Modern slavery

Google will give $11.5 million to fight slavery. Yes, slavery still exists today. You find it in Asia, Africa and South America.

American history today

I find it interesting when American history gets involved in our political debate. The recent Michele-George exchange over whether the Founders promoted the end of slavery is a case in point. Of course they hoped to end slavery. The Constitution was intended to put slavery "on the path of extinction." Congress banned the slave trade in 1808. Also note that the much-maligned three-fifths provision gave the slave states an incentive to end slavery because they could immediately increase their representation in Congress if they did so.

Bachmann vs Stephanopoulos

Michele Bachmann and George Stephanopoulos have an argument going over whether the Founding Fathers worked to end slavery. Guess who else made that argument? Abraham Lincoln in debates over the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

We are having a small historical controversy right here in Arkansas. On July 6, columnist Mike Masterson published a column in the ADG that was based on a speech he had attended. What he learned in his history classes was all wrong, he reports. Oh my. It seems like the Democrat party supported slavery in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and so on.

But today Elliott West of the Fayetteville history department takes issue with this version of events. As West says, the Missouri Compromise banned slavery north of Arkansas except for Missouri. The Fugitive Slave Act was part of the Compromise of 1850, which was put together by the Whig Henry Clay. Democrat Stephen A. Douglas was the leading force behind the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The GOP did not opposed slavery, West notes, only the expansion of slavery into new territories.

These events involved complex issues and compromises. There is enough blame to go around over slavery.

What we learn here is more about current politics of these writers than about American history. That is what this little tempest is all about.

FOX News: Harry Reid is under mounting pressure to apologize for his remark comparing Republican opposition to health care reform to supporters of slavery.

In the comment, Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era -- and during the women's suffrage and civil rights movements.
"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'slow down, stop everything, let's start over.' If you think you've heard these same excuses before, you're right," Reid said Monday. "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said 'slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough.'" 

The Republican party formed in 1854 in opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, sponsored by Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat. Republicans also favored civil rights throughout their history. Later it was Democrats who created Jim Crow.

Democrats were slave owners, a Democrat shot Abraham Lincoln. Harry Reid needs a course in American history.