Cinco de Mayo preceded by Dos de Mayo, Spain, Napoleon, Mexico, Maximillian, & Juárez – American Minute with Bill Federer
Napoleon made an alliance with the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1806 and Persia in 1807.
Napoleon’s victories across Europe caused Spain’s King Charles IV to be unstable in his position regarding France:
- first against, 1793;
- then for, 1796;
- then against, 1803;
- then for, 1807.
In 1807, Napoleon finally invaded Spain, beginning the draining Peninsula War.
Frustrated Spanish citizens forced King Charles IV to abdicate on March 19, 1808, and replaced him with his son, King Ferdinand VII.
French troops proceeded to occupy of Madrid.
When Spaniards gathered in protest, Napoleon brought in the Muslim Mameluke cavalry to subdue them.
In 1808, on May 2, the “Dos de Mayo,” the Mamelukes charged on horseback brandishing their scimitar swords, slashing into the Spanish crowd.
Over 500 protestors were hacked to death, crushing the “Dos de Mayo Uprising.”
Immediately afterwards, on May 6, 1808, Napoleon forced King Ferdinand VII to abdicate.
Napoleon then installed his reluctant brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as the new King of Spain.
Spanish America questioned if it should remain loyal to the Spanish throne with the French brother of Napoleon on it.
Compounding the situation, New Spain was Catholic and Napoleon had been excommunicated by Pope Pius VII, June 10, 1809.
Soon, in 1810, Spanish America began to declare independence from French-controlled Spain.
Simon Bolivar led the revolution, which eventually gave independence to:
- Venezuela;
- Colombia; (which included Panama);
- Ecuador;
- Peru (with the help of Don José de San Martín); and
- Bolivia (named for him).
A Constitution was written, similar to that of the United States, to create a “Gran Columbia” of former Spanish States.
It fell apart when Simon Bolivar insisted on being president for life.
U.S. President William Henry Harrison referred to Simon Bolivar in his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1841:
“This is the old trick of those who would usurp the government of their country.
In the name of democracy they speak, warning the people against the influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy.
History, ancient and modern, is full of such examples … Bolivar possessed himself of unlimited power with the title of his country’s liberator.”
The United State’s experience was different.
For a century and a half prior to independence citizens had been schooled by pastors and church leaders in self-government.
Simon Bolivar accused Spain of having kept the people of New Spain for centuries under a “triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny, and vice.”
As a result, in was therefore necessary that any new government “will require an infinitely firm hand.”
In Mexico, September 16, 1810, a priest named Miguel Hidalgo, gave a speech, “The Cry of Dolores,” calling people to revolt against the Napoleon-controlled Spanish elites.
Hidalgo gathered nearly 90,000 poor farmers.
Unfortunately, they were quickly defeated by the Spanish trained military at the Battle of Calderon Bridge in 1811.
Hidalgo was executed.
The Revolution continued, though, until Spanish General Agustín de Iturbide switched sides.
With his leadership, Mexico soon gained independence in 1821.
Unfortunately, rather than setting up a constitutional republic, like the United States, Agustín de Iturbide set up a Mexican Empire with himself ruling as the Emperor.
In 1824, Mexico adopted a Constitution.
In the following decades, Mexico struggled through the instability of 50 different governments.
Santa Anna rose to power.
In his 40 year career, called by some historians the Age of Santa Anna, he ruled as Mexico’s President for 12 non-consecutive terms.
He finally laid aside Mexico’s Constitution and made himself a despotic dictator.
Santa Anna told the U.S. minister to Mexico Joel R. Poinsett:
“A hundred years to come my people will not be fit for liberty …
A despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one.”
Modeling himself after Napoleon, he called himself “The Napoleon of the West.”
Santa Anna crushed dissent, resulting in Texas declaring independence in 1836:
“The late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez Santa Anna,
who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers, as the cruel alternative, either abandon our homes … or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny.”
General Santa Anna led the Mexican military, losing the Mexican-American War, 1846-1848, resulting in the Mexican Cession, 1848, and Gadsden Purchase, 1854.
In 1853, Santa Anna exiled a young leader who challenged his power — Benito Juárez.
The next year, Benito Juárez returned to led the Revolution of Ayutla, ousting Santa Anna.
An aspect of Mexican politics involved the Church.
Originally, the Catholic Church in Latin America saw its political responsibility as limited to being a conscience to the ruling elites, reminding them to treat the poor fairly as someday they too will face judgement.
Revolutionaries, though, wanted immediate change, and therefore accused the Church as being somehow complicit in maintaining the status quo.
In 1856, Benito Juárez, backed by Freemason leaders, led a War of Reform against the Church.
Religious orders were suppressed, church property was confiscated and religious clergy were denied rights.
Once he became President, Benito Juárez stopped paying interest on Mexico’s debt to Spain, Great Britain and France in 1861.
This resulted in those European countries planning an invasion of Mexico.
With the United States occupied in a Civil War, French troops landed in Mexico in 1862, actually being supported by various Mexican financial leaders and church leaders.
On MAY 5, 1862 – “CINCO DE MAYO” – the French Army suffered a minor setback at the Battle of Puebla.
The French went on to capture:
- Mexico City,
- Guadalajara,
- Zacatecas.
- Acapulco.
- Durango,
- Sinaloa and
- Jalisco.
It is speculated that had the French not experienced the set-back of the Battle of Puebla, they would have taken Mexico sooner, and been in a position to alter the America Civil War by supplying arms to the Confederacy.
Numerous Mexican leaders traveled to Europe to plead with Maximillian I to come to Mexico and restore order, to which he agreed in 1863.
Maximillian was the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I, one of the world’s most powerful leaders.
Franz Joseph ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire — which, after Russia, was the largest empire in Europe, consisting of:
- Austria,
- Hungary,
- Bohemia (Czech),
- Croatia,
- Poland,
- Slovenia,
- Slovakia,
- Bosnia,
- Herzegovina, and
- parts of Serbia, Romania, Italy, Montenegro, and Ukraine.
Emperor Franz Joseph ruled for almost 68 years, making him one of the longest reigning monarchs in history.
In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt met him.
In 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph’s nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated, starting World War I.
Franz Joseph’s younger brother, Maximillian, was known for being a forward thinker with liberal ideas, advocating progressive reforms in favor of common people.
He spoke six languages and was commander of the Austrian Navy, sending out the first Austrian ship to circumnavigate the globe.
Maximillian was supported in going to Mexico by England’s Queen Victoria and France’s Napoleon III, along with the blessing of Pope Pius IX,
He had the backing of many Mexican leaders, led by José Pablo Martínez del Río.
Maximillian arrived at Veracruz on May 21, 1864, to enthusiastic crowds.
He created an avenue through the center of Mexico City, known now as the famous boulevard Paseo de la Reforma.
Maximillian’s wife, Carlota, was shocked by the living conditions of the lower classes, so she raised money from wealthy Mexicans to help poor houses.
Maximilian immediately abolished child labor and reduced working hour for laborers.
He canceled all debts for peasants over 10 pesos, restored communal property and broke the monopoly of Hacienda stores.
He forbade all forms of corporal punishment and decreed that poor people could no longer be bought and sold for the price of their debt.
To the dismay of the wealthy, Maximilian upheld liberal policies of land reforms, religious freedom, and extended the right to vote beyond the landholding class.
The United States Government did not want European powers in the western hemisphere, as stated in the Monroe Doctrine.
The U.S. put diplomatic pressure on Napoleon III to abandon support of Maximillian and withdraw French troops from Mexico.
Lincoln instructed General Grant to send the order to Sheridan:
“Concentrate in all available points in the States an army strong enough to move against the invaders of Mexico.”
The U.S. secretly supplied guns to Mexican gangs, conveniently “losing” arms and ammunition at El Paso del Norte near the Mexican border.
General Philip Sheridan wrote in his journal:
“We continued supplying arms and munitions to the liberals, sending as many as 30,000 muskets from Baton Rouge alone.”
With the threat of a possible U.S. invasion in support of Benito Juárez, the supporters of Maximilian began to abandon him.
Maximillian’s wife, Carlota, went to Europe desperate for help but was denied everywhere and suffered an emotional collapse.
Napoleon III urged Maximillian to flee Mexico, but he refused to desert his Mexican followers, fearing the fate they would suffer.
He let his followers decide whether or not he should abdicate.
Faithful Mexican generals Miguel Miramon, Leonardo Márquez, and Tomás Mejía fought with an army of 8,000 Mexican loyalists.
In 1867, they withdrew to Santiago de Querétaro, but Colonel Miguel López was bribed to open a gate to let a raiding party in.
Maximilian was captured.
Leaders around the world begged Benito Juárez to spare Maximillian’s life.
Italy’s reformer, Giuseppe Garibaldi, sent telegrams to Benito Juárez on behalf of Maximillian.
Even eminent French author Victor Hugo, author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, pleaded for Maximillian’s life.
Benito Juárez refused and had Maximillian shot on June 19, 1867.
He even photographed him in his coffin.
Maximillian’s last words were:
“I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me.
May my blood which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!”
Benito Juárez died of a heart attack five years later, after putting down a revolt led by a young leader who challenged his power — Porfirio Diaz.
Porfirio Diaz was President till there was another revolt led by a young leader who challenged his power named Francisco Madero.
Madero was murdered in a coup d’Etat in 1913 by Victoriano Huerta, which started another civil war.
A quote contrasting the stability of the United States with that of other countries was made by 13th President Millard Fillmore, December 6, 1852:
“Our grateful thanks are due to an all-merciful Providence …
Our own free institutions were not the offspring of our Revolution. They existed before.
They were planted in the free charters of self-government under which the English colonies grew up …
… (Other) nations have had no such training for self-government, and every effort to establish it by bloody revolutions has been, and must without that preparation continue to be, a failure.
Liberty unregulated by law degenerates into anarchy, which soon becomes the most horrid of all despotisms …
We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the happy Constitution and Government which were bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit in all their integrity to our children.”
(Reposted with permission with American Minute https://americanminute.com/ )
The Weekly Sam: Book Proposal by Samuel L. Blumenfeld Is Your Child Attending a Zoo? Or, How to Evaluate Your Child’s School
Sam had dozens of book proposals and man of they were incorporated into other. Here is just one of them:
Introduction: One of the most important decisions parents must make is choosing a
school for their child. For most parents, the choice is pretty limited to the public school a child is
assigned to. In some communities, parents do have a choice among schools. But how are parents
to know which school is the best one? What should they look for? What kind of questions should
they ask? This book will help parents evaluate a school so that they can make a decision based on
personal observation and objective information.
Chapter One:
Where do we start? First you must find out if the school has a well-articulated philosophy of education that determines what is taught and how it is taught. You must
find out if the school operates within the framework of a mandated reform program assisted by the
federal government, requiring a specific fonn of curriculum. If this is the case, then the purpose of
the school is to serve the needs of the government ratber than the needs of your child. If the
schools in your town are so conducted, then you may want to consider a private school or
homeschooling. Government directed school reforms will be discussed in a later chapter.
Chapter Two:
The physical environment. Whether parents know it or not, the
physical environment of a building and classroom can have a positive or negative effect on the
child. The parent must ask: Would I enjoy being in this building or classroom six hours a day, five
days a week, for a whole school year? Is tbe atmosphere in this classroom conducive to learning
or is there too much noise and distraction? Ask for permission to actually sit in a classroom for an
hour or two to see what goes on among the students and how the teacher handles the kids.
The seating arrangement is also important. If the children are seated in rows and the teacher
is the focus of attention in front of the class, then the class will probably be conducted in a
traditional manner. If the children are seated behind little tables grouped together so that they can
openly socialize and do group work then the class will be conducted along “progressive” lines.
Because there is significant difference between the traditional and the progressive models, a
parent should know which model the school has adopted. Some schools try to combine both
models. The school you’re looking at may be one of those.
Chapter Three:
The Traditional Model. What is its philosophical basis? The emphasis
is usually on teaching academic skills, maintaining classroom discipline, sometimes having a dress
code, using textbooks, teaching subject matter as separate disci plines. In the kindergarten and
primary grades reading is usually taught with phonics, and arithmetic is learned primarily by rote
memorization. Few public schools today adhere to the traditional model. To find that model,
parents may have to consider private alternatives. The advantage of the traditional model is that
children learn their basics pretty well and student behavior is well controlled.
Chapter Four: The Progressive Model. Most schools today have adopted the
progressive model of education. You will know it the moment you enter a first-grade classroom.
The children will be seated around tables, chatting or working in groups. The walls will be
decorated with all sorts of posters, pictures of animals, etc. The teacher will not be the focus of
attention. She is now a facilitator. Occasionally she will read to a group of kids seated on the floor
and will have a dicussion with them. Her teaching program usually includes whole-language,
invented spelling, the new math, etc. Subject matter will be interdisciplinary. The atmosphere may
seem chaotic, but it is believed that each child is learning on his or her own. The advantage of this
model is its informality and general permissiveness.
Chapter Five:
Teachers. When you put a child in a school you are entrusting that child
to a complete stranger. Most parents assume that their child’s teacher is qualified and certified. But
experience, sometimes painful, has taught us that some of today’s teachers may not only be
incompetent, but also immoral. How can parents know what kind of individual is their child’s
teacher? If possible, get background information on the faculty: colleges attended, degrees earned.
If the school does not have such information, you might talk with the teacher and elicit the
information you want in a chatty, friendly, non-threatening way.
Chapter Six:
Teaching Reading. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
That certainly applies to the field of reading instruction. Faulty teaching methods can cause reading
problems, and it behooves parents to find out how reading is being taught in the school. This
chapter will explain the various ways reading is being taught, how to evaluate different programs
and what questions to ask. Although educators have declared that the reading war between
phonics and whole language is over, it is doubtful that it really is. Thus, it is most important to
know what to look for in a school’s reading program.
Chapter Seven:
Writing and Spelling. You would think that such subjects would be
taught in a way that would virtually satisfy all parents. Unfortunately, that is not the case. One of
the questions most often asked by parents is how to improve an older child’s spelling. More often
than not that child was taught writing by the invented spelling method, which, unfortunately,
creates spelling problems. Again, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you teach
spelling in a logical, rational way, you can avoid developing bad spelling habits. Also, find out
how your child will be taught to write: cursive first or print first? The proper sequence makes all
the difference.
Chapter Eight:
Math. Millions of children emerge from our schools with poor
mathematical skills. Usually the problem can be traced back to the first and second grades and
how the child was taught arithmetic. Again, prevention can guard your child against mathematical
dysfunction. There are good ways and bad ways to teach arithmetic. This chapter will help
parents recognize the good and the bad ways.
Chapter Nine:
The new federally mandated curriculum. Most parents are not aware of
the sweeping reforms that are being implemented in schools across the nation. These radical
changes may persuade you to seek alternatives for your children. The new curriculum is the result
of three important pieces of legislation passed by Congress in 1994: Goals 2000; School-to-Work
Opportunities Act; and the Improving America’s Schools Act. It is important for parents to
understand the ramifications of these acts. They are changing the goals of schooling and what
children are to be taught. They also include gathering extensi ve personal data about your child
which will become a permanent record in a federal computer in Washington.
Chapter Ten:
Music, Art, and Foreign Language. Most parents want their children to
be exposed to the arts and some study of music. Does the school teach art? Does the school teach
children to play musical instruments? If not, does it at least teach music appreciation? Does the
school have a band or a chorus? Foreign language is another way of expanding a child’s cultural
horizons. Find out what languages the school offers. For some parents, cultural education is an
important way to instill love and appreciation of the arts and reading. It provides nourishment for
the soul. If a school is deficient in this area, you may not want to put your child there.
Chapter Eleven: Computers in the classroom. Is the school technologically up to date?
About the Author
Samuel L. Blumenfeld has written ten books on education, including:
The New Illiterates
How to Tutor
Alpha-Phonics: A Primer for Beginning Readers
Homeschooling: A Parents Guide to Teaching Children
He is considered one of the world’s top authorities on reading.
He has lectured in all fifty states as well as in Canada, Australia,
and New Zealand.
He is very well known among homeschoolers and has spoken at many
homeschool conventions over the last fifteen years.
Dr. Blumenfeld also edited The Blumenfeld Education Letter for ten
years, keeping a close watch on the growing illiteracy problem.
He presently is a columnist for World Net Daily and several other
internet websites and writes regularly for Practical Homeschooling.
Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Dr. Blumenfeld was an editor
in the book publishing industry in New York.
He worked at Rinehart & Company, The Viking Press, The World
Publishing Company, and Grosset & Dunlap.
He decided to write this book after reading an article about Tom
Cruise’s struggle to learn to read. Tom says:
“When I was about 7 years old, I had been labeled dyslexic. I’d try to
concentrate on what I was reading, then I’d get to the end of the page
and have very little memory of anything I’d read. I would go blank,
feel anxious, nervous, bored, frustrated, dumb. I would get angry. My
legs would actually hurt when I was studying. My head ached. All
through school and well into my career, I felt like I had a secret.”
Tom was a victim of the faulty teaching methods in his school. Had
his parents known how he was being taught at school, his years of
agony and failure could have been avoided.
The Weekly Sam: Why the Federal Government Should Get Out of Education By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
The real issue is Limited Government versus Unlimited Government.
Most Americans want less government, smaller government and lower taxes. The only
way to accomplish this is by abolishing federal departments and bureaucracies. As far
back as the Reagan administration, Republicans promised to abolish the Department of
Education. They couldn’t do it then because they lacked a majority in Congress. But
whatever happened to the plan to abolish the Department of Education when Republicans
became the majority? Not only did they forget their promise, but in September 1996 they
passed the single largest increase in federal education funding: $3.5 billion. Who were
the Republicans trying to impress? The National Education Association?
The basic question is: Can good education be provided in the U.S. without the help or
intrusion of the federal government? The answer is clearly yes. In fact, there is ample
evidence indicating that the present decline in educational quality is a direct result of
federal funding which has been used by the educators to fund more and more expensive
educational malpractice.
A little historical background will help us understand why the federal role in education in
America is more of an aberration than a natural development. There is no mention of
education in the U.S. Constitution. However, in 1785 and 1787, while the United States
were still under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress passed the
Northwest Ordinance Acts which provided for the orderly settlement of the Northwest
Territory and encouraged the establishment of schools in the territory by stating:
“Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be encouraged.” The
new states were required to set aside the 16th section of each township to be used for
educational purposes. But there was no requirement that the schools be government
owned and operated.
Seventy-five years later, in 1862, Congress passed and President Lincoln signed the
Morrill Land Grant Act providing each loyal state with 30,000 acres of land for each
Senator and Representative, the land to be used for agricultural and mechanical schools
under a measure proposed by Senator Justin S. Morrill of Vermont. Five years later, in
1867, a federal Office of Education was established. Its purpose was:
“To collect such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the
several States and Territories, and to diffuse such information respecting the organization and
management of schools and school systems, and methods of teaching as shall aid the People of
the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and
otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country.”
It should be noted that the National Education Association had been founded ten years
earlier in 1857 and that its members called for the establishment of a federal department
of education at the founding convention. And it is obvious that in that statement of
purpose was an expansionist view of the government’s future role in education.
After World War I, the NEA began a long range campaign to get federal aid for public
education. From 1867 to 1940–a period of 73 years–the Congress passed about 11 minor
pieces of legislation related to education. The fear of federal control of schools kept most
legislators from voting for federal aid to public education. But resistance was gradually
broken down by such acts as the National School Lunch Act of 1946, the School Milk
Program Act of 1954.
But it was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 passed during the
Johnson administration which opened the floodgates of the U.S. Treasury for the benefit
of the education establishment. From 1965 to 1983–18 years–there were 43 education
acts passed by the Congress, including the establishment in 1979 of a U.S. Department of
Education with cabinet status. In the year 1994 alone, there were about 180 educational
restructuring bills before Congress! The three most important bills enacted were the
Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, and the Improving America’s
Schools Act, a reauthorization of the ESEA of 1965. All of this legislation was passed
with much Republican help. In short, the Congress launched an avalanche of bills which
virtually amounted to a cultural revolution.
It seemed as if all restraints had been removed on government expansion and intrusion
into education, and the Republican Congress did nothing to reverse the trend. That is
why the federal government has become a government of unlimited power.
We must return to the principle of limited government if we wish to reduce the cost of
government and its unwarranted intrusion in the education of our children. A limited
federal government does only those things that cannot be done by the states or the private
sector. The purpose of taxes is to pay for government not change society.
There is no doubt that the federal intrusion in education has harmed education and
produced the dumbing down effect. Test scores attest to this bizarre phenomenon. Since
1962, SAT verbal scores have declined despite billions of federal dollars pumped into
public education. In September 1993, the U.S. Department of Education revealed that
some 90 million adult Americans have grossly inadequate reading and writing skills,
despite compulsory school attendance. The more federal money Congress pumps into
education the worse it gets. Why? Because educational malpractice is very expensive,
and without federal funding we’d have much less of it.
The simple truth is that federal education programs cost the taxpayers billions of dollars,
yet not one of these programs has actually improved education. Claims have been made
that Headstart is a successful program. But research indicates that whatever gains
children make in Headstart are lost by the third grade.
Federal education grants subsidize a liberal academic elite with its secular humanist,
socialist agenda, thus violating the Constitutional prohibition against establishing a state
religion: Humanism.
The Data Collection System of the National Center for Education Statistics threatens
family privacy and freedom. Children are not a “national resource” to be monitored and
controlled for use by the state or industry. They are individuals whose lives belong to
themselves, not to “the economy.”
The federal government has institutionalized educational malpractice by supporting
unsound educational theories and practices which have found their way into the public
schools via the federally funded National Diffusion Network. Federal aid to public
education simply reinforces a socialist, government owned and operated education system
which distorts market values and encourages monopoly union practices.
Meanwhile, the education establishment continues to grow and prosper. In 1982, the
average public school teacher’s salary was $19,274. In 1995 it was up to $37,643., and in
2008 it us up to $47,602. In 1982, per pupil expenditure was $2,726. In 1995-96 the
national average was up to $6,213, and in 2009 it was up to $9,963. In 1984, total
expenditure for public education was $134.5 billion. In 2002 it had risen to $420 billion.
In short, never has public education been more generously supported by the taxpayer and
never have our schools seen more violence, academic disarray, and parental
dissatisfaction than the present. What is even more shocking is that over four million
students must be drugged daily with Ritalin in order to be able to attend class.
Today, well-connected change agents like Mark Tucker are busy imposing on America
the new Human Resources Development System, exuberantly described by Tucker in an
18-page letter to Hillary Clinton when her husband was elected President. Tucker
described his system as “a seamless web of opportunities to develop one’s skills that
literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone–young and old,
poor and rich, worker and full-time student.”
And so, in place of academic excellence, we have Outcome Based Education, Whole
Language, Multiculturalism, Skinnerian Mastery Learning, National Teaching Standards
and Certification, School-Based Clinics, Attitude Assessments, Global Citizenship, and
Socialized Medicine for every student.
What is actually taking place is a cultural revolution engineered by behavioral
psychologists, hwnanist educators, and socialist change agents using a whole galaxy of
education programs to implement their agenda, fmanced by the federal government.
And much of this has taken place when Republicans were in control of Congress. And
that accounts for the extreme frustration of conservatives who vote Republican but get
liberal results. When will this change?
The takeover of the White House and the federal government by radical leftists has finally
awakened the American people to what has happened to this country since we started
allowing the federal government to exceed all limits placed on it by the Constitution. But
in order to succeed in restoring the principles of government held by our founding fathers,
we must return to limited government. This can only be done if the American people
realize the potential for tyranny inherent in a government education system.
The most important institution in a socialist state is a government owned and controlled
school system wherein children can be indoctrinated to accept a socialist way of life. And
the best way to prevent this from occurring is to return to the concept of educational
freedom in which the federal government has no role in education.
Local public schools can easily become private institutions governed by local trustees and
supported by tuition fees. This would greatly reduce the tax burden on home owners and
provide more than enough resources to pay for the tuitions of poor families. The costs of
education would decrease dramatically since education would once more become reality
based wherein the fundamental academic subjects would be taught without the added
costs of educational malpractice. Individual intelligence would be enhanced, while
collectivist group-think would be discarded.
Can this be done? Only if America’s conservative leaders demand that it should be done.
The home-school movement has already proven that parents can actually teach better
than our high-priced professionals, that children progress better academically when taught
at home, and that the cost of educating a child at home is less than $1,000 a year.
If Americans want to once more experience what it means to be free, they must burst out
of the high-priced straitjacket imposed on them by the socialist education tyrants. If they
want better education at lower cost, then the prescription for success is simple: get the
government out of education.
The above article was written more than 20 years ago. Please visit and subscribe to the Sam Blumenfeld Archives: https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
Lexington & Concord, and the Right to Keep & Bear Arms “To Disarm the People is the Best Way to Enslave Them”-George Mason – American Minute with Bill Federer
The sun never set on the British Empire.
It was the largest empire in world history.
Out of nearly 200 countries in the world, only 22 were never controlled, invaded or attacked by Britain.
In April of 1775, the British Royal Military Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, sent 800 British Army Regulars, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, on a preemptive raid to seize guns from American patriots at Lexington and Concord.
George Mason of Virginia stated:
“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”
A warning was sent from Boston’s Old North Church that the British were coming, as recounted in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride”:
“Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the 18th of April, in 75;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
… He said to his friend, ‘If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light …
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm …
Through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight.”
Paul Revere was captured along the way, but William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott continued the midnight ride.
Revere wrote:
“About 10 o’clock, Dr. Warren sent in great haste for me, and begged that I would immediately set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock & Adams were …
I got a horse of Deacon Larkin … and set off … It was then about 11 o’clock … After I had passed Charlestown Neck … I saw two men on horseback … When I got near them, I discovered they were British officers.
One tried to get a head of me, and the other to take me. I turned my horse very quick, and galloped … to Medford Road.
The one who chased me, endeavoring to cut me off, got into a clay pond, near where the new tavern is now built. I got clear of him …
I went through Medford, over the bridge, and up to Menotomy … I alarmed almost every house, till I got to Lexington …”
Revere continued:
“I … mentioned, that we had better alarm all the inhabitants till we got to Concord; the young Doctor much approved of it …
We had got nearly half way.
Mr. Dawes and the Doctor stopped to alarm the people of a house: I was about one hundred rods a head, when I saw two men … in an instant I was surrounded by four …
The Doctor being foremost, he came up; and we tried to get past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us in to the pasture; -the Doctor jumped his horse over a low stone wall, and got to Concord …
Six officers, on horseback … ordered me to dismount … He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the affirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston …
Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, clapped his pistol to my head … and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out.”
In a related story, four months earlier, on December 13, 1774, two British warships set sail for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to seize gunpowder and weapons patriots had taken from Fort William and Mary.
Riding all night to warn the citizens of Portsmouth that the British were coming were Paul Revere and 29-year-old African American Wentworth Cheswell.
Cheswell was constable of Newmarket, New Hampshire, being considered the first African American elected to public office in U.S. history.
Paul Revere also described a spy, Dr. Benjamin Church, who leaked patriot plans to British General Gates before the Battle of Lexington:
“Dr. Church … appeared to be a high son of Liberty. He frequented all the places where they met …
I came across Deacon Caleb Davis. … He told me, that the morning Dr. Church went into Boston … General Gage and Dr. Church came out of a room, discoursing together, like persons who had been long acquainted.
He appeared to be quite surprised at seeing Deacon Davis there …
I was told by another person … that he saw Church go in to General Gage’s House … that he got out of the carriage and went up the steps more like a man that was acquainted …
He did not doubt that Church was in the interest of the British; and that it was he who informed General Gage … that a short time before the Battle of Lexington … Church had no money … and all at once, he had several hundred New British Guineas.”
On April 19th, “Patriots’ Day,” the British continued their march to Lexington and Concord intent on seizing arms and arresting Tea Party leader Samuel Adams and Massachusetts Provincial Congress president John Hancock.
On the way, the British passed through Arlington, Massachusetts.
They stormed the inn where lodged the patriots Elbridge Gerry, Azor Orne and Jeremiah Lee, who was America’s largest colonial ship owner and the wealthiest man in Massachusetts.
Jeremiah Lee was using his ships to smuggle in supplies to the patriots.
When the British stormed the inn, Gerry, Orne and Lee fled wearing only their night clothes and hid, laying on the cold ground in a wet cornfield for hours.
Jeremiah Lee caught a pneumonia and died a few weeks later.
John Hancock had previously experienced British tax collectors confiscating his merchant ship Liberty in 1768
Hancock had declared to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, April 15, 1775:
“In circumstances dark as these, it becomes us, as men and Christians, to reflect that, whilst every prudent measure should be taken to ward off the impending judgments …
a day … be set apart as a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer … to confess their sins … to implore the Forgiveness of all our Transgression.”
Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull, whom Washington called ‘the first of the patriots’, was the only colonial governor at the start of the Revolution to support the patriot cause.
Trumbull proclaimed a Day of Fasting, April 19, 1775, that:
“God would graciously pour out His Holy Spirit on us to bring us to a thorough repentance and effectual reformation that our iniquities may not be our ruin;
that He would restore, preserve and secure the liberties of this and all the other British American colonies, and make the land a mountain of Holiness, and habitation of righteousness forever.”
As the sun rose, April 19, 1775, there were 800 British regulars approaching Lexington’s town green.
To their surprise, they were met by Lexington’s militia, comprised of 77 men who were mostly members of the Church of Christ, pastored by Rev. Jonas Clark, whose wife was a cousin of John Hancock.
Patriot captain John Parker told the militia:
“Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have War, let it begin here!”
It is disputed who fired first, but the British opened fire and killed or wounded eighteen of Captain Parker’s men.
In his sermon preached a year later, April 19, 1776, Pastor Jonas Clark described:
“Under cover of the darkness, a brigade of these instruments of violence and tyranny, made their approach …
They enter this town … like murders and cut-throats … without provocation, without warning, when no war was proclaimed, they draw the sword of violence, upon the inhabitants of this town,
and with a cruelty and barbarity, which would have made the most hardened savage blush, they shed INNOCENT BLOOD! …”
Pastor Clark continued:
“And the names of Munroe, Parker, and others, that fell victims to the rage of blood-thirsty oppressors, on that gloomy morning …
And from the nineteenth of April, 1775, we may venture to predict, will be dated, in future history, THE LIBERTY or SLAVERY of the AMERICAN WORLD, according as a sovereign God shall see fit to smile, or frown upon the interesting cause, in which we are engaged.”
The American militia retreated, growing to number 400, and took a stand at Concord’s Old North Bridge.
The British fired first, wounding four and killing two.
Militia commander John Buttrick yelled:
“Fire, for God’s sake, fellow soldiers, fire!”
Taking many casualties, the British began a hasty retreat 20 miles back to Boston, being ambushed along the way by John Parker’s militia in “Parker’s Revenge.”
Tragically, in the anger of their retreat, the British shot or bayoneted almost everyone in the town of Menotomy.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow continued his poem:
“You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.”
Longfellow ended:
“So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
… In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.”
Though it took eight long years, Americans won their independence.
A century later, on April 19, 1875, at that same Old North Bridge, patriots were honored by the dedication of the “Minute Man Statue” designed by Daniel Chester French.
On the statue’s base is a stanza of the poem The Concord Hymn, written Ralph Waldo Emerson, April 19, 1860:
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And time the ruined bridge has swept,
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.
… On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We place with joy a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
O Thou who made those heroes dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid time and nature gently spare,
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.”
Two months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress, under President John Hancock, declared, June 12, 1775:
“Congress … considering the present critical, alarming and calamitous state … do earnestly recommend … a Day of Public Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer,
that we may with united hearts … confess and deplore our many sins and offer up our joint supplications to the All-wise, Omnipotent and merciful Disposer of all Events, humbly beseeching Him to forgive our iniquities …
It is recommended to Christians of all denominations to assemble for public worship and to abstain from servile labor and recreations of said day.”
The Revolutionary War began with an attempt by government officials to seize citizens’ guns.
Patriots had prepared for this with the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, October 26, 1774, organizing their defenses with one-third of their regiments being “Minutemen,” men who were ready to fight at a minute’s notice.
This idea came from the Bible, where in Ancient Israel every man was armed and ready to defend his family and community:
David B. Kopel wrote in “Ancient Hebrew Militia Law” (Denver University Law Review, July 15, 2013):
“New Englanders intensely self-identified with ancient Israel … Thus, ancient Hebrew militia law is part of the intellectual background of the American militia system, and of the Second Amendment …
Every male ‘from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms’ … were obliged to fight, to go forth ‘armed to battle.’
Men who failed this duty ‘sinned against the Lord.'”
E.C. Wines wrote in Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews, 1853 (NY: Geo. P. Putnam & Co., 1853):
“Moses’ constitution made no provision for a standing army …
The whole body of citizens … formed a national guard.”
- “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side” (Exodus 32:27);
- “They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh” (Song of Solomon 3:8);
- “Every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon. For the builders, every one had his sword girded by his side (Nehemiah 4:17-18).
James Madison wrote (Letters & Writings of James Madison, 1865, p. 406):
“The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … forms a barrier against the enterprise of ambition …
Kingdoms of Europe … are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
Noah Webster wrote in An Examination into the leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787:
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.
The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword because the whole body of the people are armed.”
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story wrote in Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833 (2nd Edition, 1833, p. 125):
“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium (safeguard) of the liberties of a Republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers.”
Machiavelli wrote in The Prince (trans. L. Ricci, 1952, p. 73, 81):
“An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens.”
Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Cooley wrote in The General Principles of Constitutional Law, 1891 (2nd Ed., 1891, p. 282):
“The Second Amendment … was meant to be a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers …
The people … shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose.”
Patrick Henry, the five-time Governor of the State of Virginia, wrote (Elliott, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions, 1836, 1941, p. 378):
“Let him candidly tell me, where and when did freedom exist when the sword and the purse were given up from the people?
No nation ever retained its liberty after the loss of the sword and the purse …
The great object is, that every man be armed … Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul to Algiers and France, wrote in Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe, Resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of Government, 1792 (reprinted 1956, p. 46):
“The foundation of everything is … that the people will form an equal representative government … that the people will be universally armed …
A people that legislate for themselves ought to be in the habit of protecting themselves.”
Jeffrey R. Snyder, esq., wrote in “A Nation of Cowards” (The Public Interest, 1993, no. 113):
“Classical republican philosophy has long recognized the critical relationship between personal liberty and the possession of arms by a people ready and willing to use them.”
The Roman orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, wrote (Cicero, Selected Political Speeches, trans. M. Grant, 1969, p. 222):
“There exists a law … inborn in our hearts … that if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.”
Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws (trans. T. Nugent, 1899, p. 64):
“It is unreasonable … to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.”
Machiavelli wrote in The Prince (trans. L. Ricci, 1952, p. 73, 81):
“It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willing one who is unarmed.”
Cesare Beccaria wrote in On Crimes and Punishment (trans. H. Paolucci, 1963, p. 87-88):
“False is the idea … that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it …
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature.
They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most scared laws of humanity, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity …
Such laws … serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Thomas Paine wrote (Writings of Thomas Paine, Conway, ed., 1894, p. 56):
“The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self defense.
The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order.”
Aristotle wrote in Parts of Animals (trans. A. Peck, 1961, p. 373):
“Animals have just one method of defense and cannot change it for another …
For man, on the other hand, many means of defense are available, and he can change them at any time …
Take the hand: this is as good as a talon, or a claw, or a horn, or again, a spear, or a sword, or any other weapon or tool it can be all of these.”
Aristotle wrote in Politics (trans. T. Sinclair, 1962, p. 274):
“Those who possess and can wield arms are in a position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not.”
Sir Thomas More wrote in Utopia (trans. R.M. Adams, 1975, p. 71):
“Men and women alike … assiduously exercise themselves in military training … to protect their own territory or to drive an invading enemy out of their friends’ land or, in pity for a people oppressed by tyranny, to deliver them by force of arms from the yoke and slavery of the tyrant.”
Roman historian Livy wrote (trans. B. Foster, 1919, p. 148):
“Formerly — in the reign of Rome’s 6th king, Servius Tullius, 578-535 B.C. — the right to bear arms had belonged solely to the patricians — ruling class.
Now plebeians — common citizens — were given a place in the army …
All the citizens capable of bearing arms were required to provide their own swords, spears, and other armor.”
Machiavelli wrote in On the Art of War (trans. E. Farnsworth, 1965, p. 30):
“Citizens, when legally armed … did the least mischief to any state …
Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time, but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberty in less than forty years.”
Machiavelli wrote in Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius (trans. L. Walker, 1965, p. 492):
“If any city be armed … as Rome was … all its citizens, alike in their private and official capacity … it will be found they will be of the same mind …
But, when they are not familiar with arms and merely trust to the whim of fortune … they will change with the changes of fortune.”
Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (ed., Cannan, p. 309):
“Men of republican principles have been jealous of a standing army as dangerous of liberty …
The standing army of Caesar destroyed the Roman Republic.
The standing army of Cromwell turned the Long Parliament out of doors.”
Earl Warren wrote in The Bill of Rights and the Military (37N.Y.U. L. Rev. 181, 1962):
“Our War of the Revolution was, in good measure, fought as a protest against standing armies …
Thus we find in the Bill of Rights, Second Amendment … specifically authorizing a decentralized militia, guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
Jeffrey R. Snyder, esq., wrote in “A Nation of Cowards” (The Public Interest, 1993, no. 113):
“Political theorists as dissimilar as Niccolo Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau all shared the view that the possession of arms is vital for resisting tyranny, and that to be disarmed by one’s government is tantamount to being enslaved by it.”
Anti-socialist John Basil Barnhill stated in a debate with Henry M. Tichenor, 1914 (National Rip Saw Publishing Co., St. Louis, MO):
“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”
The Texas Declaration of Independence, March 2, 1836, stated:
“The late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez Santa Anna, who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers, as the cruel alternative, either abandon our homes acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny …
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defense – the rightful property of freemen — and formidable only to tyrannical governments.”
Theodore Brantner Wilson described in The Black Codes of the South (Univ,ersity of Alabama Press, 1965, p. 56) laws passed by Democrat Legislators:
“Mississippi quickly passed one law … outlawing possession of weapons by Negroes. The militia proceeded to disarm the Negroes in such a brutal fashion as to cause much criticism.
Alabama Negroes were disarmed by similar methods with like results.”
Frederick Douglass, the African-American advisor to President Lincoln, stated:
“A man’s rights rest in three boxes: The ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box.”
Mahatma Gandhi wrote in An Autobiography of the Story of My Experiments with the Truth (trans. M. Desai, 1927):
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”
Islamic sharia law forbids non-Muslims from possessing arms, swords or weapons of any kind.
Adolph Hitler acted similarly with his Edict of March 18, 1938:
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms;
history shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected people to carry arms have prepared their own fall.”
German Firearm Act of 1937 stated:
“Firearm licenses will not be granted to Jews.”
Richard Munday reported in “The Monopoly of Power,” presented to the American Society of Criminology, 1991, the Nazi order regarding arms, S.A. Ober Führer of Bad Tolz:
“S.A.–Storm Troopers, S.S.–para-military Gestapo, and Stahlhelm … Anyone who does not belong to one of the above-named organizations and who unjustifiably keeps his weapon … must be regarded as an enemy of the national government and will be brought to account without compunction and with the utmost severity.”
Democrat Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was quoted by David T. Hardy in The Second Amendment as a Restraint on State and Federal Firearms Restrictions (Kates, ed., Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, 1979):
“The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”
Jefferson wrote to George Washington, 1796 (The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, John P. Foley, ed., New York & London, Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1900, No. 2138, iv, 143; Paul Leicester Ford, ed., vii. 84):
“One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.”
Similar to the midnight ride of Paul Revere, when Jefferson was Governor of Virginia, British Colonel Tarleton led his cavalry to Charlottesville to capture him.
Jefferson barely escaped, June 3, 1781, thanks to 27-year-old Jack Jouett, Junior, the “Paul Revere of the South,” who rode all night to warn to warn him.
Jefferson wrote in the Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, July 1775:
“We … most solemnly, before God and the world declare that … the arms we have been compelled to assume we will use with perseverance, exerting to their utmost energies all those powers which our Creator hath given us, to preserve that liberty which He committed to us in sacred deposit.”
–(Re3posted with permission from the American Minute https://americanminute.com/blogs/todays-american-minute
Camp Constitution Hosts Patriots Day Overnight
Camp Constitution hosted a Patriot’s Day overnight for several homeschool families at the Lane Learning Center in Lexington, MA-a few blocks from the Lexington Battle Green Sunday April 16 -Monday April 17.
The event began Sunday evening with a viewing the movie “Johnny Tremain, and then a walk to the Hancock- Clark House to watch the reenactment of the “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” where we met up with Camp Constitution instructor and historical reenactor Rich Howell
Then back to the Lane House for a few hours’ sleep. At 4:30 AM, we took a walk to the Lexington Green to get a good spot for viewing the reenactment and the wreath laying ceremony at the gravesite of Lexington Militia leader Captain John Parker, and then back to the Lane House to warm up and enjoy a hearty breakfast cooked by Camp Constitution Director Hal Shurtleff
Camp Constitution offers tours of Lexington, Concord, Boston and Plymouth to homeschool and church groups.
The Weekly Sam: Going to School Back in the Great Depression by Sam Blumenfeld
One of the great advantages to being 83 years old is that I have lived through a great deal
of history and have a perspective on life that you, my younger readers, do not have. I
remember the days when I would look around and find myself perhaps the youngest
person in the crowd. I took great delight in that. Today I look around and I am usually
the oldest. But I know that God has kept me around for a purpose, and I suspect that He
wants me to keep doing what I have been doing for the last forty years: writing about
education and promoting homeschooling.
How different is education today from what it was when I first attended a public school
back in New York City in the early 1930s! That was during the Great Depression, but I
don’t remember anyone I knew being depressed. My father was in the produce business
and thus we always had plenty of food to eat. My mother actually made her own noodles
for chicken soup. I was able to walk to school and come home for lunch. I remember
admiring the smiling policeman who stopped traffic so that we could cross the avenue on
our way to school.
On Saturdays my friends and I went to the movies. Price of admission? Ten cents. In
those days a penny could get you a Tootsie Roll, a package of gum, a bun. Five cents
could get you a hotdog.
At school we all sat in desks bolted to the floor. The desks were arranged in rows so that
you only saw the back of the head of the pupil in front of you. If you coughed, you
didn’t cough in anyone’s face. Today, with kids seated around tables, they are coughing
into each others faces and spreading disease.
Back then, the teacher had her desk at the front of the class and she taught us all the same
thing. There was no such thing as an “individual learning plan.” We learned to read
with phonics because it was the Depression and the schools could not afford the new
Dick and Jane look-say books.
We were taught penmanship, cursive writing, which
helped us learn to read because it taught us directionality and manual discipline. By
connecting the letters in a word, we learned the word’s spelling and how different
combinations of letters made different sounds.
Back then in elementary school we were taught arithmetic, not math. Arithmetic is a
counting system. In addition you count forward. In subtraction you count backwards. In
Multiplication you count forward in multiples, and in division you count backwards in
multiples. The teachers knew then that only by memorizing the arithmetic facts could
you become efficient at using this ingenious place-value counting system. And so we
memorized the arithmetic tables. Mathematics, which dealt with relationships, came
later.
Of course, some of us learned the 3Rs better than others. Some of our teachers were not
terribly good at teaching. Others were great, and we loved them. I remember being
humiliated in front of a class because, for some reason, I could not remember some
simple arithmetic function, and that angered the teacher.
From that experience, I have always advised tutors and homeschooling parents to never
get angry when a child is having difficulty learning something. Be patient, and explain
what it is that you want the student to learn. The brain is a very remarkable instrument
and can do both amazing and silly things–often at the same time!
So we all learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. And because we could read, we then
learned history and geography.
We learned all about the history of New York and its
five boroughs. It was a happy time for us kids. No one had dyslexia, or ADD, or
ADHD. No one was on Ritalin. There was no sex ed or death ed, no multiculturalism,
no values clarification, no secular humanism. The schools did not try to undermine our
religious beliefs or morals. They were teaching us to become good patriotic Americans.
Since most of us came from immigrant families, becoming good Americans was very
important. The only decoration in our classroom was a portrait of George Washington.
Moreover, Biblical religion was respected, and the Principal recited the 23rd Psalm at
each assembly.
In Third Grade, we had Music Appreciation. The teacher brought out her hand driven
Victrola from the closet and played classical music for us. I still remember some of the
pieces she played: The Swan by Saint-Saens. March Slav by Tchaikovsky. And I know
that that’s where I acquired my taste for classical music.
So I had a very decent primary and elementary education. And the public school was an
institution which instilled great patriotic values and love of country. They did not dumb
us down; they lifted us up. But those days are long gone, and today I tell parents: do not
put your child in a public school. If you want to preserve their mental sanity, teach them
at home.
Today’s public schools have become criminal enterprises where children’s brains are
deliberately crippled by whole-language and look-say, where drugs are pushed on
millions of children who must ingest Ritalin, where a child’s religious beliefs are
undermined by the practices of behavioral psychology, where pornography is foisted on
the students in the name of sex education, where money is extorted from taxpayers to pay
for the dumbing down of the future generation. Children in such a system will suffer
lifelong deficits, and that is why home schooling is so important, and why homeschoolers
should bless their parents for keeping out of such a harmful system.
(This was written in 2009. For more gems like this, please visit Sam’s archives:
https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
The Weekly Sam: How to Dumb Down a Nation By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
It’s easy. Destroy its literacy, and you’ve dumbed it down. And once dumbed down, it
becomes the potential victim of any power that wants to dominate it.
If you look at the most illiterate nations on the planet, you find that they are ruled by
despots, their people live in abject poverty and have no hope for a better future. That
doesn’t mean that literate nations, like Germany, can’t produce monsters. But when they
do, we know that satanic influences are behind it.
America, from its beginning, was the most literate nation on earth, and the result was
positive in every respect. Why was it so literate? Because the people and their leaders
were governed by the precepts of the Bible, and biblical literacy was paramount in the
education of the country’s children.
But once we got a government schooling system, which was taken over by atheist
progressive educators, the God of the Bible was removed from the schools. It then
became possible to introduce a new socialist curriculum with teaching methods
calculated to reduce American literacy. The Bible was now relegated to an hour of study
in church on Sundays. And because it was no longer part of the curriculum, children no
longer considered it important to life.
A blatant, anti-biblical morality was introduced in the schools through such programs as
values clarification, sensitivity training, transcendental meditation, sex education, death
education, drug education, multiculturalism, psychotherapy, evolution, secular
humanism, and other such programs. Moral degeneration has been the inevitable result.
The result is that America has been greatly dumbed down.
Editor: The above was written over 25 years ago long before teachers would openly promote sodomy and so-called gender reassignment surgery. The solution is simple: Remove your children from the clutches of these atheists who hate you and your children. Please feel free to contact us if you are looking for recommended homeschooling resources: campconstitution1@gmail.com
Christophobia Rearing Its Ugly Head in Gloucester, MA
Christians from Communist China to Ukraine to Iraq and dozens of nations in-between have been viciously persecuting for their faith. Sady, it is also happening in the United States -a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles.
Like Boston, the city officials in Gloucester denied a permit to fly the Christian flag to life-long Gloucester resident Alex Destino. Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter and the city did not respond. The following is a letter to the editor of the Gloucester Daily Times by Alex Destino who was denied a permit to fly the Christian flag in Gloucester.
Letter to the Editor GD Times:
PETITION TO RAISE CHRISTIAN FLAG DURING HOLY WEEK: “DENIED” BY MAYOR OF GLOUCESTER
It’s impossible to tell the story of Gloucester’s 400 years without including the enormous impact of the Christian Church and community here. In every corner of Gloucester, from Annisquam to Magnolia, East Gloucester to West Gloucester, as well as Downtown, we have Christian Churches of all denominations that have been serving our community for hundreds of years. In Downtown, all you must do is look up to see the beautiful church buildings built by our Christian ancestors.
Our city was built by the fishing community, many of whom gave their lives to the sea. During those tragic days, Gloucester people filled the churches and homes of our lost fishermen. In 1978 alone, we lost 14 men at sea. I will never forget the packed churches and prayer services in the homes of those fishermen. The women, in particular the Fishermen’s wives, rallied around those families with prayer and support. The following year, in 1979, Saint Peter’s Fiesta took on a new meaning for me personally, and for many in our community.
Over four days, tens of thousands of people flocked to St. Peter Square in Gloucester to pray and support the families of those lost at sea in 1978. The outdoor Mass on St. Peter’s Square that year was incredible. The emotion, the prayer, and the outpouring of love for those families moved me. I was only 13 years old at the time, but I realized how blessed we were to live in this community, surrounded by amazing, loving, people of faith.
Of course, there are countless other examples of the Christian community here in Gloucester selflessly pouring themselves into the needs of our community. Those who have been on the receiving end of those prayers and love can never forget. My family and I are among those who have been recipients of those prayers and support since I was a child. One cannot separate the influence of the Christian community here in Gloucester from who we are as a city.
To honor the impact and contributions of the Christian community in Gloucester over the last 400 years, I petitioned the Mayor of Gloucester last October to raise a Christian Flag at City Hall during Holy Week, 2023. My request was denied by the mayor. A month ago, I made a second request to the mayor. This time, I requested to fly the flag for one day only, Good Friday, April 7, 2023. I have not received a response from the mayor or anyone else from our city government.
This denial and lack of response from Mayor Verga necessitate a legal response. This situation is much more significant than a flag. The city of Gloucester is openly discriminating against viewpoints it disfavors. So, I have engaged Liberty Counsel, to assist me in preserving our cherished liberties and First Amendment rights here in Gloucester.
The city has opened the flagpoles at city hall to numerous groups and viewpoints over the years—but has rejected the Christian flag. This is not only wrong but unconstitutional. My attorneys at Liberty Counsel sent a Demand Letter to Mayor Verga and City Counsel leadership, demanding that we be allowed to raise the Christian Flag on Good Friday, with a deadline to respond by March 25th to prevent any further action by Liberty Counsel. Mayor Verga and City Council leadership ignored the Demand Letter.
The Mayor and City Council are aware of last year’s unanimous (9-0) Supreme Court decision, that ruled the city of Boston violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by censoring a private flag in a public forum merely because the application referred to it as a “Christian flag.” The High Court stated the censorship was viewpoint discrimination, and there is no Establishment Clause defense. As Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mathew Staver said recently: “This 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court involving the Christian flag continues to have an impact across the nation. The clear message from the Supreme Court is that government must not discriminate based on viewpoint. The government cannot favor one viewpoint and censor another and cannot censor religious viewpoints under the guise of government speech. Any governments that are ignoring this ruling are setting themselves up for potential lawsuits.”
The city of Boston has since been forced to pay $2.1 Million to Liberty Council for legal fees and other associated costs during the five-year legal battle. Let’s hope and pray that the Mayor of Gloucester doesn’t make that same mistake.
Sincerely,
Alex Destino
Gloucester
Coolidge warned of Deep-State “Bureaucracy … having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody” – American Minute with Bill Federer
President Calvin Coolidge warned in a speech at the College of William and Mary, May 15, 1926:
“There is another … recent development … the greatly disproportionate influence of organized minorities …
Artificial propaganda, paid agitators, selfish interests, all impinge upon members of legislative bodies to force them to represent special elements rather than the great body of their constituency.
Coolidge continued:
“When they are successful, minority rule is established …
The result is an extravagance on the part of the Government which is ruinous to the people and a multiplicity of regulations and restrictions for the conduct of all kinds of necessary business, which becomes little less than oppressive …”
Coolidge continued, exposing the autocratic deep-state bureaucracy:
“No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.
Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people.
Being irresponsible they become autocratic …
… Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy.
It … sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody …”
Coolidge added:
“We must also recognize that the national administration is not and cannot be adjusted to the needs of local government …
The states should not be induced by coercion or by favor to surrender the management of their own affairs.
The Federal Government ought to resist the tendency to be loaded up with duties which the states should perform.
It does not follow that because something ought to be done the National Government ought to do it.”
An example of what Coolidge described could be the Department of Education.
Since its establishment in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, student’s proficiency in math and critical reading have declined, with public education shifting from an academic achievement model to that of behavior modification.
The warnings of Coolidge are reflected in today’s calls to as “drain the swamp.”
He stated:
“I want to see the policy adopted … that instead of an extension on the part of the Federal Government there can be a contraction.”
At the unveiling of Equestrian Statue of Bishop Francis Asbury, President Coolidge stated October 15, 1924, Washington, DC:
“There are only two main theories of government in the world.
One rests on righteousness, the other rests on force. One appeals to reason, the other appeals to the sword.
One is exemplified in a republic, the other is represented by a despotism.”
Collins English Dictionary defines “despotism”:
“the rule of a despot; arbitrary, absolute, or tyrannical government.”
SparkNotes on Locke’s Second Treatise states:
“Despotical power is absolute, arbitrary power of one person to take the life and property of another against their will.”
John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government (Ch. 14-15) stated in a republic there should be:
“No absolute or arbitrary power.”
States such as Kentucky and Wyoming specifically state in their Constitutions:
“Absolute, arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic.”
General Douglas MacArthur addressed Massachusetts State Legislature in Boston, on July 25, 1951:
“I find in existence a new and heretofore unknown and dangerous concept
that the members of our Armed Forces owe primary allegiance … to those who temporarily exercise the authority … rather than to the … Constitution which they are sworn to defend. No proposition could be more dangerous …
For its application would at once convert them from their traditional and constitutional role as the instrument for the defense of the Republic into something partaking of the nature of a praetorian guard, owing its allegiance to the political master of the hour …
Members of the armed services have been subjected to the most arbitrary and ruthless treatment for daring to speak the truth.”
President Coolidge continued his address, October 15, 1924:
“The history of government on this earth has been almost entirely a history of the rule of force held in the hands of a few.
Under our Constitution, America committed itself to … the power in the hands of the people.”
Coolidge’s reference to the history of “rule of force held in the hands of a few” was demonstrated in Europe.
After Napoleon’s lightning fast conquering of Europe, Prussian King Frederick William III wanted to strengthen his German state.
This led him to embrace the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Hegel was a professor at the University of Berlin.
He taught:
“The state is god walking on earth …
We must worship the state …
The state … recognizes no authority but its own … acknowledges no abstract rules of good and bad …
All the worth which the human being possesses … he possesses only through the state.”
Hegel explained:
“The state is … the ultimate end which has the highest right against the individual, whose highest duty is to be a member of the state …
The nation state … is therefore the absolute power on earth. A single person, it hardly needs saying, is something subordinate.”
Under Hegel’s system, the “general will” is determine by the ruler. In Philosophy of History (Jacob Loewenberg, ed., Hegel: Selections, New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1929, p. 398), he wrote:
“… It is not the isolated will of individuals that prevails;
individual pretensions are relinquished, and the general will is the essential bond of political union …
… The origin of a state involves imperious lordship on the one hand, instinctive submission on the other.
Obedience — lordly power, and the fear inspired by a ruler.”
Students at the University of Berlin, who admired Hegel formed the Young Hegelians.
A member of the Young Hegelians was Karl Marx.
Kelly O’Connell wrote in “Pagan Government Theory Insures Tyranny Returns to the West” (Canada Free Press, June 18, 2012):
“… but Marx did get his idea of ‘government as god’ from Hegel.”
Marxist socialism influenced Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedung, and other socialist dictators.
Harry S Truman stated, March 6, 1946:
“Dictatorship … is founded on the doctrine that the individual amounts to nothing … the state is the only thing that counts, and that men, women and children were put on earth solely for the purpose of serving the state.”
Hegel’s process of using division and disruption to bring change was called “Hegelian Dialectics.”
It can be described as a triangle:
- one corner is the THESIS;
- the opposite corner it the ANTITHESIS; and
- the top corner is the SYNTHESIS.
Hegel’s dialectic struggle influenced Darwin in his development of the theory of evolution and its survival of the fittest.
Hegel’s dialectic struggle influenced Adolph Hitler, who wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle).
Marx translated Hegelian Dialectics into a political application, where people are content with the status quo (thesis), there must be created a crisis that is real bad (antithesis), so that people will surrender their freedoms for a solution that is only half as bad (synthesis).
Each synthesis then becomes the new thesis, and the process is repeated until all power is voluntarily relinquished by the people to the dictator who promises big government solutions.
To create an antithesis, there needs to be division in society.
In Communism-A History (Random House, 2001) Richard Pipes described:
“As Fidel Castro, the leader of Communist Cuba, would explain … ‘The revolution needs the enemy … The revolution needs for its development its antithesis’ … And if enemies were lacking, they had to be fabricated.”
To create division, citizens of a country must stop thinking of themselves as citizens.
Instead, they must be made to identify with subgroups, which can then be pitted against each other.
Subgroups can social, ethnic, racial, sexual, economic or religious.
David Horowitz explained:
“An SDS radical once wrote, ‘The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.’
In other words … civil rights or women’s rights – is never the real cause; women, blacks … are only instruments in the larger cause, which is power.
Battles over rights and other issues, according to Alinsky, should never be seen as more than occasions to advance the real agenda, which is the accumulation of power.”
Successive, manufactured incidents of violence between subgroups destabilizes the country.
When enough people fear for their lives, they will panic and surrender their freedoms to a big government politician promising to restore order.
Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises, in his 1947 book, Planned Chaos, described innocent youth who naively allow themselves to be organized as “useful innocents … confused and misguided sympathizers.”
They are manipulated to support minor divisive issues when the real issue is the revolution.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned June 30, 1975:
“I … call upon America to be more careful with its trust … Prevent those … falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road … They are trying to weaken you.”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explained (Marx and Engels Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 318):
“It goes without saying that these conspirators by no means confine themselves to organizing the revolutionary proletariat.
Their business consists in … spurring it in to artificial crises …
For them the only condition required for the revolution is a sufficient organization of their own conspiracy. They are the alchemists of the revolution.”
Hegel was against citizens ruling themselves.
He wanted power to be in the hands of one person.
He wrote in Philosophy of Law (Section 279):
“When it is contrasted with the sovereignty of the monarch, the phrase ‘sovereignty of the people’ turns out to be merely one of those confused notions which arise from the wild idea of the ‘people.’
Without its monarch … the people are just a formless multitude.”
Similar to today’s “fake news” and “social media censorship,” Hegel wrote in Philosophy of Law (Jacob Loewenberg, ed., Hegel: Selections, NY: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1929, pp. 457, 461-62):
“The many … whom one chooses to call the people, are indeed a collection, but only as a multitude, a formless mass, whose movement and action would be elemental, irrational, savage, and terrible …
Public opinion deserves … to be esteemed as much as to be despised …
The definition of the freedom of the press as freedom to say and write what one pleases … such a view belongs to the uneducated crudity and superficiality of naive thinking.”
Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda for the National Socialist Workers Party, stated:
“It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion …
Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
Hegel’s dialectic struggle theory influenced Saul Alinsky, who taught how to identify tension “fault lines” in a society, fan real or perceived injustices into emotional flame till they reach the boiling point.
Once anarchy breaks out, everyone is so desperate to have order restored that they “knee-jerk reaction” relinquish their rights to the state.
Psalm 133:1 “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in UNITY!”
Proverbs 6:16 “The LORD hates … he that SOWETH DISCORD.”
Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals (1971):
The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step.”
“The organizer … must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression.
He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act …
An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent; provide a channel into which the people can angrily pour their frustrations.”
Crises can either be created or coincidental, but the consequence is consistently concentration of control.
Some crises include:
- students needing safe-spaces where they will not be traumatized by hearing triggering views;
- being offended by micro-aggressions;
- hateful organizations projecting their hate onto innocent opponents;
- intolerant sharia adherents claiming to be victims of intolerance”;
- violent peace demonstrators and aggressive social justice activists;
- occupy Wall Street protests, Flag protest, Pledge of Allegiance protest; trans activists’ day of violence;
- school or other shootings capitalized upon to advance political agendas;
- predictions of fearful climate crisis with urgent deadlines that pass unfulfilled; or
- virus pandemic crisis.
Crises can be economic.
Friedrich Engels recommended creating financial crises to put bankrupt small businesses (London: W.O. Henderson, The Life of Friedrich Engels, 1976; Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, 1844):
“Every new crisis must be more serious and more universal than the last. Every fresh slump must ruin more small capitalists and increase the workers who live only by their labor.
This will increase the number of the unemployed and this is the main problem that worries economists.
In the end commercial crises will lead to a social revolution far beyond the comprehension of the economists with their scholastic wisdom.”
Crises can be healthcare.
Ronald Reagan recorded in 1961 an LP titled “Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine” for the American Medical Association’s Operation Coffeecup Campaign:
“Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism.
But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program … “
Reagan continued:
“One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project …
Madison in 1788 … said … ‘There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations’ …
We want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms … We do not want socialized medicine …
If you don’t, this program I promise you will pass … and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known … until, one day … we will awake to find that we have socialism.
And … you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
Crises can be ideological — a forgetting of America’s founding principles.
Coolidge explained October 15, 1924,
“Our government rests upon religion.
It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind.
Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government.”
He stated at the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, July 5, 1926:
“The principles … which went into the Declaration of Independence … are found in … the sermons … of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live.
They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image …
… Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government …
In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors migrated to the colonies …”
Coolidge concluded:
“The Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document …
Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man — these are … ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world.
Unless the faith of the American in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish.
We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.”
Coolidge stated on September 21, 1924, in an address to the Holy Name Society in Washington, D.C.:
“Equality is recognized … from belief in the brotherhood of man through the fatherhood of God … It seems perfectly plain that the right to equality has for its foundation reverence for God. If we could imagine that swept away our American government could not long survive.”
—
Reposted with permission from The American Minute https://americanminute.com/
Dark Slavery History & forgotten individuals who worked to end it – American Minute with Bill Federer
Slavery did not start in 1619.
It began with kings.
Whenever you had the first king on top you had slaves on the bottom.
From the beginning of recorded history, Kings fought battles.
When kings were victorious, they considered themselves merciful if they did not kill all of their defeated enemies.
All ancient cultures made slaves of those captured in battle, as seen in Babylon, Persia, Greece, China, India, and Africa.
The ancient King of Sumer, Ur-Nammu, inscribed a Sumerian law code, c.2050 B.C., defining the classes of society, where slaves were on the bottom:
- King = “lugal”
- Free person = “lu“
- Male slave = “arad”
- Female slave = “geme”
The King of Babylon, Hammurabi, a contemporary of Abraham, devised a code c.1795-1750 B.C.
The code dispensed increasing degrees of punishment depending on the class:
- King
- Male Nobles
- Wives & Children of Nobles
- Poor
- Slaves.
Hammurabi’s Code had law number 282:
“If a slave say to his master: ‘You are not my master,’ if they convict him his master shall cut off his ear.”
In the second millennium BC, during the Xia, Shang (Yin), and Zhou Dynasties, slaves were called “jianmin,” which means “base mankind”; and “nuli,” which means “debtor.”
Some slaves were used for ritual sacrifices.
The sons of Jacob sold their younger brother, Joseph, into slavery.
Genesis 37: “Judah asked his brothers, ‘What will we gain by killing our brother and covering up his death? Let’s sell him to the Ishamaelites … And his brothers agreed.”
Powerful Pharaohs of Egypt made the Israelites slaves for four hundred years, c.1800-1400 B.C.
Beginning around 1500 B.C., India began developing a caste system, where on the bottom the untouchable “Dalits” were effectively a slave class:
- Bhramin – priests, academics;
- Kshatryia – warriors, kings;
- Vaishya – merchants, landowners;
- Sudra – commoners, peasants, servants;
- Dalits – untouchables, out-caste, street sweepers, garbage collectors, latrine cleaners.
Zedekiah, the King of Judah from c.597-586, had everyone free their slaves, but later forced them back into slavery.
The Prophet Jeremiah recorded (chapter 34):
“The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people … that everyone should set free his male and female slaves … They obeyed and let them go.
But afterward they changed their minds and made the male and female slaves return …
… Therefore the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah … saying …
You turned around and profaned My name, and every one of you brought back his male and female slaves, whom you had set at liberty … Behold, I proclaim liberty to you,’ says the Lord—‘to the sword.
And I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army.”
Ancient Greeks enslaved captives from war.
The population of Athens was estimated to have been from 10 to 40 percent slaves.
In the city of Thessaly, the slaves were called “penestae,” a class of unfree laborers.
Slaves in Sparta were called “helots,” and slaves on the Island of Crete were called “doulus.”
Julius Caesar conquered in Gaul and brought so many captured “slavic” peoples into to Rome that the term “slav” gained the connotation of permanent servant – “slave.”
Over half of Rome’s population were slaves.
The famous Greek Orthodox account is that around c.400 A.D., a bankrupt merchant in the town of Patara, Asia Minor, was about to have creditors seize his three daughters and sell them into sex-slavery. St. Nicholas threw money in the window to provide a dowry for the daughters to get married and be free from the wicked creditors.
Another form of slavery was generational indebtedness, spread by Roman Emperor Diocletian.
In the 3rd and 4th century, the Roman economy became so bad that people who were unable to pay their mortgages would simply abandon their properties, renounce their Roman citizenship, and go off to live with the barbarians.
To stop this, Diocletian made it a law that people could never run away from their debts — thus tying them and their children to the land in perpetuity, creating the feudal system.
This is essentially the case in India, with rural peasant farming families inheriting ancient indebtedness.
The Royal Commission on Agriculture described that India’s farmer “is born in debt, lives in debt and dies in debt.”
A more recent example of inescapable debt is that of young people in America locked into trillions of dollars of student loan debt that they can never escape:
- Huffinton Post (5/08/15): “Obama Administration Improperly Denies Student Loan Debt Relief.”
- The Hill (5/13/16): “President Obama’s horrible, terrible legacy on student loans”: “(His) lawyers fight furiously behind the scenes to keep bankruptcy protections gone from student loans.”
- Buzzfeed (2/9/19) “Student Debt is Dragging a Whole Generation Down – Here’s Why So Many Americans Feel Cheated by Their Student Loans”;
- TIME Magazine (2/9/12) “Why You Can’t Discharge Student Loans in Bankruptcy”;
- National Consumer Law Center (June 2006) “No Way Out: Student Loans, Financial Distress, and the Need for Policy Reform”;
- Rolling Stone (8/15/13) “Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal”: “Congress almost completely stripped students of their right to disgorge their debts through bankruptcy (amazing, when one considers that even gamblers can declare bankruptcy!)”
In the 5th century AD, marauding invaders kidnapped Patrick from Britain and sold him as a slave to the Druid pagans in Ireland.
Decades later, after evangelizing Ireland, St. Patrick wrote a letter condemning the Brittonic warlord, King Coroticus, who was kidnapping Irish that Patrick had converted to Christianity and selling them into slavery.
St. Patrick’s “Letter to Coroticus” is considered one of the first anti-slavery documents:
“Thy sheep around me are torn to pieces and driven away, and that by those robbers, by the orders of the hostile-minded Coroticus … a man who hands over Christians to the Picts and Scots …
Ravening wolves have devoured the flock of the Lord … You sell them to a foreign nation that has no knowledge of God. You betray the members of Christ as it were into a brothel …
People who were freeborn have been sold, Christians made slaves, and that, too, in the service of the abominable, wicked, and apostate Picts!”
During the Viking Age, 793 to 1096, Viking warriors sailed up rivers across Europe at attacked, killing men and carrying away thousands of Christian women as captives.
Various Qur’an verses and hadiths described Mohammed as a white Arab who owned slaves.
Qur’an verse 33:50:
“Prophet, We have made lawful to you … the slave girls whom Allah has given you as booty.”
Hadith al-Bukhari, Vol. 1, Book 3, No. 63: “’Who amongst you is Muhammad?’ At that time the Prophet was sitting amongst us leaning on his arm. We replied, ‘This white man reclining on his arm.’”
Hadith al-Bukhari, Vol. 4, Book 56, No. 744: “’I saw the Prophet, and Al-Hasan bin Ali resembled him.’ I said to Abu-Juhaifa, ‘Describe him for me.’ He said, ‘He was white and his beard was black with some white hair.’”
Hadith al-Bukhari, Vol. 2, Book 17, No. 141: “The Prophet never raised his hands for any invocation except for that of Istisqa’ and he used to raise them so much that the whiteness of his armpits became visible.”
Hadith al-Bukhari, Vol. 1, Book 8, No. 367: “The Prophet rode and Abu Talha rode too and I was riding behind Abu Talha. The Prophet passed through the lane of Khaibar quickly and my knee was touching the thigh of the Prophet. He uncovered his thigh and I saw the whiteness of the thigh of the Prophet.”
Hadith al-Bukhari, Vol. 2, Book 17, No. 122: “I heard Ibn ‘Umar reciting the poetic verses of Abu Talib: And a white (person) (i.e. the Prophet) who is requested to pray for rain.”
The timeline of slavery added a new chapter in 711 AD, when Muslim Moors conquered Spain, then invaded Portugal and France, followed by raids the coasts of Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean.
In 1189, Muslim warriors raided Lisbon, Portugal, and enslaved 3,000 women and children.
In 1191, Muslims attacked Silves, Portugal, and enslaved 3,000.
When Saladin captured Jerusalem, according to Imad al-Din, approximately 7,000 men and 8,000 women were unable to pay a ransom so they were enslaved.
Over a million Europeans were carried off into Islamic slavery.
Medieval Catholic religious orders of Trinitarians or Mathurins would collect donations to ransom people from Muslim slavery.
In 1605, St. Vincent De Paul was captured by Muslim pirates and enslaved.
He witnessed to his master who converted, and after several years, allowed him to escape back to France, where he founded hospitals and an organization to ransom slaves.
Muslim raiders enslaved an estimated 180 million Africans over its 1,400 year expansion.
The same Arabic word was used for for African and slave — “Abeed.”
Male African slaves were often castrated and female African slaves often sold into harems.
Twice as many women were sold in the Arab slave trade than men.
Muslim slave markets existed in:
- North Africa:
Tangier (Morocco), Marrakesh (Morocco). Algiers (Algeria). Tripoli (Libya), Cairo (Egypt), Aswan (Egypt), Khartoum, (Sudan);
- West Africa:
Aoudaghost (Mauritania), Timbuktu (Mali), Gao (Mali), Bilma (Niger), Kano (Nigeria);
- Swahili Coast:
Bagamoyo (Tanzania), Zanzibar (Tanzania), Kilwa (Tanzania), Sofala (Beira, Mozambique), Mombasa (Kenya);
- Horn of Africa:
Assab (Eritrea), Massawa (Eritrea), Nefasit (Eritrea), Tadjoura (Djibouti), Zeila (Somalia), Mogadishu (Somalia), Kismayo (Somalia);
- Arabian Peninsula:
Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Zabīd (Yemen), Muscat (Oman), Aden (Yemen), Socotra (Indian Ocean);
- Indian Ocean:
Debal (Sindh, Pakistan), Karachi (Sindh, Pakistan), Janjira (India), Surat (India), Mandvi, Kutch (India).
Jeddiah Morse’s The American Geography, 1792):
“The island Madagascar … has several petty savage kings of its own, both Arabs and Negroes, who making war on each other, sell their prisoners for slaves to the shipping which call here, taking clothes, utensils and other necessaries in return.”
Missionary-explorer David Livingstone witnessed thousands of Africans shackled together and being forced to march hundreds of miles to the Arab slave markets, which called “a monster brooding over Africa.”
Livingstone wrote:
“If my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together.”
The Ashanti tribal chief was notorious for selling Africans into slavery, some for ritual sacrifice.
Abolitionist movements were difficult in sharia Islamic countries as they could be interpreted as an indirect condemnation of Mohammed and the Rightly Guided Caliphs, as they owned slaves.
Slavery was a significant part of the Ottoman Empire economy for centuries, until it was ended by Ataturk, founder in 1923 of the modern Republic of Turkey.
Ataturk stated:
“The purpose of the religion founded by Muhammad, over all nations, was to drag (them into) Arab national politics … (It) might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no good for a modern, progressive state.”
In pre-Columbian America, warring tribes would enslave captives, sometimes using them in ritual sacrifice and cannibalism.
Yahoo News reported (December 20. 2020):
“Photos show a tower of human skulls found beneath Mexico City. The Aztecs ritually sacrificed them, archaeologists say.”
The Inca Empire had a system of mandatory public service known as mita, similar to the Aztec’s tlacotin.
Many North American tribes made slaves of captured tribes.
- Comanche of Texas;
- Creek of Georgia;
- Yurok in Northern California; Pawnee in the Plains;
- Klamath of Oregon;
- Haida & Tlingit of Alaska;
- Some Pacific Northwest tribes 1/4th of population were slaves.
- Cheyenne mastered horses left by Spanish, then attacked & enslaved other plains tribes.
In 1526, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón explored the eastern coast of America as far north as Delaware Bay, then, somewhere near Sapelo Sound, Georgia.
With 600, settlers, of which 100 were African slaves, he attempted a settlement named San Miguel de Gualdape.
The Dominican friars who accompanying them celebrated the first recorded Catholic Mass in what would later be the United States.
Unfortunately, that winter, two-thirds of the settlers died of disease, including Ayllón.
The African slaves rebelled and ran off to live with the native tribe of Guales, becoming the first non-natives settlers in North America.
Another early account was in 1528. Pánfilo de Narváez and Cabeza de Vaca led an expedition of 400 settlers to establish a settlement in Florida.
Battered in a hurricane, they were shipwrecked near St. Petersburg.
Natives misled, betrayed, and ambushed them.
One member of the expedition, Juan Ortiz, was captured and enslaved by the Tocobaga tribe, being rescued 12 years later by De Soto’s expedition.
His story was related in the Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida by a Gentleman of Elvas (1557), translated into English by Richard Hakluyt-the younger (1611:
“This Christian’s name was John Ortiz, and he was born in Seville … He was twelve years in the hands of the Indians … He came … with … Narvaez … to Florida …
A great number of Indians, which compassed them about, and took them in a place where they could not flee; and the others … they presently killed …
They took John Ortiz alive, and carried him to Ucita their lord … Ucita commanded to bind John Ortiz hand and foot upon four stakes aloft upon a raft, and to make a fire under him, that there he might be burned.
But a daughter of his desired him that he would not put him to death, alleging … that it was more for his honor to keep him as a captive …
John Ortiz … notice … the damsel that had delivered him from the fire, how her father was determined to sacrifice him … She went with him half a league out of the town by night, and set him in the way, and returned, because she would not be discovered.
John Ortiz travailed all the night, and by the morning came unto a river.”
The surviving 80 members of the Narváez expedition returned to the Tampa Bay coast.
They salvaged their wrecked vessel and fashioned it into two rafts, using deer skins for bellows to blow air into the fire, making it hot enough to forge metal nails.
They floated along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Mississippi River, where they were suddenly swept out hundreds of miles.
Narváez was never found, and Cabeza de Vaca, with two dozen others, were shipwrecked near present day Galveston, where they were enslaved by natives.
Four found an opportunity to escape:
- Cabeza de Vaca,
- Andrés Dorantes de Carranza,
- Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and
- Estevanico, or Esteban, a Moroccan Berber slave who is assumed to have been baptized a Christian by virtue of his Christian name Esteban, or Stephen.
They traveled through the areas of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila.
Cabeza de Vaca preached the Gospel and prayed Christian prayers for sick natives to be healed, with reports of miraculous recoveries. Gaining a reputation as a “faith healer,” the Indians let him travel freely.
Cabeza de Vaca and his companions came down the coast of the Gulf of California to Sinaloa, then finally to Mexico City in 1536, eight years after the expedition began. Cabeza de Vaca sailed back to Spain.
He later returned to the New World in 1540, as governor of New Andalusia (Argentina), where he helped settle Buenas Aires.
When Spain conquered the New World in the early 1500’s, conquistadors deposed Indian government leaders and ruled in their stead.
In the Inca Empire, where native populations had been trained to obey government orders, they willingly obeyed their new Spanish leaders, even though it often meant dying in forced labor such as in the Potosi silver mines.
Spaniards set up a system called encomienda or repartimiento, which was similar to feudal France’s Corvée “unfree labour.”
Priests like Bartolomé de las Casas and the Franciscan Friars, together with Papal Bulls, fought to end the enslavement of native Americans.
Unfortunately, those wanting to continue slavery sought to replace the freed natives with African slaves purchased from Muslim slave markets.
The first African slaves brought to the English colony of Virginia came on a Dutch ship in 1619.
Over the next two centuries, the number of slaves tragically grew from “20 and odd” to an estimated 4 million by 1860.
Originally, African slaves brought to Virginia served seven years and then were freed.
Anthony Johnson was a black indentured slave from Angola who arrived in Virginia in 1621. He completed his indentured service and gained his freedom. He then became one of the first Africans to own property in America.
Acquiring a 250 acre tobacco plantation, he owned four white slaves and one black slave, John Casor. After seven years, Casor left and began working as a free man on another farm.
In 1655, Anthony Johnson brought a lawsuit and won to keep Casor a slave indefinitely. This made John Casor one of the first person of African descent in the 13 English Colonies to be a slave for life.
Another early slave was John Punch, ancestor of Ralph Bunche, the first African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for negotiating international recognition of the new State of Israel in 1948.
A lesser known chapters of slaves brought to America occurred in the 1600s when King James I, and later Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, sold over 500,000 Irish Catholics into slavery onto plantations in the West Indies, Antigua, Montserrat, Jamaica, Barbados, as well as Virginia and New England.
Historian Will Durant wrote in The Story of Civilization:
“The Irish scene was one of the most shameful in history.”
Dr. Thomas Sowell, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California, wrote in the article “Irresponsible Education” (Oct. 14, 2014):
“More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States, or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed.
White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire decades after blacks were freed in the United States.”
Poor Europeans sold themselves as “indentured servants” — a temporary slavery — for seven years, in exchange for transportation to America.
A second wave of Irish came to America between 1714-1756.
Thousands of oppressed Irish sold themselves as indentured slaves in return for passage, usually to Pennsylvania, hoping to take advantage of William Penn’s promise of toleration.
There are many accounts of Indian tribes who would take captives from other tribes and sell them into slavery.
Sacagawea, a Lemhi Shoshone, was captured by the Hidatsa people and sold to the Frenchman Toussaint Charbonneau, who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their explorations.
William Clark was accompanied by York, an African slave, on Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery.
Some Native Americans owned African slaves.
In 1842, there was an African slave revolt in Cherokee Territory.
After colonial conflicts with American Indians, some were sold into slavery in the West Indies.
The abolitionist movement was birthed out of Christianity.
Christian missionaries and movements, especially Quakers, Moravians, and Methodists, were the continual voice of conscience against slavery.
Some Swedish and Dutch settlers had slaves in what was to become Pennsylvania.
After the land was acquired by King Charles II and given to William Penn as Pennsylvania, there began the movement to abolish slavery.
In 1683, Pietist Lutherans and Mennonites from Germany purchased land from William Penn and settled Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Embracing Quakerism, German settlers Francis Daniel Pastorius and three others, submitted the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, the first American document protesting slavery:
“How fearful and fainthearted are many on sea, when they see a strange vessel, -being afraid it should be a Turk, and they should be taken, and sold for slaves into Turkey.
Now what is this better done, as Turks do? Yea, rather it is worse for them, which say they are Christians; for we hear that ye most part of such negroes are brought hither against their will and consent, and that many of them are stolen …
There is a saying that we shall do to all men like as we will be done ourselves; making no difference of what generation, descent or color they are.
And those who steal or rob men, and those who buy or purchase them, are they not all alike?
… Here is liberty of conscience which is right and reasonable; here ought to be liberty of ye body …
But to bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against.
In Europe there are many oppressed for conscience sake; and here there are those oppressed which are of a black color …
This makes an ill report in all those countries of Europe, where they hear of, that ye Quakers do here handle men as they handle there ye cattle …
We … are against this traffic of men-body. And we who profess that is is not lawful to steal, must, likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are stolen …
Then is Pennsylvania to have a good report … in what manner ye Quakers do rule in their province.”
In the early 1700s, many colonies tried to end slavery but Queen Anne would not allow it, as she was part owner of the Royal African Company, and the South Sea Company, which, after the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, was granted an Asiento de Negros, supplying 4,800 slaves per year to the Spanish colonies throug Buenos Aires, Caracas, Havana, Panama, Portobello, Vera Cruz, and Jamaica. The Queen of England and the King of Spain split half the profits.
Anthony Benezet, a Protestant Christian Huguenot who fled persecution in France, joined the Quakers in Philadelphia.
In 1750, he began a school in his home to teach slave children to read. He also advocated for Indian Natives and started the first school for girls in America in 1754.
In 1758, at the yearly Quaker Meeting in Philadelphia, Anthony Benezet and Quaker John Woolman, convinced their membership to publicly oppose slavery.
In 1766, Benezet wrote in “Warning to Great Britain … of the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes” that:
“Slavery … contradicted the precepts and example of Christ? …
Bondage … imposed on the Africans, is absolutely repugnant to justice … shocking to humanity, violative of every generous sentiment, abhorrent utterly from the Christian religion.”
In 1770, Anthony Benezet led Quakers to found the Negro School at Philadelphia, being encouraged by both Ben Franklin and Methodist founder John Wesley.
In 1775, Anthony Benezet helped found the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, with 17 of the 24 founders being Quakers.
It was the first society in America dedicated to abolishing slavery.
In 1784, its name was changed to Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery & the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.
In 1787, Ben Franklin became its president.
In 1772, Benezet condemned slavery in his tract “Account of Guinea … An Inquiry into the Rise & Progress of the Slave Trade, Its Nature & Lamentable Effects.”
After reading Benezet’s writing, Patrick Henry came under conviction, writing to Robert Pleasants in 1773:
“I take this opportunity to acknowledge ye receipt of Anthony Benezet’s book against the slave trade. I thank you for it. Would any one believe that I am a master of slaves of my own purchase? I am drawn along by ye general inconvenience of living without them; I will not, I cannot justify it.”
Patrick Henry became one of the most out-spoken Virginia founding fathers in actively condemning slavery, as being “inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to morality.”
In 1778, he successful lobbied the Virginia Legislature to cease the importation of slaves.
Jefferson wrote that Henry was “even more determined in his opposition to slavery then the rest of us.”
Anthony Benezet’s English anti-slavery associate was Thomas Clarkson, a student at Cambridge University who was honored with first prize for writing “An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species,” 1785, in which he wrote:
“Slavery is … a crime, which being both of individuals and the nation, must sometime draw down upon us the heaviest judgment of Almighty God, who made of one blood all the sons of men, and who gave to all equally a natural right to liberty.”
In 1764, James Otis wrote in “The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved”:
“The grant of GOD Almighty … has given to all men a natural right to be free …
Colonists … are men, the common children of the same Creator …
Nature has placed all such in a state of equality and perfect freedom to act within the bounds of the laws of nature and reason …
Colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black.
No better reasons can be given for enslaving those of any color than such as Baron Montesquieu has humorously given as the foundation of that cruel slavery exercised over the poor Ethiopians, which threatens one day to reduce both Europe and America to the ignorance and barbarity of the darkest ages.
… Does it follow that tis right to enslave a man because he is black?
Will short, curled hair like wool … help the argument? Can any logical inference in favor of slavery be drawn from a flat nose, a long or a short face?
Nothing better can be said in favor of a (slave) trade that is the most shocking violation of the law of nature, has a direct tendency to diminish the idea of the in estimable value of liberty, and makes every dealer in it a tyrant, from the director of an African company to the petty chapman (merchant) in needles and pins on the unhappy coast.
It is a clear truth that those who everyday barter away other men’s liberty will soon care little for their own …
… In the province of the Massachusetts Bay … colonists, black and white, born here are freeborn British subjects, and entitled to all the essential civil rights …
Has this whole continent of … millions of good, loyal, and useful subjects, white and black … the election of one member of the House of Commons? …
No man can take my property from me without my consent: if he does, he deprives me of my liberty and makes me a slave.”
Richard Bassett, a Signer of the Constitution from Delaware, converted to Methodism, freed all his slaves and paid them as hired labor.
Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a line condemning the slave trade of King George’s Royal African Company:
“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself … in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither …
suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold.”
In 1780, Quaker judge William Lewis drafted “Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery,” which was passed by the Pennsylvania Assembly.
It was the first such legislative enactment in America:
“A serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom every good and perfect gift cometh … it is our duty … to extend … that freedom to others …
It is not for us to enquire, why, in the creation of mankind, the Inhabitants of the several parts of the Earth, were distinguished by a difference in feature or complexion.
It is sufficient to know that all are the work of an Almighty Hand … that He, who placed them in their various situations, hath extended equally his care and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract His Mercies …
We are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization by removing as much as possible the sorrows of those, who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which by the assumed authority of the Kings of Britain, no effectual legal relief could be obtained …
We find our hearts enlarged with … benevolence towards men of all conditions … and give a substantial proof of our gratitude …
Be it enacted … by the … Pennsylvania in General Assembly … that all persons, as well Negroes, and Mulattos, as others … after the Passing of this Act, shall not be deemed and considered as servants for life or slaves.”
In England, the former slave trader John Newton, who wrote the song Amazing Grace, became an Anglican minister and helped form the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787.
Newton influenced William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian member of Parliament, who worked tirelessly for decades to end slavery in the British Empire.
In 1787, the Northwest Ordinance outlawed slavery in the territory which would become Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
George Washington’s original 73 page draft of his Inaugural Address, 1789, included:
“I rejoice in a belief that … mankind will reverse the absurd position that the many were made for the few; and that they will not continue slaves in one part of the globe, when they can become freemen in another.”
On February 3, 1790, less than three months before he died, Franklin petitioned Congress to ban slavery:
“For promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage, & the Improvement of the Condition of the African Races …
an Association was formed … in this state by a number of her citizens of various religious denominations for promoting the abolition of Slavery …
A just and accurate conception of the true principles of liberty … by the blessing of Divine Providence, have been successfully directed to the relieving from bondage a large number of their fellow Creatures of the African Race …
That mankind are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects of His care and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness the Christian Religion teaches us to believe and the political creed of America fully coincides …
that these blessings ought rightfully to be administered, without distinction of Color, to all descriptions of People … that equal liberty … is still the birthright of all men …
They earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of Slavery … restoration of liberty to those unhappy Men, who alone, in this land of Freedom, are degraded into perpetual Bondage … groaning in servile subjection,
that you will devise means for removing this … promote mercy and justice towards this distressed Race, and … for discouraging every species of traffick in the Persons of Our Fellow Men.
Philadelphia February 3, 1790
B. Franklin.”
Jefferson pushed through legislation ending the importation of slaves into the United States, telling Congress, December 2, 1806:
“… to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.”
Slavery began in Caribbean earlier and lasted longer than most anywhere in the Americas.
A notorious trade triangle had developed with Havana, Cuba, at its center:
- SLAVES from Africa
- to SUGAR from the Caribbean
- to RUM in England.
Haiti had several slave revolts against the French government.
Fear that Haitian slave revolts would spread was a compelling factor convincing Napoleon to sell the French Louisiana Territory to the United States during Thomas Jefferson’s Presidency.
Tragically, some slavery continues, with Reuters publishing an article, February 7, 2017: “Haiti hotel police exposes child sex trafficking.”
In 1820, a U.S. revenue cutter captured the slave ship Antelope off the coast of Florida with nearly 300 African slaves.
Francis Scott Key fought to free the slaves, spending seven years in an expensive legal battle which went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1825.
An international incident occurred in 1839 when a Portuguese ship from Sierra Leone transferred 53 slaves to the Cuban ship Amistad.
On July 1, 1839, the African slaves broke free of their shackles and seized control of the ship, demanding to be sailed back to Africa.
The captain misdirected the ship, sailing slowly east during the day, but quickly west at night, finally landing at Long Island, New York, where the slaves were arrested.
The Amistad case went to the Supreme Court in 1841.
74-year-old former President John Quincy Adams, known as the “Hell-hound of abolition,” defended the jailed Africans, writing:
“By the blessing of God, I will argue the case before the Supreme Court.”
This was portrayed in Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film Amistad, starring Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, and Matthew McConaughey.
John Quincy Adams wrote in his journal, October 1840:
“I implore the mercy of God to control my temper, to enlighten my soul, and to give me utterance, that I may prove myself in every respect equal to the task.”
Francis Scott Key gave Adams legal advice to free the slaves.
Adams shook hands with Africans Cinque and Grabeau, saying: “God willing, we will make you free.”
Against all odds, John Quincy Adams won freedom for these Africans.
John Quincy Adams died February 23, 1848. A pallbearer at his funeral was a freshman Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln.
When Democrats wanted to expand slavery into the new land acquired from the Louisiana Purchase and the Gadsden Purchase, it resulted in “Bleeding Kansas.”
Prior to the Civil War, America was divided into 5 categories:
1. Radical Northern Republicans: whose attitude was slavery is wrong–end it now.
2. Moderate Republicans: whose attitude was that slavery is wrong but the country should transition out of it gradually over time.
3 Practical Neutral Voters: who cared little about the value of human life. They were more concerned about their pocketbook, jobs, wages, economy and tax-tariff issues.
4. Moderate Southern Democrats: whose attitude was slavery is wrong, but it was settled law and the nation should just live with it. People should have the choice whether or not to own a slave–just treat your slaves nice.
5. Extreme Southern Democrats: whose attitude was slavery is good and should be expanded into new Territories and States.
The Civil War began in 1861, and in 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Slavery was ended in the United States after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment.
Slavery continued in the Caribbean, and in areas of Latin and South America.
President James Buchanan wrote December 19, 1859:
“When a market for African slaves shall no longer be furnished in Cuba … Christianity and civilization may gradually penetrate the existing gloom.”
In 1868, a revolt began in Cuba by a farmer of Spanish descent crying out for racial equality, freedom of speech and freedom of association.
Spain put down the Cuban revolt in the Ten Years War, killing thousands.
A Spanish Royal decree finally ended slavery in Cuba in 1886.
In 1895, another rebellion began in Cuba and Spain sent 200,000 soldiers to put it down.
Thousands were put into concentration camps where they suffered from starvation, disease and exposure.
Yellow Press journalism excited the American public, who demanded President William McKinley intervene.
The U.S.S. Maine was sent to Havana, and on FEBRUARY 15, 1898, it blew up in the harbor under suspicious conditions, beginning the Spanish-American War.
President McKinley approved the Resolution of Congress:
“Whereas the abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been a disgrace to Christian civilization,
culminating, as they have, in the destruction of a United States battle ship, with 266 of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer be endured …
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives … that the people of the island of Cuba are and of right ought to be free.”
There are more slaves today than at any time in human history, reported Benjamin Skinner, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
An estimated 27 million people in the world are forced to work, held through fraud, under threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence, in forced marriages, in sex-trafficking and prostitution.
Though officially illegal, slavery, by its different names, continues today in:
- India,
- Pakistan,
- Nepal,
- Bhutan,
- Southeast Asia,
- Romania,
- Sudan,
- Haiti,
- Brazil,
- Latin America, and
- even sex-trafficking in the United States
Those most loudly demanding reparations for past slavery are strangely silent regarding present-day slavery.
Tragically, Muslim slave markets continue, with news reports giving shocking details of ISIS enslaving captured women, many of whom are Christian or Yazidi.
The Clarion Project (3/3/16) reported: “ISIS Sells Yazidi Sex Slaves Far and Wide.”
Liberal academia defended this practice, as reported on February 7, 2017, where Georgetown University Professor Jonathan Brown, holder of the Al-Waleed bin Talal Chair in Islamic Civilization, delivered a lecture explaining how slavery and non-consensual sex (rape) are acceptable under Islamic sharia law.
TIME Magazine reported January 18, 2010:
“Despite more than a dozen international conventions banning slavery in the past 150 years, there are more slaves today than at any point in human history.”
Organizations bringing relief to these victims include:
- Voice of the Martyrs,
- Shared Hope International,
- New Friends New Life,
- International Justice Mission,
- Wellspring Living,
- Slavery Footprint,
- Christian Solidarity International,
- Agape International Missions,
- YWAM Thailand Tamar Center,
- Persecution Project Foundation, which provides compassion, hope, and assistance in rebuilding communities though the love of Christ.
- SavethePersecutedChristians.
org
In arguing before the Supreme Court to free slaves of the Amistad ship, John Quincy Adams stated:
“The moment you come to the Declaration of Independence, that every man has a right to life and liberty, an inalienable right, this case is decided.
I ask nothing more in behalf of these unfortunate men than this Declaration.”
Reposted with permission from the American Minute https://americanminute.com/