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Stumpage Reports
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Thursday, January 30, 2003 :::
James Madison Tells It Like It Is
I've been reading a book called A Necessary Evil? Slavery and the Debate Over the Constitution. Of course I'm enjoying the hell out of it. It reprints all the debates at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that concerned slavery. The founding fathers did not want to even bring up slavery at the convention. The Constitution did not contain the word "slave" or "slavery" and the document and their debates show some pretty impressive linguistic gymnastics trying to avoid use of the word. I keep running across phrases like "persons in involuntary servitude" and "all other persons." On the surface, the states appeared to be dividing along the lines of small states vs large states, but leave it to James Madison of Virginia to come in and tell the truth:
"Mr. Madison contended the States were divided into different interests not by their difference of size, but by other circumstances; the most material which resulted partly from climate, but principally from the effects of their having or not having slaves. These two causes concurred in forming the great division of interests in the United States."
A lot of people say the events that led to the Civil War really started heating up in the 1830s with the rise of the abolition movement. Others claim the Compromise of 1850 or even the Missouri Compromise in 1820. I don't know, that date keeps getting pushed back for me, James Madison saw what was happening in 1787.
Quote of the Day:
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
--- Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death
::: posted by tom at 11:35 PM
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