Second Amendment was ratified to preserve Slavery - Tom Hartmann

[BainsBane]

7. How would you know that?

The law grew up around maintaining the institution of slavery. Slavery was the central issue at the Philadelphia convention and framed the making of the Constitution. Slave holders dominated the Supreme Court until the Civil War. In a slave society, whether the US, Brazil, or Cuba, state formation, and hence the law, was inexorably linked to slavery, violence, and what I have called the politics of death. I am much better prepared to summon evidence for this on Brazil, since that is my area of research. But Morgan, as Professor Emeritus at Yale, is a highly respected authority on the subject. He demonstrates that freedom as understood by white men depended on the absolute denial of freedom for African Americans through the institution of slavery. The very conception of freedom you imagine today is founded on racial oppression and bondage. If you ever saw the first episode of the PBS series Africans in America, you would be exposed to Morgan's research that continues to form the foundation for historical understanding of the development and legitimation of slavery in N. America.