How did the American people reconcile the principles that all men are created equal and that men's inalienable rights were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with the practice of slavery?

Was the Declaration of Independence written for a specific, narrow, purpose such that it was not to be applied as a statement of general principles?

The current administration would probably get around it by quibbling about the definition of "men":

'The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act...

...Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented with parts of the opinion, saying that ``it leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantanamo are not "person(s)".' www.mcclatchydc.com

However, back in the eighteenth century, from Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence:

'...he [i.e. King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. [determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold]...'

Apparently, '...This passage, Jefferson wrote at the time, "was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary wished to continue it. Our Northern brethern also I believe felt a little tender under those censures, for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."'

Possibly, again with parallels today, they didn't attempt to reconcile principles, but merely refused to let certain persons' profits or lifestyles take a hit, however compelling or obvious the arguments necessitating just that.

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:
How did the American people reconcile the principles that all men are created equal and that men's inalienable rights were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with the practice of slavery?

Was the Declaration of Independence written for a specific, narrow, purpose such that it was not to be applied as a statement of general principles?

_______________________________________________

Hi Fred:

When the Declaration was written,slavery was already being practiced in some of the original colonies,namely in the South.

Jefferson, who wrote most of the Declaration ,was one of the 3 largest slaveowners in the States,Washington was another.

Jefferson was chosen to write it because he was well educated and had a way with words.

He was hypocritical with regard to slavery as it didn't match what he truly believed.

One interesting aside reagarding who got the vote first,Blacks or Women.

Black males got the vote in 1870,the 15th Amendment, 50 years before Women in 1920,the 19th Amendment.

If you don't believe me ,trot out your copy of the Constitution and read these two Amendments.

hippolips

Fred has a copy of the US Constitution?

quote:

Jefferson, who wrote most of the Declaration ,was one of the 3 largest slaveowners in the States,Washington was another.

Really? It seems he owned somewhere under 200 slaves.

www.anusha.com

eric.ed.gov

Did that make him one of the three largest slaveowners in the US?

Jefferson was certainly among the largest slave owners in the Virginia Assembly. I am equally sure that 200 would not qualify him among the top three in the country!

As of the first US Census in 1790, there were 292,627 slaves counted in the Commonwealth of Virginia out of a total slave population of 694,207. About 25% of southern families owned slaves. The minimum number of slaves to be considered a planter was 20.

“But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”

~ Thomas Jefferson, 1820

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Fred has a copy of the US Constitution?

Isn't the US Constitution an aircraft carrier?

Then I hope you have a really large bathtub, Fred.

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Fred has a copy of the US Constitution?

Isn't the US Constitution an aircraft carrier?

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Hi Fred:

I'm curious are you an Englishman who lives in France ,or a Frenchman who lives in England.

I know this is a little off topic ,but I'm just curious.

hippolips

I think Fred, like Shaw's Zoltan Carpathy, is....Hungarian.

quote:

Originally posted by hippolips:

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
Fred has a copy of the US Constitution?

Isn't the US Constitution an aircraft carrier?

_______________________________________________

Hi Fred:

I'm curious are you an Englishman who lives in France ,or a Frenchman who lives in England.

Easy. I'm half an Irishman who lives in both [my mother was Irish]

Born in England, British citizen. I keep homes in both countries.Over the course of a year I'm in Britain rather more than I'm in France.I have to keep moving, to avoid my creditors

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:
I think Fred, like Shaw's Zoltan Carpathy, is....Hungarian.

Nearly so. I'm like Dean Spanley in "My Talks with Dean Spanley" by the Irish writer, Lord Dunsany.It's the moving tale of a churchman who regresses, to being the dog he was in a previous life, when he drinks too much of the Hungarian wine, Tokay His conversation is witty and clever when he's a dog ( all right, I'm not much like him).

Footnote: He's Lord Dunsany or the Baron Dunsany to us (and Amazon UK) but to Amazon's US site he's "Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett Dunsany " . (He's not. He was either simply 'Edward Plunkett' or 'Edward Plunkett,the Lord /the Baron Dunsany' but 'Edward .... Dunsany' he wasn't.These damn Brit titles )

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:
How did the American people reconcile the principles that all men are created equal and that men's inalienable rights were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, with the practice of slavery?

Was the Declaration of Independence written for a specific, narrow, purpose such that it was not to be applied as a statement of general principles?

It is my understanding that life, liberty and blah blah blah only applied to white male property owners. Those where the only folk that mattered, the rest of us were out of luck.