Observations©

By Donald S. Conkey

Date: February 8, 2007 -  # 906 – February (820)

The month of February is today celebrated for two issues: Black History Month and President’s Day. Black History Month is a relatively new program that acknowledges the contributions of a race that has had to struggle for the freedoms and liberties often taken for granted by other races, especially here in the United States. When the birthday of Martin Luther King was made a national holiday the birthdays of two of America’s outstanding presidents – George Washington and Abraham Lincoln – were combined into one President’s Day national holiday.

Growing up in the north, many years ago, we always celebrated the birthday of George Washington as the Father of America and the birthday of Abraham Lincoln as the emancipator of slavery. There were always the stories about Washington who couldn’t tell a lie and of Lincoln and of his splitting rails who would later become the president of the United States. We were made aware of the role slavery played in the growth of the nation but seldom given details of those who were involved or of the roll they played in this movement. Black History Month now provides us with the opportunity to see the details about those who were involved in mankind’s ever on-going battle to find freedom and remain free.

 An AP article in the January 27 Tribune reminded me that the issue of slavery is always present amongst us. And that it is not likely to go away until we have a clearer understanding of how slavery was imposed on the colonies by British traders, or of the efforts of many of the Founding Fathers to eliminate slavery at the time the Constitution was being written in 1787. Ignoring these historical facts only leads to greater misunderstanding and mistrust between the races.

 Slavery almost derailed the Constitution and only by a compromise offered by delegate J. Rutledge of South Carolina was the Constitution put back on the table. This compromise is acknowledged in Article I, Section. 9. of the Constitution with these words: “The Migration or Importation of such Persons (slaves) as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, …”

While the southern states reneged on this compromise in 1808, the Constitution, written, adopted and ratified based on the principles of freedom and liberty established by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution’s Articles of Incorporation, that state “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness …” – would become the ‘founding principles’ upon which Abraham Lincoln would later issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

In recent years both Washington and Jefferson, along with many other founders, have been maligned by those bend on destroying America’s freedoms from within. In order to do this they have to destroy those who “pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, relying only on the Supreme Judge of the World” for their “divine Protection.”

The Founder’s own words, as recorded by history, belie those who would demean them for their work in establishing a new nation, a nation unlike any other nation on earth, a nation where freedom could truly be established, finally breaking the back of slavery that had held mankind bound since the beginning of recorded history. But it wasn’t easy then, nor is it easy now. It is a never-ending struggle and requires constant vigilance to protect our nation’s precious liberties.

It took a Martin Luther King, with a dream and a solid foundation in Jefferson’s “Creator” of this nation, who understood, more than we can possible understand, the symbols of freedom and liberty Jefferson embedded in the Declaration and what they truly meant for all mankind, especially for his people. And today it takes men like Bill Cosby to stand up and remind people of all races they are free, but that it is their responsibility, not their government, to move out of the shadows of poverty and become a part of main-stream America.

To fully appreciate just how passionate Washington and Jefferson were about abolishing slavery let us read from their own words. Washington, in 1798, wrote: “I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.”  In 1814 Jefferson wrote: “There is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practical plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity (slavery).”

As we watch the events of February unfold remember just how dependent we are for our freedoms upon those who gave their all in bringing freedom to all of America, not just for the titled and well to-do, and that this nation with its freedoms can not be saved in ignorance.