Jefferson and Slavery

Every so often, contemporary opponents of the Jeffersonian tradition make the argument that the legacy of the “Sage of Monticello” has been tainted by patent hypocrisy. The barrage of attacks Jefferson levied against slavery, they suggest, should be discounted on the grounds that he was a slave owner himself. Beyond this, some go as far as to claim that all redeemable facets of Jefferson’s political philosophy and accomplishments of his civil career should be consequently ignored forgotten. Because of his supposedly incongruous position on slavery, the Jeffersonian tradition is sometimes deemed as inconsequential, a mere footnote in history that should be swept under a rug and buried forever.

Despite these erroneous narratives, Thomas Jefferson was deeply opposed to slavery, and the question of freeing his slaves was much more complex and complicated than most assume. While he understood the practice to be indisputably immoral and malevolent, Jefferson was unable to eradicate it in Virginia despite his own earnest efforts.

From his earliest days as a burgess, Jefferson championed legislation that would make it easier for slave owners to independently manumit their own slaves. In 1770, he represented two mulatto boys pro bono, arguing that they had natural rights. Again in 1772, he gave legal representation to George Manly, a son of a free black woman, who had petitioned for freedom after working as an indentured servant beyond his contracted term. Once his freedom was secured, Manly worked at Monticello for Jefferson himself, who paid him wages.

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The Greatest Danger To American Freedom

Via comment by Ron W on McConnell: No matter what, Judge Gorsuch will be c...

 

What the Democrats call "extreme" is, I suppose, the opposite extreme of the arbitrary judicial rule they want where judges set aside the plain wording of the law with their subjective interpretation.

"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law."
--Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:59

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
-Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:449

"Strained constructions... loosen all the bands of the Constitution." 
 --Thomas Jefferson to George Ticknor, 1817. FE 10:81

"One single object... [will merit] the endless gratitude of society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation."
--Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:113

I prefer The objective reading of the law as described by Jefferson so that "judges shall be bound thereby" (Article VI, Section 2).

EPIC rant on London terror attack

Via Billy

Manly Wade Wellman: The Voice of the Mountains

 

Manly Wade Wellman never penned an autobiography, despite the fact he published 500 stories and articles, won the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award, and even edged out William Faulkner to win the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Award in 1946.

Yet, in one of his most famous short stories, Wellman did reveal how he must have seen himself throughout his career, from a crime reporter for The Wichita Eagle, to Assistant Director of the WPA’s Folklore Project in New York City, and finally as “the dean of fantasy writers.” In “The Desrick on Yandro,” the protagonist, John the Balladeer, has to sing for his supper to a group of “ladies and men in costly clothes.” Confident and entertaining despite his modest attire and outsider ways, John charms the crowd with forgotten classics, including “Rebel Soldier.” Like John the Balladeer, Manly Wade Wellman was a rustic but worldly singer of old ballads, as well as a walking, talking ambassador and promoter of traditional Southern culture wherever he went.

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Southern Christianity and Slavery

 

That Lincoln and his abolitionist colleagues did not propose a peaceful and practical to the African slavery they seemed to object to, is a national tragedy. Had they followed compensated emancipation as the British had done earlier (the British were primarily responsible for populating their American colonies with Africans), or helped advance a reasonable solution to the need for large numbers of workers to support their agricultural economy, a million lives would have been spared as well as the death, destruction and tortured legacy of the war Lincoln was responsible for.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Southern Christianity and Slavery

“ . . . Southern [slavery] reformers cast much blame on the Northern Abolitionist movement. They constantly complained that it was difficult to persuade planters that they should be teaching their slaves to read when the Abolitionists were sparing no effort in smuggling into the Southern States inflammatory literature which urged the slaves to rise up and slit their masters’ throats, among other things.

The palpable hostility and antagonism displayed by the Abolitionists toward the white South, their calls for a bloody slave rebellion, and their unrealistic demands for immediate and unconditional emancipation made slavery reform more difficult by producing resentment, fear, and a siege mentality among the whites.

[Many] Northerners (including Sen. Daniel Webster, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, and Princeton theologian Charles Hodge) condemned the Abolitionists for actually worsening the plight of the slaves and for creating hostility and distrust between the Northern and Southern people.

[It] is at least possible that an independent South might have enacted the reforms urged by her Christian leaders and thus avoided falling into a state of economic backwardness and dependency.  After all, Southerners consistently valued such non-monetary goods as country living, personal independence and liberty, and an harmonious and rich social life at least as much as mere wealth and material accumulation; and independence [from the North] might have created a more favorable environment for Christian reform of their labor system.

Southerners might have introduced a smaller and more humanely scaled industrialization to provide some measure of industrial self-sufficiency, and black Southerners might eventually have achieved legal equality and propertied independence.  In other words, an independent South could well have found an alternate – and perhaps more Christian – path to modernity.  Thanks to Mr. Lincoln, we shall never know.”

(Christianity and Slavery in the Old South, excerpt, H. Arthur Scott Trask, Chronicles Magazine, July 1999, page 33)

A Northern Tomb at Fredericksburg

Prussian Major Heros von Borcke accompanied Gen. JEB Stuart as the latter observed Northern soldiers burying their dead after Burnside’s disaster at the Battle of Fredericksburg. Von Borcke expressed shock at the rough manner in which Northern soldiers handled their dead, watching corpses being tossed into a nearby abandoned ice house pit “until the solid mass of human flesh had reached near the surface, when a covering of logs, chalk and mud closed the mouth of this vast and awful tomb.” To the Prussian officer, it seemed as if the Federal were more interested in doing the job quickly than doing it well. Had he been appalled at the carnage in late 1862 as Americans slaughtered each other, Lincoln might have called for an armistice and peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

A Northern Tomb at Fredericksburg

“On December 15, 1862, two days after Fredericksburg, [Gen. Ambrose] Burnside, his units having crossed back across the Rappahannock, asked Lee’s permission to remove his dead from the battlefield. The manner in which they performed their duties caused many of Lee’s soldiers to believe that what they were seeing before their eyes revealed another seamy side of the Yankee character, by their treating their fallen comrades, “these brave soldiers,” as one Gray observer termed them, like so many lumps of inert matter, dumping them into common graves “without even a blanket or words of prayer.”

Different in appearance but representing the same lack of feeling was an abandoned ice house, which the grave diggers converted into a “vast and awful tomb.” (Opened months later it revealed within a ghastly “hecatomb of skeletons.”)

These acts of desecration completed, the bulk of the Northerners disappeared, their pickets on the north side of the river about the only evidence of their presence nearby.”

Trump order to undo Obama emissions plan coming Tuesday

Via Billy

President Trump will issue an executive order on Tuesday to begin undoing former President Obama's rule on carbon emissions, Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt said Sunday.

"This is about making sure that we have a pro-growth and pro-environment approach to how we do regulation in this country," Pruitt said on ABC's This Week.

The order, he said, "will address the past administration's efforts to kill jobs across this country through the Clean Power Plan."

More with video@ Washington Examiner

Obama Admin Gave Tax Dollars To Soros To Influence Elections In Macedonia

Via Billy

While Congress has been looking into the question of Russian involvement in trying to influence our Presidential election, Congress has also been raising questions about our involvement in influencing the election of another country.

U.S. lawmakers have been investigating the incredible story that the Obama administration funneled money through USAID and our mission in Macedonia to George Soros’ Open Society Foundation to foment political unrest against the conservative government.

In January, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) broke the story, noting:

“I have received credible reports that, over the past few years, the US Mission to Macedonia has actively intervened in the party politics of Macedonia, as well as in the shaping of its media environment and civil society, often favoring groups of one political persuasion over another.”

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More Syrian rebels, families leave city of Homs under deal

Via Billy

Elsewhere in Syria, U.S.-backed opposition forces on Sunday captured a strategically important air base from Islamic State militants in the northern province of Raqqa in a major victory since the United States airlifted the forces behind enemy lines last week.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces announced they had captured the Tabqa air base, 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Raqqa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital in Syria.

Another group of Syrian rebels with their families on Monday began leaving the last opposition-held neighborhood in the central city of Homs under a Russia-brokered deal with the Damascus government, state TV and the province's governor said.

The government has denied that the Homs deal - and other similar voluntary displacements in besieged areas in Syria over the past year - forces resident to leave and effectively surrender their territory.

But some opposition activists have criticized the agreement, saying it aims to displace 12,000 al-Waer residents, including 2,500 fighters. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has called the evacuees "internally displaced" people.

More @ AP

Bernie Sanders Wants Single-Payer Program: Admits ‘Obamacare Has Serious Problems, Premiums Are Too High’

Via Billy

Who would have thunk'..................

Socialist crackpot, Bernie Sanders told CNN’s Dana Bash that Obamacare has serious problems and that premiums and deductibles are too high. Ya don’t say!

Bernie Sanders has no self awareness. He’s admitting far left socialist policies are a big fat failure, yet his solution is ‘more government’. You just can’t make this stuff up!

More @ The Gateway Pundit

Socialist crackpot, Bernie Sanders told CNN’s Dana Bash that Obamacare has serious problems and that premiums and deductibles are too high. Ya don’t say! Bernie Sanders has no self awareness. He’s admitting far left socialist policies are a big fat failure, yet his solution is ‘more government’. You just can’t make this stuff up! More @ The Gateway Pundit

‘Virtually Uncovered’–NYT Admits CNN And MSNBC Are Ignoring Rockville Rape

Via Billy

MSNBC, CNN and every other major network but Fox News are keeping their viewers in the dark about the alleged violent rape of a 14-year-old girl by two illegal immigrants, the New York Times conceded in an article about Fox News on Saturday.

The two alleged rapists, ages 17 and 18, were enrolled as freshmen at a public high school in Rockville, Maryland after being detained and then released by federal immigration authorities, despite being in the country illegally.

More @ The Daily Caller

CNN Fakes "Live" Interview with Congressman again!

Via Billy

Vegas Muslim cabbie went to victim's home after sex assault

Via Billy

Police say a Las Vegas cabdriver went back to the customer he'd been accused of sexually assaulting while she was passed out and offered her money, flowers and apologies after surveillance video footage of the incident surfaced.

The driver, 25-year-old Abdul Based, was arrested Friday. He has declined media interviews, and his attorney, Benjamin Durham, didn't immediately respond to messages.

The incident happened March 6, but it wasn't known until the woman called Lucky Cab Company two days later looking for her cellphone.

The taxi company in its search tracked down which cab she had been in through her credit card charge. When Lucky Cab checked that car's video surveillance footage, they saw the woman sitting in the front, dozing off, and the driver repeatedly reaching over to touch her genitals, according to a police report made public Thursday.

More @ ABC

Trump Credited By Israeli Police for Push That Solved Bomb Threats Case, US Media Ignores

Via Billy

Israeli media reported on Saturday that President Donald Trump is being credited by Israeli police for pressuring the FBI to solve the case of wide-spread bomb threats against U.S. Jewish community centers that had struck fear throughout the Jewish-American populace. The American-Israeli teen arrested in Israel for the bomb threats had been making bomb threats for two years but it was only after the newly inaugurated Trump got involved that the FBI sent agents to Israel. Under former President Obama the serial bomb threat case was apparently a low priority.

More @ The Gateway Pundit

Rollins College Muslima professor gets Christian Student SUSPENDED for blasphemy

Via Billy

The Muslim professor allegedly lying about a Christian student is hardly surprising. Neither is attempted ruination of the straight-A student’s reputation and academic record by this same professor of — wait for it — “Muslim Humanities” (oh, the irony). The student questioned Muslim orthodoxy, he blasphemed, and under Islamic law, he must be punished. This Muslima professor is acting according to Islamic tenets, no matter how reprehensible they are. What is unconscionable is the university’s lack of due diligence. No investigation, no fair and impartial inquiry. They took the Islamic supremacist at her word and suspended the student.

More @ Pamela Geller

CIA Intel Shaffer - Wiretapping Scandal Against Trump Is 'Orders Of Magnitude' Worse Than Watergate

Via Billy

McConnell: No matter what, Judge Gorsuch will be confirmed and no deals will be given

Via Billy

Both liberals and conservatives are rejecting a deal being pondered by Senate Democrats who would allow Judge Neil Gorsuch to earn a seat on the Supreme Court in exchange for a promise that the GOP won’t do away with the filibuster for future nominees.

A half-dozen Democrats are weighing the plan, Politico reported last week, arguing that Judge Gorsuch is likely to be confirmed but Democrats should try to squeeze some leverage for the next court fight.

They fear that if Democrats filibuster now, Republicans will trigger the “nuclear option” to change the rules and curtail the filibuster, confirming Judge Gorsuch and paving the path for President Trump’s future picks.

But liberal groups said they want a fight over Judge Gorsuch now, saying a deal would be seen as capitulation.

“Democrats need to stand firm in this fight and not accept an extreme and ideological nominee now in exchange for hazy promises about the future,” said People for the American Way’s Marge Baker.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, shot down any talk of an agreement, saying Democrats don’t have any leverage.

More @ The Washington Times