no proof for that statement. He has not explored this from the black point of view at all.

He also states that the one thing that could form a common community would be intermarriage between whites and blacks. He asks which owner, upon freeing a male slave, would allow his daughter to marry that man.

This is faulty logic, but it does show white thinking that would exist in many places well into the 1960s. To Fairfax, this is the final determinant in his argument.

The Fairfax plan is gradually to emancipate slaves, first on a voluntary basis and then, as the states become financially secure, by reimbursement to the owners. All former slaves would be exported to a colony in Africa, to be governed by whites until the blacks show the educated ability to rule themselves thanks to schools established for that purpose.

Fairfax then repulses the argument that England tried this and failed by insisting that the plan did not accomplish the policy. From what Fairfax says, England failed because the slaves were not required to operate within a capitalistic society. What we know as a socialistic society failed, just as it did in the initial years at Jamestown, according to Fairfax.

This plan would actually remain the most popular choice among whites all the way to the Civil War and would be the personal opinion of Abraham Lincoln, as he stated himself on a number of occasions.

https://encyclopediavirgina.org/primary-documents/ferdinando-fairfax-plan-for-liberating-the negroes-within-the-united-states-december-1-1790

Categories
History

“All Men Are Created Equal” or Are They?

raised hands before USA flag

There is a great difference of opinion about what the founding fathers meant by this. Did they mean whites are created equal? Or white men, but not women, are created equal? Or did they mean all mankind, regardless of sex and race, is created equal?

Now we know that everyone was not treated equal. We can agree on that.

But what did the phrase mean? We have to look at facts.

  1. Linguistically, “men” and “mankind” were used to include all humans, as well as the more restricted usage of male humans. This was true until recent years. In neither case, was the usage restricted to whites.
  2. Women were active patriots. They did not act as second rank citizens. Abigail Adams exemplifies this in her letter to her husband John Adams wherein she encourages him to “remember the ladies.”
  3. We have to be careful to separate states during the Revolutionary War from the same states during the Civil War. We must stick to the facts.

For instance, three New England states voted for slavery before the first future Confederate state.

Although the south had become the center of plantation business, New England was and would continue to be the hub of the shipbuilding and slavery trades. In fact, Delaware would enter the Civil War as a slave state.

The proof of the difference is what actually happened within the states. The phrase “all men are created equal” already existed in a state constitution: that of Virginia. Yes, Virginia.

The immediate result of the acceptance of this phrase was that during the first twenty years of the USA, tens of thousands of slaves were set free. And Virginia, who freed 10,000 slaves, emancipated more than all other states together.

The reason we look at the first twenty years is because it gave masters time to adjust their lives and businesses to run without slaves, and—just as important—it worked as a period of apprenticeship during which slaves learned trade and economic skills necessary for independent living. After all, there was no free child care, free medical care, free clothes, free food, free care for the elderly and the infirm, free funeral care, and no assured employment.

  1. It is often mentioned that Jefferson wrote the document, and he owned slaves. First, Jefferson was chosen to write the document because he was the best writer, not because of his ethics. The document was a summary of decisions and supporting thoughts of the whole conference. Second, the document had to be written in such a way that all thirteen states would sign it. Third, Jefferson was a very conflicted person. His morals and ethics did not agree. We can see this in the section he wrote against slavery that was omitted in the final version as unsignable.
  2. One of the great impacts on colonial America was the Enlightenment Philosophy, which stressed such items as scientific inquiry, progress, and the rights of man. The American colonists, who were generally more educated as a whole than we are today, discussed these topics, and they are seen in the document. A constitutional republic with its self-rule was progress from traditional monarchies. The Constitution would eventually contain the Bill of Rights. It was the abridgement of these rights of the people that caused the Revolutionary War.
  3. The Christian faith, mostly Protestant but with a significant Catholic presence, affected every household, and it was an active faith, not like today, or like Britain of that time. All colonials learned to read so they could read whatever holy books their faith allowed. All Protestant homes had a copy of the King James version of the Bible, and usually also Pilgrim’s Progress and the Book of Martyrs. Catholics had their missal and often Lives of the Saints.

I make a big deal of this because the document included the phrase “are created.” Created means to be made from nothing, which is definitely not an enlightenment idea. It supports the “intelligent design” theory, although the “evolutionary process” theory was still in the future. And it says “are” meaning that at the day of the document that was still true and was seen as being true in the future.

When I read the word Providence in works of that time, it always refers to the Judeo-Christian God. Remembering that all colonists would need to vote on this eventually, and their representative would need to join an unanimously approval in conference, there is no other way to interpret the word Providence.

The concept of man created by God is the basis of “inalienable rights.” They are inalienable because they come from God, not the government. Especially, not King George III.

God created one man and one woman, according to the Genesis account. In them was the DNA to create the variety of races seen today. Therefore, all are equal. Woman was a “helper meet” for Adam, created from his rib, not his skull or his feet. She was created equal and her job is to “complete” her man. Therefore, equality between the sexes is ongoing. (The concept of male head of house and church is a separate issue, dealing with God’s ongoing use of living samples, not innate qualities and abilities.)

  1. Christianity and the Enlightenment are not natural opponents. Indeed, many easily believed in both. And then there were radicals such as Jefferson who believed they could not co-exist, and his personal version of the Bible proved that he chose Enlightenment over Christianity.

Because they are not opponents, they could claim a created man and also believe in self-government (which is the original government of the Bible) and in progress.

  1. Because of all of this, the best understanding of “all men are created equal” is that that fact already existed, but the current governments needed to progress (actually regress) so reality among mankind met the American Dream of equality (not equity!) of races and sexes. That is, progress would make earthly reality equal heavenly reality.