Gouverneur Morris, The Constitution and Slavery

1787. James Madison Report on Gouverneur Morris’ Address to the Federal Constitutional Convention:

He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of heaven in the States where it prevailed.

Compare the free regions of the Middle States, where a rich & noble cultivation marks the prosperity & happiness of the people, with the misery & poverty which overspread the barren wastes of Virginia Maryland & the other States having slaves. Travel thro' the whole Continent & you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the East Streets and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible, passing thro' the Jerseys & entering Pennsylvania every criterion of superior improvement witnesses the change. Proceed southwordly and every step you take thro' the great region of slaves presents a desert increasing, with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings.

Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property? Why, then, is no other property included? The houses in this city (Philadelphia) are worth more than all the wretched slaves who cover the rice swamps of South Carolina.

The admission of slaves into the Representation when fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina who goes to the Coast of Africa, and in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections & damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a Govt. instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind, than the Citizen of Pa. and N. Jersey who views with a laudable horror, so nefarious a practice. ...

He would sooner submit himself to a tax for paying for all such Negroes in the United States, than saddle posterity with such a Constitution.

We The People: The Character of a Nation

Gouverneur Morris: Anti-slavery Founding Father

Gouverneur Morris was an anti-slavery Founding Father that wrote the Constitution's Preamble.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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.

FEITORIAS: Slave Forts

"CASTELO DE ARGUIM": A PORTUGUESE FORT IN MAURITANIA

Feitorias - a Spanish term meaning 'factories', these forts were established by European explorers in order to facilitate trade with non-European nations. Feitorias were built by Portuguese traders all along the west coast of Africa from whence they conducted trade with local African rulers. With the advent of the slave trade, these strongholds were used not only as trade centres for material goods but as depots to which slaves would be brought for purchase and from whence they would travel to the New World. The feitorias were usually heavily fortified, to protect their inhabitants from attack by both dissatisfied Africans as well as from the interests of other European powers, who saw the factories as strategically and financially valuable for the promotion of their own interests

ASIENTO de NEGROS: Negroes Contract

Asiento - also known as the asiento de negros (Spanish: "Negroes' contract"), the asiento was used from the early 16th to the mid-18th centuries C.E. and was an agreement between the Spanish crown and a private person or another sovereign power by which the latter was granted a monopoly in supplying African slaves for the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

The contractor (asentista) agreed to pay a certain amount of money to the crown for the monopoly and to deliver a stipulated number of male and female slaves for sale in the New World markets. Until the 18th century individual Spaniards, as well as Portugal, France, and Great Britain, entered into such contracts. In spite of heavy taxation, government interference, and unsettled trade conditions, all of which greatly curtailed the profitability of asientos, foreign powers sought the contracts because they provided the chance, however slim, to amass some of the gold and silver bullion produced by the slave trade. Source: Peopling North America: Population Movements & Migration

Work Songs

Work Songs in a Texas Prison


NPR's All Things Considered, September 3, 2006 - Men and women have long made music to accompany their labor. Musician Ted Gioia says that work songs are more than a musical genre, they're a transformational tool.

"It made the work less arduous, it made the hours roll by," Gioia says. "It allowed them to have some sort of mastery over their work conditions which were often very demeaning ones."

Ted Gioia, author of the new book Work Songs, shares some of his favorites with us. Click here to listen to the program.

Slave Spirituals

What’s in the songs? Let’s start with "Swing Low".

Horace Clarence Boyer, Musicologist : "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is kind of misleading, because it has a beautiful melody. It’s in what we call the major mode, and it has some wonderful words. But it’s kind of a sad song because it’s a song about death. I’ve often been fascinated by the fact that we were slaves singing about a chariot. And we all know that a chariot was reserved for nobility and the military. Why would slaves want to be in a chariot? Well, they wanted to be in a chariot because they’re going to heaven. They’re going to die. And it is the belief that "When I get to heaven, going to sing and shout. There’ll be nobody there to put me out." They will be like everybody else, so that they can ride in a chariot, "coming for to carry me home," which suggests that perhaps the smiling, shuffling, happy slave that we know so much about isn’t really all that happy, because they say, "Come and take me home," as if this world is not my home. And the wonderful reference to Jordan, of course, is a reference to death, because Jordan in the spiritual is death. Source: PBS The American Experience: "Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory."

Happy 2009!

Missouri Compromise 1820

The 1819 application for statehood by the Missouri Territory sparked a bitter debate in Congress over the issue of slavery in the new territories that had been created as a result of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Concerned that the South would have a representational advantage, Congressman James Tallmadge of New York introduced an amendment that would prohibit any further growth of slavery in Missouri, and would eventually set the children of Missouri's slaves free.

Despite "the difficulties and the dangers of having free blacks intermingling with slaves," Tallmadge declared, "I know the will of my constituents, and regardless of consequences, I will avow it; as their representative, I will proclaim their hatred to slavery in every shape." The bill passed in the House but failed to pass the Senate.

The issue was resolved with a two-part compromise. The northern part of Massachusetts became Maine and was admitted to the Union as a free state at the same time that Missouri was admitted as a slave state, thereby maintaining a balance of 12 slave and 12 free states.

In addition, an imaginary line was drawn at 36 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, and any portions of the Louisiana Territory lying north of the compromise line would be free; however, the act provided that fugitive slaves "escaping into any... state or territory of the United States...may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labour or service" -- and even in the free territories, "slavery and involuntary servitude ... in the punishment of crimes" was not prohibited.

Source: PBS.org

Daniel Walker Howe: The Secession Crisis from Chautauqua Institution and Chautauqua Institution on FORA.tv

John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825-1832)

From the website of the United States Senate: John C. Calhoun assumed office as the nation's seventh vice president on March 4, 1825, during a period of extraordinary political ferment. The

demise of the Federalist party after the War of 1812 had not, as former President James Monroe had hoped, ushered in an "Era of Good Feelings," free from party divisions. Contrary to Monroe's expectations, the partisan strife of earlier years had not abated during his two terms as president but had, instead, infected the Republican party, which had declined into a broad-based but rapidly disintegrating coalition of disparate elements. Five individuals, all of them Republicans, had entered the 1824 presidential contest, one of the most controversial and bitterly contested races in the nation's history. The "National Republicans," a group that included Calhoun, House Speaker Henry Clay, and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, supported an expansive, nationalist agenda; the "Radicals," allies of Treasury Secretary William Crawford, were strict constructionists and advocates of limited government. Other Republicans had rallied to the standard of Andrew Jackson, a former Tennessee senator and the military hero whose stunning victory at the Battle of New Orleans had salvaged the nation's pride during the War of 1812.

Calhoun initially believed that his break with Jackson would only enhance his chances of believed he might be able to reconcile southern agriculturalists and northern manufacturers with selective modifications in the tariff schedules. But events in South winning the presidency in 1832. He still enjoyed considerable support in the South and Carolina soon forced him to make public his position on the tariff and nullification, a move that effectively killed his chances of ever becoming president. In the summer of 1831, Calhoun protégé George McDuffie electrified a Charleston, South Carolina, audience with a fiery declamation advocating nullification and secession. Calhoun was horrified at this development, as well as by accounts that South Carolina merchants were refusing to pay duties that they considered unconstitutional.

A 1862 Bank of the State of South Carolina $1 Note featuring slaves and a statue of John C. Calhoun, advocate of nullification and State right. (source: Rebel State Currency.)

Calhoun had advanced the doctrine of nullification to provide southern states with a peaceful mechanism for obtaining redress of their grievances, never contemplating the possibility of disunion. He had not endorsed secession in his 1828 "Exposition," arguing that a state could veto and refuse to enforce any law it considered unconstitutional, but, if three fourths of the states subsequently affirmed the law, the nullifying state must defer to the collective will.

The Tariff of Abominations!

Confederate Currency

Bank of the State of South Carolina 1862$1 Note featuring slaves and a statue of John C. Calhoun, advocate of nullification and State right.

Source: Rebel State Currency.

Twelve presidents owned slaves

Twelve presidents owned slaves:

• George Washington
• James Madison
• Thomas Jefferson
• James Monroe
• Andrew Jackson
• Martin Van Buren
• William Henry Harrison
• John Tyler
• James K. Polk
• Zachary Taylor
• Andrew Johnson
• Ulysses S. Grant

Slave Grown Tobacco Money from Virginia

In 1618 without the African labor the colonist in Virginia were able to export 2,300 pounds of tobacco.

In 1622 with the labor of 25 African bodies the colonist were able to increase their tobacco exports to 60,000 pounds.

Four years later with those same 25 African laborers the increase was 300,000 pounds. Damn, those Negroes were working hard!

Move to 1775, the year before the Revolutionary War the Virginian colonist increased the enslaved population from 25 to 210,000 humans in perpetual bondage…on the dawn of the War for Freedom….does anyone see the irony……And what kind of yield did those 210,000 unpaid, unthanked, unappreciated, unnamed African slaves produce in Virginia tobacco exports…..100,000,000 pounds of tobacco.

Can you say somebody got really, really, really rich off of the labor of these men and women…..and their descendants are looked at as pathological and a governmental burden looking for a handout….If these black men and women were paid a fair wage for their labor and toil, from day one, maybe they wouldn’t need any money!

Tobacco Slavery

The tobacco industry made slavery profitable and Virginia tobacco slave owners rich. It was precisely the success of this crop that led to the mass importation of stolen African labor, and the vast wealth of old England and New England. Cigarettes, cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco are just badges of slavery’s ongoing legacy. You see it’s always with us and it never goes away.

I haven't received any tobacco dividends from MY family's Virginia tobacco slavery. Nope not one dime...not even an honorable mention in Philip Morris' or its parent company Altria's annual report.

Since 1990 the tobacco industry has “donated” a total of $59,410,256 to politicians of which 74% or $44,218,744 has gone into the Republican coffers. Did the descendants of the former tobacco slaves see one penny? Oh, Hell no!

I didn't say reparations, since that would mean that SOMEBODY was actually SORRY for centuries of unpaid labor....but, this country would rather gas African Americans Nazi-style than pay one penny for the hundreds of years of chattel slavery. Nooo ain't nobody sorry for JACK!

The image of Obama with a cigarette hearkens back to who we are, and who brought us here, and for what purpose. The tobacco is greasing a lot of political palms in Washington, DC and it has enriched nations families like the Windsors of England and the the Virginia delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Tobacco has long roots in this nation. But haha hehe, isn't dat what Sambo does fo Massa. Just grin and eat he watermelon. Hahaha teehee.

In the Old Dominion Virginia in 1620 the first Africans were sold to the English by the Dutch. Tobacco became the most profitable agricultural product in the Virginia colony; without which, the colony would have failed. In fact they paid each other in TOBACCO instead of money in Colonial Virginia. Slaves were often bought and sold for plantation work from slave blocks, in front of taverns and at courthouses and stores in Spotsylvania and Stafford.

Slaves planted and harvested the tobacco crop, built the tobacco shipping barrels (hogshead), delivered the tobacco crop to the inspections warehouses and loaded and unloaded the ships preparing for sail to England. Slaves did ALL the work to enrich those Virginia tobacco planters (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson et al) with no pay and not even a "Thank You for making me rich" card at Christmas.

Do you know any history of the tobacco industry, the original thirteen colonies and slavery? You can look at the nation's founders like the Virginia tobacco slavers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson they are like a tree while the slavery is the root system that feeds the tree and sustains its life. Slavery was the sine qua non to America's prosperity.

Original 13 States

Slavery was a legally recognized institution in all 13 original colonies that would eventually become states.

1. Delaware (Dec. 7, 1787)
2. Pennsylvania (Dec. 12, 1787)
3. New Jersey (Dec. 18, 1787)
4. Georgia (Jan. 2, 1788)
5. Connecticut (Jan. 9, 1788)
6. Massachusetts (Feb. 6, 1788)
7. Maryland (April 28, 1788)
8. South Carolina (May 23, 1788)
9. New Hampshire (June 21, 1788)
10. Virginia (June 25, 1788)
11. New York (July 26, 1788)
12. North Carolina (Nov. 21, 1789)
13. Rhode Island (May 29, 1790)

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth c(1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.
Alice Walker reads Sojourner Truth