How Was America Founded (pt 2)

From Yesterday’s subject –How Was America founded…

In 1857, in response to the Dred Scott Decision www.historicaldocuments.com/DreadScott.htm which held that black Americans were not included nor contemplated in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln attacked that decision and the reasoning used in the opinion written by Chief Justice Taney in a speech on June 26. 1857 at Springfield, IL. http://www.founding.com/library/lbody.cfm?id=321&parent=63 In that speech, Lincoln attacked both Justice Taney and Stephen Douglas (who was his opponent for the Senate in that state). This is what Lincoln said about the Declaration of Independence after he had some words about Chief Justice Taney.

Now we move forward with commentary from Ambrose I. Lane Sr. on this speech…
(Reverend Lane has been a Washington, D.C. radio talk show personality and political and religious commentator since 1978 on The Pacifica Foundations WPFW-FM. He is the recipient of the UBF 1999 Media Excellence Award for 20 years of outstanding service to the community through superb journalism. As a prolific writer, Lane has been published in such dailies as the Washington POST and has received lead editorial treatment by The Wall Street Journal. He has managed several human services agencies as executive director/chief executive officer, with annual budgets exceeding $7.5 million and staff of more than 200. Lane is currently an elected member and Chair of Pacifica's national Board of Directors and an elected member of WPFW's Local Station Board.)

After their Declaration, they had to form a government. They tried once with something called the Articles of Confederation. Now they were meeting to make a second attempt to craft a workable Constitution (because the Articles of Confederation was a dismal failure). They were meeting in an atmosphere of great concern. While they met –Jefferson was in Paris. An armed rebellion (called the Shey’s Rebellion) was in progress and many of the participants of the convention expressed grave concerns about the internal dangers of democracy (what they called mob-ocracy), so they acted to protect their class interests from the perceived dangers from within and without the nation that they wanted to form. They chose what they called a republican form of government because in a republic, only some people are allowed to vote and their eligibility to vote is defined by laws approved and determined by the ruling class (who’s interests matter most, and are paramount). Thus, the republic the founders set up, placed the forming new nation’s supreme power in the hands of the limited body of citizens entitled to vote. That supreme power was to be exercised by the persons those few voted to place in office. Those placed in office were made responsible only to those few that were allowed to vote, not to the masses of what became Americans. Wealth determined whether a citizen was allowed to vote. Even some slave owners didn’t’ have enough wealth to vote.

Here is the point; if this country had begun as a democracy, our government’s supreme power would have rested in the masses of the people without a money qualifier, right? It would have been exercised by the masses in free elections (directly or indirectly) through their regularly elected representatives.

Those leaders that gathered in Philadelphia to form a Constitution had to deal with both classism and racism. Classism applied to poorer European immigrants, and former European indentured servants (who had really been slaves for a specified period of time, usually 5 or 7 years). Racism, of course, applied to both free and enslaved Africans. These were problems that European immigrant leaders had created in trying to structure their exploitation of the land and people they set out to plunder. Their created problems of classism and racism have followed us into the 21st century. Since the 1700s there have been three attempts to deal with these created problems of classism and racism.

We must understand a major historical fact that is often overlooked (and I can’t say it enough); when Europeans came to this continent to occupy the land, to steal, plunder and develop its rich resources, they did not come as “white people”. They came as Germans, British, French, and other European tribal and state members. When Africans came, they came as Kush, Asanti, Hosa, and Dahoma –tribal and state members, they did not come as “black people”. These designations, white and black, were created by laws approved and coercively enforced by legal and illegal terrorism and all governmental units created by those European funders.

The intent of those creators was to maximally exploit the labor of those Africans and their descendants and the original native populations found here after the time of indenture for white Europeans had ended. Later, the intent evolved into a guarantee –by law – that African descendants would always occupy the bottom rung on the nations economic, cultural, social, and political ladders. The mirror intent was to guarantee that every European descendant would always enjoy the special privileges of just being white, thus would always have someone to look down on; economically, culturally, socially, and politically. The first attempt to deal with this created problem of racism was a Civil War, the most devastating war ever fought by Americans. It was a war waged by the oligarchy plutocracy of the South and the oligarchy plutocracy of the North over the issue of slavery (its proposed extension into other continental territories and the changes in relative power equations that the proposed extensions would bring). Many members of both power groups lusted for the imagined wealth that building a continental-wide railroad would bring in trade with China (sort of reminds you of today). The North wanted the railroad to take a northern route to California, so they could sell products from their factories. The South wanted a southern route so they could sell their cotton and tobacco products.

Another slave state would mean two more US Senators and more members of the Congress in support of the South’s ruling class. The opposite, another free state, would benefit the North. As in all wars, the money and patriotic propaganda fed by each plutocracy to the masses would lead to massive deaths (of mostly poor people –“white” and “black”). The War and its devastation would not resolve the racism, but it would release African descendants from “legal” slavery. The question after the War was, “what do we do now”; the question the plutocracies of the North and South asked themselves. Just as our current President had no realistic plan for reconstruction in Iraq, neither did either side in the Civil War.

At first, decisions about reconstruction were made by a group that was labeled the radical republicans. That group of Congresspersons was responsible for major enactments, both in terms of legislation and in the passage and ratification of Constitutional Amendments. They passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1866 and 1875 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1875 . The former, granted newly free persons all but one of the rights legally enjoyed by white citizens. The latter, granted equal rights in public accommodations. Unfortunately for history, the United States Supreme Court, which has always been the final judicial protector of the special rights and privileges of members of the national oligarchy plutocracy, struck down the 1875 act in 1883 as unconstitutional.

The most important contribution of the radical republicans was the creation and ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The first of these outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude, except for conviction of a crime. The second defined both state and national citizenship for the first time. It outlawed any law that abridged the privileges and immunities of citizens, prohibited any state from depriving any person (not just a citizen, but any person) of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. It also prohibited any state from denying any person (once again -not just any citizen, but any person) equal protection of the laws. The third of these prohibited the denial or abridgement of the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It was a monumentally ethical and moral and visionary performance of our nation’s highest elected legislative body, but once again, as it has done repeatedly throughout our history, the ultimate judicial protector of the nations white oligarchy plutocracy stepped in to thwart the impact of their legislative enactments. Of course they knew that, that’s why they passed Amendments to the basic document (to our Constitution). They knew that the Supreme Court would act to kill their legislative efforts. In 1883 the Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. And like a century later, the Brown v. Board of Education Decision, the civil rights cases of 1883 consolidated five lower court cases. With only one Justice dissenting, the opinion was written by Justice Joseph P. Bradley. Justice Bradley not only ruled the law unconstitutional, but went out of his way to take cheap shots at the newly freed persons that would have benefited from the laws provisions. This is what he wrote (in part):

“When a man has emerged from slavery, there must be some stage where he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws.”

No one asked him HOW slaves and now newly freed persons (who were former slaves) had ever been a special favorite of the laws.