“because it assumes that there CAN be MORAL RIGHT in the enslaving of one man by another.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1854
In his October 16th, 1854 debate with Stephen Douglas, Abraham Lincoln objected to the institution of slavery, and he objected to any assumption that the delegates in the Continental Congress; those signers of the Declaration of Independence, wanted to expand slavery, seeing that in principle, it was an affront to the central idea of liberty and justice for all meant to bind the national community together as one people. Instead, he effectually demonstrated the uneasiness of the Revolutionary era Federal government, and immediate post-Revolutionary government with being comfortable in dismissing any attempt to allow slavery to grow as an institution. They wanted to constrain it and let it die, that their sacrifices, and the sacrifices of all those individuals made should not be in vain.
“The plain unmistakable spirit of that age, towards slavery, was hostility to the PRINCIPLE, and toleration, ONLY BY NECESSITY.
Abraham Lincoln, 1854
The smart, quick-witted, snarky Abraham Lincoln had done his homework and reminded the people exactly what kind of heart and of what mind the leaders of the Continental Congress were between 1774 and 1820 in his public speech against the slavery expansionist ideas being promoted by Senator Stephen Douglas. Notwithstanding that some of those signatories were slave holders, they themselves saw the conflict of maintaining alignment with the fundamental ideas of liberty and justice for all and the expansion of slavery as an institution across the American land. That refusing some of the people to be denied their natural rights, and allowing another set of people to govern them as individuals would be a “death knell” (Thomas Jefferson, 1820) to the survival of the union.
Lincoln outlined congressional, executive, judicial actions to curtail the slave trade between 1794 to 1820 to make clear the spirit of the early American government.
“In 1794, they prohibited an out-going slave trade — that is the taking of slaves FROM the United States to sell.
In 1798, they prohibited the bringing of slaves from Africa, INTO the Mississippi Territory —
In 1800 they prohibited AMERICAN CITIZENS from trading in slaves between foreign countries — as, for instance, from Africa to Brazil.
In 1803 they passed a law in aid of one or two State laws, in restraint of the internal slave trade.
In 1807, in apparent hot haste, they passed the law, nearly a year in advance, to take effect the first day of 1808 — the very first day the constitution would permit — prohibiting the African slave trade by heavy pecuniary and corporal penalties.
In 1820, finding these provisions ineffectual, they declared the trade piracy, and annexed to it, the extreme penalty of death.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1854
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We know now that nine years after Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass met on that day, America ended a civil war that took the life of over 700,000 Americans, including Lincoln’s on April 15, 1865. Upon his death, the idea of reconstruction for the south and national unity was squashed by his successor, President Andrew Johnson. Johnson suppressed the ideas in our Declaration of Independence; that we are all created equal, that we have a intrinsic, fundamental right to life, to be at peace, and to enjoy he prosperity of our work; and finally, that the government, aligned with the straightforward reading and understanding of these basic rights found in that Declaration of Independence of and for the people. Not for their interests alone, but in alignment with the exact words and ideas of that initial founding document.
We, the people have a duty to know and defend our rights; to be civil and live at peace amongst each other in our land, and to be about, not only our work, but to reasonably care for the good of our local and national community to the best of our abilities! It is an altruistic (selfless service unto others) thought to defend these sacred liberties that we have with adding our own interests into the matter. I posit that our nation as a whole, has partly lulled itself into conformity through the generations due to the material prosperity that most of us enjoy as a nation of people primarily in the economic middle class. In the midst of the 20th century, Martin Luther King identified the cultural push of this conformity as rendering tough hearts and soft minds not willing to do hard thinking. This was done on purpose. It has also been purposely lulled into his conformity through the efforts of an extremely liberal vision that requires the inattention of the people. It is so true, and now we have arrived at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, not with sharp intellects as a people, but with select intellects that do the minding for the people. We have been made to become fierce hearted and emotional, rather than reasonable and civil. We have been pushed into simple-minded binary thinking: either/ or, strong and weak, winners and losers, rather than caring and loving, smart and open-minded, dynamic and agile.
- Our Declaration of Independence has been relegated to being open to interpretation, instead of being a straight-forward document that was written to withstand the test of time, politics, whims, and special interests.
- Our government has become a political instrument by the interests of a ruling majority, opposed to the independent fundamental rights it is supposed to be founded on from that founding document.
- The ruling majority, with its special interests, and the lulled public intellect, has untethered itself from the Declaration Of Independence wherein it does not suit its purpose, and twisted wherein required of its vision.
- The Supreme Court has resorted itself to ‘judicial aggrandizement cloaked in the language of constitutional rights’ (Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas).
It did so in the 19th century with the approval of condoning slavery, and twice again in the 20th century with the legalization of segregation and abortion. Of key importance, these three judicial aggrandizements targeted Americans of black skin color.
Slavery was, as Lincoln said, supposed to be on the slow road to extinction, as was the ideation of the first American republic, until its patrons managed to manipulate the power of the vote by counting slaves to increase the number of representatives in each state, yet disallowing these same enslaved people any form of representation in the same government. Thus, the leaders who defended the fundamental ideas of the Declaration of Independence in our government became outnumbered in their voting power within Congress.
The same has been done in our present age with the institution of abortion. Judicial aggrandizement has once again practiced the art of giving approval to substantiative interests deemed good for the people, doing so with the language of constitutional rights. That is to say, some of these people in the Supreme Court are only there because they are doing the bidding of special interests groups. They are trained in the language of being lawyers and judges and get professorial with the constitution, twisting and manipulating their understanding of what the Declaration of Independence sais.
“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Mathew 7:16
As it was with that Lincoln said about slavery, abortion is also “now ..to be transformed into a “sacred right.”
“Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for SOME men to enslave OTHERS is a “sacred right of self government.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1854
Is it possible that America be a land that ceases from killing the fruit of its womb? Can it be that we become tough minded, yet tender hearted? How shall the government be of and for the people with the divisive, binary force that much of the media churns forth? How can our government be a government that is for the protection of all the people, be they in the womb or of old age? How do we return to that alignment with the straightforward understanding of our Declaration of Independence?
The answer, my friend… the answer is that we walk in the spirit of the harmless champions of liberty. Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King seeked out what they could hold onto of America in a time when the status quo in America pushed them down. They held onto, studied, and educated themselves, and then, in the most solemn, civil manner… they spoke and wrote working effectually to reach the hearts and minds of you and me!
They attained loving support of so many caring people who knew that only a civil, national alignment to that fundamental right to life; to that idea that we are all created equal, to that right to have a life at peace would be the winning, triumphant path in establishing the right form of caring society and government for and of the people.
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