The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-01-04
By A. BIMBA.


NCOtttJtbSU JfOHt LboC AooWSsJ .
Mr.. Oneal thinks that 1 sin very
heavily when 1 say that the masters
of Virginia were very glad when they
discovered in Negro slavery new
source of labor power. He wants to
know how l know how they felt?
Then he calls me a "mind-reader."
But unfortunately, Oneal proceeds di-
rectly into the same Crime" and
reads the minds of our forefathers.
He says: "The fact is that the sale
of the first slaves in Arriginia Il sup
pose this means Virginia, though Mr..
Oneal is not supposed to commit such
a technical crime.-A. b. was prob
ably accompanied with mixed views
of aversion, anxiety, curiosity, fear
and hope that Negroes would prove
adapted to the tobacco culture of the
colony" There you are. How do you
know, Mr. Oneal, that our forefathers
had such mixed feelings? Are you
not reading their minds also? The
only difference between you and me
is that I read their minds correctly
that is, economically Negro slavery
was advantageous to the ruling class
of the colonies and therefore the mas
tiers had something to rejoice over
while you are all mixed up when you
say that you don't know what the at
titude of the ruling class was toward
slavery.
In discussing the Constitutional
Convention and quoting the speeches
of various delegates, quote the ex-
preston of an individual by the name
Of Kent. Oneal reminds me that Kent
spoke at the New York state conven-
ton and not at the national Consti-
,tutionaI Convention and that Kent
was not even present at the latter.
Oneal makes a big issue of this. And
l admit that this is very serious
error. Kent delivered his speech at
the New York Convention which was
called in 1921 to amend the state con-
stitution of 1777, and not at the ma
tional convention. From this error
Oneal draws the conclusion that l did
not even consult Madison's journal
of the Constitutional Convention"
Why he makes this charge l do not
know. 1t seems that he thinks that
it is harder to find Madison's book
in the library than that of McMaster,
which is wrong. Right after the
speech of Kent quote two speeches
from Madison's Journal" That
should have been enough to convince
Oneal that l did not disregard this
very important source of information
on the Constitutional Convention. On
the same page of my book found an
other technical error which was not
noticed by my esteemed critic, that is,
the reference after the quotation in
the third paragraph, instead of "p.
74S" should be ''p. 470." l am sure
that Oneal would have made a great
issue of this had he noticed it. But,
you see, again we have proof that
even he is not immune from errors
at least from technical ones.
How did it happen that | quote
Kent in my discourse about the ma
tional Constitutional Convention
Since my attention was called to this
very bad error | consulted the orig
inal draft of the book, and found that
in this chapter l had cut out a few
pages of the material dealing with
the building of the governments in
various states including New York
l had to do it in order to reduce the
size of the book. This reduction in
the size of the chapter entailed a re-
moulding of the entire chapter. And
in this process, desiring to have two