July 4, 1776 - Before & After

Imagine the world on July 3, 1776 & the six thousand years of human history that came before – it was a world where slavery had been the norm since the beginning of civilization.  To become free, Black slaves needed the United States to exist – no other form of government, nation, or society had outlawed slavery or set Blacks free.  "The United States was the first moral society in history." – Ayn Rand

 

The following partial slave trade history, pre 7/4/1776, illustrates this point – source New Internationalist.

 

The ancient Greeks enslaved woman & children & simply slaughtered the more unruly men.  In 5th century BC there were more slaves than free citizens in Athens – the birthplace of democracy.

 

Slave trading was big business in the Roman Empire.  Roman emperors owned thousands of slaves who were worked to death mining gold & silver for the Empire.

 

In the early Middle Ages the Church condoned slavery – Christians, Muslims, & Jews all partook of slave trading.  In the 16th century Pope Paul III threatened those considering leaving the Catholic Church with enslavement.

 

The Portuguese & Spanish were the earliest transatlantic slave traders.  Virtually all the European colonists converged on West Africa trading liquor, tobacco, arms, & trinkets for live slave cargo.  The British were the prime slave dealers – bringing goods from England to exchange for African slaves whom they then sold to Portuguese & Spanish colonies in the New World.  This slave trade built Britain's fortune.

 

In summary, historical evidence is overwhelming that slavery had been a fact of life for millennia prior to July 4, 1776 including Black slave masters trading Black slaves.  All of the great men of history – e.g., Socrates, Plato, Cato, & Cincinnatus – had "lived amidst surroundings that relieved their consciences of the sense of this injustice.  Even Aristotle could not conceive the idea of a society existing without slavery." – Frederic Bastiat

 

But all of this entrenched slavery had a chance to end – a beginning, a start to being able to change with the signing of the Declaration Of Independence & the founding & of the United States Of America on July 4, 1776.

 

Free Negroes in five of the then thirteen states, to wit, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, & North Carolina participated in the American Republic's democratic process from the beginning in that they were voters & in proportion to their numbers had the same part in making the Constitution that the white people had.  Source – Mark Levin, Men In Black, page 15.

 

During the Jefferson administration Congress prohibited the importation of slaves effective 1808 – but there was smuggling thereafter.  The process of obtaining freedom for all men continued with the Missouri Compromise of 1819 in which Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state but slavery was prohibited in all the western territories.  And of course the fighting of the Civil War resulted in the ratification of the thirteenth Amendment which banned slavery in the entire country.

 

Although Lincoln certainly wanted to preserve the Union, the Civil War was fought for more than just the secession of eleven slave-holding states from the Union.  Lincoln believed  that free men should not be free to choose slavery for others.  Lincoln knew that the United States Republic was the only noteworthy democracy in the world in the early 1860s & he believed that a significant portion of the young country could not abandon its founding principles & survive for long. 

 

All of our Founding Fathers & Lincoln were libertarians who focused on the definition of libertarianism & especially the second half of the definition in establishing a society based on  limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise: individuals have the right to control their own bodies, in action and speech, as long as they do not infringe on the same rights for others.  Lincoln used the second half of the libertarianism definition to reason that the only liberty the secessionists considered was their own with no regard for the violations to liberty they were inflicting on others.

 

Although the thirteenth Amendment banned slavery in the United States "racism is an evil, irrational & morally contemptible doctrine - but doctrines cannot be forbidden or prescribed by law.  Private racism is not a legal, but a moral issue - & can be fought only by private means, such as economic boycott or social ostracism." - Ayn Rand.

 

Judge for yourself how America is doing in this moral regard.  But to clearly see the sea change that took place on July 4, 1776 judge from the perspective that if there was no July 4, 1776, no Declaration Of Independence, no United States of America but rather thirteen British colonies whose residents were predominantly British subjects instead of future American citizens – there would still be unchecked slavery existing everywhere in the world as it had been since the beginning of civilization.

 

To me America is one of God's two great gifts to the world.