Constitutional Minute #21 The very idea of amendments – Part 2 of 3
Be very careful what you wish for regarding amendments. They can appear ideal and appeal to our desperation, but in reality, mean exactly the opposite. I will illustrate some of those in a later “Minute”. You might be shocked. As we previously said, statecraft is serious business.
Are amendments effective? Let’s take just a few examples.
- We have federal laws on prayer in public. The First Amendment did not prevent that.
- We have federal laws on guns, ammo, and firearm manufacturers. The Second Amendment did not prevent that.
- Our God-given privacy rights have been tossed aside by the federal government. The Fourth Amendment did not prevent that.
- We have federal laws on minimum wage, where to drill – or not drill for oil, air bags in cars, and hundreds of other objects. The Tenth Amendment did not prevent that.
Still think amendments are a good idea?
When amendments correct defects in the Constitution, (per George Mason as he said on June 11, 1787), they are clearly a good thing. The 12th and 13th Amendments, like the 11th Amendment, corrected defects in the Constitution. Section 1 of the 14th Amendment extended Citizenship to the freed slaves and provided constitutional authority for the much needed federal Civil Rights Act of 1866.
In Federalist No. 84 (10th para), Alexander Hamilton warned against adding a Bill of Rights to our Constitution. Under a Constitution of enumerated powers, the government may lawfully do only what the Constitution permits it to do. So
“…why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? … it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power…”
And he was right!! Why say Congress “shall not infringe” (2nd Amendment) when there was no power in the Constitution for the federal government to infringe to begin with? Same holds true for the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th Amendments. Can you find others? (Hint: Take a look at the 19th just for one example.)
Bob Hilliard
wethepeoplehandbook@gmail.com
Camp Constitution’s First Quarter Report for 2023
Camp Constitution in the News:
Our “Shurtleff v Boston” decision has been mentioned numerous times around the United States over the past three months including “USA Today” and this article: https://pjmedia.com/culture/marktapscott/2023/03/16/heres-why-the-unanimous-shurtleff-decision-is-even-more-important-than-6-3-dobbs-n1678939 Our case has motivated people around the county to petition their towns and cities to fly the Christian flag including Mr. Alex Destino of Gloucester: https://www.bostonbroadside.com/cross/12851/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=12851
Our news release announcing a Constitution Study Course in Alton, NH got front page coverage and generated plenty of interest in our course:
Special Projects:
In January, Camp Constitution donated 1,100 pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution to the Laconia, NH Junior High, and High Schools. This has opened up the doors to other donations to schools in the region.
Laconia, NH School Committee member Dawn Johnson presents our donated Constitutions to the Laconia School Committee.
YouTube, Rumble Channels and Bitchute Channels
We received over 25 thousand views on our YouTube Channel this quarter, 261 new subscribers giving us 7,40 subscribers overall. As mentioned in early reports, we expect to have our channel deleted anytime e even though we successfully and surprisingly challenged two YouTube strikes. So, we are downloading man of the videos from the YouTube channel and uploading them along with some new videos to our Rumble and Bitchute channels. Our Rumble channel had 1,700 views this quarter and our Bitchute channel has 2,000.
The Sam Blumenfeld Archive:
212,000 views., 1,800 downloads of “Alpha-Phonics, and 1,076 “Alpha-Phonics” manual, and over 3,000 downloads of Sam’s other books. If you haven’t already, please visit and subscribe to the archives: https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
Camp Constitution Radio on Podomatic:
We remain in the top five for the conservative category with 2,530 downloads, 312 plays and we uploaded 58 audios including some by Gary Allen, Larry McDonald, George Schuyler, and Alan Stang speeches from the 1970s and 1980s. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal
Facebook Page:
We continue to average fifty likes per month. We also admin about eight groups including Friend of the Constitution in ME, NH, MA, CT, RI. PA, VT, and Stop the Constitutional Convention.
Speaker’s Bureau:
Inclement weather led to a cancelation of several of our planned events, but we still held eight events including two speaking engagements for Pastor William Levi of Operation Nehemiah.
Camp Constitution’s Website:
We had 10,000 views for this period, and posted 59 blogs: https://www.campconstitution.net
Camp Constitution Book Sales:
We have raised close to $1,500 from donated books from our Amazon, Facebook page, and on-line bookstore. https://campconstitution.net/shop/
Camp Constitution Press
We published Being Revolutionary Women: A Message from the Women of the “Ladies Gallery by Maria Perez. Copies may be ordered here: https://campconstitution.net/product/being-revolutionary-women-a-message-from-the-women-of-the-ladies-gallery/
Article V Convention:
We helped defeat two Article V resolutions in New Hampshire, wrote several articles on the subject in on-line and print media, and participated in a national conference call hosted by Tamara Scott who hosts a show on Frank Speech.
Radio and Cable TV:
We were guests on “Chattin with Janine: a popular Cable TV Show hosted by NH State Rep and long-tine friend Janine Notter. We appeared as a guest on Tamara Scott’s show on Frank Speech, https://frankspeech.com/video/tamara-scott-show-joined-hal-shurtleff-camp-constitution and an appearance on the Ed Martin Radio Show which is nationally syndicated: https://www.phyllisschlafly.com/constitution/wynk-back-to-basics-with-hal-shurtleff/
Looking into the Second Quarter of 2023:
We have a busy schedule which includes a home school overnight at the Lane House to take in the Battle of Lexington Reenactment, two homeschool shows, keynote speaker at the Homeschoolers of Maine’s Annual State House event, and four speaking engagements for Julie Wilkerson, former abortion nurse turned Pro-Life activist.
Camp Constitution Ladies Group:
The Third Annual Spring Fling takes place May 5-7 at the Singing Hills Christian Camp. Speakers include Valery McDonnell, the youngest elected official in the United States and former abortion nurse turned Pro-Life activist Julie Wilkinson. Julie played a role in the movie “Unplanned.”
Camp Constitution’s 15th Annual Family Camp
We are looking forward to another full house at our annual family camp with new guest speakers author and documentary producer Vince Ellison, and Valery McDonnell mentioned above.
Second Annual Family Retreat:
We return to Camp Sentinel in Tuftonboro, NH for our 2nd Annual Weekend Family Retreat Friday September 29 to Sunday October 1.
How you can help Camp Constitution grow:
* Keep Camp Constitution and our nation in your prayers.
* Become a donor. Monthly and/or one-time donations can be made via our PayPal account accessed from our website https://www.campconstitution.net
* Host one of our speakers
- Host a Constitutional Study Course
* Introduce Camp Constitution to family and friends.
*Author an article for our camp blog.
Thank you for all you do in the freedom movement. May God bless you.
Hal Shurtleff, Director
Camp Constitution
CHRIST is RISEN INDEED! – Evidence for the Resurrection
CHRIST is RISEN INDEED! – Evidence for the Resurrection
To view this message as a PowerPoint, with pictures, click here.
To view this presentation as a video, click here, or here.
To listen to the audio lecture from sermonaudio.com, click here.
“And declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the Resurrection from the dead.” Romans 1:4
The dramatic film, RISEN provides an excellent Evangelistic opportunity to engage friends, family, neighbors and strangers with the overwhelming evidences for the bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We have produced a tract specifically designed for you to print out and distribute. RISEN is a springboard to discuss the Person and Event that changed everything.
Decisive
The bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is tremendously important. Death is man’s greatest enemy and it has conquered all men – but Christ. Cities and nations, like people, are born and grow for a season and then fade away. Homes, clothes, even vehicles, wear out and eventually go back to dust, just as do their owners. The Bible describes this universal reign of decay and death as “the bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21). In science it is recognized as the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the Law of Increasing Entropy. Left to themselves, every system tends to become disordered, to run down and eventually die. All the founders of great religions and movements have died and you can visit their graves. Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, Marx and Lenin. They are all dead and decayed in the grave. But Jesus Christ is alive!
So, what difference does that make? You may ask. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is vitally important because it demonstrates Christ’s victory over death, it gives hope to all mankind, it shows that eternal life is available to believers, it points to the ultimate triumph of God over all evil and it provides an indisputable proof that the message about Jesus Christ, as both Judge and Savior, is true. “Because He has appointed a Day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man Whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:31
The Research of Skeptics
The Resurrection is so important and foundational to Christianity that it has been targeted for the most relentless attacks. Frank Morison, a lawyer, determined to disprove the Resurrection and thereby undermine Christianity. The result of his exhaustive investigations was his conversion to Christ and the publication of his book: “Who Moved the Stone?” which decisively demonstrates the overwhelming evidence for the Resurrection.
A skeptical university lecturer, Josh McDowell, determined to disprove Christianity by investigating evidence against the Resurrection. The result was his conversion to Christ and publication of the monumental: “Evidence That Demands a Verdict” which exhaustively and conclusively presents documentation and evidence upon evidence substantiating the historical truth, factual accuracy, archaeological evidence, manuscript evidence, fulfilled prophecies, transformed lives and other indisputable evidences which support the fact of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead and the truth claims of Christianity.
Thomas Arnold, Professor of History at Oxford University, one of the greatest historians of the 19th Century wrote: “I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better, fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair enquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose from the dead.”
Simon Greenleaf, an unbelieving Jew, recognized as one of the most skilled legal minds ever produced, developed the Harvard Law School. He is recognized as the top authority on what constitutes sound evidence. After being challenged by a student if he had examined the evidence for the Resurrection, Simon Greenleaf made a thorough and exhaustive examination of the objective evidence and the testimony of the four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In his book: “The Testimony of the Evangelists” (Baker, 1874) he concluded: “It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually risen from the dead and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact.”
Simon Greenleaf declared that any court of law, if presented with the evidence of the Resurrection, would have to give a verdict in favor of the integrity and accuracy of the Gospel writers and the fact of the Resurrection.
One of the most popular books ever written and most successful films ever produced, Ben Hur, was a result of a skeptical challenge to General Lew Wallace to the authenticity of Christ’s Resurrection and a careful examination of the evidence. As General Wallace was US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at that time, he explored archaeological sites and manuscripts in the Holy Land.
What are the facts? The religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, who had campaigned and conspired to have Christ arrested and executed on trumped-up charges, had a compelling interest in disproving any claims of the Resurrection. They had presumed that the execution of Jesus would eliminate this threat to their religious power base and silence His supporters. These Jewish religious leaders had great concerns about the corpse of Jesus and they approached the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for a military detachment to secure the tomb (Matthew 28:62-64).
The Roman governor’s priority in the volatile province of Palestine was to preserve peace and stability. He recognized the political problems that would ensue if anything happened to this religious Teacher whom he had three times declared innocent and ultimately washed his hands in front of the crowd declaring, “I am innocent of this Man’s Blood” (Matthew 27:24). His wife had warned him: “Do not have anything to do with that innocent Man, for I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of Him.” (Matthew 27:19)
Pilate was only too aware that a travesty of justice had taken place and the last thing he needed was a review of his shameful conduct and dereliction of duty in this case. Ensuring that the victim’s corpse remained buried was definitely in Pilate’s political interests as well. “‘Take a guard’, Pilate answered. ‘Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how’. So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.” Matthew 27:65
The Roman Guard
As the chief priests had approached the Roman governor and as the Greek word Koustodia is used to describe the detachment of soldiers, it was evidently a Roman guard. If only a Temple guard had been used, there would have been no need to approach Pilate to issue the order. Additionally, the concern of the guards after the Resurrection to be protected from consequences from the governor (Matthew 28:14) confirms that those guarding the tomb were Roman soldiers. The detachment would have consisted of at least sixteen soldiers with four men placed directly in front of the entrance of the tomb, on duty, at any time. Under Roman military law any guard who deserted his post, or who fell asleep on duty, would face crucifixion. Typically, if Roman soldiers allowed a prisoner to escape they would face the same sentence as the prisoner – in this case crucifixion.
The seal placed on the stone at the entrance to the tomb signified the administrative authority of Rome and only an authorized officer of Rome would be permitted to break the seal. Anyone breaking a Roman seal without permission would be tracked down and executed.
Although the intention of the religious and political leaders had been to ensure that the phenomenon of Jesus ended at the tomb, their extraordinary security measures have only served to confirm the truth that they had murdered an innocent Man and that Jesus Christ was truly the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, “the Firstborn from the dead and the Ruler of the kings of the earth… the One Who lives and was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore.” Revelation 1:5,18.
Christ’s Victory Over Death
“Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, Who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold I have told you’. So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to bring His disciple’s word. And as they went to tell His disciples, behold Jesus met them, saying ‘Rejoice!’, so they came and held Him by the feet and worshipped Him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee and there they will see Me.'” Matthew 28:1-10
Attempts to Avoid the Truth of the Resurrection
To explain away the empty tomb, the enemies of the Gospel have had to resort to some desperate deceptions. The first was to suggest that the disciples had stolen the body. This incredible theory suggests that those same disciples who had slept in the garden, fled at His arrest, denied Him before a young woman, were hiding in fear behind locked doors, could have unitedly overcome sixteen professional Roman soldiers, dared to break a Roman seal, moved a two-ton tombstone, just to steal a corpse! A dead Messiah would have served absolutely no purpose for the disciples. What possible motivation could they have had, even had they possessed the ability to overcome the military, political and logistical obstacles? They had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Every one of the disciples suffered severe persecution, most dying as martyrs for the Faith. Would you die for a lie?
Did Jesus Really Die?
Others have questioned whether Christ had really died on the Cross. Perhaps He only fainted? This swoon theory would have us believe that the Roman soldiers, who were professional killers, (the centurion in charge, would most probably have already supervised dozens if not hundreds of executions), had failed to ensure that this high-profile political prisoner was not actually dead. Considering the vicious flogging which the Lord had already endured, the excruciating torture of crucifixion and the spear thrust into His side, with blood and water flowing out, all provide convincing evidence of death.
Yet, those advocating the swoon theory would have us believe that One Who had endured such savage flogging, crucifixion and a spear thrust to the heart, could not only have survived the legendary Roman military efficiency, but that He was revived on a cold slab in a cold tomb. Further that He somehow disengaged from the grave clothes and one hundred pounds of spices, ointments and wrappings which had effectively mummified Him, rolled away the two ton stone, overpowered, or eluded, the Roman soldiers and somehow found and impressed the disciples with His Deity? These suggestions have only to be mentioned in order to be dismissed as unbelievable.
The Empty Tomb
Another desperate attempt to explain away the Resurrection of Christ has been that they went to the wrong tomb. All of them, Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, the other women, all went to the wrong tomb. Somehow neither the Pharisees, nor the Sadducees, nor the Roman soldiers, nor Joseph of Arimathea, whose tomb it was, thought to point out that the tomb was in fact still occupied! However, this theory is also impossible, as the tomb was not in a cemetery, but in a garden privately owned by Joseph of Arimathea. There was no other tomb in that garden.
The Absence of the Body
All that the Roman and Jewish leaders had to do in order to end Christianity forever was produce the corpse of Jesus. But they couldn’t do it. Even when the Apostle Peter stood up on the day of Pentecost and proclaimed: “Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Acts 2:36. “And with great power the apostles gave witness to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” Acts 4:33. Many thousands in Jerusalem, including many Pharisees, came to faith in Jesus Christ.
The Crisis of Credibility
To the Jewish religious leaders, this was their worst nightmare, a disaster. The proclamation of the Resurrection of Christ undermined their power and credibility. Thousands of their followers now believed that they had condemned an innocent Man, the Messiah Himself. The new religion of Christianity was undermining the power base and credibility of the Pharisees and Sadducees. If the body of Jesus could have been found, Christianity could be stopped dead in its tracks and the threat to the religious status quo would have ended. Since they desperately needed Jesus’ corpse, the Jewish leaders would have used every means at their disposal to hunt it down and find it – if that was possible.
The Testimony of Eyewitnesses
However, we are not only dealing with the empty tomb and the absence of the body, but the testimony of eyewitnesses. On at least twelve separate occasions Jesus Christ was seen after rising from the tomb. Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18; Mark 16:9); the other women (Matthew 28:8-10); Peter (Luke 24:34); the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35); ten of the disciples (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-24); all eleven disciples, eight days later (John 20:24-29); seven disciples by the Sea of Tiberius (John 21:1-23); to five hundred at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6); to James (1 Corinthians 15:7); to all eleven apostles and others, at the Ascension (Acts 1:3-12); Paul (Acts 9:3-8); and John (Revelation 1:12-18), all saw the Lord bodily raised from the dead.
To explain away the testimony of all these eyewitnesses, enemies of Christianity suggest that these were merely hallucinations, perhaps as a result of hypnosis or hysteria. However, while hallucinations tend to be unique psychological experiences of an individual, we are here dealing with a large number of individuals, who at different times, in different groups, in different places, both indoors and outdoors, on a hilltop, along a roadside, by a lakeshore, all saw the Lord. They saw Him, they ate with Him, they saw the wounds in His hands and in His side.
Far from being gullible, it would appear that His disciples were very skeptical and slow to believe. Thomas declared that he would not believe that Christ had risen unless he personally placed his fingers in the nail prints in His hands and feet and his hand in the wound in His side.
The Transformation of the Disciples
Not only do we have the testimony of the eyewitnesses, but the dramatic transformation of the disciples. The Resurrection of Christ from the dead transformed the disciples’ grief to joy, their cowardice to boldness, their skepticism to faith and their doubt to determination. It turned Saul, the persecutor of the Church into Paul the Apostle of the Church.
The Transformation of History
It also transformed society and history. It changed the Jewish Sabbath into the Christian Lord’s Day. What else could explain the replacement of Saturday as the Jewish day of rest into Sunday as the Christian Lord’s Day? The Resurrection transformed a Jewish remnant into the worldwide Christian Church. Over 2-Billion people worldwide describe themselves as Christians who believe in the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. The very existence of the largest religious movement in the history of the world is another powerful evidence of the truth of the Resurrection.
Prophetic Fulfilment
Jesus Himself had prophesied His Resurrection from the dead. Because of His fulfilment of this, we can be absolutely certain that Jesus Christ is God with us, as He claimed. By His Resurrection we can know that our sins are forgiven through His Blood sacrificed on the Cross of Calvary: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that Whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:14-16
Full Salvation
Because of Christ’s death on the Cross, we can rejoice that our sins are paid for – we are forgiven, justified by faith.
Because of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead, we can rejoice in the prospect of eternal life.
Because of Christ’s Ascension, we can know that He has all authority and that His Great Commission will be accomplished on earth.
Because of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost we do not need to trust in our own abilities, but in His power alone. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.”
Proclaim It to the Nations
William Sangster – the church leader and hymn writer – suffered from increasing paralysis which finally prevented him from even being able to talk. On his last Easter before he died, he wrote: “How terrible to wake up on Easter and have no voice to shout, ‘HE IS RISEN’, far worse, to have a voice and not to want to shout!”
We serve a risen Savior! Death is defeated. Christ has risen – victorious over death, hell, satan and the grave.
Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in Christ, though he may die, yet shall he live, (John 11:25).
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3
Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
mission@frontline.org.za
www.FrontlineMissionSA.org
The above message has been adapted from a chapter in Answering Skeptics book (144 pages), which answers 14 such questions. The book, E-Book and an Audio MP3 Boxset Answering Skeptics with 32 sermons, lectures and radio programmes is available from Christian Liberty Books, PO Box 358, Howard Place 7450, Cape Town, South Africa, Tel: 021-689-7478, Fax: 086-551-7490, email: admin@christianlibertybooks.co.za and website: www.christianlibertybooks.co.za.
To download the RISEN tract for distribution, click here.
See also:
The Illegal Trial of Jesus and the Verdict of History (for a PowerPoint, click here; for the audio, click here; for the video, click here.)
The Blood of Christ (for the audio, click here.)
The Cross of Christ (for the audio, click here.)
To hear the From the Frontline radio discussion on The Centrality of the Cross, click here.
Who Killed Jesus? (for a PowerPoint, click here; for the audio, click here; for the tract, click here.)
How Can I Know that Jesus is the Messiah? (for the audio, click here; for the tract, click here.)
VA School District Discriminates Against Christian Viewpoint
ASHBURN, VA – Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to the superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia on behalf of a high school teacher who was directed to remove her non-school-sponsored, private expression of a Bible verse from her email signature block, while the school district allows other employees to use other quotes or statements. Liberty Counsel is requesting that the school district permit the teacher to restore the Bible verse to her email signature block.
The directive from the school district to the teacher to remove an expression of her personal faith from her email signature block, based solely on its perceived religious nature, constitutes religious discrimination in violation of the First Amendment and school district policy, which prohibits religious discrimination based on religious viewpoint.
This teacher seeks to inspire her students to excellence and the foundation for teaching is her personal faith in Jesus Christ. Because her faith is such a part of who she is, and inspires her life and work, she has included the Bible verse John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”), as part of her email signature block since she was hired at the school. After the teacher was directed to remove that verse, she proposed an alternative verse, Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it”). This was also rejected by the school district for the same reason: it was a Bible verse.
On the other hand, the school district permits teachers to personalize their signature blocks with quotations, pictures, phrases, or pronouns that are intended to express the teachers’ personal views on a variety of subjects, and that are attributable to the teachers, and not to the school district. For example, one teacher uses a quote by Cesar Chavez (“Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our students”) and another has a quote by Frederick Douglass (“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”). Other teachers also include simple motivational quotes such as “Have courage and be kind,” and others include small pictures under their signatures with an encouraging or inspiring message.
Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) does not have a written policy governing email signature blocks and incorrectly claimed that including the Bible verse is prohibited by the Establishment Clause. In addition, Acting Superintendent Dr. Daniel Smith, Ed.D. claims that LCPS School Board Policy 7566 prohibits the teacher from using the Bible verse in her email signature. However, in reality, the policy only forbids obscene or vulgar language and conduct prohibited by law.
Dr. Smith responded to Liberty Counsel’s letter by stating, “Simply put, the general inclusion of religious quotes in communications LCPS employees send while in their public capacities is not private expression and runs afoul of the Establishment Clause, and as such, bars LCPS, as a local governmental entity, from taking sides in religious disputes or favoring or disfavoring anyone based on religion or belief, or lack thereof. To be clear, LCPS’s determination is not based on any particular religious viewpoint, and LCPS would take a consistent approach as it has here with respect to any religious expression incorporated in an LCPS employee’s email signature block of which it becomes aware.”
However, the First Amendment requires that the school district may not discriminate against the teacher’s private religious expression. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts have confirmed that organizations and individuals holding a religious viewpoint may not be subject to discrimination or censorship on the basis of that viewpoint. For example, in Liberty Counsel’s case, Shurtleff v. City of Boston, the High Court unanimously ruled that the city of Boston violated the Constitution by censoring a private flag in a public forum open to “all applicants” merely because the application referred to it as a “Christian flag.” The High Court unanimously rejected Boston’s use of the “Lemon Test” to censor Christian viewpoints. Then in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the High Court ruled in favor of the high school football coach and also finally buried the court-made “Lemon Test” citing Liberty Counsel’s 9-0 decision handed down in Shurtleff v. City of Boston involving the Christian flag.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The decisions from the Supreme Court involving the Christian flag and Coach Kennedy send a clear message that the ‘Lemon Test’ has finally been buried and government must not discriminate based on religious viewpoint. Loudoun County Public Schools cannot discriminate against a teacher who wants to use a Bible verse in her signature when other teachers are including nonreligious quotes.”
Liberty Counsel provides broadcast quality TV interviews via Hi-Def Skype and LTN at no cost.
Camp Constitution Donates 1,500 Pocket Copies of the U.S. Constitution to the Alton-Barnstead, NH Schools
Last night, Tuesday April 4, Rev. Steve Craft and I presented 1,500 pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution to Mr. Tim Broadrick, Superintendent of Alton and Barnstead, NH Schools and the School Committee. Prior to the meeting, Mr. Broadrick handed copies to the members of the board. I made some comments pointing out the sad state of an understanding of the Constitution in the nation, and thanked the committee for accepting the donation and ensuring that their students will have a knowledge and appreciation of our Constitution. I referred to the U.S. Constitution as an “owner’s manual for a free people.” We also offered Alton High School’s history club a visit to our learning center in Lexington, MA, and a tour of Lexington and Concord. MA
This donation came about after Mr. Broadrick read our article about our donation of pocket Constitutions to the Laconia, NH’s junior high and high school back in January which was posted on the “Alton Uncensored” Facebook page https://campconstitution.net/camp-constitution-donates-pocket-u-s-constitutions-to-high-school-and-junior-high-students-in-laconia-nh/ We have plans to make donations of these Constitutions to other school in the region.
Since Camp Constitution’s inception in 2009, we have donated and distributed over 30,000 pocket Constitutions. And we are just getting started. We purchase our Constitutions from the National Center for Constitutional Studies https://nccs.net/
Readers who would like to help our efforts may donate via our PayPal account accessed from our website’s homepage https://www.campconstitution.net or by check payable to Camp Constitution and sent to my address at 146 Powder Mill Rd. Alton, NH 03809
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/
Constitutional Minute #20: The very idea of amendments – Part 1 of 3
Heed the words of Daniel Webster in his 4th of July Oration, 1802:
“The politician that undertakes to improve a Constitution with as little thought as a farmer sets about mending his plow is no master of his trade. If that Constitution be a systematic one, if it be a free one, its parts are so necessarily connected that an alteration in one will work an alteration in all; and this cobbler, however pure and honest his intentions, will, in the end, find that what came to his hands a fair and lovely fabric goes from them a miserable piece of patchwork.”
Statecraft is serious business which requires systematic study to master. Do we have statesmen at any level of government, (federal, State, or local), that dare compare to our founders? Regrettably, it would be hard to name even one in today’s world!
Those who have read Article I, Sec.8, clauses 1-16 of our federal Constitution know that it delegates only a handful of powers (over the Country at large) to the federal government.
They also know that, for the last 100 years, the federal government has violated the Constitution by usurping thousands of powers not delegated.
So what do we do about it?
Those who lobby for amendments say that when the federal government violates the Constitution, the solution is to amend the Constitution.
Now think about that:
When a spouse violates the marriage vows, is the solution is to amend the marriage vows?
When people ignore speed limits, is the solution to amend the speed limits?
When people violate the Ten Commandments, is the solution to amend the Ten Commandments?
Of course not! The solution is to obey your vows, obey speed limits, obey the Ten Commandments,…… and obey the Constitution!!
Bob Hilliard
wethepeoplehandbook@gmail.com
www.buildingblocksforliberty.org
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/