The Founding Fathers knew about torture.
Two types of torture were common during the lifetimes of the Founding Fathers. In France, the judiciary typically had arrestees tortured to make them confess their crime. This way of proceeding rather tilted the scales in the direction of conviction, but against justice. Pre-trial torture was abolished in France in 1780. But torture was still used after the conviction of the accused to make him identify his accomplices
This is what was done by Cheney and Bush and their loyal helpers.
The issue of torture leads to the bigger issue, namely, taking back the constitution and the founding fathers from the right wing.
Reading and studying the founding fathers can put one back into an authentic political dialogue so needed in our age of propaganda.
The linked article is by the noted Middle East Historian, Juan Cole.
I have argued on many occasions that the language of patriotism and appeal to the Founding Fathers and the constitution must not be allowed to be appropriated by the political right wing in contemporary America, since for the most part right wing principles (privileging religion, exaltation of ‘whiteness’ over universal humanity, and preference for property rights over human rights) are diametrically opposed to the Enlightenment and Deist values of most of the framers of the Unites States.
Over and over we see the contradiction between what politicians and other powerful factions say - what they say and what they do. They are experts at propaganda which includes using our basic values to justify what they are doing.
An important part in the recovery of the USA it to reframe the dialogue.
We will likely hear these false appeals to an imaginary history a great deal with the release of the Senate report on CIA torture. It seems to me self-evident that most of the members of the Constitutional Convention would have voted to release the report and also would have been completely appalled at its contents.
Do you recall that violations of habeas corpus, not presenting charges before a judge, reset American justice back many, many centuries. If we had truly been committed to the principles of a republic, the American public would have been up in arms about holding prisoners without charges. We continue to do this by holding people in Guantanamo for over a decade without charge. That means that all of us are part of the denial of this great writ.
But closer to home, in the bill of rights .... I added the bold.
The Bill of Rights of the US Constitution is full of prohibitions on torture, as part of a general 18th century Enlightenment turn against the practice. The French Encyclopedia and its authors had agitated in this direction.
Why the Founding Fathers thought banning Torture Foundational to the US Constitution