tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post5823061817276263851..comments2024-03-14T13:25:20.613-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: The Declaration of Independence: The Deleted Scenes of HorrorUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-22083490633488950302013-07-06T00:51:35.431-05:002013-07-06T00:51:35.431-05:00"Emancipation was thus in the “marketplace of..."Emancipation was thus in the “marketplace of ideas” in America throughout the eighteenth-century. But the price was too high for most slaveholders and society at large."<br /><br />Yeah, sadly, but as Thomas Paine once said "time makes more converts that reason."Pacificushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12058712719235762139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-64917873090463068292013-07-05T23:04:38.464-05:002013-07-05T23:04:38.464-05:00Yes, the Quakers were the leaders in white society...Yes, the Quakers were the leaders in white society in ending slavery. Enslaved Africans often did their best to free themselves, of course, and some Native nations offered refuge to fleeing slaves. But those three groups were really the only organized opposition to slavery in British North America until after the Revolution began. <br /><br />Around 1700 Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston published a pamphlet called <i>The Selling of Joseph</i> which condemned slavery and the slave trade as contrary to (Puritan) Christian mores. It had little effect (one of Cotton Mather's sons complained to him about it), and I recently read that a few years later Sewall himself was back selling slaves. <br /><br />Emancipation was thus in the “marketplace of ideas” in America throughout the eighteenth-century. But the price was too high for most slaveholders and society at large. The Revolutionary rhetoric of liberty finally forced whites to measure up to their own ideals, first in Vermont (where there were few slaves), then in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-7103935194245805172013-07-05T22:48:03.119-05:002013-07-05T22:48:03.119-05:00Murray Rothbard, in his history of the colonies an...Murray Rothbard, in his history of the colonies and states up to the Constitution, called "Conceived in Liberty," had some interesting discoveries on early proposals/calls to end the slave trade and end slave holding as well, particularly among the Quakers among the colonies. Some of these guys came as early as the 1690s. And many Quakers more or less voluntarily freed their slaves and swore off slavery, both importation and slave holding itself, even though they couldn't achieve abolition through the assemblies. Check chapter 31 under Volume 2, "The Quakers and The Abolition of Slavery," which can be read for free at the following link, if you haven't already read it. Great book.<br /><br />http://library.mises.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/Conceived%20in%20Liberty_Vol_2.pdfPacificushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12058712719235762139noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-9602173772939491412013-07-05T20:34:52.865-05:002013-07-05T20:34:52.865-05:00Not without cramping his lifestyle. Not without cramping his lifestyle. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-15632773234903298702013-07-05T20:31:46.241-05:002013-07-05T20:31:46.241-05:00He couldn't AFFORD to follow his ideals!He couldn't AFFORD to follow his ideals!John L Smith Jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04209064146960498237noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-20387152325581589132013-07-05T17:29:51.954-05:002013-07-05T17:29:51.954-05:00Yes, when imports of anything are cut off, the peo...Yes, when imports of anything are cut off, the people who control the domestic supply (in this case, the largest slaveholders) benefit. I’ve never seen any evidence that Jefferson or other slaveholders supporting anti-slave-trade bills thought in those terms, though. He was definitely wrestling with a moral question here. Unfortunately, the moral question didn’t pin him down to following his ideals.J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-9411443490751260842013-07-05T13:31:07.368-05:002013-07-05T13:31:07.368-05:00Great post! The passage reads like an internal and...Great post! The passage reads like an internal and very personal debate within Jefferson -- also, should the trade have been abolished or inhibited in any significant manner, Jefferson's "property" would have grown in value.Byron DeLearnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-17042728930679297202013-07-05T12:36:46.349-05:002013-07-05T12:36:46.349-05:00J.L.! Great stuff! In Paris, hearing that the Cons...J.L.! Great stuff! In Paris, hearing that the Constitution was being constructed while he was gone, TJ wondered if THAT document would "be as compromised as our declaration of Independency"!John L Smith Jrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04209064146960498237noreply@blogger.com