OT. The Signers of the Declaration

Yes, I've heard that on previous years. It's very interesting.

It's interesting to compare those people with the Framers of the Constitution. There is very little overlap and the Framers tended to be wealthy people intent on preserving their fortunes.

To a great extent that still describes all of the founding fathers. They were rich white guys who were pissed at paying taxes to the crown.

Well, the black population then was miniscule. What else was expected? Most of them lost everything but they fueled the funds for freedom.

"cshenk" snipped-for-privacy@virginia-beach.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Only 4% of the African slave trade went to America, and only 2% of southerners had slaves.

I'll still go with one of Gibson's lines early in 'The Patriot'. 'Why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants 1 mile away?'

This dismissal of good motives of the founding father, because they were rich, sounds rather communist to me. I'm surprised to see class warfare coming from Greg, and especially that he appears anti-rich.

But I will help you get out of that fix. It's not surprising, is it, that the leaders were those who were successful in other ways too. Is that not true in almost every situation? It's not surprising that they are the ones chosen, even maybe elected to be delegates to Philadelphia. Would one chose someone mediocre? It doesn't mean that the rest of the population, not counting Tories of course, didn't agree with the leaders, didn't enlist in the revolutionary army. Of course if you were poor, you only risked your life and your honor, not your fortune.

Here in Wilmington, DE they took down the statue of Caesar Rodney from Rodney Square because his family owned slaves. Caesar Rodney is famous for a midnight ride. Rodney's ride ended up at the doorstep of Independence Hall where he cast the decisive Delaware vote for Independence. This made Delaware the first state. I think when he took over the family inheritance he freed the slave.

They also took down the statue of Christopher Columbus.

As written, "them" could be mistakenly read to still be referring to the black population.

America includes north and south America. I presume you mean the British colonies in North Ameria.

Probably false, but if true, does that make the slavery in the British colonies and later the USA any better?

And btw, all the other countries in the western hemisphere ended their slavery before the US did, and afaik none had to fight a war to do it.

False. More like 20 or 25% or 30%.

So, according to the Census of 1860, 30.8 percent of the free families in the confederacy owned slaves. That means that every third white person in those states had a direct commitment to slavery.

For those who didn't own slaves, one has to wonder how the slave-owners manipulated them into fighting and in many cases dying to support something they didn't benefit from. One can probably learn a lot about this by watching how trump has manipulated so many Americans into supporting him, even though his own behaviour is antiamerican, and into supporting antiamerican activities directly.

You have to wonder what the motives are of those who circulated the false stories that prompted your post here. You should seriously doubt these "sources" in the future.

Most thing the war was abour slavery. It was not. It was about the federal government controlling what is going on in the states. NOw look at the mess the US is in. The Feds think they run everything and the states have almost no rights to do anything.

The US was origionally formed to come together for a defense against England. The congress was suppose to just meet for a short period of time each year. Now we have politicians that governing people is their only job.

Indeed. And Texas history comes into play here. Texas was pushing at the time (1840s) for independence. However, Britian would only support Texas independence if they rejected slavery.

To keep slavery, Texas instead pushed the US to annex Texas. Primarily due to SecState Calhoun (pro-slavery). At the democratic convention (recall that the Democratic party of 1844 platform was very similar to the Republican platform of 2016) in 1844, they declared for the "re-annexation of Texas" in the hope that Texas would not abolish slavery.

Calhoun was not honest about his goals, in particular with respect to his response to the British Ambassador's note regarding annexation. (See S. Doc. 341, pp 48-53; 36-67).

Actually, you are completely wrong as usual.

Yeah right. The Feds can't even run a Federal Election ! They leave it to the States to screw it up ... - each in thier own way .. geeesh. John T.

Lean history.

Slaves were a pretty expensive thing to have.

It is just an observation not a judgement.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are next.

I do think it is ironic that when the "evil plantation system" got started in the south those sanctimonious Massholes were still burning witches.

That was clearly the tail wagging the dog in Texas. Slavery was really just an East Texas, Gulf Coast thing. In central and west Texas they had black cowboys working along side the white guys and brown guys.

Yeah, that pesky constitution again.