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“”” The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the pro
by travmatt 8y ago
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The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. [...] Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
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The Vice President of the Confederacy literally stood and gave a speech about why slavery was the reason they seceded from the union, but I’m not really surprised to find people who still try to distort the truth to push their views. It’s their way to virtue signal.
- wallace_f 8y agoI'm not sure why you posted this. Are you sure you read my post? I never said the South wasn't fighting to keep slavery. In fact, the main point of my post was closer to something like "people generally aren't good, but just want to virtue signal to sound good." Obviously, the fact that the south was even worse (and still even tried to justify it on moral grounds) seems to fit into that idea. Anyways, the responses here are not giving me much faith in humanity. I'm still living with tyranny. Anyone want to step up, or just keep alternating between virtue signalling and being outraged?
- wallace_f 8y agoI'm not upset people responded to some of things around the central point I made. I am upset they are suggesting that central point was correct.
- bobthepanda 8y agoWho cares if it's virtue signalling and outrage if it still leads to a good outcome? At some point awareness reaches a boiling point and change happens, maybe not as fast as it should but it happens. Stop and frisk would not have mostly ended in New York City if people were not outraged by it. Of course ending it hasn't solved most of our problems, but it's better to have 99 problems than to have 100. Should we just sit on our hands until someone in a million years devises the utopia that is compatible with human behavior?
- wallace_f 8y agoBecause it's an honest look at the world. Should every injustice need to wait for its opportunity to be used as a pretext for power struggles in order for it to be thwarted? What about the people living with tyranny today? Does it matter that they can ask for help and nobody cares about them. And people will even bully and criticize them? Even today? Even right here?