This letter is about slavery, racism and the United States.
Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence accused Britain of forcing slavery onto the colonies. To appease South Carolina and Georgia, this was edited out. Slavery was the most contentious issue at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The word does not appear in the final document, but all knew the issue wasn't settled. The Northwest Ordinance in 1787 banned slavery in newly admitted states and, by 1805, most northern states had abolished it.
The Southern (slave) states held much representative clout in Congress through the "Three-Fifths Compromise," and the dispute would finally reach its apex in "Bleeding Kansas" (1854-1861). Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 led to the Civil War, where between 620,000 and 750,000 Americans, mostly white men, died. For a century afterward, institutional apartheid, like a cancer, held back African-American success. For the past 50 years, however, no racist legislation or Dred Scott-type rulings have existed. Quite the opposite!
I believe that assertions of "white privilege" and "systemic racism" today are mostly cop-outs. Marxism, true democracy, is the absolute enemy of individual freedom and excellence. Black folks especially do not deserve that.
All human beings are created equally and each is given specific gifts that they must learn to use with the grace of God. In the end, that's all that matters.
Michael V. Lane
Anchorage
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