Looking a actions as criminal only if
the criminals themselves thought their actions were wrong would cede
all the moral arguments to the criminals. Criminal organizations
today have elaborate codes of honor, like the omerta of the Sicilian
crime families, which create an entirely different moral system. For
the crime families, the worst crime is informing for the police. For
them, robbery, murder, and extortion are simply the means of
conducting business.
We must look upon the actions of our
founding fathers today as crimes if we find that other people at that
time considered them as crimes, but the founding fathers ignored the
opinions of others. Majority agreement does not make a law just, it
only gives criminals justification for their actions.
Among the crimes that may have been
committed by the founders—Washington, Jefferson, and Andrew
Jackson—were the following:
- Enslavement
- Rape
- Genocide
Washington and Jefferson both owned
slaves. Slavery was a customary practice in Virginia at that time,
but what is customary may also be criminal. Abolition movements began
as early as 1760 among the colonists. The Quakers began liberating
their own slaves in the late 17th century. By 1774, they had
succeeded in abolishing slavery within the movement.
Quakers wrote books and pamphlets
decrying the ills of slavery. Some of them also made speeches on the
subject. It was not possible for an American during the revolutionary
period not to realize that many people opposed slavery.
The First Great Awakening, a
revitalization of Christian churches in the 1730s and 1740s, decried
slavery. Pennsylvania became the first state to pass anti-slavery
legislation in 1760. Massachusetts adopted a constitution that
declared all men equal. Thereafter, a number of law suits claimed
that slavery was illegal in Massachusetts.
Washington and Jefferson both knew that
slavery was being outlawed in several states, yet they did not free
their own slaves. Neither man freed a slave during his lifetime,
though Washington freed most of his slaves in his will. Jefferson
freed only a few slaves in his will.
Both Washington and Jefferson had slave
mistresses. Such a union is tantamount to rape, since the woman has
no choice but to submit to her owner.
Andrew Jackson could have been
prosecuted for the crime of genocide if that crime had been defined
when Jackson ordered the four civilized nations to leave their land
in the South and walk to new homes in Oklahoma. This act today would
be called ethnic cleansing and is considered a form of genocide. Four
thousand native Americans died along the Trail of Tears.
Long before he became president, Andrew
Jackson led a merciless war of extermination against the escaped
slaves who lived with the Seminoles in Florida. He began his career
by leading a force of American soldiers and Native American allies
against Negro Fort, a stronghold for escaped slaves in Northern
Florida. He led a flotilla up the Suwannee River and provoked Spanish
soldiers to fire on his forces. Jackson was thus able to claim that
the Spanish had initiated the war.
Jackson used the superior marksmanship
of his gunners to explode the powder magazine at Negro Fort. The
resultant explosion killed all but 30 of the 3000 people within the
fort. Many women and children were among the dead. Jackson justified
his actions by saying he acted to “chastise a lawless foe, who,
combined with a band of Negro brigands, have for some time past been
carrying on a cruel and unprovoked war against the citizens of the
United States.”
Andrew Jackson was the most perfidious
and violent of the Founding Fathers.
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