As a Continental Congressional delegate from Virginia, George Washington did not bring to discussion in that congress, nor call the press to politicize the institution of slavery as the evil that it was, for doing so at the onset of the establishment of the foundations of the American government would have changed the message, narrative, and required focus of unification needed amongst the colonies. Nonetheless, before the United States of America came to be a self-governing nation of laws, the Spirit of American liberty did truly reign in the heart of George Washington. He saw the institution of slavery as a degradation of our shared humanity all his life. Strategically, he also understood that the Revolutionary War required as much unification as possible. Ending slavery before the United States of America became a sovereign country would have placed great pressure on the southern colonies to not form as a union. Instead, from his writings… because of his writings… his shared thoughts and ideas… on slavery’s effect on the individual, the life of the national community, its impact on the quality of liberty & justice practiced and legislated in our government, it can be measured that Washington ensured that the matter would be taken given as the single most important cause and issue of discussion upon the preservation and direction of the American union.
England was sending ships and soldiers in a hostile manner, and other countries claimed lands across the continent. A government would first be safely established, ready to withstand tremendous political division, yet maintain its integrity. The intent and spirit of self-government, was affirmed in the personal & public writings of the framers of the Revolutionary epoch, and herein we have a national heritage of writings that give important clarity of understanding on just what was the intent and spirit of American liberty.
Should future generations of Americans be taught to respect, love, and be critically strengthened in thought and passion unto doing the groundwork of understanding the original spirit and intent of American liberty?
What clarity of understanding, what prioritization, what quality of instruction do we establish within the public schools of our nation on such matters?
Who oversees and regulates the faithfulness in instruction that it must adhere to in inculcating that thriving spirit of liberty?
Our Declaration Of Independence affirmed the principle founding idea of liberty that we are all created equal, thus affirming the intent and spirit of the nation of laws, and therein affirming ordinary Americans as legal equals to the King of England, in both stated forms: equal in a universal sense as humans amongst all, and created equal by a benevolent, loving Creator. Whereas beforehand, the colonists were subjects without legal protection and avail from the whims, caprices, fancies, and unreasonableness of a foreign monarchy, now the people became a nation of laws that because of passage through the Revolutionary era of 1761-1783, understood, by measure of the instructional experience of living in and often times fighting for with intellect and guns the right of liberty to assemble as a self-governing people of laws.
It was hoped to be an assembled congress of the most just, smart and uprightly good men. That generation of our humanity in1776 lived on the edge of a page in time when a global enlightenment in the understanding, practicality, and jurisprudence of demanding individual liberty signaled an establishment of legal power that moved away from aristocratic and monarchical elitism, and towards a society of self-government. Our first of two constitutional documents, known as the Declaration of Independence, proclaimed the right of this individual liberty at the beginning of its message in a clear manner with legal authority to claim this right as both a universal heritage, and of God, the Almighty Creator.
Foreseeing the national discussion, and ultimate government push to constrain, limit, and eradicate slavery, the financial benefactors of the institution of slavery positioned themselves within government early on and began to work on settling into law the right to keep another human being as property. They made a legally false claim with the doctrine of ‘popular sovereignty.’ A doctrine that claimed legal right to make a woman, man or child into their legal ‘property,’ and also claimed the right to demand ‘non-interference’ from any court to stop local, state, or national government from legislating or interference into the claim of the right to make slaves out of women, men, and children.
From that point in time onward, new champions of liberty arose, like the judges that sprung up after the time of Moses and Joshua, and these were determined and mighty people picked and inspired with the best of that spirit of 1776. These where John Quincy Adams, Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, Sojourner Truth, and Abraham Lincoln. They were writers, speakers, and operatives of that spirit of liberty.
It cannot be said that it is here or there
It connects heart & mind
with determination and passion.
It claims the love and legal protection of God.
It sees the universality of individual freedom.
And though we be hundreds of millions of people together as one nation,
yet, it withers, fails to grow, becomes distorted,
and dies
in the uneducated mind.
Comments