Ji, Mary

8East, Humanities

June 15, 2003

In the Shadow of Hate

 

America’s Presidents – The Intolerable vs. Tolerable

 

          America today shows many form of intolerance and I would invite Presidents’ from the past to be in my talk show. Since American intolerance started way back, it would be exciting to hear what the Presidents’, who’s been dead for a while to hear about why they have never tolerated or have tolerated a specific group or race such as the Blacks during the slavery years. Americans’ in the past hid everything that would make America look terrible back, but they showed slavery. Even some of the Presidents’ own slaves when they still lived, while some of the Presidents’ thought it was inhumane and couldn’t bring them to buy any. This would give me a better understanding of the Presidents’ and what they thought about slavery throughout there years.

          There were many Presidents’ who had owned slaves when they were and weren’t President. President Washington [1732-1799] had owned slaves, and owned more when he married Martha. She raised the slaves he already owned by 200 more to 216 slaves. In 1876, Washington said that:

 

I can only say that no man living wishes more sincerely than I do to see the abolition of [slavery]…But when slaves who are happy & content to remain with their present masters, are tampered with & seduced to leave them… it introduces more evils than it can cure. [Hirschfield, p.187]

 

Washington’s words clearly state that he wanted to see slavery end, but if so, then why have he still owned slaves? This definitely shows how Presidents’, even the first were hypocrites and just say these things to make him, America look good. Washington wasn’t the only one who owned slaves during his presidency; the first Presidents’ may have owned slaves as well. Thomas Jefferson, the third President had owned slaves and was one of the largest slave owners in Virginia. In 1776, Jefferson wrote:

 

[King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms against us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he  also obtruded them thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. [Jefferson, 1984 p.22]

 

This was the first draft of what is today known as the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson. This paragraph about what he wrote was voted down by the Congressional Congress. Why do you think so? It was because this talked about how humans don’t give others liberty and freedom, and the Congressional Congress might have thought that this paragraph will make America look disgraceful.

          On the other hand, there were many Presidents’ who weren’t for slavery of the Blacks. Those who disliked slavery didn’t speak out, even if they were the President. James Adam, the second President said that:

 

I shudder when I think of the calamities which slavery is likely to produce in this country. You would think me mad if I were to describe my anticipations…If the gangrene is not stopped I can see nothing but insurrection of the blacks against the whites. [Smith, p. 138]

 

Adam believed that slavery would cause disasters in America and if it is not stopped, then the Black slaves would rebel against the White slave owners. If people only have listened, then the slave trade wouldn’t continue. Millard Fillmore, the United States 13th President was also against slavery when in 1850, he signed the Fugitive Slave Act and along with the act he said:

 

God knows that I detest slavery, but it is an existing evil, for which we are not responsible, and we must endure it, and give it such protection as is guaranteed by the constitution, till we can get rid of it without destroying the last hope of free government in the world. [Rayback, p.162]

 

The cause of slavery was because of the greed people have to make money and to control others. Presidents all have different opinions about slavery and out of the first 18 Presidents, 12 owned slaves while the other 6 didn’t. Most of them say that slavery is wrong but still, they owned slaves. Abraham Lincoln [1865], the 16th President said that:

 

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others.  Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally. [Lincoln, 1953, v8, p. 360-1]

 

Lincoln is saying that since Blacks are the slaves, why not the owners are in the same position as the Blacks and be sold off. Since Lincoln heard that the Confederates where going to start allowing Blacks into the army, he probably thought that the Blacks would die so that’s why the Whites are allowing them into the army. He must have believed that since so many people, including past Presidents encourage slavery, he wants to them to feel the same way as how the Blacks feel and treated.

Presidents themselves had owned slaves and disliked slavery. What have changed from now to then? Only that slavery ended, but what about other issues similar to this such as jailing people who are Middle Eastern because of what happened on 9/11. Isn’t this considered the same, just which they aren’t sold and told to work? Even the Presidents were with the slave trading when they were in Presidency, does that make it right to own one at all? Would you consider jailing innocent Middle Easterners from Brooklyn being the right thing to do? Is it just low for the government and especially President Bush? If you consider jailing Middle Eastern’ Men wrong, you should protest and let the government know that not everyone of the same Middle East is the same!