[Magdalen] right to bear arms

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

On Sat, Dec 12, 2015 at 5:56 AM, Sally Davies <sally.davies at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I took it to mean that (unspecified)Founding Fathers personally said or
> believed that it was permissible to own slaves. Not that any wording in the
> Constitution implies  or allows this.
>
> Who were the "Founding Fathers" anyway? Were any of them pro slavery?


​Yes, of course. There is some kind of story that Jefferson wanted to have
slavery eliminated, but folks in the South said they would not sign off on
the various documents unless slavery was part of the package.  I have read
this in various places, but the bottom line is that slavery was legal in
the USA for quite some time.

The original comment never mentioned the Constitution. The only reason it
was brought, pointlessly, into the discussion was that someone asked where
in the Constitution it says we can own slaves, which is irrelevant to the
discussion.

I mean I don't think anyone on this list disputes the fact that Slavery was
legal in the USA until the Civil War.​

​​

The point was that the Founding Fathers permitted citizens to own firearms,
and permitted citizens to own people. And that's true. Things would have
gone quite differently if the Founding Fathers had not permitted slavery.

The Founding Fathers is an informal term for the guys such as Jim Madison,
Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Richard Lee, and lots of other guys who made
the USA happen. It never was a formal club. There was one attempt to create
a sort of royalty, which still sort of exists today, but never really went
anywhere. By a series of fortuitous missteps, the Society of the Cincinnati
was set up in such a way as to guarantee that it did not succeed.

This url may point you to some interesting resources:

http://tinyurl.com/hqhgpo8

I just created it on tinyurl, so it is safe.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

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