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VOL.
26 COMMON SENSE REVISITED 5 17 26
OPPRESSION…FROM
THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN ETHICS PERSPECTIVE AND THE E PLURIBUS UNIUM
PERSPECTIVE…
HOPE
/FAITH SPRINGS ETERNAL1776 TO 2026!?!
Vol. 26 begins with a reiteration and slight alteration of the
conclusion statement of Vol. 25 of Alexander Pope’s poem:
Alexander Pope
authored a philosophical poem in 1732-1733 entitled “Epistle I of
An Essay on Man. In that poem Pope wrote:
“Hope springs
eternal in the human Breast:
Man never is, but
always to be blest.”
In this poem Pope
advocates that “hope is a natural, constant, and divinely given
quality within humanity, allowing people to look forward, even when
they are not currently satisfied or “blest.” In other words,
hope for the best despite tremendous odds against you.
Pope’s
sentiments can be considered a forerunner of the 1947-1951 statement
urging resistance of death, by Dylan Thomas which he urged his dying
father to do, he told him:
“Do not go
gentle into that good night…Rage, rage against the dying of the
light and do not go gentle into that good night.” In other words,
do not give up on hope. True Christians should never give up their
faith/hope… (Faith and hope are the real dynamic duo in Godly human
affairs. Hebrews 11:1 brings home God’s point, it says, “Now
faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen.” This
verse is indicative of the refrain expression, “EVIDENCE THAT
DEMANDS A VERDICT” BY ALL TRUE BELIEVERS.) Therefore, let that
faith and hope spring until, as written in the conclusion of Jeremiah
29:11…until God delivers a believer to their “expected end!”
Jeremiah in its
entirety says, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,
saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you
an expected end. That is an amazing verse for mankind to contemplate
throughout our entire existence here on earth. The colonials had the
same version for their consideration as do “WE THE PEOPLE OF THESE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” in 2026.
Therefore, the
religious colonials listed in Vol. 25, like citizens in 2026, should
have understood that God inspires His true believers to activate
thoughts of peace and not evil. The wording of the Preamble of the
second U.S. Constitution of 1789 is similar to Jeremiah 29:11. Here
it is again for our consideration:
“We the People (the official
motto of the United States of America E PLURIBUS UNIUM out of many
(ALL people) ONE (uh…that’s DEI, DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND
INCLUSION) (The same ONE BLOOD of Acts 17: 26-28):
26 And hath made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath
determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their
habitation;
27 That they should seek the
Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be
not far from every one of us:
28 For in him we live, and
move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have
said, for we are also his offspring.”
That same “We
the People of the United States,(consented for all citizens of the
United States in 1789) in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings
of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America.”
This monumental
preamble was adopted by an overwhelming majority of Americans.
Imbedded in these words are the noble goals of all freedom loving
people in the United States…not just for the Colonials that
ratified it in 1789 but also established it for their
Posterity/future generations as well.
The advent of our preamble was the product of representative
Democracy. This form of Democracy follows the advice of that which
is recorded in Isaiah 1:18:
“Come now
and let us reason together,) (to reach an
agreement) (A substantial part of “reasoning together” involves
genuine compromise by all political parties which works to do the
best for all American citizens. Unfortunately, in the 2000’s
working toward compromise in congress is difficult to achieve) “Come
now and let us reason together saith the Lord: though your sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red
like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
COMMON SENSE is contradicted by mankind’s actions that run contrary
to logic and sound reasoning, as that which is advised in Isaiah
1:18. The following excerpt from an article entitled, Historical
Context: The Constitution and Slavery at the Federal Constitutional
Convention of 1781.
by Steven Mintz
Mintz wrote:
“On the 200th anniversary of
the ratification of the US Constitution, Thurgood Marshall, the first
African American person to sit on the Supreme Court, said that the
1788 Constitution was “defective from the start.” While some
members of the Constitutional Convention had voiced “eloquent
objections” to slavery, Marshall said they “consented to a
document which laid a foundation for the tragic events which were to
follow.” By “tragic events,” he meant all the cases of abuse
and exploitation propagated by the system of slavery.
Was Thurgood Marshall right? Was
the Constitution a pro-slavery document? Convention delegate Charles
Pinckney certainly thought so when he reported back to the South
Carolina House of Representatives that “considering all
circumstances, we have made the best terms for the security of this
species (Species Pinckney…you had your nerve to used this
terminology for human beings.)of property [enslaved people] it was in
our power to make.” To fully answer Marshall’s questions,
however, we need to look to the Constitution itself.
Despite never being referenced by
name, the institution of slavery received substantial protections
under the Constitution. These legal and political protections for
slavery included:
The three-fifths
clause, which counted three-fifths of a state’s enslaved population
in apportioning representation. (This measure meant that black slaves
were not fully human they were three-fifths of a person to be used to
give the southern states more seats and votes in the House of
Representatives. No other ethnic group in this country ever suffered
this inhumane treatment.)
The clause
stipulated that the population of each state should be determined by
“adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound
to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed,
three fifths of all other Persons.” The three-fifths clause meant
that the South had extra representation in the House of
Representatives and extra votes in the Electoral College’s process
for determining presidents. (Does this sound familiar?)Counting
enslaved people as part of the state population could then influence
electoral outcomes. For example, Thomas Jefferson only won the
presidential election of 1800 because of the three-fifths clause.
There were
prohibitions against outlawing the Atlantic slave trade for at least
twenty years.
In addition to
protecting slavery as an institution, the Constitution upheld
slaveholders’ individual claims to enslaved people.
The Constitution
made the federal government responsible for putting down domestic
rebellions, particularly insurrections by enslaved people.
The fugitive
slave clause required the return of Black freedom seekers to the
slaveholders who claimed them as property.
The framers of
the Constitution believed that concessions on slavery were the price
for southern delegates’ support for a strong central government.
They were convinced that if the Constitution restricted the slave
trade, South Carolina and Georgia would refuse to join the Union. But
by intentionally refusing to specifically address the legality of
slavery in the document, the framers sowed the seeds for future
conflict.
After the
delegates approved this concession, Madison wrote: “It seems now to
be pretty well understood that the real difference of interests lies
not between the large and small but between the northern and southern
states. The institution of slavery and its consequences form the line
of discrimination.” Madison’s assessment was generally correct,
but the exceptions to this were numerous and important. These
exceptions were so significant that they highlight that there was
nothing inevitable about the Constitution’s approach to slavery.
The Constitution’s occasionally
convoluted/(extremely complicated) language and the omission of the
word “slavery” reflect the diverse and changing ideas of the
people who wrote it. Of the fifty-five delegates to the
Constitutional Convention, about twenty-five owned enslaved people,
but the other thirty had a wide range of views about slavery. Their
opinions did not always strictly follow the North and South divide.
George Mason, who enslaved
hundreds of people, spoke out against slavery in ringing terms during
the convention. “Slavery,” he said, “discourages arts and
manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.”
Slavery also corrupted slaveholders and threatened the country with
divine punishment, he believed: "Every master of slaves is born
a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a country.”
Mason’s concern was about the economic impact of slavery on free
white laborers and the moral impact of slavery on enslavers. Still
other delegates were fully in support of ensuring the continued
legality of slavery within the Constitution.
Other members of the
Constitutional Convention were ambivalent or in the process of
changing their minds on the matter. Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin
Franklin enslaved several people. He was also a member of an
anti-slavery society (Did his being a slave owner disqualify him as
an abolitionist?), would petition Congress to ban slavery in 1790,
and in his will freed all the enslaved people he claimed.
At the
Constitutional Convention, one key controversy arose about the future
of the Atlantic slave trade. The delegates ultimately settled on a
compromise: In exchange for twenty years of guaranteed federal
protection to continue the trans-Atlantic slave trade, (A
continuation of dehumanizing horrors perpetrated on black people to
placate slave owners.) southern delegates agreed to remove a clause
restricting the national government’s power to enact laws requiring
goods to be shipped on American vessels (which would have benefited
northeastern shipbuilders and sailors (and pad the pockets of those
businessmen at the expense of black peoples suffering).
The same day this
agreement was reached, the convention also adopted the fugitive slave
clause, requiring the return of Black freedom seekers to their
enslavers.
The Constitution
might have been permanently tainted by (NEGATIVE) compromises with
pro-slavery delegates except for two things: The Constitution created
a powerful federal government and included within the Constitution
were instructions for how to change and improve what this federal
government was required to do. The system for developing amendments
that the delegates agreed upon in 1787 was the system through which,
in the years immediately after the Civil War, the Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Amendments banned slavery and made formerly enslaved
people citizens. The Constitution that had at one point protected
slavery was ultimately what legally ended it. (Can it be truly
construed/interpreted that HOPE /FAITH SPRINGS ETERNAL despite those
that, “meant what they did for evil and God turned it to black
Americans good” as per Genesis 50:20 ?!?”)
And to think that all of this was done shortly after the delegates in
1789 drafted the preamble. How much COMMON SENSE DID THAT MAKE?
“John Bradford,
a 16th-century English reformer and preacher, who reportedly said,
"There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford," upon
seeing prisoners being led to their execution (slavery a slow type of
execution). One writer says the expression means, “It is a
recognition of human vulnerability and a rejection of
self-righteousness, often used when witnessing others suffer from bad
luck, illness, or poor choices (Like the Peculiar Institution of
black Slavery). History records that, “Ironically, Bradford himself
was eventually burned at the stake for his religious beliefs a few
years after he made these remarks.”
Lucien Price, a
writer, wrote an opinion piece that lends itself to the aspects of
faith and hope that has the potential to spring eternal. He says:
“The men who
founded your republic had an uncommonly clear grasp of the general
ideas that they wanted to put in here, then left the working out of
the details to later (American) interpreters(VIA AMENDMENTS TO THE
CONSTITUTION) (“WE THE PEOPLE” in 2026 and beyond), which has
been, on the whole, remarkably successful. I know of only three
times in the Western world when statesmen consciously took control of
historic destines: Periclean Athens, Rome under Augustus (Caesar),
and the founding of your American republic.”
WHAT, PRAY TELL
ME, HOW DO “WE, THE CURRENT PEOPLE OF THESE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA,” RESPOND TO THIS AUTHOR’S EPIPHANY AS TO OUR WORKING TO
IMPROVE OUR GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY
COMMON SENSE
REVISITED…
TO BE CONTINUED…
HOPE /FAITH
SPRINGS ETERNAL ?!?1776 TO 2026!
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