Add to Pickering...

The reason it has never been tried, is because the majority in Congress do not wish to try it, and the majority of the voters are too ignorant to demand that Congress stops this American holocaust. We have a problem where the majority of America, even Christians, have been "dumbed down", they believe that the government is above the people, they have not been educated on the history of America, the US Constitution. When the majority of Americans including our public servants at every level, all the way to the President believe that a unborn child is not a life, but only the potential for life, then we have a majority with no understanding of life or a respect for the sanctity of life. We as American's need to repent of our sins of doing nothing to stop the butcher of these innocent children, and start making our voices heard. I am glad our ancestors didn't want to just wait for new Supreme Court judges to save the lives of the slaves.

"There is nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action." -- Goethe (Naval War College plaque)

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The only thing neccessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I should do and, with the help of God, I will do!" -- Everett Hale

 

You are showing your ignorance on the issue. One of the most frequent tactics employed to discredit America's Founding Fathers is to say that the Founding Fathers were all pro-slavery racists and hypocrites. African-American professor Walter Williams wisely explained the use of this tactic in these words, "Politicians, news media, college professors and leftists of other stripes are selling us lies and propaganda. To lay the groundwork for their increasingly successful attack on our Constitution, they must demean and criticize its authors. As Senator Joe Biden demonstrated during the Clarence Thomas hearings, the framers' ideas about natural law must be trivialized or they must be seen as racists."

These people paint a false picture of the Founding Fathers and the issue of slavery. The historical fact is that slavery was not the product of, nor was it an evil introduced by the Founders; slavery was introduced in America nearly two centuries before the Founders. In fact, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay noted that there had been few serious efforts to dismantle the institution of slavery prior to the Founding Fathers.

The Revolution was a turning point in the national attitude against slavery - and it was the Founders who contributed greatly to that change. In fact, one of the reasons given by Thomas Jefferson for the separation from Great Britain was a desire to rid America of the evil of slavery imposed on them by the British.

Benjamin Franklin explained that this separation from Britain was necessary since every attempt among the Colonies to end slavery had been thwarted or reversed by the British Crown. In fact, in the years following America's separation from Great Britain, many of the Founding Fathers who had owned slaves released them (e.g., John Dickinson, Ceasar Rodney, William Livingston, George Washington, George Wythe, John Randolph, and others).

It is true, however, that not all of the Founders from the South opposed slavery. According to the testimony of Thomas Jefferson, John Rutledge, and James Madison, those from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia favored slavery.

Nevertheless, despite the support in those states for slavery, the clear majority of the Founders was opposed to this evil--and their support went beyond words.

For example, in 1774, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush founded America's first antislavery society; John Jay was president of a similar society in New York. When Constitution signer William Livingston heard of the New York society, he, as Governor of New Jersey, wrote them, offering, "I would most ardently wish to become a member of it [the society in New York] and... I can safely promise them that neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity... May the great and the equal Father of the human race, who has expressly declared His abhorrence of oppression, and that He is no respecter of persons, succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke."

Other prominent 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.

In fact, based in part on the efforts of these Founders, 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.

It is not surprising that Washington would sign such a law, for it was he who had declared, "I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]."

SOURCE

 

If you read the article I posted you would see that the answer is yes, some of the founding fathers did own slaves. I don't think I would have agreed 100% with every one of the founding fathers, in fact they didn't agree 100% with each other, read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. This doesn't change the fact that the US Constitution is NOT a living document, and has to be interpreted in the original language, intent and understanding of it's authors. I have NEVER said the founders were "infallible", don't put words in my mouth.

 

Slavery is mentioned in two main places in the Constitution; in Article 1, Section 2 Clause 3, and the 13th Amendment, so while the Constitution may have "allowed" slavery, it also ended slavery.

Prior to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, many "Founding Fathers" expressed opinions that condemned slavery.

John Jay, great supporter of the Constitution after its creation and an author of The Federalist wrote in 1786, "It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused."

Oliver Ellsworth, one of the signers of the Constitution wrote, a few months after the Convention adjourned, "All good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves."

Patrick Henry, the great Virginian patriot, refused to attend the Convention because he "smelt a rat," was outspoken on the issue, despite his citizenship in a slave state. In 1773, he wrote, "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery."

The Supreme Court’s infamous Dred Scott decision allowed slavery to continue and the Supreme Court's infamous Roe vs. Wade decision allowed abortion to continue. I don't think the Constitution allows abortion.

Our nation has declared in the Declaration of Independence that we are endowed by our Creator with an inalienable right to life, which is protected under the Fifth Amendment. It took the War Between the States and the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to finally restore African-American’s their unalienable rights. As we learn from our nation’s history, the Supreme Court can be wrong.

"If we don’t learn from history, we are bound to repeat it."

[ July 08, 2004, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: NetPublicist ]

 

Those who were against slavery didn't push hard enough on slavery issues at the Constitutional Convention. Their main goal was to secure a new government. They feared antagonizing those in favor of slavery. Most of them saw slavery as a dying institution with no economic future. So instead they used slavery as a bargaining chip to win other concessions. This should be one of the lessons learned on the danger of compromising principles for political reasons.

The 13th Amendment that end slavery came in 1865.

 

Wait a minute. These guys almost sound like Bush. I thought they were principled, Godly men who did the right thing no matter what. No compromise there, right? Perhaps, we shouldn't hold them up as the ultimate standard for interpretation of the Constitution since they were not as Godly and principled about such an important human rights issue as slavery.

Joseph Botwinick </font>[/QUOTE]I don't think they sound anything like Bush, he has mastered the art of compromise.

What do you suggest for the proper interpretation of the Constitution?

Maybe we should just throw it away and write a new one since it is so outdated, and times have changed so much since then, President Bush did say, "a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier".

 

"To those who wrongly criticize our Party saying that we want to establish a Theocracy, we must ask them to give careful attention to what we are saying. Like America's founders, we believe that the acknowledgment of God is not the exercise of a religion. Rather it is the founding philosophy of a government that allows religious diversity." --Michael Anthony Peroutka

A Theocracy will never work untill we get to heaven. The Bible says that "all have sinned" and that there are "none righteous", history shows that when even Christian men like John Calvin tried to create a Theocracy they ended up wrongly persecuting and killing others in the name of Jesus Christ, but that is for a different thread.

 

The constitution was not the be all and end all of governing documents. The founding fathers were so committed to the personhood of every person that the census counted certain ones as only 3/5 of a person. The fact that it was later amended shows that the constitution is a document that is not "once for all." In fact, it has been amended more than 20 times. The constitution could not begin to imagine the kinds of changes that would take place in society and culture.

I think it should be interpreted strictly, and in accordance with the author's intention. But there comes a place where it is neither practical or feasible to do that. There was simply not enough foreknowledge on the part of the authors.

 

We both agree on this, I would go one step further and say that it is not only the judges, Congress and the President's responsibility to interpret the Constitution, but it is also the responsibility of every US citizen. If the people of American rely on the government alone to interpret the Constitution, as they have for the last 150+ years then the government will continue to wrongly interpret the Constitution and destroy our Constitutional Republic.

Most people in America put our government officials up on a pedestal, and have a wrong view our form of government. The President, Congress and the judges are all supposed to be public servants, NOT rulers over the people. Our government has taken advantage of the people's ignorance and has used it to abuse the power that was given to them by the people. In order to properly understand and interpret the Constitution, we must first understand the purpose of government and the source of our rights.

 

Agreed, and that is why the authors gave the amendment process to the Constitution.

 

I thought I already did that on post #2.