European-Christian pretenses evolved American slavery

European-Christian pretenses evolved American slavery

Considering, perhaps accepting, that fervent Christian beliefs originated, inspired& empowered the 1861 U.S. Civil War can& may protect fellow-citizens from repeating tragic loss& misery. Slavery started 10 thousand years ago, yet the U.S. started operating 233 years ago; in 1789. Recent and ancient documents support[1] the following suggestion: human-being can& may focus on necessity& justice in their way of living; focus on safety& security on earth leaving mysteries such as God to the origins of the words.  

Human-being cannot define the-High-God[2]. Necessity& justice are not now pursued by religious faith. Religious persons& institutions can& may contribute to civic-integrity. Jesus did. But clergy cannot be allowed to either dictate-to or justify government officials. The individual-citizen need not fear self-interest in civic-integrity. Civic means fidelity in human connections& transactions more than compliance to civil rules.

Christian ministers in the south inspired the civil war

Practically nothing more than religious fervor could bemuse& mislead otherwise civil Christians to open fire on civic Christians as they did in Bleeding Kansas (May 1854) and at Fort Sumter (April 1861)!!

The Civil War’s murder& destruction started with Bleeding Kansas,[3] an erroneous Christian crusade against fellow-Christians who comprehended& expressed abolition’s necessity& justice. Many Christians say “God is love”, overlooking& lessening that Jesus is appreciation. Mystery represses substance. Religion ruins government. The Civil War was white Christian against white Christian.

 

 

A civic way of living that accommodates the practical Jesus

A person can& may be neither Protestant nor Christian yet advocate the practical, metaphysical& transcendent Jesus that is frankly-affirmed in transparent experiences& observations. Jesus’ suggestions influence the-good in the appreciative human-being. For example, the practical Jesus volunteered, “a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”. Note “to” rather than “with”. The modern man who understands Jesus’ statement chooses to court a serenely-confident woman, whose religion he embraces to her and her ova. I cannot discern the-ineluctable[4]-truth and opine the man must remain true to himself, whether he chooses religion or not. In other words, he is true to his wife and their progeny, if any, to the individual’s responsible personal preferences without compromising the man’s self-happiness. These principles are difficult to discern in 2022 cultures.

Some people transparently[5] promote Jesus despite church and politics. Thomas Jefferson thought so much of Jesus’ civic example that in 1804, he extracted Jesus’ apparent way of living from New-Testament-writers’ embellishments and published the results. Also, G. Bernard Shaw said, “Jesus remains unshaken as the practical man; and we stand exposed as the fools, the blunderers, the unpractical visionaries.” Ralph Waldo Emerson promoted Jesus’s suggestion that every human-being can& may perfect their unique person before dying.[6] Albert Einstein said civic-people don’t lie so as to lessen human misery& loss more than to obey a religious rule. The world benefits by weighing Jesus’ suggestions on par with those of Jefferson, Shaw, Emerson, Einstein, and other civic thinkers.

It seems the practical Jesus affirms the following 5,500 year-old Genesis 1:28[7] message, updated with human-being’s discoveries through 2022:  Female& male-human-being can& may independently provide order and prosperity (safety& security) to the lesser species and to the earth yet cannot impose the consequences of their choices. An unarticulated power, perhaps physics, constrains each human choice.  The individual human-being can& may constrain chaos in their way of living, separate clergy from government functions, and foster safety& security on earth rather than impose opinion on “heaven”. In essence, human-being’s destiny is their-interdependent-responsibility and their challenge is to constrain the laws of physics as evolution unfolds. That is, free-will is constrained by physics& benefits; necessity& justice; safety& security. The individual who resists physics invites constraint. For example, when a tsunami is announced, a person at the ocean who does not move to high ground begs death. More importantly, the individual cannot persuade either the-High-God or government to provide transport to higher ground.

From polytheism to monotheisms to competitive Christianity

The Genesis 1 political philosophy emerged during Sumerian polytheism. Sumerians behaved as though the-High-God cannot effect order& prosperity on earth. In Genesis 2, the Hebrews asserted the Lord God directly commanded them. Soon monotheism prevailed in the Middle East, and civilizations constructed doctrinal-Gods in order to favor their tribe, whether their-God performed or not. Countless Gods were constructed by civilizations and tribes within them. Chaos increased rather than lessened.

Christianity constructed 4 competitors yet mysteriously “one” competition:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the Trinity plus Satan. Perhaps they represent election, reliability& inspiration vs evil, respectively. By the doctrine, Christianity is available to the individual who-God-chooses to-believe-Jesus. Jesus is reliable to those the Lord God assigned to Jesus. To resist the Holy Spirit begs ruin. To adhere to Satan is ruin.

Fellow-citizens can& may perceive these mysteries as arrogant human-being, or churches, attempting to control “the heavens” rather than provide safety& security on earth --- attempting to persuade whatever constrains the consequence of personal-choice& action to usurp human-being responsibility. Christianity seems to obscure the practical Jesus, as Emerson suggested, as well as the metaphysical Jesus – the-good we may glean from shared interpretations of his life.

By 400 AD, the West, the East, and Asia each had Bible canon. In 1546, the Protestants also canonized a Bible, creating another major competitor. Today, there are 45,000 Protestant sects. How does Christianity impact America so far? Divergent chaos. Here’s a short review of a long story about Christianized-African-slavery’s recent impact on America.

Competing Christianity’s kings colonized “the new world” in America

Slave trading in Africa began in the 7^th century AD. (I know nothing about African political philosophy.) And “by 1500 [Portugal had] traded 81,000 enslaved Africans to Europe, nearby Atlantic islands, and to Muslim merchants in Africa”.[8] In 1455, the Pope Nicolas V “authorized” Americas-colonizer Portugal to perpetually enslave sub-Saharan Africans.[9] In 1493, Pope Alexander VI “authorized” Portugal and Spain to colonize the Americas, enslave the natives, and import African slaves.[10] Then Luther inspired the Protestant Reformation. Protestant kings competed with Catholic kings to colonize America using slave labor. Black-skins, characterized as inferior, had-long-sense “justified” white-racism. England dominated the N. American slave trade. All these Christian impacts occurred long before the U.S. was framed as a constitutional republic in 1787, conditionally ratified in 1788, and legalized in 1791 under the Bill of Rights.

America’s failure to terminate domestic slavery and racism

Organized objections to slavery in America began with Quakers in 1688. Some Quakers are non-theists. In 1775, a Quaker founded the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Benjamin Franklin was its president in 1787. Member Thomas Paine published “That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange. But that many civilized, nay, Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage practice, is surprising”.[11]

In 1763, King George III attempted to tax the American colonies and take the money to Great Britain. The free colonists spilt 40% loyalist, 40% independent, and 20% passive. Slaves wanted freedom and independence. Eastern-seaboard colonists had fought as English-colonials in the French and Indian War, an extension of France& England’s Seven Years War in Europe. The 1763 Treaty of Paris awarded England the French possessions east of the Mississippi excepting New Orleans. The independent American citizens would recall, in 1778, France’s intentions to limit England’s power in the USA. (To date, the USA has not overcome Anglo-American tradition, such as recently-imposed unanimous-jury verdicts in states’ criminal trials. Unanimous criminal-trial verdicts are no longer forced in England.)

In 1774, 12 of 13 Eastern seaboard colonies met (Georgia did not attend) and created the Articles of Association, because of “a ruinous system of colony administration, adopted by the British ministry about the year 1763, evidently [obviously?] calculated for enslaving these colonies”. Among the commitments: “We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave trade.” They rejected French-Catholic controlled Quebec’s “hostility against the free Protestant colonies”.

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson presented to Benjamin Franklin a draft declaration with the following accusation to the King:

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. [determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.[12]

With a ratio 8 slave states to 5 non-slave-states, this complaint was omitted from the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Hope for the future was disproportionate increase in the number of non-slave-states.

          The 1776 Declaration of Independence seems to comport to Genesis 1:28, proposing separation of each 1) clergy& government officials, 2) church& state, and 3) mystery& physics. It cites “Nature’s God” rather than England’s Trinity for responsible-human-independence. It cites military power -- “the Supreme Judge of the world” -- for war-victory. The founders expected military-providence from France and Spain. The USA declared independence from England and its Christianity, as well as from Sumerian-Hebrew polytheism (Genesis 1’s God vs 2’s “the Lord God”), in order to pursue necessity& justice in the U.S.

The 1776 founders wrote for USA-independence from England. Then the 1787 framers proposed the individual citizen’s opportunity to responsibly pursue chosen happiness rather than accept the dictates of fellow-citizens. Only the 39 signers of 55 framers approved the 1787 draft U.S. Constitution. The required 9 states conditionally ratified it.

The constitutional republic that the signers approved proposes that willing citizens practice, facilitate, and encourage 5 public-interests in order to establish& maintain responsible-human-independence “to ourselves and our Posterity”. Slave importation would end 20 years after ratification. Article 1, Section 9 to Congress reads:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

Importing slaves was taxed at $10 each until 1808’s termination. It is noteworthy that the 8 slave-state-delegates to the 1787 convention agreed to terminate slave importation -- consistent with the civic-sentiment in the U.S. since 1774. And all accepted Article 1:9 before ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. Unnegotiable slave-emancipation was left to a more promising future, such as more free-states than slave-states: inversion of military power.

Factional-American-Protestant leaders in at least 2 state ratification conventions prevailed in 1788, and one consequence is that the first Congress granted itself freedom-of-religion in 1789. They certified it under 14 states in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights completed the politically negotiated U.S. Constitution, with ratification by 10 states in 1791. Dominant Anglo-American Christianity if not factional-Protestantism was restored in the USA and persists today. The consequence is chaos, evident in the Civil War[13] and diverent in 2022. Unfortunately, factional-American Christians vainly wait for their-God to relieve the pain& loss. All the while, the practical Jesus advocates[14] Genesis 1:28’s RHI.

In only 64 years, major Christian sects divided over slavery

Slavery divided Protestant associations 15 years before the Civil War.[15]

. . . in 1845 . . . the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society determined that it could not appoint any candidate for service who held slaves and . . . the American Baptist Home Mission Society decided separate northern and southern conventions were necessary. [16]

In 1845 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, separated from churches in the north.[17] Protestant blood was shed in Kansas only 9 years later. The choice to divide a church, when its doctrinal-God has not changed, effects chaos rather than order. Church division is egregious when the combination civic-integrity& constitutional-law is sacrificed.

Emancipation-potential opened when non-slave states outnumbered slave states 15:14 in 1846. Congress’ 1850 Fugitive Slave Acts heightened animosities. It seems President Millard Fillmore, after signing the acts, wrote to Daniel Webster,

God knows I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil, for which we are not responsible, and we must endure it and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the constitution, till we get rid of it without destroying the last hope of free government in the world.

In 1852, Frederick Douglass, with Fillmore present, said “In [the Constitution] there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of [slavery]; but interpreted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.”

South Carolina's declaration of secession[18] was drafted in 1852 and adopted in 1860. They object to the U.S. not returning fugitive slaves:

The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.

Objection to more erroneous Christian opinion is expressed in the second to last paragraph: "Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief." That the "more erroneous" religion is Christianity seems verified by sermons delivered in Southern churches.

R.E. Lee's 1856 letter[19] to his wife calls abolitionists "evil" (damning the opinions of Franklin and other abolitionist-founders& framers). Quoting Lee:

I fear [the abolitionist] will persevere in his evil Course. Is it not strange that the descendants of those pilgrim fathers who Crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom of opinion, have always proved themselves intolerant of the Spiritual liberty[20] of others?

People try to analyze Lee's moral confusion[21]; he imposed spiritual-liberty against civic-integrity, well aware of white-Christians killing white-Christians in Kansas. Lee could have sold all property (including his wife's inherited slaves), moved to a non-slave state, and in 1861 accepted Lincoln's request to general the Union army. Instead, Lee could& did choose personal ruin. Knowing Lee’s Christian folly can help living citizens avoid similar mistakes.

Lee’s confusion derived from long-standing, erroneous Christianity

Lee did not make up the notion that slavery was punishment for sin. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) wrote “Since slavery was imposed in punishment of sin, it follows that by slavery man forfeits . . . the free disposal of his person . . .” Aquinas substantially mimicked Aristotle (d. 322 BC). However, “sin” is a religious term expressing offense against the-High-God, a mystery. Justice cannot come from mystery, and that is not new opinion.

          Lincoln the antislavery-candidate was elected to lead Congress to legislate abolition but proved too politically ambitious and political-Christianity dependent. In his first inaugural address, he evaded responsibility regarding fugitive slaves: “There is some difference of opinion whether [the constitution] should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one.” Lincoln misconstrued the 13-colony-unity to-war-for independence-from-England as supplanting the fact that the 1788 people of 9 ratifying states established a constitutional republic with 5 stated public disciplines. Two more states joined before operations began on March 4, 1789, and another 2 joined many months later. Lincoln did not object to legislation to further protect slave-states.[22] Aware of both a 27-state USA to 7-state CSA advantage and 6 years of Bleeding Kansas, he coldly challenged the “more erroneous” Christians to think prudently before attacking the USA:

The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.

Lincoln cited the colonies’ 1774 perpetual-union (against England) to lessen 1787’s ratification by “ourselves and our Posterity”. He implied that “hope in the world” comes from “the ultimate justice of the people” and that military tribunal is “the Almighty Ruler of Nations” (smacks of 1776 language). The 1864 Union army prevailed.

The quoted paragraphs reflect the combined message of the practical Jesus, Genesis 1:28, and the 1787 draft constitution. Yet Lincoln obfuscates the message, I think to avoid responsibility for his politics. Moreover, he egregiously imposes Christianity’s God: “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty”. Those thoughts defy the Genesis 1:28 RHI and the 1776 Nature’s God. How can the people take responsibility for safety& security when they rely on their-God to discover the laws of physics, perhaps authored by the-High-God? There’s no reward in admitting that the Civil War proved which Christianity, North or South, the more erroneous. Where’s the satisfaction in less erroneous?

Can a lesson be learned?

Religious believers can& may consider the evidence that Genesis 1:28 is an ancient political philosophy that proposes the human individual to constrain chaos in their way of living, in order to aid safety& security on earth: no entity beyond human-being can choose RHI. Pretending-to-know human-being’s origins& authorization begs ruin. Appreciating Socrates’ question[23], we can& may pursue the-good and accept that we don’t know the-High-God. Human-being can accept the-High-God for afterdeath and may pursue the-good for life.

This is not to say that people should not have and nourish faith in whatever constrains the consequences of human choice. But imposing religious-faith onto civic necessity& justice resists human-being responsibility on earth. Human-being is responsible to aid safety& security on earth and to leave mysterious good-in-heaven to its creators. We can& may faithfully enjoy an achievable, better future, provided we don’t ignore the recent and ancient past.

Copyright©2022 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. Revised June 18, 2022.

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[1] Tradition holds that scholarly writing owes documentation. The Internet empowers readers to verify writer-claims with more satisfaction to the reader.

[2] Theists often debate “God”, not realizing each is overlooking the-God.

[3] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas.

[4] Ineluctable means “not to be avoided, changed, or resisted”.

[5] “Transparency” is a watchword to Christopher Nalepa.

[6] Online at emersoncentral.com/texts/nature-addresses-lectures/addresses/divinity-school-address/

[7] “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’.”

[8] Online at thoughtco.com/african-slavery-101-44535

[9] Online at ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/pope_nicolas_v_and_the_portugu

[10] Online at nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/171.html

[11] Online at constitution.org/2-Authors/tp/afri.htm

[12] Online at oll.libertyfund.org/page/1776-declaration-of-independence-various-drafts

[13] Online at historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/the-decision-to-secede-and-establish-the-confederacy-a-selection-of-primary-sources#:~:text=Text%3A%20The%20Avalon%20Project%3A%20Documents%20in%20Law%2C%20History,formal%20ordinance%20of%20secession%20on%20December%2020%2C%201860

[14] Matthew 19:5.

[15] I appreciate Vaughn Crombie making me aware to study this point on April 17, 2022.

[16] Online at abc-usa.org/what-we-believe/our-history/

[17] Online at p2.smu.edu/pcullen/timeline.htm

[18] Online at avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp and with footnotes at teachingamericanhistory.org/document/south-carolinas-declaration-of-the-causes-of-secession/

[19] Online at encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/letter-from-robert-e-lee-to-mary-randolph-custis-lee-december-27-1856/

[20] ”Spiritual liberty” is a false argument respecting necessity& justice during life. That is, each individual human-being is responsible for peace in their civic connections& transactions. Neither party can invoke other worldly rules to neglect civil observance and RHI.

[21] Online at radgeek.com/gt/2005/01/03/robert-e-lee-owned-slaves-and-defended-slavery/#:~:text=The%20quote%20is%20cherry-picked%20from%20a%20letter%20that,It%20is%20useless%20to%20expatiate%20on%20its%20disadvantages

[22] Online at heritagepost.org/american-civil-war/the-corwin-amendment/

[23] Is a thing is good because God says it is good, or does God say it’s good because it is good?

Addendum A: The South Carolina Declaration of Secession

Highlights in green and blue with my comments in yellow highlight.

avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

The South Carolina declaration of secession reviewed US history from 1765, finally focusing on effects of the US Constitution.

States were obligated to return to a State a person indebted to labor (slave). But over the previous 25 years many States unconstitutionally did not return slaves; 13 states had laws nullifying the Constitution in this regard. Therefore, SC is released from her obligations to the Constitution.

The Constitution provided the right of property in slaves, with direct taxes amounting to 60% per person, 20 years importation of slaves, and extradition.

The northern states: 1) elected as president an abolitionist, 2) freed slaves from southern states and gave them the right to vote, 3) declared war against slavery, in essence against slave states, alienating them from the Constitution, and thus 4) the Federal Government became southern States’ enemy.

Remedy is not likely, because “public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.” 10/20/2013

 

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.

In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments-- Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." [Note: the 1778 Articles of Confederation was preceded by the October 20, 1774 Articles of Association, under which the war was begun and France’s providence negotiated. The Treaty of Paris was negotiated there. In other words, the SC story is not quite genuine.]

Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on [until October 17, 1781, at Yorktown, VA, Cornwallis surrendered to France and the Continental Army], and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms: "ARTICLE 1-- His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof."

Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.

[So far, the SC story is even less truthful, because it does not cite the March 1, 1781 revision of the Articles of Confederation wherein the 13 colonies self-named their association, in perpetuity, a union of states. That is, they changed their titles from colonies to states and titled the union “The United States of America”. The fact that England later accepted that status was an October 1781 providence of France.]

In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States. [One state, Rhode Island, sent no delegates and also was not privy to its ratification.]

The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then invested with their authority.

If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they then were-- separate, sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation.

By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. [This refers to the Bill of Rights, Amendment X, ratified by Congress on September 15, 1791.] On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights.

We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence [This sentence attempts to ignore that fact that SC accepted its global status as free and independent when it ratified in January 1784, the 1783 Treaty of Paris.]; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences. [This consideration is double acting. That is, SC, in March 1781 entered in perpetuity The United States of America, then accepted global recognition as such in the Treaty of Paris. In arbitrarily attempting to renege, they invited consequences.]

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." [This suggests President Lincoln’s greatest blunder. In his first inaugural address, he counts this a states dispute rather than a federal obligation. Also, he misused the 1776 Declaration to assert what the 1787 Constitution failed to accomplish: slaves must be emancipated.]

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. [The mention of “greater number” begs the question:  What happens when the non-slave states exceed in number the slave states. That inversion happened in 1856.]

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition [discovery?] by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. [This is an attempt to deny what had been known since the 1774 Articles of Association: independence to colonists implied independence to slaves.]

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." [Why posterity rather than descendants? Slaves and legal immigrants are included in posterity.]

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. [Notice that importation of slaves ended 20 years after ratification. See Frederic Douglass’s 1852 complaints about failure of the next generations.]

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. [Amendment of the Constitution to emancipate the slaves was an option. Lincoln should have led the way. After all, he was elected with full recognition that he was an abolitionist. He seems a rascal, because he knew he had the majority. He effectively baited slave-states to start war. Consider Bleeding Kansas, which started in 1854: white-Christian-abolitionists murdered and their cities sacked by more-erroneous-Christian whites.]

For twenty-five years [1852-25=1827 or 1860-25=1835] this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. [Bleeding Kansas made that self-evident.]

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. [I have no idea where this announcement issued yet trust it did.]

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. [This is an opinion expressed to challenge Lincoln’s March 4, 1861 submission or war. Lincoln accepted war, believing he had the upper hand -- 27 states to 7 states. He could have sacrificed his political ambitions and led Congress to emancipation. We don’t know if the Lincoln assassination would have been averted.]

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief. [Is there any doubt that it’s Christian belief?]

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. [Note: I think “the Supreme Judge of the world” (quoting the 1776 declaration) is civil/military power on earth. The-God retains power over the heavens.]

Adopted December 24, 1860

 

Addendum B: The South Carolina constitutional ratification convention

South Carolina Recommendatory Amendments, 23 May 1788

The Convention having maturely considered the constitution or form of Government reported to Congress by the Convention of Delegates from the United States of America and submitted to them by a Resolution of the Legislature of this State passed the seventeenth and eighteenth days of February last in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure Domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to the people of the said United States and their posterity Do in the name and behalf of the people of this State hereby assent to and ratify the said Constitution.

Done in Convention the twenty third day of May in the Year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth.—

Thomas Pinckney President

Attest John Sanford Dart, Secretary

And Whereas it is essential to the preservation of the rights reserved to the several states, and the freedom of the people under the operations of a General government that the right of prescribing the manner time and places of holding the Elections to the Federal Legislature, should be for ever inseparably annexed to the sovereignty of the several States. This convention doth declare that the same ought to remain to all posterity a perpetual and fundamental right in the local, exclusive of the interference of the General Government except in cases where the Legislatures of the States, shall refuse or neglect to perform and fulfil the same according to the tenor of the said Constitution.—

This Convention doth also declare that no Section or paragraph of the said Constitution warrants a Construction that the states do not retain every power not expressly relinquished by them and vested in the General Government of the Union.—

Resolved that the general Government of the United States ought never to impose direct taxes, but [except] where the monies arising from the duties, imposts and excise are insufficient for the public exigencies nor then until Congress shall have made a requisition upon the states to assess levy and pay their respective proportions of such requisitions and in case any State shall neglect or refuse to pay its proportion pursuant to such requisition then Congress may assess and levy such state’s proportion together with Interest thereon at the rate of Six per centum per annum from the time of payment prescribed by such requisition.—

Resolved that the third Section of the Sixth Article ought to be amended by inserting the word “other” between the words “no” and “religious”

Resolved that it be a standing instruction to all such delegates as may hereafter be elected to represent this State in the general Government to exert their utmost abilities and influence to effect an alteration of the Constitution conformably to the foregoing Resolutions.—

Done in Convention the twenty third day of May in the Year of our Lord one thousand Seven hundred and eighty eight and of the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth—

Thomas Pinckney President

Attest, John Sanford Dart, Secretary—

 

[Congress negotiated& resolved all “recommendatories” from the then 14 states (Vermont the 14th) by ratifying the 1791 Bill of Rights.]

 

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[1] Tradition holds that scholarly writing owes documentation. The Internet empowers readers to verify writer-claims with more satisfaction to the reader.

[2] Online at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleeding_Kansas.

[3] Ineluctable means “not to be avoided, changed, or resisted”.

[4] “Transparancy” is a watchword to Christopher Nalepa.

[5] Online at emersoncentral.com/texts/nature-addresses-lectures/addresses/divinity-school-address/

[6] “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’.”

[7] Online at thoughtco.com/african-slavery-101-44535

[8] Online at ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/pope_nicolas_v_and_the_portugu

[9] Online at nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/171.html

[10] Online at constitution.org/2-Authors/tp/afri.htm

[11] Online at oll.libertyfund.org/page/1776-declaration-of-independence-various-drafts

[12] Online at historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/the-decision-to-secede-and-establish-the-confederacy-a-selection-of-primary-sources#:~:text=Text%3A%20The%20Avalon%20Project%3A%20Documents%20in%20Law%2C%20History,formal%20ordinance%20of%20secession%20on%20December%2020%2C%201860

[13] I appreciate Vaughn Crombie making me aware to study this point on April 17, 2022.

[14] Online at abc-usa.org/what-we-believe/our-history/

[15] Online at p2.smu.edu/pcullen/timeline.htm

[16] Online at avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp and with footnotes at teachingamericanhistory.org/document/south-carolinas-declaration-of-the-causes-of-secession/

[17] Online at encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/letter-from-robert-e-lee-to-mary-randolph-custis-lee-december-27-1856/

[18] ”Spiritual liberty” is a false argument respecting necessity& justice during life. That is, each individual human-being is responsible for peace in their civic connections& transactions. Neither party can invoke other worldly rules to neglect civil observance and RHI.

[19] Online at radgeek.com/gt/2005/01/03/robert-e-lee-owned-slaves-and-defended-slavery/#:~:text=The%20quote%20is%20cherry-picked%20from%20a%20letter%20that,It%20is%20useless%20to%20expatiate%20on%20its%20disadvantages

[20] Online at heritagepost.org/american-civil-war/the-corwin-amendment/