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A Fraud-ian Slip: The Reality of Voter Fraud in the Election of 2020

As of the writing of this article, America is in the midst of perhaps the most contentious and contested presidential election in recent history. The 2020 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden remains undecided as vote counts continue and legal battles begin. Quickly earning a position among the elections of 1800, 1825, 1876, and 2000 as one for the books, this election’s big question surrounds the novel insertion of wide spread mail-in-ballots and the increased potential for voter fraud. Last minute changes in election laws set the stage for lengthy litigation concerning whether or not such alterations were constitutional, and widespread reports of errors, irregularities, and criminal activity has rocked many people’s faith in the legitimacy of the vote.

1880s Cartoon Criticizing Democrats for Stuffing Ballot Boxes

The unfortunate reality is that from the beginning of elections there have been people who attempted, and in many cases succeeded, at buying, cheating, and stealing their way into political office. America, for all her virtues, has been no different than other places throughout history. Wherever there is a system there are those who will seek to game it through illegitimate practices. As the Scriptures explain, and the Founding Fathers repeatedly affirmed throughout their writings, “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Even back in in the colonial period of American history, election fraud was such a problem that some of the earliest laws on the books were anti-fraud legislation attempting to ensure free and fair elections. Massachusetts had passed laws as early as 1643, and by the mid-1700s at Rhode Island, New Jersey, Virginia, and other colonies had followed suit.[i] However, wherever there are rules there will be people to break them, and some early American elections were decided based on which candidate provided more “incentives,” whether it be financial or otherwise.[ii] During the Revolutionary War and shortly thereafter, the Founders attempted to secure elections by establishing many state level injunctions against illegal voting practices. The 1776 Pennsylvania constitution, for example, explicitly punished bribery while North Carolina passed anti-fraud laws in 1777.[iii] By 1784 New Hampshire barred anyone convicted of fraud ineligible for holding office.[iv]

After the ratification of the Constitution, voter fraud continued in both tried and true ways as well as new various methods. In 1816, a printed letter warns voters of “spurious and captive tickets and circulars” which struck the Federal Republican candidate for Senate off of the ticket and replacing him with the Democrat running for office.[v] The deception was discovered the day before the election and the Republican letter bemoans that “it is the object of a few who would sacrifice their party for their private interest.”[vi]

During the contentious years of the Civil War, when brother killed brother, the evils of voter fraud paled in comparison to the greater wickedness afflicting the nation. Those who were content to hold their fellow man in slavery could not be bothered by the lesser immorality of illegal voting. The 1864 election cycle witnessed fraud which parallels the modern-day issues in a surprisingly close manner. Pro-slavery Northern Democrats—nicknamed Copperheads after the venomous snake—went to great lengths attempting to unseat Abraham Lincoln. Harpers Weekly, one of the major newspapers of the day, highlighted how the Copperheads would use the names of recently deceased soldiers to vote illegally.[vii]

On top of that, the Copperheads also schemed to use the mail-in-ballots sent out to the troops as a way of illegally siphoning votes away from Lincoln. After a sting operation revealed that the pro-slavery Democrats had been forging the signatures of soldiers on blank ballots the plot was uncovered and the perpetrators thrown in prison. Despite the seriousness of the voter corruption, the Copperhead agents nevertheless joked saying, “dead or alive they would all had cast a good vote.”[viii]

After the Civil War and the enfranchisement of African Americans, Southern Democrats continued to engage in illegal voting activity such as ballot manipulation and intimidation. The end of Reconstruction as a political compromise following the contested 1876 presidential election opened the door for unchecked voter fraud and illegal election interference throughout southern states. Groups like the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) and the racist Democrats who started that group erected barriers and obstacles to prevent voting rights and transparency.[ix] Complicit in these schemes was an activist Supreme Court which in 1883 struck down all the civil rights passed by the Republican Congress during and in the years following the Civil War.[x]

“Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democrat Ticket”

With the pathway cleared for Jim Crow, poll taxes, voter intimidation, and ballot-box stuffing, the Southern political machines ensured that no one supporting racial equality would be elected under their watch. The influential Harpers Weekly once again stepped in to illustrate the coercive tactics with the political cartoon pictured which was titled “Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democrat Ticket.”[xi]

While such illegitimate elections continued apace in the South, by the early 1900s voter fraud was pervasive in rural counties with people selling their votes and politicians more than willing to buy them. For instance, in poverty-stricken Adams County, Ohio, in 1911 a judge convicted some 1,700 people for selling their votes to the highest political bidder—nearly 25% of total electorate.[xii] One of the citizens confessed to the judge, “I know it isn’t right, but this has been going on for so long that we no longer looked upon it as a crime.”[xiii] It was just the way things were.

A review of American elections in 1918 explained that during the late 19^th and early 20^th century, “the most common electoral fraud is bribery,” but said further that the “false counting of ballots has been an easy and common way to vitiate [invalidate] election results.”[xiv] After the rampant and unchecked fraud of the late 1800s there was a, “gradual awakening of the American people to corrupt conditions existing in their government,” and the widespread “defilement of the ballot-box.”[xv]

This certainly led to attempts to pass laws preventing politicians from stealing elections, but how can one expect the people who cheated their way into office to stop themselves from doing it again? Therefore, although certainly legislation was passed, by-in-large the political bosses continued to buy, sell, and trade elections. A notorious example happened in 1932 when long-time political boss, Senator Huey “Kingfish” Long of Louisiana, was exposed rigging votes which led to the indictment of 513 election officials in New Orleans.[xvi]

More famously, in 1948 future president Lyndon Baines Johnson beat out his opponent in the Democrat Party primary for Senate by just 87 votes out of a total 988,295. Where did these votes come from? A specific voting location called “Ballot Box 13” which just so happened to show up and have just the number of votes he needed.[xvii] Although rumors and winks circulated for decades concerning Johnson’s unique method of “campaigning,” the suspicions were confirmed in 1977 when one of Johnson’s operatives confessed to stuffing the votes himself. “Johnson didn’t win that day. We stole it for him.”[xviii]

But certainly, this doesn’t happen today, does it? While technology has changed, regrettably human nature and fallibility hasn’t. Over the past few decades there have been many instances of clearly documented illegal activity surrounding elections—and often the technology has only made it easier than ever to rig an election.

For example, during the transition from paper ballot to electronic machines in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the number of last minute “glitches” which changed the course of an election are astonishing. The machines used by Election Systems and Software (ES&S)—one of the largest voting machine companies—stole governors’ races, flipped ballot initiatives, and caused thousands of votes to be left on the cutting room floor. Investigative journalists identified no less that fifty-six instances of these miraculous glitches occurring wherever these machines were.[xix]

Nebraska’s 1996 race for Senate witnessed the Republican candidate, Chuck Hagel, beat the Democrat governor who had led in the polls throughout the race by fifteen points.[xx] This was the first time in decades that Nebraska had sent a Republican senator to Congress. It was an upset for the ages. Who was this up-and-coming political star? Well, up until fourteen days before announcing his run for office Hagel had been the CEO of ES&S—the company whose machines would be the ones tallying the votes. And later, he managed to mask and hide his continued ownership of substantial investments in the company.[xxi] When rumors of a presidential run floated around Hagel, his old company was responsible for counting some 56% of the nation’s vote.[xxii] Unfortunately any opportunity to concretely verify fraud have long since passed as all investigations and complaints to the Senate Ethics Committee were squashed before getting off the ground.

Political Cartoon Showing the Glass Ballot Box Being the Best Way to Secure Freedom

Election Systems and Software has had to reshuffled the deck and sell off certain parts of the business, some of which were siphoned off into a new company called Dominion—but the danger remains the same. In fact, as of 2017, together ES&S and Dominion control some 81% of the national voting machines which were responsible for counting the ballots of 154,387,532 registered voters.[xxiii] Dominion has continued to expand its influence in American elections and replaced all of Georgia’s voting systems immediately prior to the 2020 presidential cycle.[xxiv]

On top of the red flags surrounding the machines themselves, comprehensive studies of the voter rolls in the 2016 and 2018 election cycles revealed troubling data which made the stage ripe for fraud. Heading into the 2020 election cycle there were 349,773 dead people on voter rolls across the country, with over half of them being in New York, Texas, Michigan, Florida, and California.[xxv] In 2016 and 2018 there were over 14,000 proven cases of voting after death, with North Carolina leading the nation by a 4-to-1 ratio.[xxvi] Such practices still continue, and just weeks before Election Day 2020, a man was arrested in Pennsylvania for applying for a mail-in-ballot for his dead mother.[xxvii]

Audits of the previous two elections revealed at least 81,649 cases of people voting twice—something completely illegal.[xxviii] Many of these cases hinged upon the easy accessibility to unsolicited mail-in-ballots—as was the case when a Democrat mayoral candidate in Texas was arrested on 25 counts of illegally possessing ballots and 84 counts of falsifying voter applications.[xxix] Likewise, 35,000 registrant files list commercial addresses instead of residential ones—an action which led Congressman Steve Watkins (R-Kansas) to face three felony counts of potential fraud in 2020.[xxx]

Between the vulnerability of voting machines and the rancid condition of voter registration rolls, the stage is set for widespread, nearly untraceable, and possibly irreversible fraud. Whether paper or electronic, Americans are susceptible to having their elections stolen from under their noses. Even in the months prior to the presidential election in 2020, arrests and criminal convictions have happened for illegal voting activities such as the fraudulent use of absentee ballots, duplicate voting, false registrations, ballot petition fraud, and illegal “assistance” at the polls.[xxxi]

In fact, just days before the election the Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden declared in a press conference, while seemingly reading off a script, “we have put together, I think the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.”[xxxii]

Many people simply laughed at such a statement. In recent years, Biden has become infamous for incoherent statements and botching speeches even while using a teleprompter. Compilations of his gaffes from just the campaign trail alone easily extend upwards of a half an hour. But now that the election has been rife with hundreds of clearly suspicious cases of “glitches” and “irregularities,” perhaps Biden was just being honest. Rather than being yet another gaffe, perhaps it was a kind of “fraud-ian” slip.

Perhaps the most surprising facet of the 2020 election, however, has been the utter denial of even the possibility of voter fraud by legacy media conglomerates. These alleged investigative journalists turn a blind eye to both present evidence and historical fact when they collectively denounce “the myth of voter fraud.”[xxxiii] In fact, the same mass of media outlets which spent three years hopelessly searching for international election interference in the 2016 American election, scoff at even the mention of possible domestic election interference in 2020.

Historically, voter fraud has happened in America since its inception. That the mainstream media agencies refuse to acknowledge its existence does not alter the reality. Instead, such denial only makes them tacit accomplices in the death of the Republic. The same people who warn that democracy dies in darkness are the ones turning off the lights.

To entirely ignore or deny the existence of fraud is irresponsible, ignorant, or maliciously intentional. Everyone, no matter their political affiliation, should have an unquenchable desire for a transparent and airtight election process. Each fraudulent ballot discards someone’s legitimate vote. Every fake declaration silences someone’s real voice. Counterfeit elections devalue and debase the freedom and liberty of all Americans, ensuring nothing except the arbitrary control that the political elite may exert upon the people.

In the past, America turned began using glass ballot boxes (as pictured) which allowed people to see that no one was stealing the election.[xxxiv] It made the officials directly accountable to the people who were free to watch and observe their actions with full transparency. Over the years, the glass ballot box became a symbol of American freedom. A symbol now long forgotten—but one that needs to be resurrected. This is the true Cradle of Liberty—where the people are free to make their own decision, without coercion, fraud, or oppression, about who will represent them. Integrity is necessary for liberty, and the ballot boxes and voting processes of today ought to be just as transparent as the glass ones from yesteryear.

Endnotes

[i] The Encyclopedia Americana, s.v. “Electoral Fraud and Safeguards Against,” (New York: The Encyclopedia Americana Corporation, 1918), 10.70.

[ii] Tracy Campbell, Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, An American Political Tradition—1742-2004 (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005), 5-7.

[iii] Tracy Campbell, Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, An American Political Tradition—1742-2004 (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005), 9.

[iv] Tracy Campbell, Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, An American Political Tradition—1742-2004 (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005), 9.

[v] “Election. Federal Republicans Beware!” 1816. Vote: The Machinery of Democracy (accessed November 8, 2020): https://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/paperballots.html.

[vi] “Election. Federal Republicans Beware!” 1816. Vote: The Machinery of Democracy (accessed November 8, 2020): https://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/paperballots.html.

[vii] “‘How the Copperheads Obtain their Votes,’ Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, November 12, 1864, detail,” House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College (accessed November 7, 2020): http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/43183.

[viii] Josiah Benton, Voting in the Field: A Forgotten Chapter in the Civil War (Boston: Privately Printed, 1915), 164; see also, Donald Inbody, The Soldier Vote: War, Politics, and the Ballot in America (New York: Palgrave McMillian, 2016), 42.

[ix] See, for example, William Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive, and Rising (Cleveland: Geo. M. Rewell & Co., 1887), 348.

[x] Valeria Weaver, “The Failure of Civil Rights 1875-1883 and Its Repercussions,” The Journal of Negro History 54, no. 4 (1969): 369-370.

[xi] “‘Of Course He Wants to Vote the Democratic Ticket.’ A. B. Frost. From Harper’s Weekly, October 21, 1876,” The Newberry Digital Collections for the Classroom (accessed November 7, 2020): https://dcc.newberry.org/items/of-course-he-wants-to-vote-the-democratic-ticket.

[xii] Genevieve Gist, “Progressive Reform in a Rural Community: The Adams County Vote-Fraud Case,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 48, no. 1 (1961): 65.

[xiii] Genevieve Gist, “Progressive Reform in a Rural Community: The Adams County Vote-Fraud Case,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 48, no. 1 (1961): 71.

[xiv] The Encyclopedia Americana, s.v. “Electoral Fraud and Safeguards Against,” (New York: The Encyclopedia Americana Corporation, 1918), 10.70.

[xv] Robert Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1910), 206.

[xvi] Victoria Collier, “How to Rig an Election,” Harper’s Magazine (November 2012), accessed November 8, 2020: https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/.

[xvii] See, John Fund, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (New York: Encounter Books, 2008), 12, 176-177; Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (New York: Random House Inc., 2009), 115-116.

[xviii] John Fund, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (New York: Encounter Books, 2008), 177.

[xix] Bev Harris, Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21^st Century (Renton, WA: Talion Publishing, 2004), 4. Here.

[xx] Victoria Collier, “How to Rig an Election,” Harper’s Magazine (November 2012), accessed November 8, 2020: https://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/.

[xxi] Bev Harris, Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21^st Century (Renton, WA: Talion Publishing, 2004), 27, 31. Here.

[xxii] Bev Harris, Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21^st Century (Renton, WA: Talion Publishing, 2004), 32. Here.

[xxiii] Lorin Hitt, The Business of Voting: Market Structure and Innovation in the Election Technology Industry (Philadelphia: Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, 2017), 14, 54. Here.

[xxiv] Dave Williams, “Georgia Chooses Denver Company to Install New Statewide Voting System,” Atlanta Business Chronicle (July 29, 2019), accessed November 8, 2020: https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2019/07/29/georgia-chooses-denver-company-to-install-new.html.

[xxv] Critical Condition: American Voter Rolls Filled With Errors, Dead Voters, and Duplicate Registrations (Public Interest Legal Foundation, September 2020), 8.

[xxvi] Critical Condition: American Voter Rolls Filled With Errors, Dead Voters, and Duplicate Registrations (Public Interest Legal Foundation, September 2020), 8.

[xxvii] Carolyn Blackburn, “Man Arrested for Voter Fraud in Luzerne County,” WNEP News Station (October 21, 2020), accessed November 8, 2020: https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/luzerne-county/man-arrested-for-voter-fraud-in-luzerne-county/523-7fc4fd2f-9105-47e7-a510-2b5ff176ab2c.

[xxviii] Critical Condition: American Voter Rolls Filled With Errors, Dead Voters, and Duplicate Registrations (Public Interest Legal Foundation, September 2020), 8.

[xxix] Matthew Impelli, “Texas Dem Mayoral Candidate Charged With Voter Fraud After Allegedly Applying for 84 Mail-in-Ballots,” Newsweek (October 13, 2020), accessed November 10, 2020: https://www.newsweek.com/texas-dem-mayoral-candidate-charged-voter-fraud-after-allegedly-applying-84-mail-ballots-1538644; Alex Samuels, “Carrollton Mayoral Candidate Arrested on Suspicion of Fraudulently Obtaining Mail-in-Ballots,” The Texas Tribune (October 8, 2020), accessed November 8, 2020: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/08/voting-fraud-arrest-carrollton/.

[xxx] Critical Condition: American Voter Rolls Filled With Errors, Dead Voters, and Duplicate Registrations (Public Interest Legal Foundation, September 2020), 30; Brian Lowry, “‘I Wasn’t Hiding the Ball.’ Watkins Admits Voting at Wrong Address, but Denies Intent,” The Kansas City Star (July 28, 2020), accessed November 8, 2020: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article244541302.html.

[xxxi] See database, “Election Fraud Cases,” The Heritage Foundation (accessed November 7, 2020), https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=2020&case_type=All&fraud_type=All; see also, Erin Anderson, “Texas Social Worker Charged With 134 Election Fraud Felonies,” Texas Scorecard (November 6, 2020), accessed November 8, 2020: https://texasscorecard.com/state/texas-social-worker-charged-with-134-election-fraud-felonies/.

[xxxii] Joseph Curl, “Biden Stumbles Through Final Days of Presidential Campaign,” The Daily Wire (November 2, 2020), accessed November 10, 2020: https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-stumbles-way-through-final-days-of-presidential-campaign.

[xxxiii] E.g., Vera Bergengruen, “How Republicans are Selling the Myth of Rampant Voter Fraud,” Time (October 22, 2020), accessed November 7, 2020: https://time.com/5902728/voter-fraud-2020-2/; William T. Adler, “Why Widespread Voter Fraud is a Myth,” Center for Democracy & Technology (October 28, 2020), accessed November 7, 2020, https://cdt.org/insights/why-widespread-mail-in-voter-fraud-is-a-myth/; Amber McReynolds, “Let’s put the vote-by-mail “fraud” myth to rest,” The Hill (April 28, 2020), accessed November 7, 2020: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/494189-lets-put-the-vote-by-mail-fraud-myth-to-rest.

[xxxiv] Jennifer Nalewicki, “A Glass Ballot Box Was the Answer to Voter Fraud in the 19^th Century,” Smithsonian Magazine (November 2, 2020), accessed November 10, 2020: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/glass-ballot-box-was-answer-voter-fraud-19th-century-180976171/.

Constitution Hub

Constitution Day

September 17^th might not be as recognized as July 4^th but it is equally as important. On that day in 1787, thirty-nine men signed the final draft of newly framed Constitution and sent it to the states for it to be ratified. It took nearly an entire year of heated debate in the pages of newspapers and on the floor of the individual ratification conventions, but ultimately, on June 21, 1788, the Constitution was accepted as the governing document and the supreme law of the land. With the unanimous election of George Washington and his inauguration as president on April 30, 1789, America began a new chapter in her history and the history of the world.

To honor this day, Congress voted in 1952 to formally designate September 17^th as Constitution Day, and in 2004 an amendment further instructed that:

“The civil and educational authorities of States, counties, cities, and towns are urged to make plans for the proper observance of Constitution Day and Citizenship Day and for the complete instruction of citizens in their responsibilities and opportunities as citizens of the United States” (emphasis added).¹

Furthermore, the law stipulates that any educational institution which receives Federal funds must, “hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17.”²

Some History

This law, however, is hardly a new idea. From the beginning of America’s history, the Founding Fathers realized that the citizens must study the Constitution and its principles. For instance, George Washington explained that it was necessary to ensure, “the education of our youth in the science of government,” reflecting that:

“In a republic what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing on its legislature than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”³

Furthermore, Samuel Adams wrote to John Adams laying out the absolute need for a nation educated in their rights and responsibilities:

“Let the divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impression the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls; of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy, and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country; instructing them in the art of self-government, without which they never can act a wise part in the government of societies, great or small.”⁴

James Madison, a key delegate to the Convention in addition to authoring part of the Federalist Papers, likewise remarked that:

“It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”⁵

Even in the generation following the Founding Fathers, leaders continued to rise up and staunchly defend the Constitution. Daniel Webster became perhaps the most well-known of this second generation of Americans and a respected constitutional scholar himself. In a 4^th of July speech he reminded the listeners that,

“The American Constitution is the purchase of American valor.…The Constitution is the great memorial of the deeds of our ancestors.”⁶

Going on, Webster famously admonished the people to continually stand watch that the rights protected in the Constitution were never infringed upon or lost:

“We live under the only government that ever existed which was framed by the unrestrained and deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once gone, might leave a void, to be filled, for ages, with revolution and tumult, riot and despotism.”⁷

Constitutional Ignorance

However, a brief survey of American students and citizens today reveal a stunning lack of constitutional literacy.

59% of Americans can’t name the Right of Petition
41% don’t know of the Right to Assemble⁸
27% believe students should get punished by teachers or administrators for posting political opinions they don’t agree with on social media
46% of Americans think institutions should disinvite speakers who might offend listeners
12% of Americans think the Constitution specifically ensures the right to own a pet⁹

But perhaps the most shocking and revealing statistic is that some 57% of American have never read the Constitution!¹⁰

If Americans don’t know what the Constitution says then how can they defend it? Thomas Jefferson warned that, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”¹¹

In past generations even visitors from Europe recognized that the American political system relied upon a well-educated, civics-oriented population. In Alexis de Tocqueville’s famous 1835 account of his travels in the early republic, Democracy in America, he spoke about how, when asking any American about politics:

You will see the cloud that envelops his intellect suddenly dissipate: his language becomes clear, clean, and precise, like his thought. He will teach you what his rights are and what means he will use to exercise them; he will know according to what usages the political world conducts itself. You will perceive that the rules of administration are known to him and that he has made himself familiar with the mechanisms of the laws.…In the United States, the sum of men’s education is directed toward politics.¹²

How things have changed! Now over half the nation has never read the Constitution. If Tocqueville were to ask the same question today there is no doubt his answer would be dramatically different.

As a closing thought, George Washington explained to his nephew and soon to Justice on the Supreme Court Bushrod Washington:

“The power under the Constitution will always be with the people.”¹³

But if the people are unaware of their power then the door remains open to despots and tyrants who would usurp that power for themselves.

Helpful Resources

To help people learn more about the Constitution we have collected numerous resources from early legal commentaries to recent school curriculum. While September 17^th is Constitution Day, knowing the Constitution and method of limited government it outlines is an everyday responsibility. Our prayer is that these resources will help you learn about the amazing system our Founding Fathers gave to us!

Early Sources:

James Madison, The Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, https://oll.libertyfund.org//title/elliot-the-debates-in-the-several-state-conventions-5-vols
Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, The Federalist, https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/jay-the-federalist-gideon-ed
Various, Friends of the Constitution: Writings of the “Other” Federalists, https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/mcdowell-friends-of-the-constitution-writings-of-the-other-federalists-1787-1788
Various, Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United State, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/ford-pamphlets-on-the-constitution-of-the-united-states-1787-1788
Noah Webster, “Constitution of the United States,” History of the United States, https://archive.org/details/historyunitedst00websgoog/page/n12/mode/2up
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Volume 1, https://archive.org/details/commentariesonc16storgoog/page/n4/mode/2up; Volume 2, https://archive.org/details/commentariesonc20storgoog/page/n7/mode/2up; and Volume 3, https://archive.org/details/commentariesonc07storgoog/page/n7/mode/2up

Additional WallBuilders Resources:

Keys to Good Government, https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/keys-to-good-government/
Restraining Judicial Activism, https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/restraining-judicial-activism-book/
Separation of Church and State: What the Founders Meant, https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/separation-of-church-state-what-the-founders-meant-book/
The Second Amendment, https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/the-second-amendment-book/
Original Intent, https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/original-intent-paperback/
Constitution Alive, https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/constitution-alive/
Constitution (reprint), https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/the-united-states-constitution-document/
Catechism on the Constitution, https://shop.wallbuilders.com/product/catechism-on-the-constitution/

Recommended Secondary Sources:

Donald Lutz, Origins of American Constitutionalism, https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/lutz-colonial-origins-of-the-american-constitution-a-documentary-history.
The Founders’ Constitution, http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/

Curriculum and Teacher Resources:

“Education,” ConSource, https://www.consource.org./education/.
“Constitution Day Teacher Resources,” Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/constitution-day-resources/.
“Meet the Framers of the Constitution,” National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers.
“Resources,” National Center for Constitutional Studies, https://nccs.net/pages/resources.
“Constitution in the Classroom,” National Constitution Center, https://constitutioncenter.org/education.
“Commemorating Constitution Day,” National Endowment for the Humanities, https://edsitement.neh.gov/teachers-guides/commemorating-constitution-day.
“The Constitutional Convention of 1787,” National Endowment for the Humanities, https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/constitutional-convention-1787.
“The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Debates on Diversity and the Extended Republic,” National Endowment for the Humanities, https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/federalist-and-anti-federalist-debates-diversity-and-extended-republic.
“Before and Beyond the Constitution: What Should a President do?” National Endowment for the Humanities, https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/and-beyond-constitution-what-should-president-do.
“Commemorating Constitution Day and Citizenship Day,” US Department of Education, https://www2.ed.gov/policy/fund/guid/constitutionday.html.

Endnotes

¹ See, Pub. L. 105–225, Aug. 12, 1998, 112 Stat. 1255; Pub. L. 108–447, div. J, title I, §111(c)(1), Dec. 8, 2004, 118 Stat. 3344, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-108publ447/pdf/PLAW-108publ447.pdf.

² See, Pub. L. 108–447, div. J, title I, §111, Dec. 8, 2004, 118 Stat. 3344, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-108publ447/pdf/PLAW-108publ447.pdf.

³ George Washington, “Eighth Annal Message of George Washington,” December 7, 1796, The Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washs08.asp.

⁴ John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 6:414.

⁵ James Madison, “Second Annual Message,” December 5, 1810, The Avalon Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/204434.

⁶ Daniel Webster, Newly Discovered Fourth of July Oration (Boston: A. Williams & Co., 1882), 10.

⁷ Daniel Webster, Newly Discovered Fourth of July Oration (Boston: A. Williams & Co., 1882), 14.

⁸ “Where America Stands,” 2024, Freedom Forum Institute, https://www.freedomforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Freedom-Forum-Where-America-Stands-Report-2024-4.pdf.

⁹ “We the people? 12% of Americans believe the Constitution guarantees ‘the right to own a pet’,” September 16, 2015, The Washington Times, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/16/12-americans-says-bill-rights-includes-right-own-p/.

¹⁰ Thomas Jipping, “More Americans Need to Actually Read the Constitution,” November 1, 2019, Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/commentary/more-americans-need-actually-read-the-constitution.

¹¹Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816, Founders Archive, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-09-02-0209.

¹² Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1.2.9 or 291-292.

¹³ George Washington to Bushrod Washington, November 9, 1787, Founders Archive, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-05-02-0388.

Lemuel Haynes

July 18^th marks the anniversary of the birth of Lemuel Haynes in 1753. Most Americans probably don’t know who this man was, but his is a story definitely worth noting!

Lemuel Haynes was a black American, abandoned at five months old by his parents and hired as an indentured servant. During his years of service, he was treated well and given the opportunity to attend school — a rare experience for blacks in that day. Haynes showed a talent for preaching from a young age and was frequently called on to give sermons and to proofread the sermons of others.

When his term of indenture ended, he enlisted as a Minuteman in the American War for Independence and participated in the siege of Boston and the expedition against Fort Ticonderoga. Decades later, while giving a sermon in his church celebrating George Washington’s birthday, he recounted his own service:

Perhaps it is not ostentatious [bragging] in the speaker to observe that in early life he devoted all for the sake of freedom and independence, and endured frequent campaigns in their defense, and has never viewed the sacrifice too great.

It was in 1785 that he became an ordained minister. During his decades of service as a pastor, as a black American he led churches that were all-white and some that were mixed (whites and blacks worshiping together — a circumstance many are unaware existed in America). He was a remarkable pastor and leader, and his churches experienced revival and growth — evidenced by an 1803 letter he penned:

Not a day nor night in a week but people would crowd to meetings. The great inquiry among the youth and others was, “What shall we do to be saved?” Children of eleven and twelve years of age seemed to be more engaged about religion than they were before about their play. The minds of the people in general were attentive. My house has been often thronged with people who desired to discourse about religion…Thus it has pleased the Lord to do wonders among us, to the praise of His glorious grace.

In 1804, Lemuel received an honorary Masters degree from Middlebury College — the first black man to receive a degree of higher education in America. (One of the amazing items in WallBuilders’ collection is a Bible handbook signed by Lemuel Haynes.)

Lemuel Haynes died in 1833, leaving behind a legacy of sacrificial service for both God and country. This American hero deserves to be remembered today!

An Inspiring Relationship

The enduring love and affection between Founding Father John Hancock and his wife Dorothy is a story worthy of Valentine’s Day.

Dorothy Quincy Hancock was born about 10 years after her famous husband, John. In April 1775 during their engagement, the two were visiting the small town of Lexington, just outside of Boston. Dorothy stayed with Lydia Hancock (John’s aunt) and John stayed with Pastor Jonas Clark. They both witnessed the first battle of the American War for Independence: the Battle of Lexington Green. (The following account is related in the 1912 book The Pioneer Mothers of America, reprinted by WallBuilders as Wives of the Signers):

On April 18th….Dr. Joseph Warren hastily dispatched Paul Revere on the ride that has made his name immortal. About midnight, Revere galloped up to the Rev. Mr. Clark’s house….By daybreak, one hundred and fifty men had mustered for the defense. John Hancock, with gun and sword, prepared to go out and fight with the minute-men, but [Samuel] Adams checked him….Hancock…went with him back through the rear of the house and garden to a thickly wooded hill where they could watch the progress of events. Dorothy Quincy and Aunt Lydia remained in the house, as no danger was apprehended there, and so by chance were eye witnesses of the first battle of the Revolution. Dorothy watched the fray from her bedroom window and in her narration of it notes: “Two men are being brought into the house. One, whose head has been grazed by a ball, insisted that he was dead, but the other, who was shot through the arm, behaved better.”

Dorothy helped minister to the wounded men.

The Hancock’s were married four months later, but since John was president of the Continental Congress, the two were forced to spend much time apart. Many of John’s letters to her reveal his deep affection for her.

My Dear Dear Dolly….I shall make out as well as I can, but I assure you, my Dear Soul, I long to have you here….When I part from you again it must be a very extraordinary occasion….I was exceeding glad to hear from you & hope soon to receive another letter.
My Dearest Dolly: No Congress today, and I have been as busily employed as you can conceive–quite lonesome, and in a domestic situation that ought to be relieved as speedily as possible! This relief depends upon you, and the greater dispatch [haste] you make, and the sooner you arrive here, the more speedy will be my relief!

Valentine’s Day is a good time to learn more about the loving relationships so common among our Founders and their wives.

Fatherly Advice

Each year on Father’s Day we celebrate our fathers and thank them for all the ways they bless us (a practice we should carry with us throughout the year!). In addition to our own fathers, we also have national fathers for whom we can be thankful and who were also great fathers to their family.

John Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence and America’s second President, was the father of six children. During the War for Independence he spent much time in public service and away from his family. Not wanting to neglect his children, he and Abigail Adams wrote letters to each other about how the children’s education should proceed, including these suggestions:

The education of our children is never out of my mind. Train them to virtue. Habituate them to industry [hard work], activity, and spirit [endurance]. Make them consider every vice as shameful and unmanly. Fire them with ambition to be useful. Make them disdain to be destitute of any useful or ornamental knowledge or accomplishment. Fix their ambition upon great and solid objects, and their contempt upon little, frivolous, and useless ones. (August 1774)
It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to a excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.(October 1775)

John Quincy Adams grew up under this instruction. He became our nation’s sixth President, and was the father of four children. In his many years of public service, he would often spend extended periods away from his family. Wanting to encourage and advise his children during these times, especially on growing strong spiritually, he wrote a series of letters giving his son advice on how to read and study the Bible. In one of these letters, he said:

I advise you, my son, in whatever you read, and most of all in reading the Bible, to remember that it is for the purpose of making you wiser and more virtuous. I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. I have always endeavored to read it with the same spirit and temper of mind, which I now recommend to you: that is, with the intention and desire that it may contribute to my advancement in wisdom and virtue.

This advice from our Founding Fathers is definitely worth remembering.

Leadership Training Program in Israel

This is a part of our Alumni Series of articles written by past participants of the WallBuilders/Mercury One Leadership Training Program (now called “AJE Summer Institute”). Click here to learn more about this program.

By Devyn Gulickson – Class of 2017

In the fall of 2017, I finished the Leadership Training Program (LTP) put on by Mercury One and WallBuilders and entered a new semester at my local college, armed with my new knowledge. While I was certain the knowledge I gained during those two weeks would forever change how I thought of America and its founders, I did not imagine that two years later I would have my perspective once again flipped on its head, this time about Israel. Between the informative speakers and the incredible sights, I would leave Israel with my political and historical views of Israel forever changed.

When I first heard I had been accepted to go to Israel, I was met with images I had seen on the news: suicide bombers, missiles flying overhead, violent protests. People I talked to said they would pray for my safety; the US State Department foreign travel advisory suggested I make out a will, designate a point of contact in case I was abducted, and to leave behind DNA – to confirm remains, it was implied. I was excited to go to see the place where Jesus walked, but I could not ignore what I thought at the time were obvious and likely dangers that came along with a visit to Israel.

For the ten days of the trip, our tour group comprised of 38 LTP members, two trip mentors who had been on previous trips to Israel, four representatives of WallBuilders and Mercury One, a tour guide, and a former IDF soldier acting as our guard and medic.

Scattered throughout the trip were different speakers talking on a variety of topics: Anti-Semitism, Israeli startup tech culture, the Palestinians’ view of Israel, Aramaic culture and language, and what life is like living within a mile of the Gaza Strip. Just as WallBuilders taught us to go back to original sources and read firsthand accounts, these speakers allowed us to bypass the filter the news media has on Israel and the issues surrounding it.

We were able to hear different sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict and really get a sense of the complexity of the issue. An idea I heard throughout the trip regarding the conflict is that fear makes people do bad things. Like the famous quote, “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” We were told multiple times that children on both sides grow up fearing (and in turn, hating) the other. An example of this was told by an Arab Christian, who supports the presence of Israeli security in the West Bank. He told us the story of how he was almost shot by a young IDF soldier a month before. He explained his car broke down in front of an IDF soldier in a place that, a week before, had been blown up by a suicide bomber in a car. The soldier looked about eighteen and was obviously extremely afraid that this was another suicide bomber. The boy was screaming at him to start his car, pointing his gun in his face. Fortunately, he was able to start the car and drive away. He finished the story by explaining he knew the boy probably did not want to shot him, but he was so afraid that he was going to die. This was just one example of how fear turns to violence.

If you had asked me before my visit to Israel if a one-state or two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict was better, I would have said two-state. What I realized during the trip, though, is that I did not know why I thought that was true. After listening to the different speakers about what it is like to live with the constant threat of violence on both sides, it is hard to know if there will ever be peace, no matter if the final decision is one-state or two-state. There will definitely not be peace for a couple generations under a one-state solution because there has been too much blood shed between Palestinians and Israelis. And a two-state solution keeps up the “us verses them” mentality that invites further division and hostility. Even if the government left in charge of Palestine is peaceful, it’s hard to know if an organization like Hamas won’t be elected into power again, with more power and land than before. I left Israel with a clearer understanding of the complex political situation, though less clear about a solution.

We also visited a multitude of Biblical sites ranging from the Garden of Gethsemane, to the Via Dolorosa, to Caesarea Philippi, to the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee. We explored the Jewish and Muslim quarters, shopped at the markets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and walked in the ancient underground irrigation tunnels in the City of David. Each place we visited provided a greater understanding of the historical context of the biblical stories told in the Bible.

An example of this is the Garden of Gethsemane. When Jesus was praying in the garden on the Mount of Olives, He could have run if He had wanted to. The Mount of Olives in which the garden is on is between Jerusalem and the desert. He was not trapped and He did not surrender because He had no chance to escape from the guards; He did. This geographical knowledge maybe provides more context to Jesus’ pleading for His cup to pass over Him. He knew what was coming and saw an opportunity to run and avoid all the pain that would happen in the next hours. Who wouldn’t want to run? This just gives greater appreciation for the strength of Jesus’ will and how great His sacrifice was for us.

Looking back, this trip has certainly changed my perspective of Israel – both politically and historically. Because this trip has made me better understand the political situation in Israel, I have found myself more interested in learning about Israel and the Jewish people, and more willing to share my opinions of Israel with more confidence.

In a lot of ways this trip is very much a continuation of Mercury One and WallBuilders’ Leadership Training Program. We were able to visit “original source” biblical sites that we know existed and have evidence to support their location. We also received firsthand information by people living in hostile situations you only read about. I cannot thank Mercury One and WallBuilders enough for this opportunity and look forward to what’s in store for the future.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of WallBuilders.

What Does the Flag Mean?

U.S.C.T. and the Symbolism of the Flag in the Civil War

The flag of the United States of America is the perennial symbol of the nation, but its meaning is constantly under debate. Recently, several major media incidents have questioned the true value of the Stars and Stripes—specifically whether the flag symbolizes racism or freedom.[1] Certain high-profile activists and revisionists claim that since the American flag flew over the nation while slavery remained active, it still condones racism today.

Such a perspective, interestingly, is not entirely unheard of in our nation’s past. Several years before the Civil War, great abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass (himself an escaped slave) summarized the sentiments of black Americans towards the federal banner at that time, saying:

“While slavery exists, and the union of these states endures, every American citizen must bear the chagrin of hearing his country branded before the world as a nation of liars and hypocrites; and behold his cherished national flag pointed at with the utmost scorn and derision.”[2]

As long as slavery was permitted and protected by the Union flag Douglass carried an attitude similar to those of recent critics. However, Douglass’s statement is conditional upon the existence of slavery, thereby suggesting that abolition would elevate the symbolic nature of the flag and improve its reception by black Americans.

History reveals that Douglass was correct. Throughout the Civil War the men of the United States Colored Troops and those closely associated with the fight for freedom began to see the national flag in a different and positive light. Their patriotism and sacrifice redeemed the meaning of the flag, changing its reception in the black community from a symbol of slavery to one of liberty.

The journey of the flag and the black community during the Civil War largely began once black units were formed after the military opened its ranks to all people. Following custom, the Colored Troops, like many white units, received both a regimental and national flag, often from their local town, before going off to war.

For example, when the 20^th US Colored Regiment was sent out of their native New York, Charles King, the son of Founding Father Rufus King, bestowed, “the flag of the Union and of Liberty to the first regiment of colored troops that has marched from this city to defend both.”[3] One paper considered the scene so important that an engraving was made, saying that, “no scene of the war has been more striking or significant.…[as] the flag of the country waved over them in benediction.”[4]

In his speech, Charles King imbued the national flag with a special meaning before passing it into the protection of its freshly “sworn defenders and guardians.”[5] King relates the flag’s significance to that of their shared faith, explaining that:

“The religion to the flag is second only to the religion of the altar.…Hence he who is false to his flag is false to his altar and his God.”[6]

To imply a spiritual significance to the defense of the flag most certainly would have affected the listeners. He went on to explain that by joining the military and risking their lives for those still bound by slavery, they not only elevate the flag but themselves also. Declaring that:

“When you put on the uniform and swear allegiance to the standard of the Union, you stand emancipated, regenerated, and disenthralled—the peer of the proudest soldier in the land.”[7]

The speech received a warm reception by both the citizens in attendance and the soldiers of the 20^th Colored Regiment. The officer in charge received the flag saying:

“This beautiful banner symbolizes our country. It is this that makes death glorious beneath its starry folds—it is this that rouses the feelings of outraged honor when we see it trailed in the dust. How base and how dead to all sense of honor, must that wretch be whose brow burns not with shame and rage at the dishonor of the flag of his country.”[8]

Furthermore, in the lunch and procession following the presentation the soldiers of the 20^th praised the speeches of Charles King and Col. Bartram, reflecting on how, “that flag is a big thing, boys.”[9] The men were beginning to see the Union flag not as the banner which had allowed slavery and oppression, but rather as the standard by which they could personally advance freedom’s cause.

The 20^th were far from the only black soldiers to recognize the symbolic significance of receiving the national flag. For example, the 29^th Regiment out of Connecticut enjoyed a bestowal ceremony, where, “to the surprise of the regiment we were presented with the United States national colors, which greatly pleased the boys.”[10] The 1^st African Descent Regiment from Iowa were also presented with “a beautiful silk national flag” by the women of their state, “which was carried through the storms of battle, and returned at the close of the war to the State.”[11]

Most notably, however, the 1^st South Carolina Volunteer Regiment (later the 33^rd Colored) revealed their elevated affection to the national flag on many occasions. One evening a month before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, several men from the 1^st began to give speeches to encourage the troops. Their commanding officer, Col. Thomas Higginson (a pastor and abolitionist) recorded the speech of Corporal Prince Lambkin, who was, “one of our color-guard, and one of our ablest men.”[12] Lambkin told his fellow slaves-turned-soldiers:

“Our masters they have lived under the flag, they got their wealth under it, and everything beautiful for their children. Under it they have ground us up, and put us in their pocket for money. But the first minute they think that ol’ flag meant freedom for we colored people, they pulled it right down, and run up a rag of their own. [Immense applause.] But we’ll never desert they ol’ flag, boys, never; we have lived under it for eighteen hundred sixty-two years [sic], and we’ll die for it now.”[13]

The speech was remembered by the Colonel as, “one of the few really impressive appeals for the American flag that I ever heard.” Less than a month after Lambkin’s speech, the 1^st South Carolina were presented the national flag on the day, “Lincoln’s immortal proclamation of freedom was given to the world.”[14] Col. Higginson explained that after receiving the large silk flag:

“Then followed an incident so simple, so touching, so utterly unexpected and startling, that I can scarcely believe it on recalling, though it gave the keynote to the whole day. The very moment the speaker had ceased, and just as I took and waved the flag, which now for the first time meant anything to these poor people, there suddenly arose, close beside the platform, a strong male voice (but rather cracked and elderly), into which two women’s voices instantly blended, singing, as if by an impulse that could no more be repressed than the morning note of the song-sparrow: “My Country, ‘tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing!”
People looked at each other, and then at us on the platform to see whence came this interruption, not set down in the bills. Firmly and irrepressibly the quavering voices sang on, verse after verse; others of the colored people joined in; some whites on the platform began, but I motioned them to silence. I never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap; it seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. Nothing could be more wonderfully unconscious; art could not have dreamed of a tribute to the day of jubilee that should be so affecting; history will not believe it; and when I came to speak of it, after it was ended, tears were everywhere. If you could have heard how quaint and innocent it was!
Just think of it! The first day they had ever had a country, the first flag they had ever seen which promised anything to their people, and here, while mere spectators stood in silence, waiting for my stupid words, these simple souls burst out in their lay, as if they were by their own hearths at home! When they stopped there was nothing to do for it but to speak, and I went on; but the life of the whole day was in those unknown people’s song.”[15]

The men of the 1^st South Carolina bravely bore those flags throughout the war and, after victory, recalled with pride that, “it has never been disgraced by a cowardly faltering in the hour of danger, or polluted by a traitor’s touch.”[16] The success of the black divisions was measured, both by themselves and others, by their steadfast protection of the national flag through unflinching heroism and endless courage.

Nothing displays this more clearly than the numerous moments of bravery by black soldiers protecting the flag. No less than seven African Americans received the Medal of Honor for valiantly defending the national flag in battle.[17] The most famous example remains that of Sgt. William Carney who, though wounded twice, led the Massachusetts 54^th through the Battle of Fort Wagner despite the overwhelmingly desperate situation.[18]

Additionally, several men at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm received the Medal of Honor for not allowing the colors to touch the ground. Sgt. Alfred B. Hilton took up both the flag and the regimental standard once the original color bearers were shot. Thereafter, when Hilton himself was severely wounded, Sgt. Christian Fleetwood caught the national flag before it fell to the ground, and carried it through the rest of the fight—with General Butler himself allegedly witnessing their bravery.[19]

Such noble actions, however, were far from rare in the black units. At the Battle of the Crater the 43^rd Colored Regiment gave ample proof of this for, “as each brave color bearer was shot down, another and another would immediately grasp the National emblem, all riddled with balls and plant it further on the enem[y’s] line,” until the flag was, “almost entirely cut up by the fire, and the Color Staffs splintered and broken.”[20] The list of heroic deeds in defense of the flag extends well beyond the few stories mentioned above, a fact which led USCT veteran and Civil War historian George Washington Williams to rejoice that, “the one flag of a great nation will float as the sovereign symbol of a free and united people.”[21]

The officers of these units particularly were struck by the devotion black troops showed to the flag under which so much oppression had been so recently practiced. For example, Lieutenant Joseph G. Golding of the 6^th Colored Infantry recalled that his men bravely fought and nobly sacrificed, “to the utmost, even to the laying down of their lives for us, for the flag, [and] for the perpetuation of the grandest nationality the sun shines upon.”[22] That unit specifically suffered a 57% casualty rate throughout the War. Similarly, when the 33^rd USCT mustered out at the end of the war, their commanding officer, Lt. Col. Trowbridge, explained in his final order that as a result of their efforts:

“Millions of bondsmen have been emancipated, and the fundamental law of the land has been so altered as to remove forever the possibility of human slavery being established within the borders of redeemed America. The flag our fathers, restored to its rightful significance.”[23]

Trowbridge explicitly applauds the USCT for helping to redeem the national symbol, elevating it finally to the standard which the Founding Fathers had envisioned.

A natural result following the tireless devotion of the soldiers to the flag was that the nation as a whole also began to judge the flag by the way the government pursued liberating the slave population and the treatment of the African American soldiers. A major issue surrounded the revelation that Confederates would mistreat, brutalize, and kill the black troops if they were captured through the course of the war. One officer remarked that, “they fought with ropes round their necks,” because for them it was either victory or death.[24]

In response to the tragedy of Fort Pillow and the growing evidence that black prisoners were systematically treated horribly, an article in Harper’s Weekly demanded retaliation on the honor of the national flag. The author concluded that:

“After due delay, if the Government should find that the natural suspicion of foul play is correct, then if its retaliation is not swift, sure, and deadly, if the rebels are not taught, as by fire, that every man who fights beneath the national flag is equally protected by the people whose sovereignty that flag symbolizes, we are simply unworthy of success.”[25]

Through the course of the Civil War the status of the flag and the meaning it carried directly corresponded to the issue of abolition and equal rights.

After the war, the black men who fought under the American flag and were freed by that banner reflected this redeemed symbolism through both word and deed. Significantly in the years immediately following, many of the newly elected black congressmen pointed to the brave service of the USCT and their valiant defense of the national flag as evidence of their patriotism and rights.

One of the first to do so was Representative Richard Harvey Cain. A prominent pastor as well as one of the first African Americans elected to national office, Cain explained in a speech supporting increased civil rights that he had hoped to fight in the War due to his desire to, “vindicate the Stars and Stripes.”[26]

For the redemption of the flag, Cain, and thousands like him, sought to serve under that standard in order to effect such a change. Speaking on behalf of the black community which elected him, Cain explained:

“We propose to identify ourselves with this nation….We will take the eagle as the emblem of liberty; we will take that honored flag which has been borne through the heat of a thousand battles.[27]

Now, after the Civil War, the national flag finally stands as a suitable symbol for his constituents. Cain suggests that the Star-Spangled Banner rightfully encompasses both black and white, concluding that:

“Under its folds Anglo-Saxon and Africo-American can together work out a common destiny, until universal liberty…shall be known throughout the world.”[28]

In the following session of Congress, another black Representative—John Roy Lynch—confirmed Cain’s sentiments through his defense of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Born into slavery and freed only through the Emancipation Proclamation, Lynch’s perspective on the flag carries significant weight as he was once enslaved under its authority, then freed by it. In an eloquent expression Lynch proclaimed:

“I love the land that gave me birth; I love the Stars and Stripes. This country is where I intend to live, where I expect to die. To preserve the honor of the national flag and to maintain perpetually the Union of the States hundreds, and I may say thousands, of brave, and true-hearted colored men have fought, bled, and died. And now, Mr. Speaker, I ask, can it be possible that that flag under which they fought is to be a shield and a protection to all races and classes of persons except the colored race? God forbid!”[29]

Such a sentiment poignantly reflects the increasing veneration and regard for the national flag due to the results of the Civil War. Lynch had been born into slavery under the national standard, then liberated by those fighting for it, and now is himself defending the newfound meaning of the flag through the very institution of Congress which once had so powerfully operated against him.

Similarly, the continued importance of the aforementioned Medal of Honor recipient Sgt. Christian Fleetwood in the national black society gives valuable insight into how drastically the communal reception of the flag had changed on account of the war. Fleetwood’s bravery brought him public recognition to such a degree that he was, “known from one end of the Country to the other.”[30]

Settling into the Washington DC area once peace had been achieved, he capitalized on his influential standing and used his fame to train the next generation of black Americans to see the nation and flag the way he did. In addition to advocating for the role of African Americans in the military, he even formed and trained a black cadet corps. Fleetwood’s effort eventually led to the formation of the first black National Guard unit—paving the way for later units.[31]

However, perhaps Frederick Douglass, with whom we began, most resoundingly displayed how the actions of the USCT and the end of slavery redeemed the symbolism of the national flag and its reception by black Americans. Once abolition became an official war goal, Douglass began, in his own words, “to persuade every colored man able to bear arms to rally around the flag, and help save the country and save the race.”[32]

After victory and the successful emancipation of all slaves, the famed orator relates a story of sailing on the USS Tennessee specifically noting that for the first time he could rejoice to finally live, “under the national flag, which I could now call mine, in common with other American citizens.”[33]

In a later speech, Douglass ventures even further and announces that that the national flag truly is, “a glorious symbol of civil and religious liberty, leading the world in the race of social science, civilization, and renown.”[34] Douglass, like many others, realized that the American flag of 1865 was radically different than the one of 1855—its destiny proved one not of derision, as first believed, but rather of deliverance.

Ultimately, the brave sacrifices from the United States Colored Troops, and those who stood alongside them, successfully redeemed the symbolism of the Stars and Stripes—purging from its folds any sanction of slavery. America could now march into the next era under a unified flag fulfilling the promise of the Founding Fathers that all men were created equal.

Furthermore, the reception of national standard in the black community was revolutionized. Leaders like Douglass, Fleetwood, Lynch, and Cain all rallied to the flag instead of railing against it. After generations of steadfast resolve and four years of unimaginable courage, the entire nation—black and white—could join with the men of the 20^th and confidently say: “that flag is a big thing.”[35]

Endnotes

[1] Cf. Julie Spankles, “Chris Pratt Is in Hot Water for This Controversial T-Shirt & the Internet Has Thoughts,” Yahoo Lifestyle, July 17, 2019, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/chris-pratt-hot-water-controversial-184007706.html (accessed February 19, 2020); Bill Chappell, “Nike Pulls Shoes Featuring Betsy Ross Flag Over Concerns About Racist Symbolism,” National Public Radio, July 2, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/737977542/nike-pulls-shoes-featuring-betsy-ross-flag-over-concerns-about-racist-symbolism (accessed February 19, 2020).

[2] Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York: Miller, Orton, and Mulligan, 1855), 438.

[3] “The Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment,” Harper’s Weekly, March 19, 1864, 178.

[4] “The Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment,” Harper’s Weekly, March 19, 1864, 178.

[5] “Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment—Reception by the Union League—Speeches of Charles King and Colonel Bartram—Departure for the Seat of the War.” First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, To Aid in Suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion (New York: Baker and Goodwin, 1864), 16.

[6] “Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment—Reception by the Union League—Speeches of Charles King and Colonel Bartram—Departure for the Seat of the War.” First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, To Aid in Suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion (New York: Baker and Goodwin, 1864), 16.

[7] “Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment—Reception by the Union League—Speeches of Charles King and Colonel Bartram—Departure for the Seat of the War.” First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, To Aid in Suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion (New York: Baker and Goodwin, 1864), 17.

[8] “Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment—Reception by the Union League—Speeches of Charles King and Colonel Bartram—Departure for the Seat of the War.” First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, To Aid in Suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion (New York: Baker and Goodwin, 1864), 18.

[9] “Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment—Reception by the Union League—Speeches of Charles King and Colonel Bartram—Departure for the Seat of the War.” First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, To Aid in Suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion (New York: Baker and Goodwin, 1864), 19.

[10] J. J. Hill, A Sketch of the 29^th Regiment of Connecticut Colored Troops (Baltimore: Daugherty, Maguire, and Co., 1867), 21-22.

[11] Joseph Wilson, The Black Phalanx: A History of the Negro Soldiers of the United States (Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1897), 223, here.

[12] Thomas Higginson, The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1900), 3.149, here.

[13] Thomas Higginson, The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1900), 3.31, here. Higginson records the speech in the original spoken dialect, but the spelling has been updated above.

[14] Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1^st S. C. Volunteers (Boston: Susie King Taylor, 1902), 48-49.

[15] Thomas Higginson, The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1900), 3.54-56, here.

[16] Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1^st S. C. Volunteers (Boston: Susie King Taylor, 1902), 48-49.

[17] Cf., “Who Were These Heroes?” Negro History Bulletin 23, no. 3 (1959): 50-70.

[18] George Washington Williams, A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888), 199-202.

[19] Walter Beyer, and Oscar Keydel, Deeds of Valor: How America’s Heroes Won the Medal of Honor (Michigan: The Perrien Keydel Company, 1901), 434-435; James Clifford, “Christian Fleetwood.” On Point 13, no. 3 (2007): 21-24.

[20] Jeremiah Marion Mickley, The Forty-Third Regiment United States Colored Troops (Gettysburg: J. E. Wible, 1866), 74-75.

[21] George Washington Williams, A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1888), 199-202, 236-237, 326, 333, 336-337.

[22] Candice Zollars, “6^th U.S. Colored Infantry: They Laid Down Their Lives for the Flag,” Military Images 33, No. 3 (2015): 28.

[23] Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1^st S. C. Volunteers (Boston: Susie King Taylor, 1902), 48.

[24] Thomas Higginson, The Writings of Thomas Wentworth Higginson (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1900), 3.337-338, here.

[25] “Treatment of Captured Colored Soldiers,” Harper’s Weekly, August 15, 1863, 515.

[26] The Congressional Record Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Third Congress, First Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1874), 2.566.

[27] The Congressional Record Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Third Congress, First Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1874), 2.903.

[28] The Congressional Record Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Third Congress, First Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1874), 2.903.

[29] The Congressional Record Containing the Proceedings and Debates of the Forty-Third Congress, Second Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1875), 3.945.

[30] Roger D. Cunningham, “‘His Influence with the Colored People Is Marked:’ Christian Fleetwood’s Quest for Command in the War with Spain and Its Aftermath.” Army History, no. 51 (2001): 23.

[31] James Clifford, “Christian Fleetwood.” On Point 13, no. 3 (2007): 21-24.

[32] Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Written by Himself (Hartford: Park Publishing Company, 1882), 382.

[33] Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Written by Himself (Hartford: Park Publishing Company, 1882), 456.

[34] Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Written by Himself (Hartford: Park Publishing Company, 1882), 471.

[35] “Twentieth U.S. Colored Regiment—Reception by the Union League—Speeches of Charles King and Colonel Bartram—Departure for the Seat of the War.” First Organization of Colored Troops in the State of New York, To Aid in Suppressing the Slaveholders’ Rebellion (New York: Baker and Goodwin, 1864), 19.

The Miraculous Life of Briton Hammon

In 1760 America became the first nation to publish a work of prose by a slave of African descent.¹ In fourteen pages, the slave and author Briton Hammon recounts nearly thirteen years of trial, hardship, and adventure—ending in a way that would surprise most people today. Only two copies of his original work remain in existence today, meaning Hammon’s remarkable story of hardship and God’s deliverance is largely unknown. Nevertheless, he deserves credit for beginning a literary tradition which would grow to include people like Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup, and many others.

Hammon starts his narrative in 1747 when his master, General John Winslow (the great-grandson of the Mayflower Pilgrim Edward Winslow), granted him leave to sail by himself to Jamaica for Christmas.² After a successful cruise to the Caribbean, the vessel accidentally ran onto a reef off the coast of Florida during its return voyage. For two days the ship and crew were stranded, unable to move and with little hope of rescue.

Before they were able to make it to shore, twenty Indian canoes approached them under the guise of an English flag. They attacked and killed all on board except for Hammon who, “jumped overboard, choosing rather to be drowned, than to be killed by those barbarous and inhuman Savages.”³ The marauders soon captured him, however, and Hammon describes how they:

Beat me most terribly with a cutlass [sword], after that they tied me down… telling me, while coming from the sloop [the ship] to the shore, that they intended to roast me alive.⁴

Upon reaching the Indian camp, Hammon was relieved that, “the Providence of God ordered it other ways, for He appeared for my help,” preserving his life till the chance for escape presented itself.⁵ Soon a Spanish ship, whose captain was a personal friend of Hammon’s, miraculously found him and helped him escape to Havana. The Indians nevertheless persisted, tracking him down and suing the Spanish Governor for his return. Instead of simply giving the shipwrecked slave back to his captors, the Governor purchased Hammon from the Indians for $10.⁶

Prison in Cuba

One year into his Havanan servitude while walking down the street, an impressment gang (groups of men who would physically coerce men to fight in the Spanish navy) suddenly captured Hammon. They imprisoned him for nearly five years because he refused to serve in the fleet—all unbeknownst to the governor. Through years of appealing to random visitors, Hammon finally got word to the governor who freed him from prison only to be in servitude once again.

After two failed attempts to escape from the Havana, Hammon successfully worked himself on board a British man-of-war vessel about to depart for England. The governor was not one to let him go without a fight though and demanded the captain turn him over immediately. This British captain, however, was a man of courage and, “a true Englishman, [who] refused… to deliver up any Englishmen under English Colors.”⁷

Having now been liberated from Spanish slavery, Briton arrived in England in 1759 and signed up for the British navy. He fought in several naval battles against the French before being wounded. After an honorable discharge from the service, he continued to hire himself out on numerous merchant voyages eventually signing up for a voyage to Guinea.⁸ However, before shipping out to Africa, Hammon heard of a boat set to sail to Boston. Instantly, he abandoned plans for Africa and instead joined the crew heading back to the colonies.

Reunion

To his great astonishment and apparent joy, Hammon heard that his old master, Gen. John Winslow was on the same exact vessel. He explains that:

The truth was joyfully verified by a happy sight of his person, which so overcame me, that I could not speak to him for some time—my good master was exceeding glad to see me, telling me that I was like one arose from the dead, for he thought I had been dead a great many years, having heard nothing of me for almost thirteen years.⁹

Hammon recognized that his life to that point had been nothing short of miraculous. He echoed the Psalmist, exclaiming:

How great things the Lord hath done for me; I would call upon all men, and say, O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together! O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!¹⁰

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Briton’s narrative is the apparent fondness he had for his master. In order to begin understand this, some context must be given. As mentioned, General John Winslow (1703-1774) was the great-grandson of the Governor Edward Winslow who came on the Mayflower in 1620. Over three generations the piety of the Winslow family was merged with a martial spirit and led John into the military. He participated in operations from Cuba to Nova Scotia as a part of the British army.¹¹ As a Major General and a descendant of an early governor, he commanded respect even during a period of increasing unrest building up to the War for American Independence.

It is no small factor in Hammon’s story that his master is none other than the noted general. However, on Christmas day 1747 when Briton departed, his master had yet to climb the ranks. Most of Winslow’s military advancement occured over the thirteen years while Briton was gone. Thus, upon his miraculous reunification with the now General Winslow, he remarks that, “I asked them what General Winslow? For I never knew my good master, by that title before; but after enquiring more particularly I found it must be Master.”¹²

That a slave would seek out his master or return to him after being away for many years almost recalls the Biblical story of Onesimus and Philemon. Interestingly, prior to the reunion Briton lamented that while he was extremely sick and poor it was, “unhappy for me I knew nothing of my good Master’s being in London at this my very difficult time.” He believed that had General Winslow known of his condition his master would have undoubtedly come to his assistance.¹³

Home

The fact that Hammon referred to General Winslow in consistently affectionate terms strikes the modern reader as remarkable, especially considering the fact that at the end of his journey Briton had not arrived at what we would consider a happy ending—his return to slavery. Combined with the decision to return to Boston instead of pursuing his career in the merchant marine, we are left to question why a slave would intentionally seek out his old master.

As mentioned above, Hammon’s slave narrative seems strangely different from the stories of Douglass, Northup and the rest. Instead of fleeing from slavery, Hammon voluntarily returns to his master in America—choosing to board a ship to Boston rather than one to Africa. Why would Hammon choose America, the land of his slavery, over Africa, the land of his heritage? Why would he choose slavery abroad, over freedom at his ancestral home?

The answer to this is the realization that Hammon, far from identifying his home as Africa, was a colonial American in thought and deed. Through his life in the colonies, an emerging nationalism has taken root and supplanted any previous attachments.

Briton’s narrative is not one of slavery to manumission, but rather one of coming home. In fact, after having suffered at the hands of un-Christian Indians and barbarous Spaniards, Briton saw the reunification with Winslow as a kind of freedom and a return to his true home. He explains:

“And now, that in the Providence of that GOD, who delivered his servant David out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, I am freed from a long and dreadful captivity, among worse savages than they; And am returned to my own Native Land” (emphasis added).¹⁴

The fact that he considered New England his native land explains why he chose to abandon his plans to sail for Africa. For Briton Hammon, Massachusetts was his homeland and where he desired to return. In this sense, his story actually does relate closely to the later slave narratives—they all were seeking a home. Hammon saw himself as an Englishman, and was seen by others (such as the helpful ship captain) as an Englishman. A new identity had sprouted within him. He now claimed a new homeland.

Abolition Efforts in New England

In the years following Hammon’s return, his proclaimed homeland changed dramatically. As the colonists felt the increasingly heavy hand of English rule, more and more Massachusetts men began to realize the hypocrisy inherent in slavery. Leaders like John and Samuel Adams who were coming of age during that time rejected the institution entirely. By the time of the War for Independence Massachusetts was leading the world in progress towards emancipation. It earned the honor of being the only state to have totally abolished slavery by the time the first census was completed in 1790—achieving legal emancipation four decades before England followed suit.¹⁵

In fact, Massachusetts’ push towards liberty signaled a major shift in the northern states concerning slavery. By 1804, all of the New England states, as well as New York and New Jersey, had passed laws for either the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery. This directly translated into a rapid increase of manumissions. From 1790 to 1810 the number of free blacks in America increased from 59,466 to 108,395, displaying a growth rate of 82%. The next decade saw that number expand another 72% to 186,446.¹⁶

The 1810 census documented that the total population of those states—Massachusetts (Maine included), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey—stood at 3,486,675.¹⁷ This was approximately 48% of the total population, slave and free, of the United States at that time. Although not entirely free of slavery due to the gradual emancipation laws in states such as New York and New Jersey, the total percentage of the population awaiting emancipation was less than 1% in those states.

In fact, by 1804 nearly half of America had succeeded in passing laws for the abolition of slavery. Only six years later they had been 99% effective in accomplishing that goal. Nowhere else in the world was close to the abolition sucess of those northern states.

So, what happened to Briton Hammon upon returning home? Unfortunately, the historical record is extremely sparse. It seems likely that General Winslow assisted in the production of Hammon’s Narrative. The publishers, John Green and Joseph Russell, worked for the English government as the, “appointed printers to the English commissioners.”¹⁸ It is suggested that Winslow, with his extensive government connections, might have recommended the book to them or offered it to them first, instead of going to other prominent Bostonian or New England printers.

While there are many questions remaining to be answered about the remarkable life of Briton Hammon, his place as one of the first printed black authors in America (and likely the world) deserves to be remembered. From slave to soldier, imprisonment to independence—Briton’s life is a valuable part of the American story and a testiment to God’s mercy. We ought to heed his words, “Magnify the Lord…and let us exalt his Name together!”²¹

Endnotes

¹ Frances S. Foster, “Briton Hammon’s ‘Narrative’: Some Insights Into Beginnings,” CLA Journal 21, No. 2 (1977): 179; “Briton Hammon,” Dictionary of American Negro Biography, eds. Rayford Logan and Michael Winston (New York: Norton, 1982), xxx. The first work published by a black author was one year earlier in 1759, Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, published anonymously by Harriet E. Wilson (Boston: George C. Rand & Avery, 1859).

² Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 3.

³ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 6.

⁴ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 6-7.

⁵ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 7.

⁶ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 7.

⁷ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 11.

⁸ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 12.

⁹ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 13.

¹⁰ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 14, paraphrasing Psalm 126:3, 34:3, and 107:31.

¹¹ Maria Bryant, Genealogy of Edward Winslow of the Mayflower and His Descendants, From 1620 to 1865 (New Bedford: E. Anthony & Sons, 1915), 37.

¹² Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 13.

¹³ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 12.

¹⁴ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 14.

¹⁵ The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1858 (Boston: Crosby, Nicholas, and Company, 1858), 214.

¹⁶ Joseph Kennedy, Preliminary Reports on the Eighth Census, 1860 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1862), 7.

¹⁷ Aggregate Amount of Each Description of Persons Within the United States of America, and the Territories Thereof (Washington: 1811), 1.

¹⁸ Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America (Worchester: Isaiah Thomas, Jr., 1810), 245.

¹⁹ Robert Desrochers, “‘Surprizing Deliverance’?: Slavery and Freedom, Language, and Identity in the Narrative of Briton Hammon, ‘A Negro Man,’” Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic, edited by Carretta Vincent and Gould Philip (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 168.

²⁰ Robert Desrochers, “‘Surprizing Deliverance’?: Slavery and Freedom, Language, and Identity in the Narrative of Briton Hammon, ‘A Negro Man,’” Genius in Bondage: Literature of the Early Black Atlantic, edited by Carretta Vincent and Gould Philip (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2001), 168.

²¹ Briton Hammon, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, Servant to General Winslow, Of Marshfield in New England (Boston: Green & Russell, 1760), 14.

America’s Exceptional History of Anti-Slavery

Recently the idea of American Exceptionalism has been ridiculed in academic and political circles with entire books dedicated to the purpose of tearing down any thought of an ethical America.[i] Much of this recent shift centers around America’s record on slavery. For instance, organizations such as the New York Times have started initiatives declaring that the “true founding” was not until the introduction of slavery 1619[ii] and that the “founding ideals were false” due to the existence of slavery.[iii]

The shift to a negative perspective of America largely stems from the revisionist school of history beginning in the 1960’s and culminating with Howard Zinn’s monumental 1980 People’s History of the United States. This book popularized the historiographical approach of doing “history from the bottom up,” which means telling the story of America through the interpretive lens of oppression. A fellow activist historian of Zinn’s, Staughton Lynd explains the fundamental premises underlying this approach in his Doing History from the Bottom Up. In their interpretive model, “was founded on crimes against humanity directed at…enslaved African Americans,” and therefore must be evil.[iv]

Such anti-American revisionism forgets that America’s record of anti-slavery actually is exceptional compared to the rest of the world. Rarely do revisionists remember that over half of the American states had passed laws abolishing slavery by 1804, nearly thirty years before William Wilberforce effected the similar results in England. This wide-scale abolitionism was planted by the Biblical beliefs of several early colonies, was watered by the advocacy and action of the patriots during the American Revolution, and finally brought forth fruit through the establishment of a Constitutional Republic designed to advance liberty and defend the ideals of the Declaration.

A careful review of the colonial anti-slavery context, the development of abolitionist thought during the War for Independence, and the staunch leadership of the pro-freedom Founding Fathers reveals how America led the way in abolishing slavery. Instead of the modern academic narrative which attempts to debunk American exceptionalism, history shows that America was exceptional in their struggle for emancipation.

As mentioned earlier, by 1804 all of the New England states as well as Vermont, New York, and New Jersey had either completely abolished slavery or enacted positive laws for the gradual abolition of it. This is four years before the Federal Congress ends the slave trade, and almost three decades before England votes to follow suit and abolishes slavery. The American wave of emancipation constituted the largest group of people who had voluntarily freed their slaves up to that point in modern history.

The 1810 census documents that the total population of those states—Massachusetts (Maine included), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey—stood at 3,486,675.[v] This was approximately 48% of the total population, slave and free, of the United States at that time. Although not entirely free of slavery due to the gradual emancipation laws in states such as New York and New Jersey, the total percentage of the population waiting for emancipation was only 0.9% in states originally a colony. So, by 1804 half of America had succeeded in passing laws for the abolition of slavery, and only six years later they had been 99% effective in accomplishing that goal. Nobody else in the world was anywhere close to what those Northern States had succeeded in doing—in this America was exceptional.

Massachusetts itself has the honor of being the only state to have totally abolished slavery by the time the first census was completed in 1790, and Vermont was not far behind with only seventeen slaves left to be liberated by their laws.[vi] Massachusetts also receives distinction for passing potentially the earliest anti-slavery law in the American colonies within the 1641 enactment of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties. The tenth capital crime in that legal code stated that, “if any man stealeth a man or mankind, he shall surely be put to death. Ex. xxi.16.”[vii] Taken from the Bible as evidenced by the scriptural citation, manstealing was interpreted by the New England colonists to include what they considered improper enslavement—later it was to expand to all vestiges of slavery.

Blackstone describes manstealing as, “the forcible abduction or stealing away of a man, woman, or child, from their own country, and sending them into another.”[viii] Going further to say, “this is unquestionably a very heinous crime, as it robs the king of his subjects, banishes a man from his country, and may in its consequences be productive of the most cruel and disagreeable hardships.”[ix]

This law was not simply an empty letter either, and when the first instance of manstealing occurred in 1646 the General Court of Massachusetts was vigorous in its prosecution. The record explains that:

The General Court, conceiving themselves bound by the first opportunity to bear witness against the heinous and crying sin of man stealing, as also to proscribe such timely redress for what is past, and such a law for the future as may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and most odious courses, justly abhorred of all good and just men, do order that the negro interpreter, with others unlawfully taken, be, by the first opportunity, (at the charge of the country for present,) sent to his native country of Ginny, and a letter with him of the indignation of the Court thereabouts, and justice hereof, desiring of honored Governor would please put this order in execution.[x]

Interestingly, the Court chose to go farther than the law necessarily required, deciding to send back the slaves at the cost of the community. After making arrangements for the liberated slaves, the General Court then, “appointed a committee to examine witnesses and draw up the case about Captain Smith and Mr. Kezar killing stealing, and wronging of the negroes, etc.”[xi] This response to the arrival of a slave ship is markedly different than when the first one arrived on the shores of Jamestown, and it indicates an entirely different culture which from an extremely early period looked down upon the slave trade.

Their reliance upon the Bible to begin to understand their relationship to slavery led New Englanders down a dramatically different path than both the Southern colonies and the world. Instead of viewing enslavement as a natural product of race, they understood it arose out of either personal misfortunes (such as debt) or bad choices (such as crime). The New England slaves therefore attained levels of rights unheard of practically anywhere else.

The Puritans’ idea of a “Bible commonwealth” relied upon the Mosaic laws for much of their own statutes concerning servitude. Therefore, slaves had an increased level of social status with rights including the right to own property, testify in court against white men, wives could not be compelled to testify against their husbands, had legal standing to sue which included suing their masters for freedom.[xii] Additionally, enslaved people had the equal procedural rights within the courtroom which, together with the right to sue, led many slaves to advocate for freedom through the New England government.[xiii]

The wider context of slavery both domestically and globally makes North America’s record even more exceptional. First it must be noted that slavery has existed within every culture historically documented. In fact, the story of American slavery begins long before Christopher Columbus ever dreamed of sailing across the ocean sea. The native tribes he discovered all had slaves and on a whole it is estimated that 20 to 40 percent of native populations were slaves, making the native Americans on par with the slave empires of Greece and Rome.^[xiv] This native American tradition of slavery continued uninterrupted by colonization, and by 1860, 12.5% of the population in the Indian Nations were black slaves, equaling one slave for every eight Indians.[xv]

Expanding the scope of inquiry even wider, throughout the nearly 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade 12,521,337 Africans were taken to be slaves around the world. Only a small minority of that number ever embarked to the areas that would become the United States—305,326 to be exact, totaling 2.4%.[xvi] For comparison, Spain and her territories received 1,061,524 slaves during that same period representing nearly 8.5%, and France only barely received more with 11% (1,381,404). Next was Great Britain with 3,259,441 slaves taken from Africa, meaning that over one quarter (26%) of all slaves sourced from the African continent were intended for English lands. That, however, pales in comparison to Portugal and Brazil, where 5,848,266 enslaved humans were shipped—nearly 47% of the total number. Even the Netherland had more stake in the trans-Atlantic slave trade than America did, themselves accounting for 554,336 and 4.4%.[xvii]

What is more, slavery both globally and in America was never simply white on black. Just as every people group has owned slaves, every people group has correspondingly been enslaved. Prior to the 1700s there were more white slaves globally than there were black slaves.[xviii] In fact, early records from Massachusetts reveal that in December of 1738 several white men were sentenced to slavery for a variety of crimes. One had been an indentured servant who physically assaulted the man he was working for, and then “did conspire also against the life of his said whole common wealth,” and two others for theft alongside breaking and entering.[xix] The next year the Massachusetts court similarly sentenced another white criminal to slavery for attempted rape.[xx]

In addition to white slavery in America, Americans themselves were sold into slavery in the Barbary Coast of North Africa after being captured by Muslim slave traders. Charles Sumner, the famous abolitionist and founder or the Republican party, documented that fourteen men from Boston and Philadelphia would fetch $34,792 in the African slave market of 1785.[xxi] Beyond just the American sailors, the Muslim Barbary Pirates conducted extensive slave raids along the European coast, meaning that:

“Between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly a million and quite possibly as many as a million and a quarter white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast.”[xxii]

Just as there were white slaves both in America and the world, there also were black slave masters. Carter Woodson, often considered the “Father of Black History,” conducted a close study of the 1830 census data in order to investigate rates of free blacks who themselves owned slaves. His research revealed that, out of those free blacks who were eligible to own slaves (head of households living in states which would later join the Confederacy), 16% of them owned black slaves.[xxiii] Certain states, however, stand out in their relatively high frequency. South Carolina for instance saw 43% of eligible free black people own slaves, 40% in Louisiana, 26% in Mississippi, 25% in Alabama, and 20% in Georgia.[xxiv] Such statistical data simply shows just how varied the institution of slavery was throughout both history and the American story—far from the monolithic image presented by revisionists.

With so much of the world having been embroiled with slavery and the slave trade for hundreds of years, it makes the actions of America not only unique but remarkable. By the time the 18^th century began, many of the northern colonies began passing laws which established duties on importing slaves. The intent was for such acts cut away the slaver’s profit margin and therefore making it economically undesirable to import slaves into those regions. In 1700 elements of the Massachusetts citizenry petitioned the legislature for restrictive duty on slaves “to discourage the bringing of them” of forty shillings.[xxv] The next year the colony sought to set a limit to the period of slavery that a person could serve, and in 1705 they were successful in obtaining a four-pound import duty.[xxvi] Rhode Island had passed a slightly smaller duty two years earlier of a still substantial three-pounds.[xxvii]

Other colonies such as New York and Pennsylvania attempt to pass even more restrictive bills regulating the slave trade into relative non-existence but many of their efforts were vetoed by the authority of the Crown.[xxviii] The Royal veto of anti-slavery measures, often because of the economic benefit which England derived from the global trade, became a common response to colonial attempts at restricting slavery.

Nearly seventy years later such practices nearly made it into the Declaration of Independence after appearing in Thomas Jefferson’s draft and being approved by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. The grievance against the slave trade was the longest out of all of them, occupying the better part of a page in addition to having the most words underlined or capitalized outside of the title. The grievance in the draft reported to Congress read as follows:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation tither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.[xxix]

Many other Founding Fathers agreed with Jefferson—in fact, the majority of Founding Fathers agreed with him. Only two states voted against the grievance thus keeping it out of the final Declaration of Independence.

(It should also be noted that although many today claim that when the Declaration states that “all men are created equal” the Founding Fathers really meant to say “all white men are created equal,” Jefferson himself explicitly identifies slaves as men and thereby included in the American promise.)

With over a century of anti-slavery activity, it should come as no surprise to see a dramatic increase in manumissions and widespread emancipation during and immediately following the War for Independence. From 1790 to 1810 the number of free blacks in America increased from 59,466 to 108,395, displaying a growth rate of 82%. The next decade saw that number expand another 72% to 186,446.[xxx] While the number continued to grow albeit at a lower rate of growth in the years leading up to the Civil War, those first two decades of the American Republic saw the strongest rate of voluntary emancipation ever recorded up to that time. It is this period which Arthur Zilversmit calls the First Emancipation.[xxxi]

John Adams, an attorney prior to becoming a politician, recalled the environment of emancipation during those years saying:

“I was concerned in several Causes, in which Negroes sued for their Freedom before the Revolution.…I never knew a Jury, by a Verdict to determine a Negro to be a slave—They always found them free.”[xxxii]

During the Revolution itself many slaves who fought for freedom from England also achieved freedom from slavery, being manumitted on account of their service. William Whipple, signer of the Declaration and General under Washington, freed his slave, Prince Whipple during campaign after realizing the incongruity of his own actions.[xxxiii] Another veteran of the Revolutionary War, a slave named Prime, was actually re-enslaved after the war but, with the help of anti-slavery advocates, he successfully petitioned for his emancipation, winning his freedom not only on the battlefield but in the courtroom as well.

Upon examining this period, renown historian Benjamin Quarles remarked that the War for Independence and the environment leading up to it empowered the black population with the tools and personal agency to reach for their freedom as Americans. He writes that the slaves, “gave a personal interpretation to the theory of natural rights and the slogans of liberty and independence,” and many white leaders who were awakening to the injustice helped them in that greater revolution.[xxxiv]

This brief examination of the overarching facts and context concerning America’s early history with slavery shows that the story is infinitely more nuanced than the revisionist narratives propagated by Zinn, Lynd, and the New York Times. The real history, however, reveals that America’s record for anti-slavery is exceptional when placed in the context of the world at that time. Instead of presenting a view of history as if it Jamestown won the ideological battle for America, historians today must realize that the tree of slavery was choked out by the tree of liberty. That the ideas of Plymouth overcame those of Jamestown.

The story of the northern colonies, when properly told, shows that America was among the first places in the world to lead a successful fight against slavery in both word and deed. Furthermore, the anti-slavery Founding Fathers paved the path which many of the global abolitionist followed in the decades to come. America ought not to be remembered as a land of oppression but rather one of liberation. The New World has been the frontier of freedom from the beginning, being the first to struggle for emancipation and find large-scale success. Those small American Republics, carved out of the wilderness, showed a level of civilization unheard of at that early period, passing anti-slavery and abolition laws before virtually anywhere else in the world. America was indeed exceptional—a seedbed of liberty for themselves and the rest of the world.

[i] Andrew Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2009); Godfrey Hodgson, The Myth of American Exceptionalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

[ii] “The 1619 Project,” The New York Times (accessed December 5, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

[iii] Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Our Democracy’s Founding Ideals were False When They were Written,” The New York Times (December 5, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/black-history-american-democracy.html

[iv] Staughton Lynd, Doing History from the Bottom Up: On E. P. Thompson, Howard Zinn, and Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2014), xii.

[v] Aggregate Amount of Each Description of Persons Within the United States of America, and the Territories Thereof (Washington: 1811), 1.

[vi] The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1858 (Boston: Crosby, Nicholas, and Company, 1858), 214.

[vii] Francis Bowen, editor, Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789, (Cambridge: John Bartlett, 1854), 72.

[viii] William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (London: A. Strahan and W. Woodfall, 1795), 4.218-219.

[ix] Ibid., 4.219.

[x] Nathaniel Shurtleff, Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston: William Whites, 1853), 1.168.

[xi] Ibid., 1.176.

[xii] Arthur Zilversmit, The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 19.

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] Fernando Santos-Granero, Vital Enemies: Slavery, Predation, and the Amerindian Political Economy of Life (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009), 226-227.

[xv] Joseph Kennedy, Preliminary Reports on the Eighth Census, 1860 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1862), 11.

[xvi] “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Estimates,” Slave Voyages, https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates (accessed December 6, 2019).

[xvii] Ibid.

[xviii] Philip Morgan, “Origins of American Slavery,” Organization of American History Magazine of History, Vol. 19, No. 4 (July 2005), p. 53

[xix] Nathaniel Shurtleff, Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston: William Whites, 1853), 1.246.

[xx] Ibid., 1.269.

[xxi] Charles Sumner, White Slaves in the Barbary States (Boston: William D. Ticknor and Company, 1847), 32.

[xxii] Robert Davis, “Counting European on the Barbary Coast,” Past &Present, No. 172 (August 2001), 118.

[xxiii] Thomas J. Pressly, “‘The Known World’ of Free Black Slaveholders: A Research Note on the Scholarship of Carter G. Woodson,” The Journal of African American History 91, no. 1 (2006): 85.

[xxiv] Ibid.

[xxv] Zilversmit, The First Emancipation, 51.

[xxvi] Ibid.

[xxvii] Ibid.

[xxviii] Ibid., 47-49.

[xxix] Thomas Jefferson, The Works of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Paul Leicester Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904), 210-211.

[xxx] Kennedy, Preliminary Reports, 7.

[xxxi] Zilversmit, The First Emancipation.

[xxxii] Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1877), 401-402.

[xxxiii] William Nell, Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (Boston: Robert Wallcut, 1855), 198.

[xxxiv] Benjamin Quarles, “The Revolutionary War as a Black Declaration of Independence,” Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution, edited by Ira Berlin (Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1983), 285.

*Originally published: April 6, 2020

* This article concerns a historical issue and may not have updated information.

People of Faith During COVID-19

Throughout both American and world history, the Church has arisen and become a much-needed leader in times of crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic provides us another such opportunity to be a shining light to people and communities. Gratefully, we have seen many churches across the nation rolling up their sleeves and taking the lead in extending God’s love to others and truly helping those in need during this difficult time.

We’ve compiled a list of actions that people of faith have taken to meet community needs in a practical way. Please use it to take action and serve others.

Help those laid off from work.
Some churches can financially bless workers who have been laid off by offering them jobs around the church, giving a one-time monetary gift, dropping off a load of groceries and paper-goods, bringing them a gas gift card, or helping them network within the church body to find and provide opportunities for those individuals to take on new jobs, even limited or part time opportunities, working from home. You can also provide them with lists of local resources like food pantries or places that offer free meals. Up to forty percent of all jobs are related to the service industry, and this area has been hit particularly hard in recent days, so this segment of the population may especially need help.
Meet the needs of widows.
Remember the widows, and especially elderly widows, within the community. Call them and ask how you can help meet their needs. Help limit the need for them to leave their homes and be exposed to the virus. Offer to drop off groceries, meals, medications, and so forth—or have groceries delivered. Have someone from the church mow their lawn or shovel snow from their driveway (weather dependent, of course). Have someone offer to drive them to any appointments they might have.
If they have children, drop by a goodie bag for the kids that might have games or puzzles or things that they can do during this time off from school. If you have people in your church who are willing to babysit, consider asking if they would offer a day of babysitting services for these families for free.
Help the elderly.
Consider setting up a hotline for the elderly to call if they need food or medications. Volunteers can deliver these essentials to their house or utilize grocery store delivery services. Check to see if assistance is needed in taking them to doctor appointments. Identify the needs of the elderly in your community and work together as a church body to meet them. While nursing homes are being extremely cautious, call your local nursing home and ask for the activity director and find out if you can bring them games or books or puzzle books.
Sanitize and disinfect public spaces.
If you have people with hazmat certifications, ask the city, governments, hospitals, schools, parks, if your church can assist cleaning a public space.
Support small businesses.
Due to the hysteria, countless businesses are suffering financially during this time – especially small businesses! Consider encouraging your congregation to buy gift cards to local restaurants or businesses right now that can be used later and help financially alleviate some of their current losses. If it’s a local restaurant, consider submitting a large order that can be delivered to families in need of help.
Assist working parents.
Many families have children who must now stay home from school while the parents are still working. Consider donating a day of babysitting or offering volunteers from the church to babysit for parents who cannot stay home with their children.
Create Family Activity Kits.
Consider putting together activities for families while they are home. Some ideas include boxes with Scripture readings, instructions for some fun games, worship songs, devotionals, snacks for the kids, and notecards to write encouraging notes to others that can be picked up from the church. Consider having the childrens’ pastor or leader create a special video lesson just for the kids that they can watch at some point during the week.
Help the homeless.
Consider purchasing food from restaurants and delivering it to homeless shelters or food banks, take them a bag of non-perishable food and toiletry items, or give them a gift card to a local grocery store.
Donate blood!
Many blood drives have been canceled because of the coronavirus and blood banks are in need of donation! Call your local blood bank and find out what they need and put the word out to your church members!
Activate people to keep praying.
Keep a running list of people and their specific needs and regularly distribute them to parishioners, encouraging your church to pray for them. People in your church could adopt a nursing home to pray for or those with weak immune systems, government officials who are making critical decisions, or someone suffering from COVID-19 in your community. While offering prayers are important, keeping them going is even more important.
Serve healthcare workers.
Many healthcare works will be very busy in the coming weeks, and many are placing themselves directly in harm’s way, giving tireless hours. Consider how you could help healthcare workers you are already in relationship with while they work more during this time. You could offer to babysit their children, provide a meal, or simply send them a note of encouragement. Find out what their needs are and help meet them so they can in turn help those who are ill.
Utilize the giftings in your church!
Do you have someone who knows how to make homemade hand sanitizer? Ask them if they’d be willing to make some to pass out to those in need. Do you have people who babysit? Ask them if they’ll donate their services. Do you have mechanics? Ask if they can help with oil changes for those who have been laid off or for the widows/single parents/elderly. Do you have counselors? Ask if they’ll donate some sessions for those who need help or encouragement! Ask the youth group to write encouraging notes that can be passed out to first responders and medical workers, along with goodie baskets (with pre-packaged food or items like pens and highlighters and notepads so as not to cause concerns about germs!). This isn’t dependent on church leadership, but rather on the leadership involving those in their congregation who can and will help!

We will not fear during the time because we hold to the promises and truth found in the Word of God.

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” – 2 Timothy 1:7
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” – Joshua 1:9
“Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” – Isaiah 41:10

We encourage you to read what CS Lewis and Martin Luther said about panic and pandemics in their day.

If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. – James 2:15-17

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