[Magdalen] right to bear arms

[Grace Cangialosi]

Lynn, it was Rhode Island, and the book and video are titled "Traces of the Trade." It's very powerful and includes some clips of former PB Griswold and other folks speaking about the role of the church at the time. 

On a slightly different note, I was quite surprised some years ago to learn that there were Quakers who owned slaves. An African-American friend mentioned quite casually a few years that his family had been owned by Quakers here in Virginia. Took my breath away... Lee Smith's novel "On Agate Hill" is the story of a young girl around the time of the Civil War whose Quaker parents are opposed to slavery, while her uncle owns slaves. Excellent book. (Well, I think all of Smith's books are excellent!)

On December 12, 2015, at 1:34 PM, Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com> wrote:

It is interesting to watch the North East/ New England area discover this 
heritage. A prominent Episcopalian family (in CT I believe) filmed their 
family slave-owning history into a documentary and a decommissioned church 
in that dio has become a historic museum to the New England slave trade. In 
hearing more about this (it was high profile at a diocesan convention I 
attended as a vendor the year the documentary was released, and then played 
at several other dio conventions where I was also present) it also became 
clear that the origin of the abolitionist movement started 'up north', not 
as I had been taught and supposed/assumed because the 'northerners' wanted 
to correct this  depravity in their southern neighbors but because they had 
abandoned it and wanted it done elsewhere as well.  A lesson in how history 
can become like a game of 'Telephone' if we're not careful.

Lynn



website: www.ichthysdesigns.com

When I stand before God at the end of my life I would hope that I have not a 
single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything You gave me." 
attributed to Erma Bombeck
 "Either Freedom for all or stop talking about Freedom at all" from a talk 
by Richard Rohr

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Charles Wohlers" <charles.wohlers at verizon.net>
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2015 11:21 AM
To: <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
Subject: Re: [Magdalen] right to bear arms

> It should be noted that slavery was legal in all states *North* of the 
> Mason-Dixon line (other that Vermont!), with those states not outlawing it 
> until shortly after the Revolution. Doing genealogy uncovered that fact 
> that several of my wife's ancestors in Connecticut owned slaves. As did 
> some of mine, but they were in what became West Virginia, which was then 
> part of Virginia. Also, I have an old Book of Common Prayer in which the 
> owner recorded how he got rid of his slaves (he had ~8 of them) right 
> around the year 1800. The man was a prominent doctor living in Bristol, 
> Pa. - Pennsylvania didn't outlaw slavery until 1800 or shortly thereafter.
>
> Finally, it should also be noted that the majority of white people in the 
> South before the Civil War did not own slaves - slaves were expensive, so 
> only rich folk owned them. I have lots of ancestors who lived around 
> Fairmont, WV (part of Virginia until the Civil War), who were all poor 
> farmers. AFAIK, none of them owned slaves.
>
> Chad Wohlers
> Woodbury, VT USA
> chadwohl at satucket.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Sibyl Smirl
> Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 7:04 PM
> To: magdalen at herberthouse.org
> Subject: Re: [Magdalen] right to bear arms
>
> Nope.  You have to go a long way to get "the Right to own people" out of
> that compromise.  At that time, the states determined who could vote (I
> could not have done)(maybe still do: I had to wait to turn 21 before I
> could, in Kansas, it didn't change to 18 until later), and the slave
> states wanted their non-voters to be counted as full people so they'd
> have more representation in Congress.  The Abolitionists knew that
> slavery existed, and were _not_ going to allow it in the Federal
> Constitution, but couldn't do anything about it without a Civil War,
> which the nation couldn't afford right then (couldn't afford it in 1861,
> either, but it happened).
>
>
> On 12/11/15 4:46 PM, Scott Knitter wrote:
>> The right was assumed in the Three-Fifths Compromise. Take away the
>> free persons, "Indians," and those bound to Service for a Term of
>> Years, and who's left? "three fifths of all other Persons." Art. 1,
>> Sec. 2, Par. 3
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote:
>>> On 12/10/15 10:07 PM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Just read a wonderful thought.
>>>>
>>>> Back when they wrote the Constitution,
>>>> the Founding Fathers said you could own a gun.
>>>> They also said you could own people.
>>>>
>>>> Dang. Why didn't *I* think of that?
>>>
>>>
>>> Our brother Louie put around a photo with that quote on Facebook 
>>> yesterday
>>> (In very poor grammar (Ebonics?  the photo was of a young Black man of 
>>> whom
>>> I've never heard otherwise, but then I'm not up on a lot of "pop 
>>> culture": I
>>> find it hard to believe that an English teacher sent that around).
>>>
>>> Anyway, the big hole in the quote is that there isn't _anything_ in the
>>> Constitution or the Bill of Rights (which is part of the Constitution) 
>>> about
>>> a Right to own people.  Whoever said it first ("Michael Che?" IIRC) knew 
>>> as
>>> little about the Constitution as he did about grammar.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Sibyl Smirl
>>> I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
>>> mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Sibyl Smirl
> I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
> mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net