Constitution Barbeques

In history class today, we learned about abolitionists in the US before and during the civil war. Abolitionists do not sound like the kind of people with whome you would want to spend a relaxing afternoon. On the 4th of July, they would burn the Constitution and talk about how evil America was. I think they probably barbequed meat too.

America was pretty evil then, incidentally. Even those who opposed "the South", pretty much still hated black people, and many of them were not against slavery so much as they just wanted to keep the problem in the South and change the laws that let southern police come up north to take black people. The South wasn't a whole lot better, obviously. Aside from the fundamentally wicked institution of slavery, they called for a federal police force, proving that they weren't really so much in favor of states rights after all.

So the abolitionists had a point. But they weren't very popular, and I imagine them all looking a little like Ron Paul. If there were abolitionists today, I'm not sure we'd like them as much as we like Ioan Gruffudd in Amazing Grace; they would be the kind of people like Ralph Nader that everyone makes jokes about, but nobody puts signs in their yard for. Conservatives would mock them and liberals would probably ignore them. They would sound kind of like Tom Stockman in Enemy of the People, though maybe less articulate and more passionate. If there were abolitionists today, they would not be polite or politically correct.

Abolitionists were probably not nice people.

In retrospect, it is easy to side with abolitionists, because we mostly think slavery was wicked and that it is good that people like Lincoln faught wars to make it stop, and make the US into "we the people" (thank you, Nicholas Cage, for that little tidbit). It was abolitionists and not racists like Lincoln who probably did the most to actually lobby for equality in the long run, but it's hard to image ourselves in their places. Saying that black people should be equal to white people was like saying that money is wicked, and that making a profit should be outlawed. There would be lots of people who kind of sympathized with you, but ulimately liked making money and used profit to feed their families. There would be even more people who thought you were insane, and probably some that thought you were a Marxist. It may even be like declaring yourself as a Russian during the Red Scare. Lots of people would say you were un-Patriotic (given your 4th of July rituals, they may have a point), and Joe McCarthy would put you in jail.

Wearing peace signs and shopping at Urban Outfitters is cool, but being an abolitionist is not cool at all. Being an abolitionist means that you are wildly unpopular, disliked and if you walk down the street, some people might spit on you, or crucify you, or write nasty articles about you in the Collegian. Being an abolitionist means that you care more about your cause than anything else in the world; even more than you care about money or fame or your own life.

People like Jesus and Ghandi and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr are abolitionists.

I would like to be abolitionist.

However, due to the environmental ramifications, I do not suggest, or plan on, burning the Constitution.