It's time to call BS on all the people applying 2020 principles and beliefs to the people of the American colonies in 1776. Our Founding Fathers were a product of their time and slavery was reality at that time. They were faced with a need to get something done and the only way to do that was to compromise. What they ended up with - the Constitution - was an extraordinary document and created a country and principles that have not been surpassed in the last 250 years.
Think about it - did slavery start when the American Revolution ended or when the Constitution was signed? No. It was brought to the Colonies by the Europeans and, don't forget, Africans contributed to the slave trade. The opening of the book Roots by Alex Haley shows his earliest forefather being sold by African blacks to European whites.
In the 1700s, slavery existed everywhere and was accepted by people of every color. And, guess what, it still exists today across the globe.
The Constitution is not perfect. Yes it did allow slavery to continue. But it was a document born from compromise - a term people no longer seem to understand today. Those who would have liked to extinguish slavery had to compromise with those who wanted slavery to grow farther or we'd not have had any document and the United States as we know it would not have existed. I'll defer to historical novelists to map that future but given that what existed before the Constitution was the Articles of Confederation, which left us with 13 individual States and no central authority to bring them together.
Think the US is bad, consider the rest of the world. Start with the European powers of the 1700s.
England established an Empire on which the sun never set. Wonder how the people of India felt about their English rulers, perhaps the fact that they overthrew the English rule is the answer. What about those living in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, where whites ruled over blacks until the 1980s.
I'm guessing the Algerians and Vietnamese living under French were not happy or they'd not have been revolting in the 1950s and 1960s.
Spain - the European country from which Hispanics are descended and who were another dominant world power in the 1700s. Their treatment of the native peoples they found in Central and South America could hardly be called nice and friendly.
Denmark, another Country that permitted slavery to be used in colonies. Case in point - the US Virgin Islands were Dutch territories and slavery existed there until 1848. There are blacks on the USVI who as recently as the late 1990s, when I was there, still hated whites for the way their population was enslaved and treated.
Let's look at the rest of the Globe.
Consider China which has morphed from a pretty miserable form of warlord government to a totalitarian communist regime that had no problem killing millions of people under Chairman Mao and continues to stifle all personal freedoms even today.
Russia - another wonderful place. From the Tsars to Stalin to Putin. Not exactly the light of freedom there.
Then there are the Muslim countries of the Middle East. Try being lesbian, gay or transgender there. Woman can't dress the way they want, only have been permitted to drive in some countries recently, have their genitals cut off, and can be killed by family members if they do something that denigrates the honor of the family.
South and Central America? If those countries are so wonderful, why are migrant caravans walking thousands of miles, risking physical abuse, rape (for the women) and possible death to leave their countries and get to the United States?
Then there is Africa itself. As I stated at the outset - blacks in Africa were responsible for selling other blacks to Europeans to be slaves. Now that did not account for all of the slaves that were traded but it demonstrates my point that in the 1700s, slavery was a accepted across the globe and among all populations. As for how the African continent has fared since the end of European rule, look up the history of Uganda under Idi Amin. Or Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. Because he led the fight to remove the white government the media only recently were willing to admit and report the atrocities being committed by his government. Then there is Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola - the list goes on about how countries throughout Africa continue to mistreat their peoples.
So yes, I'm calling bullshit on all the critics of the Founding Fathers of the United States. You think our Founding Fathers sucked - show me another country that did better in the last 250 years. I can't. That's why I think the Constitution they wrote and the Country they created is a really amazing place and deserves praise not scorn.
Two final thoughts.
First, people on all sides of the political spectrum could take a page from the lessons of 250 years ago and learn that if you're not willing to compromise - if everything has to be exactly your way without exception - then nothing gets done and things only get worse, not better.
Second, if you think slavery is bad or was bad - stop obsessing about 250 years ago and look around you. Slavery still exists. Instead of worrying about people who were enslaved in 1780 America, do something to help the people enslaved today. That's something I'll take a knee for or buy a pair of Nikes to support.
Think about it - did slavery start when the American Revolution ended or when the Constitution was signed? No. It was brought to the Colonies by the Europeans and, don't forget, Africans contributed to the slave trade. The opening of the book Roots by Alex Haley shows his earliest forefather being sold by African blacks to European whites.
In the 1700s, slavery existed everywhere and was accepted by people of every color. And, guess what, it still exists today across the globe.
The Constitution is not perfect. Yes it did allow slavery to continue. But it was a document born from compromise - a term people no longer seem to understand today. Those who would have liked to extinguish slavery had to compromise with those who wanted slavery to grow farther or we'd not have had any document and the United States as we know it would not have existed. I'll defer to historical novelists to map that future but given that what existed before the Constitution was the Articles of Confederation, which left us with 13 individual States and no central authority to bring them together.
Think the US is bad, consider the rest of the world. Start with the European powers of the 1700s.
England established an Empire on which the sun never set. Wonder how the people of India felt about their English rulers, perhaps the fact that they overthrew the English rule is the answer. What about those living in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, where whites ruled over blacks until the 1980s.
I'm guessing the Algerians and Vietnamese living under French were not happy or they'd not have been revolting in the 1950s and 1960s.
Spain - the European country from which Hispanics are descended and who were another dominant world power in the 1700s. Their treatment of the native peoples they found in Central and South America could hardly be called nice and friendly.
Denmark, another Country that permitted slavery to be used in colonies. Case in point - the US Virgin Islands were Dutch territories and slavery existed there until 1848. There are blacks on the USVI who as recently as the late 1990s, when I was there, still hated whites for the way their population was enslaved and treated.
Let's look at the rest of the Globe.
Consider China which has morphed from a pretty miserable form of warlord government to a totalitarian communist regime that had no problem killing millions of people under Chairman Mao and continues to stifle all personal freedoms even today.
Russia - another wonderful place. From the Tsars to Stalin to Putin. Not exactly the light of freedom there.
Then there are the Muslim countries of the Middle East. Try being lesbian, gay or transgender there. Woman can't dress the way they want, only have been permitted to drive in some countries recently, have their genitals cut off, and can be killed by family members if they do something that denigrates the honor of the family.
South and Central America? If those countries are so wonderful, why are migrant caravans walking thousands of miles, risking physical abuse, rape (for the women) and possible death to leave their countries and get to the United States?
Then there is Africa itself. As I stated at the outset - blacks in Africa were responsible for selling other blacks to Europeans to be slaves. Now that did not account for all of the slaves that were traded but it demonstrates my point that in the 1700s, slavery was a accepted across the globe and among all populations. As for how the African continent has fared since the end of European rule, look up the history of Uganda under Idi Amin. Or Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. Because he led the fight to remove the white government the media only recently were willing to admit and report the atrocities being committed by his government. Then there is Somalia, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Angola - the list goes on about how countries throughout Africa continue to mistreat their peoples.
So yes, I'm calling bullshit on all the critics of the Founding Fathers of the United States. You think our Founding Fathers sucked - show me another country that did better in the last 250 years. I can't. That's why I think the Constitution they wrote and the Country they created is a really amazing place and deserves praise not scorn.
Two final thoughts.
First, people on all sides of the political spectrum could take a page from the lessons of 250 years ago and learn that if you're not willing to compromise - if everything has to be exactly your way without exception - then nothing gets done and things only get worse, not better.
Second, if you think slavery is bad or was bad - stop obsessing about 250 years ago and look around you. Slavery still exists. Instead of worrying about people who were enslaved in 1780 America, do something to help the people enslaved today. That's something I'll take a knee for or buy a pair of Nikes to support.
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