Craig Steven Wilder Quotes
Human slavery was the precondition for the rise of higher education in America.
Many historians of higher education to not agree with Wilder’s overall generality. However, it was certainly the case that slavery was a major factor in generating the funds for some early universities in the North, but others were “hotbeds” of abolition from their very inception.
Craig Steven Wilder, Historian, Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s University, 2013
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As a young boy, Moyers lived and went to school in Texas where the state has control over all the schools’ curricula and slavery was taught about with little reality.
He was also himself a ship owner in the slave trade and he was the brother of the leading Rhode Island abolitionist, Moses Brown. See {585793}. Brown became the first American, prosecuted in federal court for illegal slave trading –-- a prosecution brought, in part, by his own brother. He was, however, acquitted.
Indian and Black slaves were outlawed very early in Connecticut, not on moral grounds of concern for the Indians and Blacks, but because of the negative effects on the white poor. Why would anyone pay the poor any more than the amortization costs of a slave? Therefore there was no way a poor white could make a living wage if slavery were to coexist.
Incredibly enough, after the Civil War and emancipation, most Virginia leaders opposed any form of rights for Blacks with one of the major reasons being that they were ignorant and uneducated. It was actually a crime to teach even a free Black to read.
Louisiana to this day has a different legal system from the rest of the United States as it was originally based on the French Napoleonic Code. Most people did not realize that Louisiana had strictures against breaking up families—even with slaves.
This is an example of how values in politics can get complex. Family Leader put together The Marriage Vow, a pledge it wanted political candidates to sign. The pledge dealt with marital fidelity and other traditional family values. Two Republican Presidential Nomination Candidates signed the pledge rapidly as many of their competitors had notorious affairs and/or had been divorced. The 2 signers thought that they would obtain a substantial advantage. However, another part of the pledge was dealing with the importance of children being brought up in a 2 parent home, The quotation gives their statement on Black families and illegitimacy. However, they organization was so hung up on the evil of children in single parent households, that they said in the pledge that Blacks were better off under slavery than they are under Barack Obama—the first Black President. As might have been expected, there were no Blacks and even very few racist whites who would claim Black children and families were better off under slavery. They two politicians, Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum—neither very sensitive to minority issues and perceived by most Blacks as racists—began to back away from their signing, First Leader, then removed the quoted paragraph from all copies of the signed pledges and removed it from their website. However, original copies—including the quoted paragraph—got into the hands of the media and the scandal began. Family Leader, trying to do damage control, wisely apologized. The other Republican Presidential aspirants both monogamous and otherwise, refused to sign but what it is that made them refuse was probably different for each person.
For more about the Bureau. See {629185}.and {629187}.
Craig Steven Wilder is a professor of American history at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
