For generations, children have been spared the whole, terrible
reality about slavery’s place in U.S. history, but some schools are beginning
to strip away the
deception and evasions.
And right off the bat, we get a glaring
deception:
Pacing his classroom in north-central Iowa, Tom McClimon prepared
to deliver an essential truth about American history to his eighth-grade
students. He stopped and slowly raised his index finger.
“Think about this. For 246 years, slavery was legal in America. It
wasn’t made illegal until 154 years ago,” the 26-year-old teacher told the 23
students sitting before him at Fort Dodge Middle School. “So, what does that
mean? It means slavery has been a part of America much longer than it hasn’t
been a part of America.”
It is a simple observation, but it is also a revelatory way to
think about slavery in America and its inextricable role in the country’s
founding, evolution and present. Ours is a nation born as much in chains as in
freedom. A century and a half after slavery was made illegal — and 400 years
after the first documented arrival of enslaved people from Africa in Virginia —
the trauma of this inherited disease lingers.
Let me offer Heim a revelatory fact. America is
not 400—246 + 154—years old. It is a simple observation. Can Heim really not
know that America—the United States of America—was Founded 243 years
ago, in 1776? That the inhabitants of Jamestown were not Americans, but English
colonists living in North America? What about the philosophical basis of
slavery? What about the philosophical case against slavery? Nothing, other than
a passing reference to the Declaration of Independence, as if that document is
a minor historical artifact, rather than the most Earth-shaking political
statement ever adopted as the foundation of a nation.
There’s a lot to chew on, enough to fill books.
And it has. But let me make a few essential points.
Historically, slavery was not a uniquely
American institution, although Confederate slavery was particularly brutal.
Slavery was a world institution. Most African slaves were sent to
places other than English colonies,
such as Brazil. As Heim correctly states, slavery was inherrited, not
unique to America or the preceding colonies..
America was not born 400 years ago. America was
born of the Enlightenment, which post-dated Jamestown. The Enlightenment, led
by giants such as John
Locke, spawned the
philosophical ideals, such as individual rights, that stand contrary to slavery
and that would eradicate slavery all over the West. America was born in 1776,
with the signing of the Declaration of Independence--the direct outgrowth of
the Enlightenment. With that philosophical blueprint, the U.S. Constitution was
drafted, and ratified in 1788. The Constitution, its flaws notwithstanding, was
the driving force behind the victorious
Gerrit Smith/Frederick Douglass wing of
the pro-Constitution wing of the Abolitionist Movement, as opposed to the
anti-Constitution William Lloyd Garrison wing. Smith and especially Douglass
believed slavery can only be defeated on philosophical grounds, not just
because of its cruelty, but also because even a well cared-for slave deserves
freedom. The Declaration and Constitution, they believed, provided that
philosophical firepower. They considered the U.S. Constitution to be a glorious
liberty document and therefore a powerful
anti-slavery document.
The injustices that have plagued American blacks
in the last 154 years is, in my view, primarily a lagacy of racism, not just
slavery. True, American slavery was justified in large part by racism—the idea
that blacks were inferior beings incapable of living free. But slavery, which
existed throughout human history and around the globe, is not in and of itself
essentially a racist institution. Racism predated slavery in America, and went
on afterwards. If racism had been eradicated from America’s legal structure at
the same time as slavery—e.g., no Jim Crow, no “Separate-but-Equal”, no legally segregated schools, transportation, or commerce, no lynch-mob terrorism, etc.—the history of the last
154 years would have been much more just. We certainly wouldn’t be talking
about the lingering “trauma” or “legacy” of slavery. Unfortunately, the 13th,
14th, and 15th Amendments that followed the Civil War were largely ignored, and
the nation, especially the South, backslid into an effective re-enslavement.
The real disease of the last 154 years is racism backed by law. Racism is
collectivism. Here again, as with slavery, the antidote to legalized racism,
and ultimately of racism in the culture, is the individualism embodied in
America’s Founding documents. As Constitutional scholar Timothy Sandefur observes of another leading Abolitionist, Charles Sumner,
“Sumner and his allies were guided by the belief that America was
not premised on racism, as both Garrison and Calhoun claimed—and many today
still claim. He insisted, on the contrary, that the end of bondage and
segregation was mandated by the truths articulated in the Declaration of
Independence, which, echoing [President John Quincy] Adams, he called ‘the
controlling preamble of the Constitution’.” [My emphasis]
The American Revolution was radically unique in
history. Typically, revolutions involved the overthrow of one government and
replacement by another, replacing one form of statism with another. America was
different. Margaret Thatcher correctly observed:
“America was created by philosophy." America was born amidst a
titanic clash of ideas, the ancient ideas of statism and collectivism versus
the new liberal Enlightenment ideals of liberty and individualism. The American
Revolution was a victory for liberty and individualism on the battlefield of
arms. But it was a battle, not the war. The wider war was on the battlefield of
ideas--the philosophical battlefield. You can change a government overnight.
But you can’t win a war of ideas overnight. Ideas are about changing minds. The
mind is an individual attribute. So you win the war of ideas one mind at a
time. Therefore, ideas take time to penetrate a culture. The American
Revolution, being a philosophical revolution, was a huge step forward. But it
was not the final victory of the overarching war. The Philosophical war
predated America, and continued after. From the start of America, the forces of
statism/collectivism have been pushing back. The current attempt to recast
America as a slave state is part of that statist/collectivist counter-revolution
against freedom/individualism.
This longrunning war of ideas is the context by
which the current debate about slavery’s place in American history must be
understood. The abolition of slavery and the defeat of racist Jim Crow laws and
the like is what defines America, because they represent the victory of
American ideals of individual rights and political equality. The same can be
said, for example, about women’s suffrage and marriage equality for interracial
and homosexual couples. Of course, those ideals don’t always win. Sometimes,
the reactionaries regroup. More progress needs to be achieved. But American
ideals are key to finishing the job. We shouldn’t let the historical
revisionists whitewash these ideals under cover of Teaching
America’s truth. America’s truth begins
with its philosophy as essentialized in the Declaration of Independence
and the ongoing struggle to get everyone to live up to those ideals. It did not
begin with 1619 Jamestown. To assert that “For 246 years, slavery was legal in
America” is a flagrant distortion of history because it ignores the great
principles that actually marked the Founding of America. The pre-Enlightenment
Jamestown of 1619 was not the America of 1788. There’s some truth that, in
practical terms, “Ours is a nation born as much in chains as in freedom.” But
that’s a result of many of its people failing to live up to the new nation’s ideals.
It is the freedom, not the chains, that define America. Slavery was an
inherited aberration. Establishing individual sovereignty as the explicit basis
of a nation’s Founding is progress, and a historical first. The fight against
slavery and racism is fundamentally a philosophical fight, and America is on
the right side of that fight. The horrors of slavery in America should be fully
aired, for sure. But that airing, to get it right, must be placed in the
context of that philosophical fight. We need the whole truth. The United states
of America is the nation born of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment commenced
in the late 17th Century, and extended through most of the 18th Century, culminating in the Founding of America. America was born with many of its citizens in slavery. But it was not born on slavery.
As historian Thomas Sowell observes,
As historian Thomas Sowell observes,
Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most
astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide
institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a
controversial issue prior to the 18th century. People of every race and
color were enslaved – and enslaved others.
My emphasis: America was born amid the time when
slavery became controversial, and America was born on the right side of that
controversy. 1619 Jamestown was situated on land that would become part of
America. But it cannot in any way be part of the history of the United
States of America. America is the nation of liberty. It cannot be held
responsible for the anti-liberty that preceded it.
So why do Heim and the “range of critics —
historians, educators, civil rights activists — [who] want to change how
schools teach the subject” gloss over or ignore the anti-slavery documents that
mark the Founding of America? Heim hints at the answer when he disapprovingly
quotes from a history lesson this passage:
“With all the drawbacks of slavery, it should be noted that
slavery was the earliest form of social security in the United States,”
students read in Alabama history textbooks of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.
In
fact, that statement is a truth that modern collectivist-statists don’t want
you to learn--or even acknowledge themselves. Slavery was defended by
Confederate intellectuals like George Fitzhugh on socialist grounds. Slavery was superior to free labor, argued the slaveocrats, anticipating Marx and today's Democratic socialists, because it guaranteed cradle-to-grave care in exchange for full guaranteed employment. Socialists would echo the same theme in the 20th and early 21st Centuries. Modern socialist programs like Social Security are remarkably similar to whatpro-Constitution Abolitionist Frederick Douglass went through as a slave. Douglass’s master Hugh Auld lent him out to the shipyards, where Douglass worked for $9 a week. But he had to turn his paycheck over to Auld every week.
Whether working in the fields or the shipyards for money, how is that different, in principle, from Social Security or any like program, in which the government takes part of your work earnings in exchange for taking care of you in your old age, or in some other respect? Granted, partial slavery is not full slavery. Degree matters, in terms of tolerability. But if it’s only a matter of degree, it’s only a matter of time from partial slavery—the welfare state—to full slavery, socialism. That socialism is synonomous with slavery is a truth that the modern "new" socialists must squarely face up to.
But they can’t--or won’t. Why? Because
America’s Founding Documents are as much anti-socialist as they are
anti-slavery, and for the same reasons. 20th-21st Century socialism is as
much a repudiation of Americanism as slavery was 154 years ago. With a "new" socialism
on the rise in 21st Century America, modern Democratic Socialists have a
powerful reason to minimize or evade the role of the liberal principles of
Americanism in defeating Colonial and Confederate slavery.
This also explains why Heim asserts that
Two years ago, the district started teaching slavery as
fundamental to America’s growth, wealth and identity rather than as
a tangential part of the country’s history. Slavery would be emphasized and
fully explored, not avoided or downplayed. [Emphasis added]
[Douglass] was awestruck by the prosperity of the metropolis.
Having been taught that slavery was the basis of all wealth, he had assumed
that the North must be poor, and could hardly believe the bustling industry
about him.
New Bedford [Massachusetts] was alive with railroads, factories,
mills, and foundries, and Douglass was impressed by the difference between it
and the relative indolence of Baltimore.
Alexis de Tocqueville made the same observation.
“[I]mpressed by the different cultures of north and south,” he observed that In
the south, “society has gone to sleep” by the “idle ease” because slavery “not
only prevents the white men from making their fortunes but even diverts them
from wishing to do so.” In the free North, “one will never see a man of leisure
[because] the opportunity for profit and self-improvement encouraged hard work
and commerce.” Black American innovators and entrepreneurs flourished
as free people, not as slaves. And the
Northern states, though far from perfect, were the part of America that was
most aligned with American principles--and the most economically progressive.
In their zeal to discredit capitalism, Left
collectivists actually preach what Douglass knew to be false—the myth that
slavery, not freedom, is fundamental to prosperity. In that regard, Heim and
his ilk are on the same side as slavery’s advocates. By claiming that slavery was,
or even could be, fundamental to a country’s economic growth and wealth, the
revisionists are essentially agreeing with slave champion John C. Calhoun, who in the
1830s argued that “slavery was not
an evil to be eliminated, but a ‘positive good’.”
Slavery is no a “positive good.” It is an evil
that logic and history unequivocally proves holds progress back. The fact is that, in its Founding ideals, the
United States of America is the only completely anti-slavery country that ever
existed. That’s America’s truth, and any teacher who discusses slavery without
orienting the subject around that central truth is not teaching American
history. He is “teaching” anti-American indoctrination.
But maybe that’s the point. If, as the line of thinking expressed by Heim and the NYT goes,
slavery is key to prosperity, then slavery must be good. The only question then becomes, how to implement slavery equally and “fairly”. To repeat the question,
why the reactionary urge to elevate slavery over freedom as the defining
characteristic of America? After all, if freedom is good, why not fight to
spread freedom to every individual, leaving no one out, as urged by the likes
of Thomas Jefferson, Fredrick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Ayn Rand, Martin
Luther King, and Harvey Milk? The answer is simple. It’s the freedom, not the
slavery, that the reactionaries want to evict. The rise of socialism in
21st Century America can not proceed on the basis of American ideals rooted in
individual rights. In the same way and for the same reason that the Declaration
of Independence and U.S. Constitution are anti-slavery documents, they are
also anti-socialist documents. Socialism holds that the individual belongs
to the state, as the slave belongs to his master. The Declaration holds that
the individual’s life is his and hers alone. So the collectivists of the Left
have to ignore those ideals; or more precisely obliterate them as if they
never existed. Why? in order to bring about the most broad-based form of
master-slave system--a socialist America. You can’t radically transform a
capitalist nation into a socialist nation without obliterating capitalism’s
foundation. That foundation is the same philosophical foundation of America’s
Founding--the inalienable liberty rights of the individual, all individuals,
equally and at all times. It’s not equality per se the socialists oppose. It’s
equality of individual freedom they oppose--to be replaced with equality of
slavery--universal slavery, except for the ruling elites, the sociopaths who
are to be more equal than the rest.
The reactionary forces of statism/collectivism
cannot be allowed to prevail. It’s time for the final victory of the forces of
liberalism/individualism.* It’s time to finish the American Revolution. Socialism is
primitive savagery dressed up in a scientific/intellectual cloak. In reality,
the rise of political socialism a la Karl Marx, now aligned with Rousseauian
Environmentalism, is the reactionary pushback by primitivism and savagery
against the rise of Enlightenment and civilization. The movement to recast
America as a slave state is part of the counter-revolution against America. We
cannot let them win. That outcome is too bleak to contemplate.
* [I use the term
“liberalism” in its original meaning of pertaining to individual freedom based
upon individual rights]
Related Reading:
Public Schools Are Teaching The 1619 Project in Class, Despite Concerns From Historians--Robby Soave for Reason
Hannah-Jones is correct that the keepers of histories have always
employed spin: History is written by the victors is a great aphorism because
it's true. School textbooks have often been filled with ideological nonsense—sometimes as part of a conservative or religious agenda. But that's the irony of requiring The 1619 Project in high school
history courses: It is itself a form of spin, and significant aspects of it are
up for debate.
"The Buffalo school district's decision also risks further
politicizing the classroom with explicitly ideological content, not unlike the
notorious cases we often hear about coming from the other side of the spectrum
such as the Texas textbook review process, which has long been a bastion of the
religious right," says Magness.
The
Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right
to Liberty—Timothy Sandefur
The
Founders Were Flawed. The Nation Is Imperfect. The Constitution Is Still a
'Glorious Liberty Document.' -- Timothy Sandefur
As part of its ambitious “1619” inquiry into the legacy of
slavery, The New York Times revives false 19th century revisionist history
about the American founding.
[T]he idea that, in Hannah-Jones' words, the "white men"
who wrote the Declaration of Independence "did not believe" its words
applied to black people is simply false. John Adams, James Madison, George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others said at the time that the doctrine of
equality rendered slavery anathema. True, Jefferson also wrote the infamous passages suggesting that "the blacks…are inferior to the whites in
the endowments both of body and mind," but he thought even that was
irrelevant to the question of slavery's immorality. "Whatever be their
degree of talent," Jefferson wrote, "it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton
was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the
person or property of others."
The myth that America was premised on slavery took off in the
1830s, not the 1770s. That was when John C. Calhoun, Alexander Stephens,
George Fitzhugh, and others offered a new vision of America—one that either
disregarded the facts of history to portray the founders as white supremacists,
or denounced them for not being so. Relatively moderate figures such as
Illinois Sen. Stephen Douglas twisted the language of the Declaration to say
that the phrase "all men are created equal" actually meant only white
men. Abraham Lincoln effectively refuted that in his debates with Douglas.
Calhoun was, in a sense, more honest about his abhorrent views; he scorned the
Declaration precisely because it made no color distinctions. "There
is not a word of truth in it," wrote Calhoun. People are "in no sense…either free or equal."
Indiana Sen. John Pettit was even more succinct. The Declaration, he said, was "a
self-evident lie."
It was these men—the generation after the founding—who
manufactured the myth of American white supremacy.
[Emphasis added]
4 comments:
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sharon gabby seems so ridiculous that I think she's saying we can't talk our adversaries into our way, not even thru Lord gbojie.
It's true, we can't. They're totally committed, in a word, to their socialism, as per their chosen pseudo-philosophy down to its most basic fundamental roots. Their pseudo-philosophy is, in a word, unreason. Unreason, socialism, that's it, in two words. I add three words as corollary, death of humanity. That's Dark Age.
We can't talk our adversaries into our way, not even thru reason. We can only establish our righteousness in terms of human life by reason (no commas, not needed) to ourselves. They, in their billions, are beyond reach. They hanker for their dark age. They want it, and they want it for us, too. To get it, they'll use something they'll call law and government. We're supposed to think that's what it is, and to, so, obey, respectfully.
We must educate ourselves, kind of like autodidacts in consort with each other, from, in our piddling few millions (maybe less than 10 million), metaphysics and epistemology (all about PHYSICS and the derivative math) to human life (ethics) and ethics' extension into human relations, as the basis for segregating unreason from reason, by FORCE!, which means, by establishing law and government, not the glitz of socialists.
The battle, or war, of ideas must be won to conclusion. But, we'll never talk them into it. We must make them eat what they consider to be 'crow', by FORCE! They'll forever hate it for as long as they live, but, SO WHAT? even if it takes forever, and it will. So what? We can't order them to be free. We can't force them to be free. But, we sure can LEAVE them free whether they like it or not.
The battle of ideas must ultimately be won by brute LETHAL physical force. That's what law and government, day by day in our daily personal lives, is all about, not just in the military defense establishment. Persuasion works only within our own ranks, which never includes enough people to avoid physical conflict, thus we have criminals at home and criminal 'nations' abroad. If law and government, or its restoration, requires a bloody revolution or civil war, whatever one wants to call it, then, ALL RIGHT!
If the socialist succeed in getting enough political power to force, through government, FULL socialism upon us--including one-party rule, an end to free elections, and the abolition of freedom of speech--it WOULD be time for what the Founders sanctioned in the Declaration of Independence: "Prudence" and "patient sufferage" first, "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." That will take force. But it will be DEFENSIVE force against the AGGRESSIVE force of the socialists. We will have the moral high ground.
On your terms, my escape hatch is, the battle of ideas must ULTIMATELY be won by brute LETHAL physical force. The word, ultimately, indicates agreement with you, such that we would be defensive and not aggressive, so we would have the moral high ground in a shooting war. I do agree with you. And, you're better at reviewing the Founding Documents than I have been.
My comment also indicated I might 'jump the gun' and be aggressive (start a war) rather than defensive (respond to a war started by others). I don't want to do that.
But we might not be in total agreement as to when a long train of abuses and usurpations toward the same object makes plain a plan to reduce us to slavery. I can discuss that further right now, but I prefer to wait for now.
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