Unfortunately for us, our fathers adopted the common law of England -- a law poisoned by kingly prerogative -- by every form of oppression, by the spirit of caste, and permeated, saturated, with the political heresy that the people received their rights, privileges and immunities from the crown. The thirteen original colonies received their laws, their forms, their ideas of justice, from the old world. All the judicial, legislative, and executive springs and sources had been touched and tainted. In the struggle with England, our fathers justified their rebellion by declaring that Nature had clothed all men with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The moment success crowned their efforts, they changed their noble declaration of equal rights for all, and basely interpolated the word white. They adopted a Constitution that denied the Declaration of Independence -- a Constitution that recognized and upheld slavery, protected the slave-trade, legalized piracy upon the high seas that demoralized, degraded, and debauched the nation, and that at last reddened with brave blood the fields of the Republic. Our fathers planted the seeds of injustice, and we gathered the harvest. In the blood and flame of civil war, we retraced our fathers steps. In the stress of war, we implored the aid of Liberty, and asked once more for the protection of justice. We civilized the Constitution of our fathers. We adopted three Amendments -- the 13th, 14th and 15th -- the Trinity of Liberty. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll Inroduction by Frederick Douglass ~ infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/civil_rights.html
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 16:35:18 +0000
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