The Fouding Fathers (U.S.) Didn't Care about the Constitution

I will respond to Con's arguments in the same numerical style as Con, each number of mine will address the corresponding number and issue mentioned by Con. All citation will be in reference to previous round citation and will continue upwards in number i.e. [1-6] is from round 2, [7 & up] is round 3 and so forth. Con's attempt to define our Founders as only the people who signed the Constitution is without merit. One did not need to sign the Constitution to be a Founder; there are Founders that signed the Declaration of Independence, Presidents, and even members of the Constitutional Convention who didn't sign the Constitution. To exclude these Founders whose passion for America's liberty was on par with their peers is a dishonest attempt at semantics. Evidence of this dishonesty can be shown by Con's own words: In Round 1 Con says "You might have denied that Jefferson was like the other Founding Fathers in his policy, though he certainly is a founding father and should be included in this debate." And then in Round 2 states "Finally, we discuss the evading Jefferson and Adams, both of whom did not sign the Constitution, and are therefore irrelevant to the debate (you ask in your introduction if the Founding Fathers truly valued the document that they created; Jefferson and Adams did not create the Constitution)." Just because TJ didn't sign the Constitution doesn't mean he didn't have a hand in creating it, "Although Thomas Jefferson was in France serving as United States minister when the Federal Constitution was written in 1787, he was able to influence the development of the federal government through his correspondence." [7]. 1. The point made in this section can be summed by Con "The terms mentioned in the U.S. Constitution were written with the full intent of being upheld [to all peoples], however, many who disagreed with the Founding Fathers made liberty impossible for certain groups." That is to say, it was not the Founders who wanted inequality, but others at the state level who wanted and enacted such unjust policies. My rebuttal to this point will be to show that the Founders did not support the idea of equality among the races as shown by their prejudices, which were fairly common at the time by all [3]. This is a valid point because if the Founders were racist they would have no reason to support inherently inferior people being treated equally; more importantly they would have no reason to prevent the states from discriminating. This has nothing to do with pro-slavery or abolition (both sentiments were simultaneously held by some Founders), as noted before even abolitionists were racist. My first point of evidence is that many of our Founders wanted to send former slaves back to Africa. Prominent Founders included but not limited to: George Washington [8], James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, James Monroe [9] and Benjamin Rush [5]. The desire to send blacks back to Africa shows that they did not intend the Constitution for blacks. They wanted them to return to Africa for a few reasons, none of them philanthropic. Reasons such as a belief the races could not mix, wanting to spread American Christian values to Africa, and fear the freed blacks might rebel against former masters. [5] The commonly held desire to literally remove blacks from "the people" in "We the people" shows that they did not care for their liberty in the US, and as such did not care that their rights were trampled. 2. Voting Rights: Con's rebuttal in this section is a continuation of the argument made in point 1 with the emphasis on voting rights. Con purports that the founders wanted universal suffrage, this is a baseless assertion. Con is correct that the Constitution does not directly say who can and can't vote. However before the revolution only the landed gentry of the colonies had political rights, this system was continued by the Founders without mention of universal suffrage [1]. In fact it was the states that eventually decided lead away from the power of the aristocracy (the demographic of the Founders) and gradually expand voting rights to poor whites. Note that [1] says it wasn't until 1840 that all whites had universal suffrage; by 1840 all of the Founders were dead. This shows that it was AFTER the death of the Founders was the time voting rights expanded. The Founders wished to establish a Republic similar to Ancient Rome, not a Democracy with universal suffrage. As such the popular vote was discouraged by them. It was James Madison who famously detested mob rule, and the Founders agreed. In the original Constitution citizens could only elect Representatives to Congress, not Senators like today. The Founders gave the states the right to restrict voting rights fully knowing racial attitudes of the day, had they wanted universal suffrage it would have been included. Ben Franklin quote: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." John Adams: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Given the mind set of our Founders how could they paradoxically want the Constitution to allow all to vote? 3. I find much fault in the section of my opponent's rebuttal. First he contends that simply because the word "slave" was not used in the 3/5 clause it somehow did not apply to the institution of slavery. It did, the 3/5 clause utterly applied to slaves, if it didn't then there would be no point including it in the Constitution. Slaves were considered property, no better than cows. The idea, as Con says, that the 3/5 clause was meant to state "cows don't have to pay taxes or bother voting" is a distortion of history. Con thinks that the 3/5 clause did not empower slavery; this is utterly false and ridiculous notion. By allowing slave states to count their property towards the general population slave states were allowed to claim a higher population; meaning the slave states could elect more representatives to Congress than had they not been able to count their chattel as part of the population. It was well understood by the Founders that slavery was not going to be challenged, however by adding the 3/5 clause it tacitly stated that slavery would continue along with added political power in the new Republic. Also the number of slaves drastically grew from the time of ratification until it was abolished. Con continues to suggest just because our Founders were abolitionists they were not racist and wanted equality. In point 1 I have shown that even abolitionists were racist and therefore would not want equality. Many were against slavery not for moral reasons but practical reasons. Just because they didn't want slaves didn't mean they liked blacks or thought them equal. Individual Violations: This section will have to be short due to limited remaining characters. 2nd President of the US John Adams (1797-1801): Violated the First amendment of the Bill of Rights involving free speech. John Adams is responsible for passing the Alien and Sedition acts in 1798. These acts limited the rights of citizen"s right to free speech, especially the Sedition Act. This bill was blatantly passed for the benefit of John Adams and other federalists. "Lastly, the controversial Sedition Act restricted speech which was critical of the federal government. Authored by the Federalists, the laws were purported to strengthen national security, but most historians have concluded they were primarily an attempt to suppress voters who disagreed with the Federalist party. At the time, most immigrants (namely French) supported Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans, the political opponents of the Federalists. This act was repealed in 1802 by the Naturalization Law of 1802." [10] 3rd President of the US Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809): Exceeded his Constitutional authority by buying the Louisiana Territory w/o prior senate approval violating Art 2 Sec 2. Even though it was for the better and was eventually ratified, it is still an example of disregard for the bounds of the Constitution. In his own words TJ went beyond his authority as President, "The General Government has no powers but such as the Constitution gives it ... it has not given it power of holding foreign territory, and still less of incorporating it into the Union. An amendment of the Constitution seems necessary for this."[11] TJ's representatives (one being Monroe) in France had exceeded their mandate when they agreed to the purchase. Citation: [7] http://www.loc.gov... [8] http://www.encyclopedia.com... [9] http://books.google.com... [10] http://en.wikipedia.org... [11] http://billofrightsinstitute.org...