Saturday, November 30, 2002 :::
Charles Pinckney: Advocate of the Southern Slave Power Conspiracy
This coming Tuesday, in my Colonial History class, we will be role playing as we recreate the debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1789 (yes, this is graduate school, not elementary school). My assigned role is Charles Pinckney, delegate from South Carolina and defender of slavery. I was researching my role today and found I get to do things like argue against the Bill of Rights and say things such as:
"Another reason weighed particularly with the members from this state against the insertion of a bill of rights, such bills generally begin with declaring, that all men are by nature born free, now we should make that declaration with a very bad grace, when a large part of our property consists in men who are actually born slaves."
At least the guy's honest, I guess.
Reading:
A Necessary Evil? Slavery and the Debate Over the Constitution edited by John Kaminski.
The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville by Wiley Sword
::: posted by tom at 3:56 PM
