Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Treaty. I hope that you all are well and that you're having a great summer so far. I actually found out this past weekend that a dear friend of mine who I guess knew for about 10 years almost. He was 96 years old, born on May 1st, 1925. I heard from a friend that he passed away on June the 25th of this year. So I was saddened by that, but at the same time, I know he's in a better place. And aside from that, I'm grateful to know that he is a friend and a brother, even though he was certainly old enough to be my uh my dad. But in any case, uh I will miss him. And I talked to him, I believe, last on his birthday or around the holidays, I can't remember which now. But uh in any case, he ran a full life and he lived well, and he is somebody that I think of often. As many of you know, if not most of you, unless you're new to this podcast, this podcast is dedicated to the principles of liberty and freedom, those truths that are espoused in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If I tend to talk about these founding documents a lot, it's for good reason. I believe that it's something that we need to talk about often, because in many cases it seems to me the founding documents of our country are being swept under the rug and not discussed as they should be. And so I will definitely do that on this podcast. I will do it often and without shame and very proudly, because I am proud of the fact that I am an American citizen and that many people who have come from other nations are also or can be citizens of this great nation. On the day after Independence Day, I was listening to a radio show interview while in my car. I listened only for a few minutes. The host and a guest were talking about the Constitution. So, of course, I was interested in what the guest had to say. And the guest made a comment that essentially the founders didn't believe or could not have believed that all men were created equal because of the issue of slavery. Now, I was somewhat taken aback by this comment, not because slavery wasn't an abhorrent stain on our history, it certainly was, but because of his presumptive nature, that somehow he was speaking as though he knew the hearts and minds of the founders. And I also presumed that this guest on this radio show was some sort of expert on the Constitution or the Founders or both. As I mentioned, I was in my car listening to this radio show, and at some point I switched to another station before I actually could hear who the gentleman was or what his credentials were or are. Nevertheless, I want to share some thoughts about the things that I heard this man say. Let me begin by saying that the history of slavery goes back to the beginning of time. It wasn't something that was created in 1619 or in any other century leading up to the founding of our country. In other words, no matter how despicable slavery was and is, it was a fact that touched pretty much every culture and society throughout the world. Slavery was and remains today an abomination. Whether we're talking forced labor enacted against those who are crossing our southern border illegally in order to pay off a so-called debt to their handlers, or any other human trafficking sin that takes nefarious advantage of another human being, and even the labor that involves deplorable working conditions, wages that are not commensurate with the work performed, these are all examples of modern-day slavery. Context is a very important aspect of any discussion. So I want to provide some context regarding the chronology of slavery. I want to read from a document that was produced by Reuters back in 2007. And let me preface these items that I'm going to read by saying that laws are great and wonderful if they're designed to help the people to progress and to protect people. But oftentimes, and this is so throughout pretty much every civilized society, when laws are made, including laws that were made at the time of the founding and post-founding documents, unfortunately, they needed some traction to actually become effective or effectual in the lives of the people. It's true with a lot of other countries. It's true certainly in the United States. Generations passed here in the United States before the laws that we have come to accept as codified in the Constitution and the subsequent amendments to the Constitution did not bless the lives of all the people in the country. Here's the chronology from the Reuters piece. 1777, the state of Vermont, an independent republic after the American Revolution, becomes the first sovereign state to abolish slavery. In 1787, the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded. In 1792, Denmark banned the import of slaves to its West Indies colonies, but it did not take effect until 1803. Then in 1807, Britain passed a law that essentially abolished the Slave Trade Act. This is twenty years after the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was founded in 1880 or excuse me, 1787. Once again, this is further evidenced that when laws are passed, sometimes they take years to actually be implemented. And that is, of course, unfortunate, but that's human nature, I suppose. Moving on. The United States passed legislation banning the slave trade, effective in 1808. In 1811, Spain abolishes slavery, including in its colonies. In 1813, Sweden bans slave trading. 1814, the Netherlands bans slave trading. In 1817, France bans slave trading, but the ban is not effective until 1826. So again, there's nearly 10 years when after they passed a ban on slave trading, it didn't take effect until almost 10 years later. In 1833, Britain passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, ordering gradual abolition of slavery in all British colonies. And I'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but that's approximately 25 years after Britain had already passed the abolition of the Slave Trade Act, the difference being that one was an abolition of the slave trade, whereas the 1833 law was the an abolition of slavery itself. Let me continue. In 1846, the Danish governor proclaims emancipation of slaves in the Danish West Indies, effectively abolishing slavery. 1848, France abolishes slavery. 1851, Brazil abolishes slave trading. In 1858, Portugal abolishes slavery in its colonies, although slaves are still subject to a twenty year apprenticeship. eighteen sixty one, the Netherlands abolishes slavery in its Dutch Caribbean colonies. 1862, Abraham Lincoln proclaims the emancipation of slaves with an effective date of january one, eighteen sixty three, and the thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution followed in eighteen sixty five, which banned slavery. In eighteen eighty six, slavery is abolished in Cuba. 1888, Brazil abolishes slavery. In 1926, the League of Nations has a convention that essentially abolishes slavery. In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopts a universal declaration of human rights, including an article stating, quote, no one shall be held in slavery or servitude, slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all forms. Think about this for a minute, ladies and gentlemen. This is history in the making. And actually, only seventy-three short years ago in 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly adopts this universal declaration of human rights. So yes, laws were passed, yet it took generations in most cases for the law to win out. And that only ever happens because of enough people who come together and say enough is enough. If you take a look at the whole of human history from the beginning of recorded history as we know it, you're trying to tell me that it took until the mid-20th century for a body of people to say, you know what, we need to pass a law that declares that human rights are a right for everyone, that no one should be held in slavery or in voluntary servitude of any kind, and that slavery and the slave trade should be prohibited in all of its forms. Yet we have people in our country today who want to go back a mere two hundred or three hundred or four hundred years and decry the fact that there were slaves in the American colonies? Give me a break. No one living today had anything to do with the things that took place back then. Okay, well, let me get back to the point of the radio show guest. In my view, he was attempting to judge the people of a former century by the same standards that we might apply to modern day 21st century society. This is, if anything, extremely unfair and dare I say wrong. Any of us would like to think or believe that we would not have acted in the way that many of the founders did as slave owners. But the reality is that none of us knows how we would have behaved in a society that viewed slavery as acceptable. Again, with the benefit of history, yes, we look back on it and we say, Oh my gosh, these people were horrible, despicable human beings. When in reality, that is what they knew. And I would like to think that they were less harsh judging the people of history two hundred years before them based upon the culture and what they knew of the cultures that preceded theirs. My personal belief is that though some of the founders may have owned slaves, that doesn't make the language of the Constitution or Declaration of Independence ineffectual. I understand the Declaration states that it's self-evident that all men are created equal. The preamble to the Constitution speaks of forming a more perfect union. Naturally, it begs the question how could such words have been written seemingly without regard for the people for whom those words did not apply. Once again, we look back at history and we want to judge the people who lived before us by the same standards that we know today. It's just not fair and it's not accurate. It doesn't excuse the behavior of people back in the day, it doesn't excuse them at all. But now that we know better, then we have no excuse when it comes to how we treat other people. If we treat them horribly, or if we have any other tendency to treat people any worse than how we would want to be treated. We live in the 21st century. We have certain norms and thought processes, we have the application of current law. Certainly the struggle during the civil rights movement is something that we have all learned about through history, or in the case of some people who actually lived through that time and it is now history. Interestingly, in my case, anyway, looking back through the lens of history, much of this progression and the evolution of the process has taken place beginning in the decade of my birth. So in reality, it wasn't that long ago. And for those of you who think that it was a long time ago, well then bite your tongue, I'm not that old. Ladies and gentlemen, we could look back on just about any generation, any century, and find flaws in that time. Just like their flaws in our time. And if anyone needs a reminder, I will remind you about the summer of 2020. Here's my belief, though I have to assume that it probably differs from the radio guest that I listened to on the radio back on the 5th of July. My belief is that the founders pinned the words of our founding documents with what I'd like to characterize as foresight. Yes, foresight. In other words, I cannot help but believe that they envisioned a day when the principles of the Constitution and Declaration would be fully available and applicable to all people, irrespective of their skin tone, gender, or any other human characteristic. Again, it's easy for us to criticize the founders based upon what we know, not on what they knew. In fact, I'm certain that most of the founders probably even thought privately that what they were writing and eventually ratifying, language that would serve as codification respecting the laws of the land, that eventually it would become relevant for all people. You may even think me juvenile or very naive to make such a statement, but that's okay, because you are certainly entitled to your opinion and belief. I am merely trying to look on the bright side of things that we oftentimes in society today just don't hear. I mean, don't all of us seek to be viewed in the best possible light, even when we have made mistakes? I know I do. I want to be judged as fair as possible based upon what I know, not upon what other people may learn about me one hundred or two hundred years from today. The bottom line for me, ladies and gentlemen, is that we do have a constitution. We do have a declaration of independence. What are we doing with those documents today? Are we trying to uphold them and to make sure that all people prosper by them? If we're not, we should be. Certainly our elected officials should be deferring to our founding documents, not trampling them under their feet, figuratively or literally. Thank you once again, ladies and gentlemen, for listening to the podcast. I would like to end with a quote from Henry David Thoreau. He said this quote, We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful, but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of art.