Related: In *1790s* Charles P. Sumner, Sen. Charles Sumner’s father, was against Massachusetts miscegenation laws & believed Boston schools should integrated. As a young man he sailed to Haiti to celebrate their revolution.
Then went on to be sheriff of Boston’s Suffolk County.
Also related: The fact that people like Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, or even John Brown, aren’t well know & celebrated as American heroes, on the level of the founders & Lincoln, helps explain the anxious conservative backlash at the #1619Project.
If there was a true, good faith, anti-racism foundation in the United States, these men would be basic grade school history. #1619Project
I might star a thread on 18th & 19th century examples of white lawmakers/thinkers stating contemporary views on race like:(between racist patriarchal lectures)Lincoln told Black delegates in 1862 that Black ppl were "systematically oppressed" #1619project
Here is another thread on how pro-slavery proponents in the 19th century had heard, in the 19th century, virtually every modern argument against slavery that we make today. #1619project
19th century pro-slavery men had heard the arguments we make today against slavery & they were more than intelligent enough to understand the arguments & make a clear choice to that the violent enslavement of human beings was acceptable. #1619project
When talking about the #GOP of the 1860s(especially party founders/leaders), we‘re talking about a party that’s virtually all white men, with abolition as a foundational tenet—caring about/acting on the best interests of millions of ppl they didn’t know, personally or culturally.