Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, and Religion

by David Barton

  In fact, Jefferson himself had introduced a bill in the Virginia Assembly designed to end slavery.51 However, not all of the southern Founders were opposed to slavery; according to the testimony of Virginians James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and John Rutledge, it was the Founders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia who favored slavery.52

  Yet, despite the support for slavery in those States, the clear majority of the Founders opposed this evil. For instance, when some of the southern pro-slavery advocates invoked the Bible in support of slavery, Elias Boudinot, President of the Continental Congress, quickly reminded them:

  [E]ven the sacred Scriptures had been quoted to justify this iniquitous traffic. It is true that the Egyptians held the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years, … but … gentlemen cannot forget the consequences that followed: they were delivered by a strong hand and stretched-out arm and it ought to be remembered that the Almighty Power that accomplished their deliverance is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.53

  Many of the Founding Fathers who had owned slaves as British citizens released them in the years following America’s separation from Great Britain (e.g., George Washington, John Dickinson, Caesar Rodney, William Livingston, George Wythe, John Randolph of Roanoke, and others). Furthermore, many of the Founders had never owned any slaves. For example, John Adams proclaimed, “[M]y opinion against it [slavery] has always been known … [N]ever in my life did I own a slave.”54

  Notice a few additional examples of the strong anti-slavery sentiments held by great numbers of the Founders:

  [W]hy keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil.55 CHARLES CARROLL, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

  As Congress is now to legislate for our extensive territory lately acquired, I pray to Heaven that they may build up the system of the government on the broad, strong, and sound principles of freedom. Curse not the inhabitants of those regions, and of the United States in general, with a permission to introduce bondage [slavery].56 JOHN DICKINSON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA

  That men should pray and fight for their own freedom and yet keep others in slavery is certainly acting a very inconsistent as well as unjust and perhaps impious part.57 JOHN JAY, PRESIDENT OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; ORIGINAL CHIEF JUSTICE U. S. SUPREME COURT

  The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other…. And with what execration [curse] should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other…. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.58 THOMAS JEFFERSON

  Christianity, by introducing into Europe the truest principles of humanity, universal benevolence, and brotherly love, had happily abolished civil slavery. Let us who profess the same religion practice its precepts … by agreeing to this duty.59 RICHARD HENRY LEE, PRESIDENT OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

  I hope we shall at last, and if it so please God I hope it may be during my life time, see this cursed thing [slavery] taken out…. For my part, whether in a public station or a private capacity, I shall always be prompt to contribute my assistance towards effecting so desirable an event.60 WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY

  [I]t ought to be considered that national crimes can only be and frequently are punished in this world by national punishments; and that the continuance of the slave-trade, and thus giving it a national sanction and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of Him who is equally Lord of all and who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master.61 LUTHER MARTIN, DELEGATE AT CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

  As much as I value a union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States into the Union unless they agree to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade [slavery].62 GEORGE MASON, FATHER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS

  Honored will that State be in the annals of history which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of mankind.63 JOSEPH REED, REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER; GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA

  Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity…. It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men.64 BENJAMIN RUSH, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

  Justice and humanity require it [the end of slavery] – Christianity commands it. Let every benevolent … pray for the glorious period when the last slave who fights for freedom shall be restored to the possession of that inestimable right.65 NOAH WEBSTER

  Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over the life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law…. The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all.66 JAMES WILSON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE

  [I]t is certainly unlawful to make inroads upon others … and take away their liberty by no better right than superior power.67 JOHN WITHERSPOON, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

  For many of the Founders, their feelings against slavery went beyond words. For example, in 1774, Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin helped found America’s first anti-slavery society; John Jay was president of a similar society in New York. In fact, when signer of the Constitution William Livingston heard of the New York society, he, as Governor of New Jersey, wrote them, offering:

  I would most ardently wish to become a member of it [the society in New York] and … I can safely promise them that neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity…. May the great and the equal Father of the human race, who has expressly declared His abhorrence of oppression, and that He is no respecter of persons, succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.68

  Other prominent Founding Fathers who were members of societies for ending slavery included Richard Bassett, James Madison, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll, William Few, John Marshall, Richard Stockton, Zephaniah Swift, and many more. In fact, based in part on the efforts of these Founders, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts took decisive steps to end slavery in 1780;69 Connecticut and Rhode Island did so in 1784;70 Vermont in 1786;71 New Hampshire in 1792;72 New York in 1799;73 and New Jersey did so in 1804.74

  Additionally, the reason that Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa all prohibited slavery was a Congressional act, authored by Constitution signer Rufus King75 and signed into law by President George Washington,76 which prohibited slavery in those territories.77 It is not surprising that Washington would sign such a law, for it was he who had declared:

  I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery].78

  The truth is that it was the Founders who were responsible for planting and nurturing the first seeds for the recognition of black equality and for the eventual end of slavery. This was a fact made clear by Richard Allen.

  Allen had been a slave in Pennsylvania but was freed after he converted his master to Christianity. A close friend of Benjamin Rush and several other Founding Fathers, Allen went on to become the founder of the AME Church in America. In an early address “To the People of Color,” he explained:

&n
bsp; Many of the white people have been instruments in the hands of God for our good, even such as have held us in captivity, [and] are now pleading our cause with earnestness and zeal.79

  While much progress was made by the Founders to end the institution of slavery, what they began was not achieved until years later.

  Yet, despite the strenuous effort of many Founders to recognize in practice that “all men are created equal,” charges persist to the opposite. In fact, revisionists even claim that the Constitution demonstrates that the Founders considered one who was black to be only three-fifths of a person. This charge is yet another falsehood.

  The three-fifths clause was not a measurement of human worth; rather, it was an anti-slavery provision to limit the political power of slavery’s proponents. By including only three-fifths of the total number of slaves in the congressional calculations, Southern States were actually being denied additional pro-slavery representatives in Congress.

  Based on the clear records of the Constitutional Convention, two prominent professors explain the meaning of the three-fifths clause:

  [T]he Constitution allowed Southern States to count three-fifths of their slaves toward the population that would determine numbers of representatives in the federal legislature. This clause is often singled out today as a sign of black dehumanization: they are only three-fifths human. But the provision applied to slaves, not blacks. That meant that free blacks – and there were many, North as well as South – counted the same as whites. More important, the fact that slaves were counted at all was a concession to slave owners. Southerners would have been glad to count their slaves as whole persons. It was the Northerners who did not want them counted, for why should the South be rewarded with more representatives, the more slaves they held?80 THOMAS WEST

  It was slavery’s opponents who succeeded in restricting the political power of the South by allowing them to count only three-fifths of their slave population in determining the number of congressional representatives. The three-fifths of a vote provision applied only to slaves, not to free blacks in either the North or South.81 WALTER WILLIAMS (emphasis added)

  Why do revisionists so often abuse and misportray the three-fifths clause? Professor Walter Williams (himself an African-American) further explained:

  Politicians, news media, college professors and leftists of other stripes are selling us lies and propaganda. To lay the groundwork for their increasingly successful attack on our Constitution, they must demean and criticize its authors. As Senator Joe Biden demonstrated during the Clarence Thomas hearings, the framers’ ideas about natural law must be trivialized or they must be seen as racists.82

  While this has been only a cursory examination of the Founders and slavery, it is nonetheless sufficient to demonstrate the absurdity of the insinuation that the Founders were a collective group of racists.

  In a totally different type of insinuation, it is frequently charged that religion has been dangerously negative and even has an often harmful influence on a society. For example, Frank Swancara, in his Obstruction of Justice by Religion, claims:

  [R]eligion poisons the judicial mind just as it has often affected the mental condition of the persecuting bigot.83

  This irrational conclusion is endorsed by those who, in an attempt to “prove” the adverse effect of religion on a society, point to several genuine atrocities perpetrated in the name of Christianity (e.g., the Salem Witch Trials, the Moors, the Crusades, the Inquisition, and even the World War II Holocaust, which many Jews attribute to Christians). In fact, if one tabulates the loss of lives occasioned by “Christian” conduct, the total which may be laid at the doorstep of Christianity over the past thousand years is perhaps 20 million.

  It is true that leaders who have claimed a Christian adherence have definitely committed numerous atrocities, yet it is also irrefutable that those without Christian connections have committed abundantly more. In fact, the number of lives lost at the hands of non- and anti-Christian leaders in the twentieth-century alone is staggering. Consider the 62 million killed by the Soviet Communists; the 35 million by the Communist Chinese; the 1.7 million by the Vietnamese Communists; the 1 million in the Polish Ethnic Cleansing; the 1 million in Yugoslavia; the 1.7 million in North Korea;84 etc.

  Furthermore, consider the deaths perpetrated by individual anti-Christian or anti-religious leaders. For example, Joseph Stalin murdered 42.7 million; Mao Tse-tung, 37.8 million; Vladimir Lenin, 4 million; Tojo Hideki, 4 million; Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge, 1 million; Yahya Khan, 1.5 million;85 and numerous other anti-Christian leaders could be listed.

  While the lives lost at the hands of Christians in the past thousand years number in the tens of millions, those lost at the hands of anti-Christians in only the past seventy-five years number in the hundreds of millions.

  Furthermore, the lives lost under the guise of Christianity should be categorized in greater detail. For example, historian Daniel Dorchester pointed out that although inhumanities have occurred in the name of Christianity, very few have occurred under the banner of American Christianity:

  These “dreadful and disgusting inhumanities” were perpetrated by whom? Refined and cultivated Europeans…. Such are the facts of modern history which should moderate our denunciations and charges of severity, brutality and narrow-mindedness against the colonial forefathers, who, it clearly appears, were much in advance of their times.86

  Ironically, the charge of the harmfulness of Christianity to a society is not new; when it was raised two-hundred years ago, signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon had a very forceful response:

  Let us try it by its fruits. Let us compare the temper and character of real Christians with those of infidels and see which of them best merits the approbation of an honest and impartial judge. Let us take in every circumstance that will contribute to make the comparison just and fair and see what will be the result…. In which of the two is to be found the greatest integrity and uprightness in their conduct between man and man? the most unfeigned good-will? and the most active beneficence to others? Is it the unbeliever or the Christian who clothes the naked and deals his bread to the hungry? Ask the many and noble ancient structures raised for the relief of the diseased and the poor to whom they owe their establishment and support?87

  The results, or what Witherspoon called the “fruits,” do speak for themselves. While Christianity certainly does not make men perfect, as it is demonstrable both historically and statistically, it does tend to restrain their naturally destructive behavior. As Ben Franklin reminded religious critic Thomas Paine:

  If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?88

  Insinuations and innuendos are applied against historical personalities for a simple purpose: if someone can be induced to reject the messenger, he will probably reject the message.

  5. Impugning Morality

  Impugning or belittling morality is a refined use of innuendoes and insinuations. Often, the charges which belittle morality are based on apparently viable historical evidence.

  For example, when many current works claim that George Washington had an ongoing and longlasting love for Sarah [nicknamed Sally] Fairfax during his marriage to Martha, they appear to invoke a credible basis – as James Thomas Flexner’s claim:

  That Washington fell in love with this wife of his friend and neighbor is proved by uncontrovertible documents. As we shall see … as an old man who had been separated from Sally by the Atlantic Ocean for more than a quarter of a century, he wrote her that all the events of the Revolution and his presidency had not “been able to eradicate from my mind those happy moments, the happiest of my life, which I have enjoyed in your company.”89

  This reference by Flexner is taken from a letter written by Washington to Sarah Fairfax in which he told her:

  None of which events, however, nor all of them together, have been able to eradicate from my mind the recollection of those happy moments, the happiest in my life, which I have enjoyed in your co
mpany.90

  Certainly, on its surface, this portion of Washington’s letter seems to imply that there was a special love relationship between him and Sarah Fairfax. Yet what is conspicuously absent from this revisionist claim is the rest of the letter, as well as the historical background providing the context for that letter.

  There was indeed a special relationship between Washington and the Fairfaxes – a relationship which began while he was a youth. The property of the Fairfaxes (a prominent Virginia family for whom Fairfax County is named) directly adjoined that of the Washingtons. As a boy of fifteen, Washington had begun frequent visits to that estate (named “Belvoir”) at which time William Fairfax, Sr., had befriended the young Washington, often taking him hunting. A strong and close friendship then developed between Washington and the family; and for a number of years, Washington spent many happy hours at that estate. When his dear friend, William, Jr., married Sarah, the strong friendship which Washington already enjoyed with William was broadened to include his new wife.