A Civic People of the United States
Evolving toward the
literal preamble to the constitution for the USA
Timeline: slavery
“The citizens of
America [have] a fairer opportunity for political happiness,
than any other Nation has ever been favored
with.” George Washington, 1783.
One question
dominates humankind’s quest to understand:
What, if anything, controls what happens as the universe progresses? I
assert that no one knows if that is a valid question. In this talk, I use “god”
to show that societies and persons separate from each other over what no one
knows, all the while pretending they know something through revelation from
their god, or for Christians, Bible hermeneutics. Some people hope their god is
true, in opposition to the common sense others hope is true. Ceremonial, human
blood-sacrifice is almost extinct, but the hope: my god is better than your god
still ruins potentials for real-no-harm (RNH) private liberty with civic
morality (PLwCM).
In the timeline that follows, I use blue and green highlights for emphasis and yellow to insert
commentary by me. Otherwise, I am quoting/parahrasing references.
·
1760 BCE the Code of Hammurabi refers to slavery
as an established institution in the Babylonian religion. Over the course of
history, most peoples on all continents have been involved in slavery.
“Although slavery is no longer legal anywhere in the world, human
trafficking remains an international problem and an estimated 29.8
million people are living in illegal slavery today. In Mauritania
it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the
population, are currently enslaved, many of them used as bonded labor.
Evidence emerged in the late 1990s of systematic slavery in cacao
plantations in West Africa[i].
·
BCE in Africa,[ii]
religion was essentially humans attempting to cope with existence as with other
indigenous peoples, elders sharing ideas orally, with variations across the
large continent. Trade brought religions to Africa from other parts of the
world.
·
1400 BCE[iii]
Leviticus 25:44-46:
"Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from
them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents
living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will
become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property
and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow
Israelites ruthlessly." (NIV)
·
64 AD[iv] 1
Timothy 6:1-2: All who are under the yoke of
slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s
name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who
have believing masters should not show them disrespect just because they are
fellow believers. Instead, they should serve them even better because their
masters are dear to them as fellow believers and are devoted to the welfare of
their slaves.
·
405 AD -
Final 27-book canon of the New Testament defined, closed, and promulgated to
the Universal Church by Pope Innocent I.[vi]
·
430 Catholic Bishop in North Africa, on the Mediterranean,
“Augustine of Hippo taught that slavery is never
a “natural” condition but one that has arisen as the result of sin. He argued
that the institution of slavery derives from God and is beneficial to slaves
and masters. However, he also characterized the granting of freedom to slaves
as a great virtue.” [vii] Little
known papal reform occurred at Vatican II, 1965.
·
1452 “Pope Nicholas V of the Roman Catholic
Church issued the papal bull Dum Diversas to King Alfonso of Portugal: ‘capture, vanquish, and subdue the Saracens,
pagans, and other enemies of Christ . . . put them into slavery . . . take all
their possessions and property. ‘” [viii]
o
It expanded to Spain, England, France, Holland
and finally the United Nations as the Law of Nations.
o
Christians authorized by popes and kings to
invade indigenous peoples were tacitly betting their trinity would defeat, for example,
the wakan tanka of the Lakota. “We do not ever quarrel about
religion because it is an issue that concerns every man before the Great
Spirit.”[x]
·
1455 Pope Nicholas V granted Portugal “issued a series of papal bulls that granted Portugal the
right to enslave sub-Saharan Africans.”[xi]
Slaves were brought to Portugal and later delivered to Spain or South America.[xii]
“The bull Romanus Pontifex is an important
example of the Papacy's claim to spiritual lordship of the whole world and of
its role in regulating relations among Christian princes and between Christians
and "unbelievers" ("heathens" and "infidels").
This bull became the basis for Portugal's later claim to lands in the "new
world," a claim which was countered by Castile and the bull Inter caetera in
1493.”[xiii]
·
1492 North America became an object of European
exploration and colonization. Empowered with guns, Europeans imposed their Christianities
and politics on the native people. Native Americans became victims of Christianity, one of the world’s
major systems of opinion that holders try to impose on people as “the word of the
god.” The self-proclaimed “noble” idea of converting them to Christ
turned into disease, rape, enslavement and pillage.
·
1493 Pope Alexander VI granted Spain authority
in the Americas patterned after Portugal’s authority in North Africa, including
African slave trade.[xiv]
·
1496 Henry VII commissioned John Cabot under the
doctrine of discovery. [xv]
This seems a declaration that a British, Protestant god had rights as grounded
as a Catholic god.
·
1513 Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XI, Concerning Ecclesiastical
Principalities.
o
“Sustained by the ordinances of religion, which
are so all-powerful . . . that the principalities may be held no matter how
their princes behave and live.”
o
“[The citizens], although not ruled, do not
care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability to [free] themselves.” It seems they maintain faith
that their god will fulfill them in death by rewarding their souls.
o
“I shall speak no more of them, because, being exalted
and maintained by [personal gods], it would be the act of a presumptuous and
rash man to discuss them.” Beliefs
that defy the objective truth must not prevail in civic governance.
o Recently, I noticed that in
practice, it’s a priest-politician partnership: politicians come and go, but
the priests are always there, because it is the will of the people in power. A
civic people wants to change that.
·
1515 Pope Leo affirms past papal bulls
respecting slave trade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_slavery
.
·
1517 Luther posts 95 objections, getting the
Protestant reformation underway after earlier failed attempts. However, there
is no objection to “scripture” that condones slavery.
·
1531 Nicolo Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy: conventional Christianity
saps from human beings the vigor required for active civil life.[xvi]
Titus Livy died in AD 17.
o
“None the less in the instituting of
Republics, in maintaining of States, in the governing of Kingdoms, in
organizing an army and conducting a war, in (giving) judgment for Subjects, in
expanding the Empire, there will not be found either Prince, or Republic, or
Captain, or Citizen, who has recourse to the examples of the ancients. Which I
am persuaded arises not so much from the weakness to which the present
education has brought the world, or from that evil which an ambitious indolence
has created in many Christian Provinces and Cities, than from not having a real understanding of
history, and from not drawing that (real) sense from its reading, or benefiting
from the spirit which is contained in it.”
o
“It was also seen at the capture of
the City of the Veienti, that the Captains of the armies availed themselves of
Religion to keep them disposed to an enterprise, when lake Albano had risen
astonishingly that year, and the soldiers being weary from the long siege (and)
wanted to return to Rome, the Romans insinuated that Apollo and certain other
(oracles) had given replies that that year the City of the Veienti should be
captured when Lake Albano should overflow: which event made the soldiers endure
the weariness of the war and the siege, being taken by this hope of capturing
the town, and they remained content to pursue the enterprise so much that
Camillus who had been made Dictator captured that City after it had been
besieged for ten years. And thus Religion well used was helpful both in the
capture of that City and for the restoration of the Tribuneships to the
Nobility, that without the said means either would have been accomplished only
with difficulty.”
o
“Numa Pompilius . . . finding a very
ferocious people and wanting to reduce them to civil obedience by the acts of
peace, turned to religion as
something completely necessary in wanting to maintain a civilization,
and he established it in such a manner that for many centuries
there never was more fear of [‘god’] than in that Republic.”
o
“Numa . . . pretended he had met
with a Nymph who advised him of that which he should counsel the people; and
all this resulted because he wanted to introduce new ordinances and
institutions in that City, and was apprehensive that his authority was not
enough. And truly there never was any extraordinary institutor of laws among a
people who did not have recourse to [god], because otherwise he would not have
been accepted; for they (these laws) are very well known by prudent men, but
which by themselves do not contain evident reasons capable of persuading
others. Wise men who want to
remove this difficulty, therefore, have recourse to [god].”
o
“[T]he Religion introduced by Numa
was among the chief reasons for the felicity of that City, for it caused good
ordinances, good ordinances make good fortune, and from good fortune there
arises the happy successes of the enterprises. And as the observance of divine
institutions is the cause of the greatness of Republics, so the contempt of it
is the cause of their ruin, for where the fear of [god] is lacking it will
happen that that kingdom will be ruined or that it will be sustained through
fear of a Prince, which may supply the want of Religion. And because Princes
are short lived, it will happen that that Kingdom will easily fall as he
Prince) fails in virtu. Whence it results that Kingdoms which depend solely on
the virtu of one man, are not durable for long, because that virtu fails with
the life of that man.”
§
Wikipedia lists these gods Numa,
reigned 700 BC, established or supported:
·
Constructed “a temple of Janus as an indicator of
peace and war. After securing peace with Rome's neighbors, the doors of the
temples were shut . . . for all the duration of Numa's reign.
“
·
Created “the cult of Terminus,
a god for boundaries. Through this rite, which involved sacrifices at private
properties, boundaries and landmarks, Numa reportedly sought to instill in
Romans the respect of lawful property and non-violent relationships with
neighbors. The cult of Terminus, preached Numa, involved absence of violence
and murder. The god was a testament to justice and a keeper of peace.”
·
“King Numa had eleven matching shields made,
so perfect that no one, even Numa, could distinguish the original any
longer. These shields were the . . . sacred shields of Jupiter.”
·
“[He] chose Numa Marcius as pontiff. To him he
bestowed all the sacred ceremonies, his books and seals.”
o
“But as to prudence and stability, I
say, that a people is more
prudent, more stable, and of better judgment than a Prince: And not
without reason is the voice of the people like that of [god], for a universal
opinion is seen causes marvelous effects in its prognostication, so that it
would seem that by some hidden virtu, evil or good is foreseen.”
o
“And if Princes are superior to the
people in instituting laws, forming civil governments, make new statutes and
ordinances, the People are so
much superior in maintaining the institutions which will add to the glory
of those who established them. And in sum to epilogue this material, I say that
the States of the Princes have lasted a long time, the States of the Republics
have lasted a long time, and both have had need to be regulated by laws; for a
Prince who can do what he wants is a madman, and a People which can do as it wants to is not wise.
If, therefore, discussion is to be had of a Prince obligated by laws, and of a
People unobligated by them, more virtu will be observed in the People than in
Princes: if the discussion is to be had of both loosened (from such control),
fewer errors will be observed in the People than in the Princes, and those that
are fewer have the greater remedies: For a licentious and tumultuous People can be talked to by a
good man, and can easily be returned to the good path: (but) there is no
one who can talk to a Prince, nor is there any other remedy but steel (sword).”
o
“And therefore the Citizens in a
Republic who attempt an enterprise either in favor of Liberty or in favor of
Tyranny, ought to consider the condition of things, and judge the difficulty of
the enterprise; for it is as difficult and dangerous to want to make a people
free who want to live in servitude, as to want to make a people slave who want
to live free.”
o
“And truly, if anyone sees a People
or a Prince abandon all idea of an accord, there is no other more sure or more
effective way, than to make them commit some grave wickedness against those
with whom you do not want the accord made. For the fear of that punishment
which seems to them to be merited because of the error they committed will
always keep them apart.”
·
1565 St. Augustine was founded. “On
Sept. 8. 1565, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles of Spain came ashore and named a
stretch of land near the inlet in honor of Augustine, a saint of the Roman
Catholic Church on whose feast day - Aug. 28 - land was sighted. Timucuan
Indians were there first and observed Menendez and his party of about 1,500
soldiers and colonists.” [xvii]
o
1738: “The first free community of ex-slaves
[was] called Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose or Fort Mose (pronounced Moh-Say). Slaves from the
British colonies were able to follow the original ‘Underground Railroad’ . . .
to the Spanish colony of Florida. There they were given their freedom, if they
declared their allegiance to the King of Spain and joined the Catholic Church.”[xviii]
·
1606 colonization of the Eastern seaboard started
with the First Virginia Charter followed by Jamestown settlement in 1607,
imposing Christianities on the land and on the indigenous people.
o
““propagating
of Christian religion to such people as yet live in ... ignorance of the true
knowledge and worship of [god]” Paraphrase: We impose on
indigenous people the Protestant god and his son Jesus.
·
1600-1800 African slave trade. The Atlantic
slave traders were, by volume: the Portuguese, the British, the French, the
Spanish, the Dutch, and the Americans.[xix]
Citizens of 2016 have the
opportunity to turn the diversity resulting from slavery to character advantage:
Discover reality and make the best use of it.
·
1665 Richard Baxter started continual public
opposition to American slavery [xx]
; the Anabaptists, 1683; the Society of Friends, 1696; Cotton Mather, 1706; the
Dunkers, 1723; the Quakers, 1758; and Thomas Paine, 1775, who founded the first
colonial abolition society along with Benjamin Franklin and Quakers in
Philadelphia. See below.
·
1692 The Salem “witch” executions; nineteen
executed and 6 died in prison. Hundreds of “witch” executions in Europe during
the same era. This
illustrates Protestant injustice against white women and one white man.
o
One of the Puritan magistrates, Samuel Sewall,
wrote in 1700 against slavery in The
Selling of Joseph -- another early abolitionist.
o
Puritans were a significant group of English Protestants
in the 16th and 17th centuries, including,
but not limited to, English Calvinists.
o
“Puritans believed in demonic forces, as did
almost all Christians of this period. The context of the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693 shows the
intricacy of trying to place "Puritan" beliefs as distinctive. The
publication of Saducismus Triumphatus, an anti-skeptical
tract that has been implicated in the moral panic
at Salem, involved Joseph Glanvill (a latitudinarian)
and Henry More
(a Cambridge Platonist) as editors, and Anthony
Horneck, an evangelical German Anglican, as translator of a pamphlet
about a Swedish witch hunt. None of these was a Puritan.”[xxi]
o
that the American colonies were in a "state
of nature," and so argued for the establishment of a new independent
government.[xxii]
·
1774 Oct 20 Articles of Association
o
“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, and will neither be
concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our
commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.” [Why didn’t they end the slave
trade?]
o
“To Americans:
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 . . . Christianized people should approve, and be concerned in the savage
practice, is surprising.” Paraphrase:
it is surprising that Christians, observing the physics of slavery, conduct the
slave trade.
o
“The Managers the Trade themselves, and others
testify, that many of these African nations inhabit fertile countries, are
industrious farmers, enjoy plenty, and lived quietly, averse to war, before the
Europeans debauched them with liquors, and bribing them against one another; and
that these inoffensive people are brought into slavery, by stealing them,
tempting Kings to sell subjects, which they can have no right to do, and hiring
one tribe to war against another, in order to catch prisoners. By such wicked
and inhuman ways the English are said to enslave towards one hundred thousand
yearly; of which thirty thousand are supposed to die by barbarous treatment in
the first year; besides all that are slain in the unnatural ways excited to
take them. So much innocent blood have the managers and supporters of this
inhuman trade to answer for to the common Lord of all!” Paraphrase:
the traders have hell to pay.
o
“Most shocking of all is alledging the sacred
scriptures to favour this wicked practice. One would have thought none but
infidel cavillers would endeavour to make them appear contrary to the plain
dictates of natural light, and the conscience, in a matter of common Justice
and Humanity; which they cannot be.” Paraphrase: unbelievably, people
site the Bible to justify slavery.
o
“Is the barbarous enslaving our inoffensive
neighbours, and treating them like wild beasts subdued by force, reconcilable
with the Divine precepts! Is this doing to them as we would desire they
should do to us?” Point
about the offensive golden rule.
o
” So monstrous is the making and keeping them
slaves at all, abstracted from the barbarous usage they suffer, and the many
evils attending the practice; as selling husbands away from wives, children
from parents, and from each other, in violation of sacred and natural ties; and
opening the way for adulteries, incests, and many shocking consequences, for
all of which the guilty Masters must answer to the final Judge.” Paraphrase: the masters have hell to pay.
o
“Certainly, one may, with as much reason and
decency, plead for murder, robbery, lewdness and barbarity, as for this
practice. They are not more contrary to the natural dictates of conscience, and
feeling of humanity; nay, they are all comprehended in it.” Paraphrase: slavery is in the same class as murder, robbery,
lewdness, and barbarity.
o
“How just, how suitable to our crime is the
punishment with which Providence threatens us?” Paraphrase: we
have hell to pay.
o
“The past treatment of Africans must naturally
fill them with abhorrence of Christians; lead them to think our religion would
make them more inhuman savages, if they embraced it; thus the gain of that
trade has been pursued in oppositions of the redeemer's cause, and the
happiness of men.” Paraphrase: slaves deserve to hate Christians.
o
“These are the sentiments of justice and
humanity.” Christianity is
without excuse.
·
1775 April 19 The American Revolutionary War
began. “Approximately 40 to 45 percent of the colonists supported the
rebellion, while 15 to 20 percent remained loyal to the Crown. The rest
attempted to remain neutral and kept a low profile.”[xxv]
Slaves were not incorporated, but some free blacks fought for independence.
o
Resolved, That these United Colonies are,
and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they 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. Approved July 2.
o
To [form] foreign Alliances. Approved September
of 1776.
o
Create a plan for confederation for the
colonies. Approved November of 1777.
·
1776 June 12 Virginia Declaration of Rights,
written by George Mason, approved by Virginia
o
“That all men are by
nature [becomes “Nature
and Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence] equally free and
independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a
state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their
posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of
acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and
safety.” Idea repeated with theistic wording in both the
Declaration of Independence and the South Carolina Declaration of Secession.
o
“That all power is
vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and
servants, and at all times amenable to them.”
o
“[W]henever any
government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority
of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to
reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive
to the public weal.” Idea
repeated in both the Declaration of Independence and the South Carolina Declaration
of Secession.
o
“[N]o free government,
or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm
adherence to justice,
moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue and by frequent recurrence
to fundamental principles.”
o
“[R]eligion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator
and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not
by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free
exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is
the mutual duty of all to practice
Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.” Apparently, “conscience” needed
to be Christian.
·
1776 July 4 Declaration of Independence
o
American theism according to “Nature’s God”; would defeat England’s
Protestant God.
o “We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. [I speculate these some
slave-owners were claiming leadership equality with the king and parliament.]
[Eastman’s first—as humans
and thus above animals. See article on the Declaration by Eastman], that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights [Eastman’s second], that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. [Eastman’s third]” Paraphrase: each person inalienably requires cooperative
autonomy: reciprocated self-governance;
personal privacy and public accommodation; mutual appreciation. ”We hold . . . that all men [are due] Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
o
“That to secure these rights [Eastman’s fourth], Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed. [Eastman’s fifth]”
Paraphrase: just civic governance by justly governed
citizens.
o
“[W]henever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government. [Eastman’s sixth]”
o
Native Americans were called “Indian Savages.”
o
Deleted draft:
The King “has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never
offended him, captivating and carrying
them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in
their transportation hither.”
o
About 40% patriots, 40% pacifists and avoiders, and 20%
loyalitsts.
·
1787 July 13 The Northwest Ordinance covering
territories ceded by Virginia in 1783.
o
Article VI:
“There
shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise
than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted . . . . “
·
1787 September 17 US Constitution signed by 39
of 55 delegates (71%) of 12 of 13 states (65%).
o
We the People of the United States, in Order 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, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America.
o
Says nothing about religion and invokes neither
God nor Jesus, potentially
recognizing the objective truth: just
governance is by the justly governed, or in Lincoln’s words, what better hope
than governance by the people.
o
Ended the slave trade 20 years after ratification,
but did not end slavery; a slave-property tax was provided; slaves counted 2/3
for allocating state representatives according to state population; free blacks
were citizens by default; Section 2 of Article IV prohibited states from
freeing slaves who fled to them from another state, and required the return of
chattel property to owners. Thus,
the laws were imperfect, yet amendment provides the potential to fulfill the
preamble.
·
1787 perhaps first official Christian reform on
slavery: William Wilberforce met “Thomas
Clarkson and a group of anti-slave-trade activists, including Granville
Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They
persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he soon became one
of the leading English abolitionists.”[xxvii]
·
1789 March 4 First Congress seated—operation of
the federal government is underway, joined by Virginia and New York, for a
union of eleven states.
By May, Congress had established legislative prayer by hiring ministers so they
would appear divine like a British king.
·
1789 June 8. James Madison’s first draft of
religion clauses for the Bill of Rights: “The civil rights of none shall be
abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be
established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any
manner, or on any pretext infringed.”[xxviii]
No definition of religion is offered, so what was in mind was George Mason’s
definition, reiterated by Madison on June 20, 1785.
·
1789 September 25 Congress formally proposed the
first ten amendments to the Constitution
·
1789 December 22. North Carolina ceded its
western land (now Tennessee)
o
With the proviso: “a proviso: “Provided always, That no
regulations made or to be made by Congress shall tend to emancipate
slaves.” Congress accepted.
o
South
Carolina and Georgia followed the example.
o
Thus,
Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, as well as Kentucky (Va.) could have
slavery.
§
Kentucky
itself dealt with the facial contradiction with the Declaration’s equality principle
by simply “declaring” in Article XII, section 1 that “all men, when they
form a social compact,” are equal—a far cry from the self-evident
proposition that all men are created equal contained in the Declaration of
Independence. (ref: John Eastman)
·
1790 May 29 With R.I., all thirteen original
states had ratified. The total vote count was 1071 for and 577 against.
·
1791, March Thomas Paine publishes The Rights of Man, Part I. His attention
turned from “African slavery” to “freedom from slavery” in France. Yet he
continued his abolition work in America.
·
1791 December 15 First ten amendments, “Bill of
Rights,” ratified, joined by North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont (14 states).
o
Theism, already established in Congressional
prayer, unjustly re-entered the law in Amendment I.
o
Without definition, “religion” defaults to 1776 and the Virginia
Declaration of Rights. But not so. The supreme Court accepts plaintiff’s
definition then opines as to its fit with the law according to the Court’s
opinion.
o In Greece v Galloway, 2015, the
Court defined legislative prayer as none of a citizen’s business.
·
1794, 1795, 1807 Thomas Paine published the
pamphlet The Age of Reason. “It
challenges . . . the legitimacy of the Bible.”[xxix]
·
1800 Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush,
Monticello, September 23, 1800. “. . . I have sworn upon the altar of god
eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Why
swear? Why not just state opposition to psychological tyranny?
·
1808 US participation in international slave
trade prohibited, but internal trading continued, per 20 years after
ratification.
·
1820 Missouri Compromise permitted slavery in
Missouri and Arkansas Territory and prohibited it in the Great Plains (west of
Illinois and north of Illinois)
·
1833 The United Kingdom abolished slavery in the
British Empire with 3 exemptions until 1843.
·
1837 Abraham Lincoln opines slavery unjust but
abolition would make the US situation worse.
·
1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson claims Jesus was a man
with a message: Each human being’s life is meaningful, and he or she may
perfect his or her person.[xxx]
[I assert that the human
being is so psychotically powerful that each person may discover comprehensive
fidelity beginning with the-objective-truth and, in maturity, behave perfectly.]
·
1844 May 6, 8 and July 6-7. Philadelphia Bible
Riots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Nativist_Riots
. “The riots were a result of rising anti-Catholic
sentiment at the growing population of Irish
Catholic immigrants. In the five months prior to the riots, nativist groups had been spreading a rumor that
Catholics were trying to remove the Bible from public
schools.”
·
1847 Liberia was founded. ‘In 1816, a group of
white Americans founded the American Colonization Society (ACS) to deal with
the ‘problem’ of the growing number of free blacks in the United States by
resettling them in Africa. Prominent Americans such as Henry Clay, Daniel
Webster, and John Randolph
were among the best known members of ACS. Former President Thomas
Jefferson publicly supported the organization’s goals, and President
James Madison
arranged public funding for the Society. The motives for joining the society
were vast as a range of people from abolitionists to slaveholders counted
themselves members. On the other hand, many abolitionists, both black and
white, ultimately rejected the notion that it was impossible for the races to
integrate and therefore did not support the idea of an African-American colony
in Africa. The local tribes continually attacked the new colony and in 1824,
the settlers built fortifications for protection. In that same year, the
settlement was named Liberia and its capital Monrovia, in honor of President James Monroe
who had procured more U.S. Government money for the project. In 1838 most of
these settlements, with up to 20,000 people, combined into one organization.
The settlers attempted to retain the culture they had brought from the United
States and for the most part did not integrate with the native societies.
Today, about 5 percent of the population of Liberia is descended from these
settlers. [Due to British and French interference] in 1847, Liberia declared
independence from the American Colonization Society in order to establish a
sovereign state and create its own laws governing commerce. Though President
Abraham Lincoln was open to promoting the idea, several abolitionists in his
cabinet opposed it, some for moral considerations and others for the more
practical reason of retaining sufficient labor and military forces for the
future.”[xxxi]
·
1850 Compromise of 1850 among other things
strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, outraging northern opinion. Also, slavery
in Washington, D.C. was preserved.
·
1851 Pamphlet: A Defense of Southern Slavery
by a Southern Clergyman – 1851 [xxxii]
A list of Bible-interpretation support for slavery from the 1850s is online. [xxxiii]
·
1852 Frederick Douglass, in Rochester, delivers
a powerful speech on the 4th of July, castigating the administration
for regressing on emancipation of the slaves.[xxxiv]
“The power is
co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity.”
Nevertheless, he admirably claims citizenship: “Fellow Citizens, I am not
wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.” The Dred Scott opinion came five years later.
·
1854 Kansas-Nebraska act repealed the Missouri
Compromise to allow residents to decide whether there would be slavery or not.
Abraham Lincoln attacked slavery as hypocritical to USA first principles but
confessed that neither colonization nor equality was practical. Was sympathetic
with Southerners, caught in circumstances.
·
1857 March 6 Dred Scott decision: “The U.S. Supreme Court . . . held that African
Americans, whether slave or free, could not be American citizens and
therefore had no standing to sue in federal court. It is now widely regarded as
the worst decision ever made by the Supreme Court.”[xxxv]
This seems especially
odious towards free blacks who helped ratify the US Constitution, as Lincoln said,
below.
·
1857 June 26 Abraham Lincoln, speaking for the
Republican party, speech on Dred Scott decision
o
“[T]he Declaration of Independence includes ALL
men, black as well as white.” Lincoln would use this opinion about an idea from the Declaration to
trump the US Constitution, instead of leading the country to diplomatically end
slavery. To claim diplomacy was impossible is no better than to claim that it
was possible.
o
“[I]n five of the then thirteen states, to wit,
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and North Carolina, free
negroes were voters, and, in proportion to their numbers, had the same part in
making the Constitution that the white people had.”
o
“These colored persons were not only included in
the body of ‘the people of the United States,’ by whom the Constitution was
ordained and established; but in at least five of the States they had the power
to act, and, doubtless, did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its
adoption." However, since 1788, their rights have regressed or been denied
and the power of masters to free them has lessened.
o
“The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of
ability—they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong,
and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged.”
·
1860 November 6. Lincoln was elected president.
By then, most white men had suffrage.
o
“Excluding slaves, the 1860 U.S. population was
27,167,529, with about 1 in 70 being a slaveholder. [Of them, 1.45% or] 393,975
named persons [held] 3,950,546 unnamed slaves, or an average of about ten
slaves per holder. [S]laveholders of 200 or more slaves, while constituting
less than 1 % of the total number of U.S. slaveholders, or 1 out of 7,000 free
persons, held 20-30% of the total number of slaves in the U.S.” from “THE SIXTEEN LARGEST AMERICAN SLAVEHOLDERS FROM 1860 SLAVE CENSUS SCHEDULES”[xxxvi]
·
1860 December 24. South Carolina seceded from
the union of states, thus contradicting their ratification dated May 23, 1788.
The declaration claims:
o
The US Constitution is broken by 14 Northern
states’ laws: "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."
o
Describes many forms of “agitation” over slavery in the past 25 years,
ending with the election of a president whose “opinions and purposes are
hostile to slavery.”
o
“This sectional combination for the subversion 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.”
o
“. . . public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the
sanction of more erroneous
religious belief.”
o
The physics of slavery—chains, whips, guns, brutality and sexual abuse to
slaves and burdens to masters--was sufficient to tell the CSA they had a losing
cause: no one should start a war for an
immoral cause.
·
1861 as states had been added, the balance of
slave states v free states[xxxviii]
leaned toward emancipation.
1789 8 slave 5 free 13
total 62% slave states
1800 9 8 17 53
1821 12 12 24 50
1837 13 13 26 50
1846 15 14 29 52
1858 15 17 32 47
1861 15 19 34 44
1861 7 CSA 27 34 21
·
1861 March 4 Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address fully addresses
the CSA but should have
not only mentioned amendment discussions but proposed the 13th
amendment to end slavery. Furthermore, he should have recognized and emphasized
the criticality of We the People of the United States as defined in the
preamble and fulfilled in the rest of the Constitution as the people governing
first their states and second the union of states, both states and the Union as
representative -republics.
o
“I have no purpose . . . to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no
lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” This alone convicts the CSA.
o
“I take the official oath to-day with no mental
reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now
to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest
that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to
conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed than to violate
any of them trusting to find impunity in having them held to be
unconstitutional.” Paraphrase:
negotiate to correct any injustice; in the meantime, observe the law.
o
“A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore
only menaced, is now formidably attempted. Continue to execute all the express
provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it
except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.” CSA: stop.
o
“The power confided to me will be used to hold,
occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to
collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these
objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the
people anywhere.” We will
defend the union of states if attacked.
o
“That there are persons in one section or
another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext
to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address
no word to them.” But he
does.
§
“Will you, while the certain ills you fly to
are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk the commission
of so fearful a mistake?” But
he does not name the mistake I perceive: resorting to the king’s statement in
the Treaty of Paris.
§
“Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by
national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say.” A good president would either lead the decision or decide.
§
“If a minority . . . will secede rather than
acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a
minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be
controlled by such minority.” The CSA is proposing a self-defeating path.
§
“Plainly the central idea of secession is the
essence of anarchy.”
o
“One section of our country believes slavery is
right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought
not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute.” He could have pointed out that
they contest Bible interpretation, resolvable based on the physics of slavery.
§
“The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed,
would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive
slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the
other.”
§
“Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We
cannot remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable
wall between them.”
§
“Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight
always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you
cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again
upon you.”
o
“This country, with its institutions, belongs
to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing
Government, they can exercise their
constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to
dismember or overthrow it.” Lincoln should have named “We the People of the United States” instead
of “the people who inhabit it,” to distinguish the just people—a civic people.
§
“While I make no recommendation of amendments,
I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people.”
§
“I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution . . . has passed Congress . . . that the Federal Government shall
never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of
persons held to service.” The
reverse of the 13th amendment was being discussed by some in
Congress.
o
“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?” A statement of doubt in personal
gods as the hope of the world.
o
“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.” Unfortunately reintroducing theism into the public
debate.
o
It is sinister that Lincoln did not point out
that the former ratio, 8 slave states to 5 non-slave states had reduced to 15
slave states to 19 non-slave states, and the weakness of the CSA’s seven states
against twenty-seven.
·
1861 March 21 Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens: “Our new Government is founded upon exactly
the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the
great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery,
subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”
(Wikipedia)
·
1861
April 12. The CSA fires on Fort Sumter.[xxxix] April 15 Lincoln
called up the Army. April 17 Virginia seceded.
·
1863 January 1. Emancipation Proclamation frees
slaves in non-union states, and thus is a war act, not a constitutional change.
·
1864 April 4. Letter to Albert G. Hodges, newspaper
editor, regarding conversations with three Kentuckians: Governor Thomas E.
Bramlette, Albert Hodges, and Archibald Dixon.[1]
“I add a word which was not in the verbal
conversation. In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity.
I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have
controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition
is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim
it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great
wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall
pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find
therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.” Paraphrase: God alone did it; Christianity will prevail.
This seems like Chapter XI Machiavellian thought.
·
1865 March 4 Lincoln’s
2nd Inaugural Address
o
“Both parties deprecated war, but
one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other
would accept war rather than let it perish.”
o
About
the Union and the CSA, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and
each invokes His aid against the other.”
o
"Woe unto the world because of
offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom
the offense cometh."
o We the People of the
United States, divided under the
Bible’s influence or a god’s influence, had 750,000 American casualties with
untold misery in American families. White
Christians went to war with white Christians to settle Bible dispute.
·
1865 December 6. The Thirteenth
Amendment, abolishing slavery was adopted. However, the road to civil rights
for African Americans is long and hateful:
o 1866 any person born in the United States regardless
of race is a U.S. citizen
o 1871 KKK act, prohibiting ethnic violence against
blacks
o 1875
prohibiting discrimination in "public accommodations"; found
unconstitutional in 1883 as Congress could not regulate conduct of individuals
o 1957
establishing the Civil Rights Commission.
o 1960
establishing federal inspection of local voter registration polls.
o 1963
August 28 MLK, Jr. speech.
o 1963
September 15. The 16th Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed--an act of white
supremacist terrorism,
which killed for young girls.
o 1964 prohibiting discrimination
based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin
o 1965
Voting rights.
o 1968
prohibiting discrimination in sale, rental, and financing of housing based on
race, creed, and national origin.
o 1987
recipients of federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all areas
o
1991 providing the right to trial by jury on
discrimination claims
·
Suffrage progress starting from
landowning men in 1790, 6% of the population
o
1868 Suffrage to native born in 14th
Amendment
o
1870 Suffrage to African Americans
in 15th Amendment
o
1876-1965 Jim Crow Laws mandated
racial segregation in Southern states, in 1890 becoming “a separate but equal
status for African-Americans.”[xl]
Practices spread to some Northern communities.
o
1920 Suffrage to women in 19th
Amendment
o
1964 no discrimination on race,
color, religion, sex, and national origin
o
1971 suffrage to 18 year olds in 26th
Amendment
·
1875-1914. The Golden Age of Freethought.
Wikipedia: Charles
Knowlton, D. M. Bennett, and Robert Ingersoll, “These writers and scholars left the American
people with a wide, earthly view on spiritual and political matters. With such
a bright, independent community, the American Government began to feel threatened. The
Russian Revolution and the scare of Communism
in the early 20th century would soon come about, and with that the force of
religious and government backed opposition. Some members of the Freethought
Movement were atheists,
giving Christians
plenty of leverage to convince the people that they were un-American. This put
the Golden Age of Freethought to rest.” Maybe not permanently.
·
1884 Mark Twain, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, publishes the dilemma of religious indoctrination
versus personal values when Huck Finn, following his conscience writes a letter
to report that Jim is a fugitive slave. But his thought that Jim is a human
being who needs to return to his family overcomes his conscience: “All right, then, I'll go to hell’ -- and
tore it up.”[xli]
·
1950s Liberation theology[xlii]
refers to forms of local or cultural proselytization that proposes that
knowledge of [a revealed god] leads necessarily to Christian responsibility[xliii]
to oppose unjust social and political structures throughout the world. It has
been described as "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's
suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic
faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor".[xliv]
Detractors have called it Christianized Marxism.[xlv] That seems accurate; a god hypothesis does not negate
physics. It seems predictable that black liberation theology would develop; see
below.
·
1963 August 28. Martin Luther King,
Jr., “I Have a Dream Speech,” not inclusive
o
This is “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our
nation.” [What about July
4, 1776? June 21, 1788? What about Gettysburg?]
o
“Five
score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the
Emancipation Proclamation.” It
freed slaves in the slave states only.
o
“In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a
promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a
promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” [Bait with Constitution and switch to Declaration of Independence;
then “pursuit of happiness” equated to “cashing a check” of happiness; from
autonomy to entitlement. The check cashing part of the speech has unfortunately
led some people to become dependent rather than liberated.]
o
“But we
refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” [It’s up to each person to vote
for justice.]
o
“Now is
the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit
path of racial justice.” [Race
as no basis for justice, even though race can inspire injustice. It is similar
to intolerance a moral practice and tolerance an immoral practice, even
though tolerance is better than abuse.]
o
“In the process of gaining our rightful place
we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.” Oh but what violence and destruction followed.
o
“We will
not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters.”
o
“I have a
dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of
its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are
created equal."
§
“the sons
of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down
together at a table of brotherhood.”
§
“sweltering
. . . heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of
freedom and justice.”
§
“my four
children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Unfortunately, a personal
application of a universal need.
§
“little black boys and black girls will be able
to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as
sisters and brothers.”
§
“the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh
shall see it together.”
§
“we will be able to transform the jangling
discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”
o
“Let
freedom ring.” Eight
repetitions.
o
“All of God's children, black men and white
men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands
and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at
last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" What about non-religious people, Asians, etc?
o Unfortunately King trumps We
the People of the United States (and the rest of the constitution), misled by
Lincoln’s use of the Declaration of Independence to trump the preamble. Also,
the focus on freedom, long won for the majority, prevented King from focusing
on justice, which the majority failed to focus on. It is a fatal disconnect,
which this generation needs to resolve.
·
1964 July 16 Fifteen year old James
Powell was shot and six days of riots in Harlem followed.
o
1965 Watts in Los Angeles, seven days, 34 dead,
1032 hurt, 3438 arrested
o
1967 Newark burned, six days, 26 dead, 1500 hurt
o
1967 Detroit burned, four days, 43 dead, 2250
hurt, 4000 arrested, hundreds of millions damage
o
1968 April. 100 cities after MLK, Jr was
assassinated.
·
1965 January.
Lyndon Johnson introduces the Great Society. “American liberalism was at high tide
under President Johnson.
·
The Elementary and Secondary
Education Act provided major funding for American public schools.
·
The Voting Rights Act banned
literacy tests and other discriminatory methods of denying suffrage to African
Americans.
·
Medicare was created to offset the
costs of health care for the nation's elderly.
·
An Omnibus Housing Act provided
funds to construct low-income housing.[xlvi]
·
1966 Modern American origins
of contemporary black liberation theology
can be traced to July 31, 1966, when an ad hoc group of 51 concerned clergy,
calling themselves the National Committee of Negro Churchmen (NCNC), bought a
full page ad in the New York Times to publish their "Black
Power Statement," which proposed a more aggressive approach to combating
racism using the Bible
for inspiration.[xlvii] [xlviii]
·
1969 January. “Democratic
Select Committee” forms and becomes “Congressional Black Caucus”
o
In early 2007, spokesman William Lacy Clay,
commenting on a Caucasian attempting to join the CBC, issued this official
statement: "Quite simply, Rep.
Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept —
there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and
now it's our turn to say who can join 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet
the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are
concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not
allow white America to infringe on those objectives."[xlix]
·
1969 black liberation theology[l]
emerges: white church’s failure to help the slaves shows that white church is
Satan and the Christian god is black. The only way a white man or woman can
save his or her soul is to help black Americans reign supreme.
·
1984 “The influence of Latin American liberation
theology diminished after proponents were accused of using "Marxist
concepts" leading to admonishment by the Vatican's Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1984 and 1986. The Vatican criticized
certain forms of Latin American liberation theology for focusing on
institutionalized or systemic sin, apparently to the exclusion of individual
offenders and offenses; and for identifying Catholic Church hierarchy in South
America as members of the same privileged class that had long been oppressing
indigenous populations from the arrival of Pizarro
onward.[5]
·
2003 March 19 “The invasion of
Iraq commenced.”
o
Positions of power in the country
were mostly filled with Sunnis,
who abused Shiites and Kurds.
o
President George W. Bush used “god”
influence [li]
to lead America and 30 allies.
o
His chief ally, Tony Blair, is
reportedly an antinomian. [lii]
o
The cost to Americans is staggering:
over 2 trillion dollars, 4486 American
soldiers killed [liii],
and living American victims of the war so far not completely accounted.
·
2003 April 13. Reverend Jeramiah
Wright Palm Sunday sermon.
o
When it came to treating her citizens of African
decent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. . . in slave quarters .
. . on auction blocks. . . in cotton fields. . . in inferior schools. . . in
substandard housing. . . in scientific experiments . . . in the lowest paying
jobs . . . outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their
racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness
and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons,
passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing “God Bless America.” No,
no, no. Not “God Bless America”; God Damn America! That’s in the Bible, for
killing innocent people. God Damn America for treating her citizen as less than
human. God Damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and
she is supreme!
·
2008 March 8. Presidential Candidate
Obama defends Wright
o
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship
with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.
He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.
o
I can no more disown him than I can disown the
black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother, etc.
o
On April 29, 2008, Obama expressed outrage over
Wright’s remarks.
o
On May 31, 2008, Barack and Michelle Obama
announced that they had withdrawn their membership in Trinity United Church of Christ,
where Wright had previously served as senior pastor, stating that "Our
relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of
Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views".
·
2010 January 21. the US Supreme
Court in Citizens United v. FEC
o
Political spending by corporations could not be
prohibited by the government, under the First Amendment.
o
One of many decisions that diminish the importance
of the person. However, Blackstone considered institutions as comprised of
person.
·
2013 June 26 the US Supreme Court in
United States v. Windsor, decided against DOMA.
o
Unfortunate Judeo-Christian basis by
Congress in DOMA.
o
Congress should come back on the
basis of physics.
·
2013 September 15 “Each
person [is encouraged] to consider what it means to be “We the People of the
United States” as defined in the preamble.” [liv]
December 19; ‘The preamble’s, “We the People of the United States,’ promotes
cooperative autonomy among living citizens.”
·
2014 May 5. Supreme Court decision Greece
v. Galloway approving “legislative prayer” in Greece, NY town meetings
o
“Legislative prayer, while religious
in nature, has long been understood as compatible with the Establishment
Clause. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783.”
o
“The principal audience for these
invocations is not, indeed, the public but lawmakers themselves, who may find
that a moment of prayer or quiet reflection sets the mind to a higher purpose
and thereby eases the task of governing.” [The lawmakers should be prompted and comforted by the
preamble.]
o
“According to these statistics, of
the county residents who have a religious affiliation, about 3% are Jewish, and
for other non-Christian faiths, the percentages are smaller.” [Nationally,
non-theists are about 23% of the population.]
o
“I turn now to the narrow aspect of
the principal dissent, and what we find here is that the principal dissent’s
objection, in the end, is really quite niggling.” [petty, trivial].
o
“All that the Court does today is to
allow a town to follow a practice that we have previously held is permissible
for Congress and state legislatures.” [Rather the town council, not the town.]
·
2014 June 15 Sunni Muslims advancing
on Bagdad are resisted by Shiites and Kurds.
·
2014 June 21. Theism, a
private practice, cannot substitute for physics-based civic morality.
o
In the interrogative of Abraham Lincoln, “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?”
o
We the People of the United States, as defined
in the preamble to the constitution for the USA, could emerge because of our
generation.
o
Fulfillment of the preamble is in our hands.
Just civic governance by justly governed citizens is up to us. Private liberty with civic morality (PLwCM) is ours to
establish.2015
Black Liberation Collective: statements and symbols seem black communist.[lv]
·
2015 July 21. A Civic People of the United
States granted corporate status in Baton Rouge, LA.
Copyright, Phillip R. Beaver,
January 14, 2014, revised August 15, 207
[v]
Online: https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Early-Christianity-Jennifer-Glancy/dp/0195136098/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465478472&sr=1-2&keywords=slavery+in+early+christianity#reader_0195136098
. (I probably should read that book, but then again the Bible is evidence
enough.)
[viii]
James F. Harris. The Serpentine Wall: The
Winding Boundary Between Church and State in the United States. 2013. Page
3.
[x]
Online: eden-saga.com/en/initiation-monotheism-polytheism-native-americans-dance-of-shiva-great-spirit-wakan-tanka.html
[xi]
Online: ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/african_laborers_for_a_new_emp/pope_nicolas_v_and_the_portugu
[xii]
Online: http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/5930/Africa-Portuguese-Colonies.html
[xv]
Online: www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/exploration/1496-cabot-patent.php
[xvii]
Online: staugustine.com/history/nations-oldest-city
: (1565).
[xx]
Online: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_slav3.htm . (1665)
[xxiii]
Online: http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/black-church-brief-history
[xxviii]
Online: http://candst.tripod.com/madnational.htm . (1779)
[xxxiv]
Online: teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/what-to-the-slave-is-the-fourth-of-july/
[xli]
Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Norton Critical Edition. New
York. 1999.
[xliv]
Berryman, Phillip (1987), Liberation Theology: Essential Facts
about the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America--and Beyond, Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, p. 4, ISBN 0-87722-479-X
[xlv]
Liberation theology: a dubious, concise history, online at http://www.landreform.org/boff2.htm
. I call this dubious, because it does not mention the Second Vatican Council
(1962-1965), but www.encyclopedia.com/topic/liberation_theology.aspx
does mention it. My take on liberation theology is that it tries to incorporate
religion to oppose politics that keeps the poor in poverty. I do not think
religion can succeed.
[lv]
Online: http://www.blackliberationcollective.org/our-beliefs/
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