“There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery].”—George Washington, Letter to Morris, 1786
Daily Signal:
For those who want to fundamentally transform our nation, the first order of business is to thoroughly discredit our past.
For decades, progressives have claimed that our foundations are so cracked and broken by the original sin of slavery that reverence paid both to our Constitution and its Framers is undue.
While the left has long claimed that our Founders were hypocrites, The New York Times has gone a step further.
With its much-ballyhooed “1619 Project,” the Times is attempting to “reframe American history” by imagining 1619, not 1776, as our nation’s birth year. Why 1619? That’s the year the first African slaves landed in the British colonies of America.
That places our greatest national shame at the very beginning—and the very center—of our nation’s history.
According to the Times, America is so tainted by slavery and riven by racism that these should be regarded as its fundamental characteristics. Thus, the first slave ship’s landfall in Virginia should mark our nation’s true beginning.
To the Times, the dates and documents that typically mark our starting point do not deserve that honor since, in its telling, “Our founding ideals of liberty and equality were false when they were written.”
The Constitution, in this view, is fruit of a poisoned tree. The 1619 Project’s authors claim that the Constitution is a decidedly pro-slavery document, despite the fact that the words “slaves” or “slavery” are never used.
“In the texts in which they were making the case for freedom to the world, they did not want to explicitly enshrine their hypocrisy, so they sought to hide it,” writes Nikole Hannah-Jones of the 1619 Project.
Conservatives well understand that the Founders did not wholly embody the principles set forth in the declaration, but we deny that those ideals were false, weakly held, or mere rhetoric.
Moreover, we deny that the Constitution is shot through with our Founders’ sins. In fact, it represents their better angels, and that’s why it endures. keep reading
I appreciate you linking this story as well as many similar ones by others that I’ve read since The NYT published it’s 1619 contention.
I frequent far left sites like KOS, CommonDreams, DU… and I can tell you without the slightest doubt that the people that follow them and their kin eat shit like 1619 up like a dog eats his own vomit.
The people that frequent IOTW, CTH, BB, OANN… know that our Founders had to make a compromise to get the southern states to sign on.
Aside from my personal beliefs, the fact is there are 40 million black Americans. They live in a country that offers great opportunities and if they(or anyone for that matter) want to be the horse standing next to the water and not drinking, I frankly don’t fucking care.
I’m a student of our history and I contend that with or without the Civil War, which was most definitely NOT fought to free the slaves, slavery would have ended without the deaths of 700,000. Now would we be 2 separate countries? Great to speculate but none the less, slavery would have ended.
I guess what I’m trying to say is the left will never stop trying to destroy the history, culture and traditions of our country. And to a great extent, they’ve succeeded but I believe they’ve pretty much cut about as much as they’re going to. Or at least I hope so which is why bullshit like 1619 plays well with these scumbags and the rest of know it’s just more crap.
If I am recalling it correctly Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or another person at the time described slavery as — being like holding a wolf by the ears. You want to let it go, but couldn’t figure out how to without getting bitten or killed.
Scottish explorer Mungo Park made two expeditions into Africa, in 1795 and 1805, being murdered during the second one. He wrote a book, “Travels in the Interior of Africa”. (aka Travels into the Interior Districts of Africa). First published in 1799.
He describes the slave trade practices in Africa, was held for a time as a slave himself by muslims. The British would abolish the slave trade in 1833. But that action had been debated much earlier. Mungo Park believed that slavery and the slave trade was so much a part of life, and the economy in Africa that if the British abolished slavery it would not have much effect if any effect in Africa. Because the slave trade, and slavery, was to much a way of life and the foundation of the economy in Africa. Ending trans-Atlantic slave trade would have no effect on the amount of slavery in Africa in Mungo’s opinion.
An introduction to later editions wrote that Park’s opinion about that was more strongly stated in earlier editions than in later editions. The opinion that Britain abolishing slavery would have no effect on the slave trade in Africa was softened in latter editions to lessen conflict with official British policy after 1833.
Mungo Park also writes about how slaves that were likely to run were quickly sold to slave traders who would sell them to villages far away, were it would be difficult or impossible to escape and return to their own village. Kunta Kinteh was wrong in the Roots story. The Europeans or Americans didn’t travel deep into Africa to catch slaves. They were captured by the local people, and sold to native slave traders, who brought them to the coast or ports along the larger rivers, to be sold or exchanged for western goods.
Oh, and the natives thought the slaves were being sold to be eaten. They did not believe Park when he told them they were taken to far away places to work the soil, and grow crops, just as they did there as slaves.
So, sorry lefties, the American colonials did not invent slavery. Most slaves captured in Africa went to the Caribbean or S. America, not to N. America. You’ll have to look at Africa for the foundation of black slavery, not America. And most people here didn’t want it to continue, but as in Africa, as observed by Mungo Park, it had become so essential to the economy it was difficult to end it.
Compromises were made to establish a new nation, that included steps to limit the power of states where slavery couldn’t yet be abolished. Evolution of the economy would have likely ended slavery here eventually, sooner than most think it would have happened, but the country jumped the shark in 1860s. Were Americans so evil we were to only country that needed to fight a war to end slavery? I don’t think so, but the history books make that claim, I guess to justify the deaths and destruction of the war. If slavery here had ended peacefully there likely would never have been the KKK or Jim Crow laws, and many other events. Blacks killing blacks at a high rate in our large cities every week might or might not be different. Seems mostly due to the Great Society’s unintended consequence of destroying the family culture.
The 3/5ths clause wasn’t to dehumanize the slave.. It was to reduce the political power of political representives that the slave states could wield in Washington..
All the facts in the Universe won’t disturb “The Narrative” by one iota.
The NYTimes subscribes to the Stalin (and Goebbels) theory of “history” and can only interpret events in light of the position of the “Party” – in this case whichever one will overthrow our Constitution – call it Demonrat, Progressive, Independent, Socialist, … whatever.
izlamo delenda est …
the constitution is the fruit of a poison tree, but not for the bogus reasons the nyslimes contend.
The Articles of Confederation preceded the Constitution and one of the clauses said that it could only be changed by a UNANIMOUS vote of the states.
Well, the founders wanted to take power away from the states and give it to the federal gov’t.
Of course they felt that it was so important to engage in this power grab that they really shouldn’t be beholden to those little old things called laws.
So, they replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution when only nine states had to ratify it.
Can you see that entire change from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution was illigitemate right from the very start? Well it was.
And that was just the first of a long line of power hungry big statists ignoring anything that got in their way to get what they want.
Does that help to explain how obamacare was passed?
Our constitution, which is so revered, is USELESS. It’s a fools errand to worship it because the people in power will ignore anything in it if they feel it will benefit them.
Fun Facts to Know and Tell, or News The MSM Like to Lose
White men outlawed slavery.
The Thirty-ninth United States Congress in 1865 ratified the 13th amendment that abolished slavery. Not only that, but:
The House Majority was: Republican
The Senate Majority was: Republican
And that’s a fact, Jack!
A nuther fact:
Black members of the 1865 Congress:
None
The first “legal” slave owner in North America was a black man:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/05/did-you-know-the-first-legal-slave-owner-in-america-was-black/
,
Blink: Thanks for that great, thoughtful comment. Mungo Park doesn’t make an appearance in the conversation about slavery very often. Always liked that name.
Blink…that was brilliant. Thanks for the concise, well-written article. A great lesson. I’m printing it out to keep.
— oolook