Ever since the colonists declared independence on Sunday, July 2, 1775, we’ve celebrated the following Tuesday as the birth of our nation, and venerated the Founding Fathers as the greatest political geniuses of all time.
Of course, it’s well known they were a cabal of slaveowners, and at least one of them (Thomas Jefferson) left black children in his wake; it’s hard to know how many were wife-beaters, as descendants are easier to trace than bruises and broken bones, which this article takes a run at for those interested.
But never mind all the gossip surrounding these luminaries; let’s talk about what they screwed up in the Constitution. (I’m referring here to what they screwed up, not what future Supreme Court justices screwed up — e.g., the flood of guns on our streets — by twisting and distorting their words, not to mention their intent, for their own sometimes-twisted political ends.
Two big things, says Joseph Ellis, an author of books about the Founding Fathers and a history professor who teaches at Mount Holyoke University.
“Ellis says that for all the genius of what they did and wrote, ‘they made a couple tragic mistakes: not addressing slavery or Indian removal. They could imagine defeating the world’s greatest power; they could imagine creating a new country and political system; they could imagine separation of church and state. But they could not imagine a biracial society.'”
In other words, the “1619 Project” is right: “[R]acism was systemically ingrained into the system and the society.” And it didn’t bother them a whit. Why would it? The Founding Fathers were all white supremacists and misogynists. Everybody was in those days, except for the three-fourths of the population of the new country who were slaves, women, and children. America was created by and for rich white landowners; everybody else was just unpaid labor. The point is, the whole business was a lot messier than you were taught in grade school.
You can’t say they didn’t create a more perfect union, compared to George III’s tyranny or the jury-rigged post-Revolution confederation of squabbling colonies, although that’s a pretty low bar for comparison; just don’t call it a “perfect” union, because it sure as hell wasn’t, and still isn’t, despite some improvements made since then (slavery was abolished, women can vote, etc.).
Today’s Republicans sure don’t think it’s perfect, even the improved version, inasmuch as they tried to overthrow it just six months ago; in fact, it appears to be the improvements they object to (such as the rest of us being allowed to vote, and the whole idea of majority rule).
Anyway, read the source article for this posting here. And I hope you had a happy July 2nd!
Image: One nation under what? Read that story here.
