In New York the universal toleration of all religious professions and sentiments is secured in the most ample manner. Notwithstanding this constitutional declaration carrying the doctrine of unlimited toleration as far as the peace and safety of any community will allow, the courts have decided that blasphemy was a crime at common law and was not abrogated by the constitution. The court finally addressed the arguments of “freedom of the press” and emphasized the responsibility which limited that freedom:
According to the argument every act, however injurious or criminal which can be committed by the use of language, may be committed if such language is printed. Not only therefore would the article in question become a general license for scandal, calumny slander and falsehood, all other crimes however atrocious, if conveyed in printed language, would be dispunishable. The Founders never intended the unlimited, unrestrained, and often unconscionable “freedom of the press” practiced today. In fact, Thomas Jefferson had declared:
While we deny that the federal Congress have a right to control the freedom of the press, we have ever asserted the right of the States, and their exclusive right, to do so. While many civil libertarians today cringe at the thought of “controlling” the press, the controls were actually those which common sense and reason dictated, and all were rooted within the concept of responsibility in fact, responsibility and the duty of stewardship is intrinsic to the preservation of every liberty.
Concerning the balance between the freedom of the press and the responsibility of the press, printer and publisher Benjamin Franklin explained: If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please; but if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating falsely accusing, and defaming one another, I, for my part am willing to part with my share of it whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law, and shall cheerfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself. QV96686234S8
For example, when Ohio territory applied for statehood in 1802, its enabling act required that Ohio form its government in a manner “not repugnant to the Ordinance.” Consequently, the Ohio constitution declared: Religion, morality, and knowledge being essentially necessary to the good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall forever be encouraged by legislative provision. While this requirement originally applied to all the territorial holdings of the United States in 1789 the Northwest Territory Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, as more territory was gradually ceded to the United States the Southern Territory Mississippi and Alabama, Congress applied the requirements of the Ordinance to that new territory.
Therefore, when Mississippi applied for statehood in 1817, Congress required that it form its government in a manner “not repugnant to the principles of the Ordinance.” Hence, the Mississippi constitution declared: Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged in this State.
Congress later extended the same requirements to the Missouri Territory Missouri and Arkansas and then on to subsequent territories. Consequently, the provision coupling religion and schools continued to appear in State constitutions for decades. For example, the 1858 Kansas constitution required: Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to make suitable provisions for the encouragement of schools and the means of instruction.
Similarly, the 1875 Nebraska constitution required: Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to pass suitable laws to encourage schools and the means of instruction.
Numerous other territorial papers and State constitutions past and present make it clear that the Founding Fathers never intended to separate religious instruction or religious activities from the public or official life of America. Yet today the Courts have misinterpreted the First Amendment and Article VI to prohibit exactly what the Founders intended to protect. The dilemma outlined in this chapter was succinctly described by Justice William Rehnquist in Wallace v. Jaffree: History must judge whether it was the Father of his Country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the First Amendment.
The North Carolina constitution similarly prohibited from office those who denied “the truth of the Protestant religion” or who held “religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State.” However, as already noted, this was not a rejection of Roman Catholics in general, just of those who embraced doctrines “subversive of a free government established by the people.” In fact, when the people of North Carolina later amended their constitution, they maintained the clause excluding from office those who held “religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State,” but they changed “Protestant” to “Christian,” thus acknowledging that many American Catholics did not embrace this doctrine.
However, returning to the issue of religion in the federal Constitution, the first ten amendments were enacted solely to limit the jurisdiction of the federal government. Furthermore, it was acknowledged that the States had the legitimate power to prescribe State religious establishments. Therefore, the sole purpose of the First Amendment was to prevent the federal government from usurping this specific State power. Strikingly, however, although the States reserved this power, none of the State constitutions from the time of the American Revolution or thereafter established any single State denomination; most provided equal protection for all.
For example, in the framing of the Massachusetts constitution, John Adams explained that “the debates were managed by persons of various denominations” and that the “delegates did not conceive themselves to be vested with power to set up one denomination of Christians above another.” Numerous other States enacted similar provisions. Notice and every denomination of Christians shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sector denomination to another shall ever be established by law.
There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in preference to another.
There shall be no establishment of any one religious church or denomination in this State in preference to any other.
And each and every society or denomination of Christians in this State shall have and enjoy the same and equal powers, rights, and privileges.
Summarizing this tone, in 1793, Zephaniah Swift author of America’s first law textbook explained: Christians of different denominations ought to consider that the law knows no distinction among them; that they are all established upon the broad basis of equal liberty, that they have a right to think, speak, and worship as they please, and that no sect has power to injure and oppress another. When they reflect that they are equally under the protection of the law, all will revere and love the constitution, and feel interested in the support of the government. No denomination can pride themselves in the enjoyment of superior and exclusive powers and immunities.
Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower with Frederic Morrow the first African American to serve on the executive staff of the white house. After his re election, Eisenhower continued his civil rights efforts, but both the House and Senate were in Democratic control. In 1957, he proposed a bold civil rights bill to increase black voting rights and protections proposals promptly blocked by Democratic Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In fact, Eastland is credited with killing every civil rights bill that came before his committee in the 1950s, and his committee was literally known as the burial ground for civil rights legislation in the U. S. Senate. When Senate Republicans sought to keep Eisenhower’s civil rights bill from going to Eastland’s burial ground, only 10 Senate Democrats joined in that effort. Nevertheless, those few Democrats combined with the strong Republican numbers were sufficient; they were able to prevent Eisenhower’s bill from going to Eastland’s committee.
With Eastland unable to kill the bill in his committee, other Senate Democrats responded with a filibuster against the civil rights bill. In fact, South Carolina’s Senator Strom Thurmond, still a Democrat at that time, set the record in the U. S. Senate for the longest individual filibuster speech ever given in Senate history over twenty four hours of continual speaking in his attempts to block Eisenhower’s 1957 Civil Rights Bill. The stiff Democratic opposition in the Senate resulted in a very watered down version of Eisenhower’s original bill.
Yet, despite the fact that the bill was much weaker than introduced, Eisenhower did succeed in creating a Civil Rights Division within the U. S. Justice Department, as had earlier been proposed by his predecessor, President Truman. This division subsequently played a prominent role in helping secure civil rights in the South during the 1960s and 1970s. That law also started a Civil Rights Commission that became instrumental in publicizing the effects of southern segregation and racial oppression.
So great were the gains of blacks through the Republican Party those Democrats begun to fight back not only as they had in Georgia through the manipulation of laws and election results, but also literally as in Louisiana. Recall that black Americans had made huge gains in Louisiana with the election of 127 black legislators and even a black lieutenant governor, P. B. S. Pinchback, who later served as State governor. To halt such progress, in 1866, Democrats – in conjunction with the city police and the Democratic mayor of New Orleans – physically attacked the Republican Convention in that city, killing 40 blacks, 20 whites, and wounding 150 others. Democrats later rushed the floor of the Louisiana Legislature to seize power by force away from the elected black Republicans, but federal troops arrived to restore peace and return African Americans to their lawfully elected positions. Similar violent and often deadly attacks by Democrats against Republicans also occurred in other States.
While much early Democratic opposition occurred on a State by State or local basis, in 1866 Democrats formed a group that became an 1868 report of democrats expelling black leaders’ P.B.S. Pinchback national. Its declared purpose was to break down the Republican government and pave the way for Democrats to regain control in the elections. What was the name of that group? The Ku Klux Klan. 146 democrats rushed the legislature to expel black republicans democrats attacked and killed both black and white republicans 1872 congressional documents irrefutably prove that democrats started the Ku Klux Klan.
Although it is relatively unreported today, historical documents are unequivocal that the Klan was established by Democrats and that the Klan played a prominent role in the Democratic Party. In fact, a thirteen volume set of congressional investigations from 1872 conclusively and irrefutably documents that fact. Contributing to the evidences was the 1871 appearance before Congress of leading
South Carolina Democrat E. W. Seibels who testified that “they the Ku Klux Klan belong to the reform party – that is, to our party, the Democratic Party.”
The Klan terrorized black Americans through murders and public floggings; relief was granted only if individuals promised not to vote for Republican tickets, and violation of this oath was punishable by death. Since the Klan targeted Republicans in general, it did not limit its violence simply to black Republicans; white Republicans were also included. In 1871, Joseph Hayne
Rainey, a black U. S. Congressman from South Carolina, reported the klan hung republicans, white as well as black an incident concerning an elderly man named Dr. John Winsmith, a white Republican State Senator:
The doctor, a man nearly seventy years of age, had been to town during the day and was seen and talked with by many of our citizens. Returning home late, he soon afterward retired, worn out and exhausted by the labors of the day. A little after midnight he was aroused by someone knocking violently at his front door. The doctor arose, opened the door, and saw two men in disguise standing before him. The doctor immediately stepped back into the room, picked up two single-barreled pistols lying upon the bureau, and returned to the open door. At his reappearance the men retreated behind some cedar trees standing in the yard. The doctor, in his night clothes, boldly stepped out into the yard and followed them. He continued to advance, when twenty or thirty shots were fired at him by men crouched behind an orange hedge. He fired his remaining pistol and then attempted to return to the house. Before reaching it, however, he sank upon the ground exhausted by the loss of blood and pain, occasioned by seven wounds which he had received in various parts of his body. As soon as he fell, the assassins mounted their horses and rode away. He had joined the Republican Party in the fall of 1870; and for this alliance and this alone he has been vehemently assailed and murderously assaulted. Because he has dared become a Republican he has become the doomed victim of the murderous Ku Klux Klan
While Republicans were working to end slavery and secure civil rights, the new nation of southern Democrats was determined to head in an opposite direction. In fact, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens delivered an 1861 speech entitled: “African Slavery: The Corner Stone of the Southern Confederacy.” In that speech, Stephens first correctly acknowledged that the Founding Fathers even those from the South had never intended for slavery to remain in America: 1864 freedmen’s bill, 1864 military pay bill democrat Alexander Stephens’ speech as vice president of the confederacy.
The prevailing ideas entertained by him Thomas Jefferson and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature that it was wrong in principle socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that somehow or other, in the order of Providence the institution would be evanescent temporary and pass away.
So what did Vice President Stephens and the new Confederate nation think about these anti slavery ideas of the Founding Fathers? Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races.
This was an error. And the idea of a government built upon it. Our new government the Confederate States of America is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery subordination to the superior white race is his natural and moral condition. This our new Confederate government is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
There was indeed a clear difference between the philosophies of Republicans and Democrats on the issue of race and racial equality. Southern Democrats had been willing to form an entire nation on the foundation of white supremacy and there was no doubt that the South was strongly Democratic. As a leading South Carolina Democrat testified during an 1871 congressional hearing: democrat Alexander Stephens
Almost nine hundred and ninety nine out of every thousand of the decent people of South Carolina belong to the Democratic Party; the Republican Party is composed entirely of the colored people. When it came time for the presidential election of 1864, southern Democrats were still fighting against the Union; therefore, the presidential candidate for the Democrats that year was a Northern Democrat: Union General George B. McClellan. Although McClellan was actually running for president against his own commander-in-chief, there was a clear difference between the two. In fact, Abraham Lincoln had twice replaced McClellan for failing to obey Lincoln’s orders to launch aggressive attacks against the Confederacy.
The Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble; consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? Or is it in the temple? It is neither. If the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slaveholding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it? Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand, it will be found to contain principles and purposes entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.
But if the Constitution is not pro-slavery, then what about the Three-Fifths Clause? Had Douglass not read that clause? Yes, he had. Then how could he conclude what he did about the Constitution? Douglass understood that the Three-Fifths Clause dealt only with representation and not the worth of any individual. The Constitution had established that for every 30,000 inhabitants in a State, that State would receive one representative to Congress.
The southern States saw this as an opportunity to strengthen slavery since slaves accounted for much of the southern population. Therefore, slave owners could simply count their slaves as regular inhabitants, and by so doing could greatly increase the number of their pro-slavery representatives to Congress.
Of course, the anti-slavery Founders from the North strenuously objected to this plan. After all, slave owners did not consider their slaves to be persons but only property; these slave-owners were therefore using their “property” to increase the power of the slave States in Congress. The anti-slavery leaders wanted Free Blacks counted, but not slaves if counting slaves would increase the power of slave owners. They understood that the fewer the pro-slavery representatives to Congress, the sooner slavery could be eradicated from the nation. Governor Morris a signer of the Constitution and a strong opponent of slavery therefore argued:
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! .
But the admission of slaves into the representation 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 and damns them to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a government instituted for protection of the rights of mankind than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey who views with a laudable horror so nefarious wicked a practice.
Although the history of black Americans begins in 1619 with the arrival of the first slaves in America, the political history of black Americans actually begins much later, in 1787 – the year in which the American political system was constructed – the year in which the Constitution was written. Today, many critics assert that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document, and to prove this, they point to the Three-Fifths Clause, claiming that the Constitution says that blacks are only three-fifths of a person.
One of the earliest black Americans to investigate this claim was the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Douglass had been born into slavery and remained a slave until he escaped to New York in 1838. Three years after his escape, he delivered an anti-slavery speech in Massachusetts. He was promptly hired to work for the State’s anti-slavery society, and he also served as a preacher at Zion Methodist Church.
During the Civil War, Douglass helped recruit the first black regiment to fight for the Union, and he advised Abraham Lincoln on the Emancipation Proclamation Frederick Douglass fleeing from slavery and other important issues. Following the Civil War, Douglass received Presidential appointments from Republican Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James A. Garfield. Democratic President Grover Cleveland removed Frederick Douglass from office but Republican President Benjamin Harrison reappointed him.
During Douglass’s first years of freedom, he studied at the feet of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, who taught him that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document. 19 Douglass accepted this claim, and his early speeches and writings reflected that belief. However, Douglass later began to research the subject for him; he read the Constitution; he read the writings of those who wrote the Constitution; and what he found revolutionized his thinking. He concluded that the Constitution was not a pro-slavery but an anti-slavery document.
He explained: I was, on the anti-slavery question . . . fully committed to doctrine touching the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. . . . I advocated it with pen and tongue, according to the best of my ability. . . . Upon a reconsideration of the whole subject, I became convinced . . . that the Constitution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery but, on the contrary, it is in its letter and spirit an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence as the supreme law of the land. Here was a radical change in my opinions. . . . Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact with a class of abolitionists regarding the Constitution as a slaveholding instrument . . . it is not strange that I assumed the Constitution to be just what their interpretation made it. . . . But I was now conducted to the conclusion that the Constitution of the United States . . . was not designed . . . to maintain and perpetuate a system of . . . slavery – especially as not one word can be found in the Constitution to authorize such a belief.
Roger Sherman, a distinguished Founding Father and a signer of the Constitution, was also a Christian theologian! His contributions to America were so great that he is one of those honored with a statue at the Capitol, located in East Central Hall.
William Samuel Johnson is also seated at the table in the painting. In addition to signing the Constitution, he was also a leading educator of his day, becoming the first president of Columbia (formerly King’s) College. In an exercise which we still practice today, Johnson was a speaker at a public graduation. Notice his words to the graduates:
David Barton tells us that this day. . . . have, by the favor of Providence and the attention of friends, received a public education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country. You have this day invited this audience to witness the progress you have made. . . . Thus you assume the character of scholars, of men, and of citizens. . . . Go, then, . . . and exercise them with diligence, fidelity, and zeal. . . . Your first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer. Let these be ever present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and conduct. Imprint deep upon your minds the principles of piety towards God, and a reverence and fear of His holy name. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and its [practice] is everlasting [happiness]. . . . Reflect deeply and often upon [your] relations [with God]. Remember that it is in God you live and move and have your being, – that, in the language of David, He is about your bed and about your path and spieth out all your ways, – that there is not a thought in your hearts, nor a word upon your tongues, but lo! He knoweth them altogether, and that He will one day call you to a strict account for all your conduct in this mortal life.
Over the landing of the second-floor steps leading up to the Visitors’ Gallery for the House of Representatives is a huge painting (20’by 30’) of the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787. gov. jonathan trumbull
A GUIDE TO IDENTIFYING SIGNERS OF THE CONSTITUTION
1. george washington, va
2. benjamin franklin, pa
3. james madison, va
4. alexander hamilton, ny
5. gouverneur morris, pa
6. robert morris, pa
7. james wilson, pa
8. charles cotesworth pinckney, sc
9. charles pinckney, sc
10. john rutledge, sc
11. pierce butler, sc
12. roger sherman, ct
13. william samuel johnson, ct
14. james mchenry, md
15. george read, de
16. richard bassett, de
17. richard dobbs spaight, nc
18. william blout, nc
19. hugh williamson, nc
20. daniel genifer of st. thomas, md
21. rufus king, ma
22. nathaniel gorham, ma
23. jonathan dayton, nj
24. daniel carroll, md
25. william few, ga
26. abraham baldwin, ga
27. john langdon, nh
28. nicholas gilman, nh
29. william livingston, nj
30. william paterson, nj
31. thomas mifflin, pa
32. george clymer, pa
33. thomas fitzsimmons, pa
34. jared ingersoll, pa
35. gunning bedford, jr. de
36. david brearley, nj
37. john dickinson, de
38. john blair, va
39. jacob broom, de
40. william jackson, sc, secretary
were mentioned, that would not be the complete story; on the other hand, if only David and his victories were listed, neither would that be the complete story. It takes all sides of a story to see the full, accurate picture. So the Bible (and early writers in black history) illustrate the principle that the good, the bad, and the ugly must be presented in order to transmit the full story not only of history in general but of African American political history in particular – which is the policy that will be pursued in this work. In this chronological journey through many momentous events in black political history, both the people and the issues involved in those early events will be examined.