Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 160
door to prohibit the importation of new slaves after 1808, found common ground with the
Northerners. However, if the signatories intended to accept an enlightened view of the
world, their descendants did not.
How the children of the Southern leaders harmonized their Christian beliefs with their
uncompromising oppression of other human beings cannot be acceptably explained.
But efforts to rationalize slavery and actually find a moral justification for it were made.
After the universal acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution, many scholars came up
with “scientific” data aimed at proving that Northern European white males were indeed
superior. Through a methodology called “Recapitulation” they “demonstrated” that it was
indeed “natural” for them to rule humanity. Amazingly, variations of this theory lasted
well past the Civil War, and Germany’s Hitler believed it so strongly as to consume the
world in its pursuit. Ultimately it was left to history to eradicate such pernicious beliefs.
In a way, the framers of the constitution were prisoners of the twisted morality of their
times. On the one hand everyone proclaimed adherence to Christ’s teachings and on
the other society lived and prospered by killing Indians and taking their land. In the
south the sin was compounded by also using slave labor. Although writings from the
period reveal that some of the Founders believed these were wrongs and that they had
to end, the pressure of other issues prevented a more humane focus on this problem.
The delegates also realized that their limited capacity was no match for the size of these
tasks. Time needed to pass before lasting answers to these issues were found.
As they did with the conundrum of slavery, they provided the seeds for future
generations to rectify the wrongs inflicted by their predecessors on North America’s
indigenous population. Indeed, they set out to deal with this problem by tacitly
recognizing it in the Constitution. They granted the states the right to count tax-paying
Indians in their electoral base, which was discriminatory, but it was a beginning. They
gave Congress the responsibility to regulate commerce with Indian tribes as with other
sovereign nations. However, in most cases, the lack of enforcement of these treaties
made a mockery of the contract. The pressures for free land caused by the
homesteading laws made them duplicitous and false.
Among others, Captain Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson’s relative, on behalf of the
recently formed country, was commissioned to report on possible future treaties in his
famous northwest expedition. However, in the wide-open wilderness of young America,
the U.S. government had no means to force its citizens to respect the treaties and the
most egregious abuses of the American Indian continued for several generations. In a
reflection of the spirit of the times, where the right of conquest was still the final right, we
went as far as to buy the Louisiana territories, Florida and Alaska, not from their
ancestral dwellers but from European powers that by sheer force had stolen them from
their original owners. Southerners particularly wanted Florida because the Seminole
Indians who lived there offered safe haven to runaway slaves. They wanted that safe
haven closed.
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