Bachmann: Founding fathers ‘worked tirelessly’ to end slavery

[aKaBeasTTT 0]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/bachmann-founding-fathers-worked-tirelessly-slavery/

By Sahil Kapur

Tuesday, January 25th

WASHINGTON – Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said the United States was founded on racial and ethnic diversity and that the founding fathers were responsible for abolishing slavery.

Speaking at an event sponsored by Iowans For Tax Relief, Bachmann hailed the "different cultures, different backgrounds, different traditions" of the early European settlers in America, adding that the "color of their skin" or "language" or "economic status" didn't preclude them from seeking happiness.

"Once you got here, we were all the same," she said. "Isn't that remarkable? It is absolutely remarkable."

The Minnesota Republican called slavery an "evil" and "scourge" and "stain on our history."

"But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States," Bachmann added, claiming "men like John Quincy Adams... would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country."

Slavery was an institution in the United States for generations after its founding in 1776, largely due to a compromise between the founders that established African-Americans as three-fifths of a person. Several of the founding fathers themselves held slaves.

One of the framers, Thomas Jefferson, famously fathered children with Sally Hemmings, one of his slaves.

Slavery was not fully abolished until 1865, when the United States ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that expressly forbade it. Though he wasn't one of the founders, John Quincy Adams is credited by historians as having been a strong opponent of slavery.

A tea party hero, Bachmann has earned something of a cult following with her vicious attacks and occasionally conspiratorial claims about the Obama administration. She's also no stranger to factual inaccuracies. Bill Adlair, editor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact, said her claims tend to be false more often than just about any other politician.

Bachmann announced plans to give her own response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, though Republicans said hers would not be the party's official rebuttal.

[bigsixfive 341]

Nice misrepresentation of the 3/5 rule.

[TitanTiger 21,162]

What misrepresentation? It was a compromise between slave holding states and states where slavery was much less prevalent. Slaveholding states wanted to use their slave populations to boost their representation in Congress. Non slave states or states where slavery wasn't nearly as prevalent didn't want slaves counted in the population totals, especially since slaves were considered property and not proper citizens of the US at the time. The 3/5 compromise was born out of that dispute.

I guess you could quibble that they counted 3/5 of the slave population toward enumeration purposes, but that hardly makes it less conniving or wrong.

[AURaptor 1,137]

Non slave states or states where slavery wasn't nearly as prevalent didn't want slaves counted in the population totals, especially since slaves were considered property and not proper citizens of the US at the time. The 3/5 compromise was born out of that dispute.

I guess you could quibble that they counted 3/5 of the slave population toward enumeration purposes, but that hardly makes it less conniving or wrong.

Counting slaves as full persons gives the slave states more power, which is counter to what the Founders were attempting to accomplish. Dealing w/ the realities of the time, and knowing a middle ground had to be reached in order to form the nation, this was the only way to achieve that goal.

Bachmann knows this, and is right. It's neither quibbling or wrong, as you claim. She may have been clumsy in how she articulated the scenario, but much of that problem is based in the fact that we don't teach our own history as comprehensively as we should. Many Americans ( sadly, maybe most ) don't fully understand the 3/5 rule,and look at it only as some sort of racist slap in the face towards blacks, and can't appreciate the nature of why this compromise was necessary.

[TitanTiger 21,162]

Counting slaves as full persons gives the slave states more power, which is counter to what the Founders were attempting to accomplish. Dealing w/ the realities of the time, and knowing a middle ground had to be reached in order to form the nation, this was the only way to achieve that goal.

Bachmann knows this, and is right. It's neither quibbling or wrong, as you claim. She may have been clumsy in how she articulated the scenario, but much of that problem is based in the fact that we don't teach our own history as comprehensively as we should. Many Americans ( sadly, maybe most ) don't fully understand the 3/5 rule,and look at it only as some sort of racist slap in the face towards blacks, and can't appreciate the nature of why this compromise was necessary.

First, let's make sure you know what "it" is before disputing the point. "It" in my post referred to the morally bankrupt view by both the slave and non-slave states in this scenario. The non-slave states were wrong for not being willing to treat the African slaves as people both because of political power issues (the conniving part) and because they simply regarded them as "less than" fully human. The slave states were wrong because like the opposition, they viewed the slaves as sub-human but were also conniving in that they were willing to use them to gain more political power while continuing to deny them basic human rights.

While I realize it was a political compromise, that doesn't mean it also wasn't one more slap in the face of blacks at the time.

[AURaptor 1,137]

Regardless of what you think of it, slavery was the reality of the time. The Founders, understanding this and how their society incorporated the use of slaves, tried their best to bring about its end. That is what Bachmann is talking about, and that is why they, the Founders, should be given their due credit. Easy for us to say " Slavery is wrong, stop it - NOW ! " . Of course slavery is wrong, and when you're dealing with treating humans as pack animals, no good good can come of it.

The 3/5 rule a slap in the face to blacks ? Seriously ? They were already slaves.

[autiger4life 3]

The founders did one major thing to end slavery and that was to mandate that the slave trade had to end in 25 years. They basically punted it down the road.

[AUloggerhead 2,509]

The founders did one major thing to end slavery and that was to mandate that the slave trade had to end in 25 years. They basically punted it down the road.

That was also the reality at the time: neither slave holding nor non-slave holding states had enough political power to get their way 100%. Banning the international slave trade in 1808 while allowing slavery to exist in the US was just another one of those odious compromises. Still ... was Bachman wrong by saying some of the founders worked tirelessly to get rid of slavery? Slavery had been present in North American colonies since the 16th centrury and was fully ingrained in the southern British colonies at the time the Declaration was penned in 1776. Washington & Jefferson are often prominently held up as hypocrties for owning slaves yet leading the charge for liberty & freedom. Truth is, they both gained their slaves through inheritance -- Washington at age 11 when his father died. Neither man was comfortable with being a slave owner as their writings tend to support this view. One of Jeffereson's first acts when elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses was to introduce a law to make manumission (freeing your own slaves) easier. It was promptly rejected by the majority slave owinging Burgess memebers, but it gives some insight into Jefferson' dllemna over being a slaveholder while recognizing the error of it. Here's a long but pretty good article: Lank

Bottom line: the founders couldn't effectively eradicate the problem of slavery with legislation. The best they could do was limit it's influence.

[autigeremt 7,159]

Very well put! Slavery wasn't invented by the United States or the Britts. Some would make you think it was. Slavery existed for centuries and thank goodness it ended in this country when it did. Unfortunately it still exists today throughout the world, yet we (the South in general) are still being held as the brand bearer of the term.

[CCTAU 3,494]

Very well put! Slavery wasn't invented by the United States or the Britts. Some would make you think it was. Slavery existed for centuries and thank goodness it ended in this country when it did. Unfortunately it still exists today throughout the world, yet we (the South in general) are still being held as the brand bearer of the term.

That is just not true. There was no slavery until America invented it. And no other race has ever been enslaved except for the blacks in America. The American civil war was fought to free the blacks from slavery and the north set about a change in the world of ridding the slavery that the southern US had invented years earlier. No slavery exists today due to the American civil war. Please reread your history books. They may not be the same ones you read as a racist southern boy.

[arnaldoabru 11]

Very well put! Slavery wasn't invented by the United States or the Britts. Some would make you think it was. Slavery existed for centuries and thank goodness it ended in this country when it did. Unfortunately it still exists today throughout the world, yet we (the South in general) are still being held as the brand bearer of the term.

That is just not true. There was no slavery until America invented it. And no other race has ever been enslaved except for the blacks in America. The American civil war was fought to free the blacks from slavery and the north set about a change in the world of ridding the slavery that the southern US had invented years earlier. No slavery exists today due to the American civil war. Please reread your history books. They may not be the same ones you read as a racist southern boy.

What are you so afraid of?

[jj3jordan 2,164]

Very well put! Slavery wasn't invented by the United States or the Britts. Some would make you think it was. Slavery existed for centuries and thank goodness it ended in this country when it did. Unfortunately it still exists today throughout the world, yet we (the South in general) are still being held as the brand bearer of the term.

That is just not true. There was no slavery until America invented it. And no other race has ever been enslaved except for the blacks in America. The American civil war was fought to free the blacks from slavery and the north set about a change in the world of ridding the slavery that the southern US had invented years earlier. No slavery exists today due to the American civil war. Please reread your history books. They may not be the same ones you read as a racist southern boy.

Dude, You need to study some history. There have beens slaves for thousands of years. Read a book. BTW, America didn't invent anything, it wasn't even America yet. And where do you get a slave if you want to "invent" slavery? From a slave trader, also black, who is selling his own race into slavery. Doesn't mean we should have bought any, that was totally evil, but you need to know some history.

[autigeremt 7,159]

Very well put! Slavery wasn't invented by the United States or the Britts. Some would make you think it was. Slavery existed for centuries and thank goodness it ended in this country when it did. Unfortunately it still exists today throughout the world, yet we (the South in general) are still being held as the brand bearer of the term.

That is just not true. There was no slavery until America invented it. And no other race has ever been enslaved except for the blacks in America. The American civil war was fought to free the blacks from slavery and the north set about a change in the world of ridding the slavery that the southern US had invented years earlier. No slavery exists today due to the American civil war. Please reread your history books. They may not be the same ones you read as a racist southern boy.

Dude, You need to study some history. There have beens slaves for thousands of years. Read a book. BTW, America didn't invent anything, it wasn't even America yet. And where do you get a slave if you want to "invent" slavery? From a slave trader, also black, who is selling his own race into slavery. Doesn't mean we should have bought any, that was totally evil, but you need to know some history.

I think he was using

[CCTAU 3,494]

Very well put! Slavery wasn't invented by the United States or the Britts. Some would make you think it was. Slavery existed for centuries and thank goodness it ended in this country when it did. Unfortunately it still exists today throughout the world, yet we (the South in general) are still being held as the brand bearer of the term.

That is just not true. There was no slavery until America invented it. And no other race has ever been enslaved except for the blacks in America. The American civil war was fought to free the blacks from slavery and the north set about a change in the world of ridding the slavery that the southern US had invented years earlier. No slavery exists today due to the American civil war. Please reread your history books. They may not be the same ones you read as a racist southern boy.

Dude, You need to study some history. There have beens slaves for thousands of years. Read a book. BTW, America didn't invent anything, it wasn't even America yet. And where do you get a slave if you want to "invent" slavery? From a slave trader, also black, who is selling his own race into slavery. Doesn't mean we should have bought any, that was totally evil, but you need to know some history.

I think he was using

LOL. He hit that like a brick wall with an opening painted in it.

Sadly, That is what many of our gubment educated children are being taught. We still have a few great teachers left holding the line. But the younger the teachers are, the more they have been taught these things and forced to teach them.