On this December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment was adopted and slavery was abolished. There has always been intense debate about the existence of slavery in American history, precisely because it raises questions about this nation’s dedication to liberty and human equality. At the time of the Founding, there were about half a million slaves in the United States, mostly in the five southernmost states, where these individuals made up 40 percent of the population. From the outset, the Constitution contained three key compromises on enumeration, the slave trade, and …
Were the founders really committed to eradicating slavery? It is commonplace to dismiss the Founders as racists who may have attacked slavery from time to time in writing but never in action. Critics of the Founders often claim that, since the Constitution did not abolish slavery, the Founders were unconcerned with actively fighting the institution in their lifetime—even if they may have wanted slavery to disappear at some vague point in the future. This argument is both misguided and naïve. On this day in 1787, the Continental Congress passed the …
President Obama has declared January 2010 National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. Human trafficking is a horrific reality of our world today. Millions of people are victimized worldwide, including thousands of people within America’s borders. Human trafficking is one of the issues explored in a brand new resource from The Heritage Foundation called Seek Social Justice: Transforming Lives in Need. This six-lesson small group DVD study guide profiles real-world examples of effective approaches to overcoming poverty, social breakdown and injustice. These problems are serious and complex. They require different …
Judge for yourself. Meyerson writes today: If Abraham Lincoln were still among the living as he prepared to turn 200 six weeks from now, he might detect in the congressional war over the automaker bailouts a strong echo of the war that defined his presidency. Now as then, the conflict centered on the rival labor systems of North and South. Now as then, the Southerners championed a low-wage, low-benefits system while the North favored a more generous one. And now as then, what sparked the conflict was the North’s fear …
