“The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant “government of the people” but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term “people” to actually mean.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
We have now come to a realization that our democracy has fallen prey to the one enemy our founders never imagined, despite the fact that they had inserted it into their grand project. Our current president represents the perfect storm which capitalizes on the worst consequences of their original sin. Central to Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency is an underlying ignorance of the Constitution—except in the one area it has failed us. Let us make no mistake, the Founders were men of means, wealth that bought power and influence. At the “creation” were men, who like Trump, were rich, powerful, and self-assured. Young Jefferson, John Adams, and Madison were all that and smart! They assumed the inverse as well--that their wealth was somehow the inevitable consequence of their acumen.
For reasons known only to themselves. the Founding Fathers sowed into the fabric of their experiment the seeds of its demise and provided for their descendants the arduous task of undoing their error. Slavery and any perceived “right” to own and sell human beings were assuredly unenlightened even for the 18th century. Yet, greed and the status of southern planters within the founders' group precluded an au courant decision on a matter that obviously was at issue among them:
The General assembly shall not have power ... to permit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this state, or the continuance of slavery beyond the generation which shall be living on the 31st. day of December 1800; all persons born after that day being hereby declared free.
-early draft by Jefferson of the Virginia state constitution (1783)
Jefferson, of course, owned slaves at the time he wrote this draft and continued to be a slave owner until his death. In 1783, Jefferson was putting forth an argument for time limiting slavery sometime in the near but still far off future. Today, that would be akin to promising to end racism by fiat—on the 31st day of December 2036. This was a consideration that indicated the consciousness of men like Jefferson that slavery was evil. Over his lifetime he enslaved over 600 humans. At his death, the author of the Declaration of Independence and participant in the creation of the Constitution freed 7 of his enslaved laborers—most of whom were members of the Hemings family some who were either his offspring or related to his paramour, Sarah Hemings, with whom he bore six children after the death in 1782 of his wife Martha.
Things left unsaid are generally the most difficult to hear. The Founders created a great and powerful nation, but that didn’t absolve them from their sins. The excuse used to cover the truth has always been that these were “men of their times.” They were absolved of their responsibility because all 18th-century men and women believed slavery was acceptable—even necessary. But the documented discussions that preceded the adoption of their text , often heated, is proof that they knew. They knew.
But to the eye of reason, what can be more clear than that all men have an equal right to happiness? Nature made no other distinction than that of higher or lower degrees of power of mind and body. . . . Were the talents and virtues which Heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges? . . . No! In the judgment of heaven there is no other superiority among men than a superiority of wisdom and virtue. 1
-Samuel Adams, Signer of the Declaration of Independence
Slavery was important to the wealthy and white owners who needed the labor of their captive workers to maintain and grow that wealth. Assuredly, there were men among the Founders who disagreed—but not enough. Their acceptance of the 3/5’s clause of the Constitution as a “compromise” only exacerbates their complicity. Their compromise cost human beings a portion (2/5’s) of their nation’s recognition, yet stole 100% of their freedom and humanity. It cost those who argued against the continued enslavement nothing as it lined the pockets of wealthy southern plantation owners.
White privilege and the racism of wealthy men won the day and despite a Civil War and the years of attempted correctives that followed, white privilege and wealth still hold our nation hostage to its original sin. And that same privilege and the wealth that accompanies it lives on. Citizens United vs. FEC is just one of the modern-day accommodations to privilege. The time has come to come to terms with that racist portion of our history and its continued attack on our own presumptive argument for “American exceptionalism:”
“One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen’s claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
The mind-numbing cry for making America great again is not a restorative dream, but a long-awaited hope. Its white and wealthy proponents have convinced another generation of poor and middle-classed white men and women to buy into a fantasy that was never meant for the likes of them.
Being white and comfortable, the irony is hardly lost on me that this sitting president has made manifest his own racism and has weaponized it among his followers. The war he wages on black and brown immigrants—separation of children from their parents, incarceration of men and women without due process—is the logical extension of the disregard for the humanity of enslaved families by their owners in the past. Now, white privilege threatens our nation because it is precisely the racism and bigotry of a Trump ascendancy that now threatens our power and privilege among free nations. The rooster has come home to roost.
There is neither time nor patience for further accommodations based upon privilege or race. Our politics with Trump points the way to our downfall. Fixing this now—once and for all— is our most pressing issue. After all, the privileges attached to citizenship belongs to us all—whether we are citizens or not. The Founders’ Constitution said so with the incriminating words “...all men are created equal.” The words “all men….” knows neither boundary nor color. It is blind to economic status or beliefs. It is the best argument for a progressive agenda, and it just may be the last best hope for democracy.