Florida Tries To Remake Slavery Into “A Blessing, A Right, And A Religious Charity”
Oppression has no benefit.
Slowly—and haphazardly—I have been reading Cassius Marcellus Clay's autobiography. He's someone who I've touched on before who Republicans would love to erase from American history if they got their way. A letter he wrote in 1850 on the subject of slavery is a bit meandering, a slice of a longer back-and-forth between him and Daniel Webster, but the news that the Florida State Board of Education adopted some propagandistic standards for teaching American history got me thinking of one particular quote:
"That which was a curse, a wrong, and a sin in 1787, by one hundred of millions of dollars in 1850, is converted into a blessing, a right, and a religious charity."
This is what Ron DeSantis and his collection of wannabe Klansmen are doing in Florida. He and his goons are rehabilitating the violence of racist oppression into something children will be taught was beneficial for the enslaved American. He's borrowing unoriginal talking points peddled by bigots for over a century used to sanitize America's brutal, Christian-based barbarism, and he's successfully injecting his heinous ideas into public education.
The argument that there is a benefit to being a slave stems from the same idea that slavery needed to be a political necessity in early America, which Clay also rejected in his 1850 letter to Webster. He wrote that such an argument was "the father of murder, of robbery, and all religious and government tyranny. This is a damnable doctrine upon which was built the inquisition, the star-chamber, and the guillotine."
Florida's new pro-slavery, pro-Confederate, pro-KKK curriculum is the groundwork Republicans need for placating American citizens into accepting slavery, concentration camps, forced sterilization, and genocide as justified means in creating a nation when it only exposes profound weakness, fear, and corruption.
You can read Clay's letter in full below:
Madison Co., Ky., March 25, 1850.
Hon. DANIEL WEBSTER—
DEAR SIR: —Your reflections upon fanatics are ingenious, and, in the main, just. Fanatics, upon a small scale, are especially annoying. They interrupt the current of human opinions, without turning the channel, or enlarging its bounds. But the evolution of a "single idea,” when it lies at the foundations of society and government, is one of the boldest, most useful, and glorious of human achievements. The great battles of human freedom and true morals have been won by just such men you describe. I need hardly mention examples. Take the human life of Christ himself. He was a fanatic to the Jews and Gentiles.
To the Jews "a stumbling block,” to the Greeks "foolishness,” and to the Romans an innovator—"turning things upside down.” After all, the new ideas which He introduced into the world were few, but of immense importance—underlying the whole fabric of human society and government. By a subtle analysis of the human heart, he enunciated a rule of conduct which is applicable to all possible emergencies of moral action: “Do unto others you would others should do unto you.” The other idea was the rejection of all physical peace-offerings to God. The doctrine of material sacrifice was worldwide, and pervaded all classes of society—more fixed and universal in human opinion, perhaps, than any other idea.
This He rejected, and restored nature to herself. Teaching that the true worship of God was the perfecting of His greatest work—man. Enlighten the intellect; purify the soul; and beautify the body—these are the three basis of all true worship of God. And, if so, our fanatical friends, the Northern Abolitionists, are not so narrow in their ideas as one may suppose. Slavery is in direct antagonism to the only elements of human civilization and progress.
Are not, then, the great mass of cavillers at the “one-ideaists” themselves to be pitied, who can not see their great truth! I imagine to myself John C. Calhoun listening to your strictures upon fanatics. Now one, and then another, of these “odious agitators," pass in the memory's review: first Hale and Giddings; and then, as you dilate upon the subject, William L. Garrison, the arch-fanatic, appears. He enjoys the sport; you mend your peace; he is in ecstasies; the “fun grows fast and furious,” till, like Tam O’Shanter, he can contain himself no longer—“Well done,’” he cries! “Quid rides? De te fabula narratur!” Daniel Webster denounces fanatics!—the greatest of fanatics applauds!
Slavery is in direct antagonism to the only elements of human civilization and progress.
“Impatient men” there are, no doubt, too. Some of them have been waiting for sixty years, and more, for slavery to “die out;” and yet it seems as unwilling to give up on the ghost as it did in 1787! How much longer must we patiently wait? How long do you think the slave-holders would have us wait? They are proverbially liberal, sir; leave it to them, and we should be as well of as Sheridan’s creditors!—“the day after judgment” would be soon enough! I do not see the appositeness of your parallel between the rise of Christianity and the fall of Slavery. Moral truth is one thing, and political action is another. We can not compel belief, but we can action. In Niblo’s garden, in 1837, your perceptions seemed to be somewhat clearer. You hardly have regarded it as a good reason for setting up slavery in Texas, where Mexico had abolished it, that the Christian religion had been a long time in existence, and had not yet subjected all the world!
“Impatience,” if the South was in good faith making efforts and sacrifices to extinguish slavery, would be worthy of denunciation. But, when they are doing the very opposite, such ill-timed sympathy will hardly be set down, by impartial men, as the fruit of an enlarged charity! And moral insensibility is worse than fanaticism! It may be true that society, left to itself, in all cases, may right itself at last. Soil, by bad culture, may in a single year waste the accumulations of centuries! True, centuries will restore it, but is it the part of wisdom to take the remedy instead of the prevention? So, sir, it is with regard to government and morals. Your idea, that moral truth is not capable of demonstration as is mathematics, is now admitted by the best thinkers to be founded in error.
The method is different, but the result—certainly—is equally attainable, though the process be more difficult and the data more complicated. But what if true? The standard of every man’s action must be at last what he believes right. You seem, however, to follow a learned magistrate, such as the great West sometimes boast: “He was satisfied, from all the evidence, that the complainant ought to gain his suit; but out of an abundance of caution, he would decide for the defendant!” Your charity toward Southern Christianity is in part well based. There are many, many, conscientious slave-holders; but they are the “weaker brethren.” The leading minds among them are as finished Jesuits and swindling hypocrites as ever wore a black gown! The regular slave-traders are infinitely better men!
The opinion of the fathers of the Government were as you say. It was expected that slavery would “run out.”
Sherman and Madison and others were not willing to allow that man could have property in man. Those who had just made solemn avowals to the world of the right of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were ashamed to put the world slavery into the Constitution. Washington and others looked forward to an early extinction of slavery as a fixed fact. All, all united in denouncing it as an evil. Some, as a curse, a wrong, and a sin.
Will any man deny, from all the evidence in the premises, that it was part of “the compromise” that slavery was allowed time to merely die with decency! The Ordinance of 1787, prohibiting slavery north of the Ohio, was coeval with the Constitution. The time of the slave-importation was limited; and the institution of was denounced.
Now, sir, when so much is said about “good faith” and “compromise,” might not one who comprehended the “great mission:” of our nation (such is the cant phrase!) have said to the slave propagandists, you are at war with nature—at war with the advance of Christianity; at war with the progress of civilization; at war with our avowed sentiments and the organic law of our Government; at war with the spirit of the national “co-partnership;” at war with “the compromises of the Constitution;” at war with every pure conscience—and ought to be and will be, “resisted at all hazard and to the last extremity!”
Pardon me, I think such a declaration was to have been expected from you. Allow me to say, it would have done more even to “preserve the Union” than all your “moderation” and all your “charity.” I refer you to Governor Hammond as my authority for saying that “moderation,” “charity,” and “moral suasion” are, with slave-holders, synonymous with cowardice, impertinence, and “nonsense!”
The main cause of the abandonment by the South of the faith in our fathers is, as you state it, the increase of the cotton crop. But this cause has passed the north of Mason and Dixon’s line, and produced a change of tone in both free and slave States.
The cause is one thing; the justification is another. Your defense of the South is characteristic of the legal profession. What are truth and right in the face of one hundred millions of dollars?
I do not see the appositeness of your parallel between the rise of Christianity and the fall of Slavery. Moral truth is one thing, and political action is another. We can not compel belief, but we can action.
That which was a curse, a wrong, and a sin in 1787, by one hundred of millions of dollars in 1850, is converted into a blessing, a right, and a religious charity.
As much as I abhor slavery, I abhor the defense more. One strikes down the liberty of the African; the other, mine. One enslaves a people; the other, the human race. The one avowedly prostrates only political rights; the other saps the foundations of morals and civil safety, also. This “political necessity” is the father of murder, of robbery, and all religious and government tyranny. This is a damnable doctrine upon which was built the inquisition, the star-chamber, and the guillotine.
No sir, that which is the fault in individuals, is a crime in governments. We can guard against the danger of a single assassin, but a government is irresistible and immortal in its criminal inflictions.
The doctrine that individual honesty is compatible with political profligacy, or that individual and governmental responsibility are distinct, is one of the boldest sophisms that was ever allowed to linger among the shallow falsehoods of the past.
Retribution follows swift in the footsteps of crime, whether perpetrated by one or a thousand. “Though hand join to hand,” the wicked shall not stand. The poisoned chalice of slave-holding propagandism is already commended to their own lips. Their spirit of aggression has awakened a like spirit of resistance. They would have Texas; we will have California! Yes, sir; though cotton and cotton mills perish forever! The unconstitutional precedent of a simple majority of both Houses taking in slave states, will in turn crush the political power of the South to atoms. Then how long will her God-defying tyranny stand before the hot indignation of a world in arms.
Respectfully, your obedience service.
C. M. Clay
Read the letter as printed in The National Era, April 25, 1850.
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