Dixie - In Memoriam
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My point, again, is that there were a few legislators fighting for racial equality. Especally the ELECTED Black congressmen of the day!
The thing is... NO THEY WEREN'T! They certainly weren't pushing for desegregation! There are a small handful of people, mostly black people and some white Mormon and Quaker preachers, who promoted the idea of racial equality, and that was IT for 1875 America! These people had less political power than pretty much any group of that time! It was an "extreme" viewpoint, not one embraced by the majority of Americans, or anywhere NEAR a majority, or to any real political degree at all. Again, this line of political and social thought, did not begin to take hold until after WWII, and the movement became a forefront issue in the 1960s.
You want to take a modern interpretation of the Constitution, and apply it to the thinking of 1875 Americans, and it simply doesn't comport with logic or reason. We can't argue things on the basis of what the future will find, we have no way of knowing what future generations will do, or how they will interpret things then, so we can't apply it to our thinking today! Take the Abortion issue... we both have an opinion on it... what if, 50 years from now, the Supreme Court rules that unborn fetuses have Constitutional rights? Does that mean that retroactively, we can claim all persons who are currently advocating "woman's right to choice" are guilty of infanticide and murder? That pro-choicer's are flagrantly violating the intent and meaning (future) of the Constitution, and that pro-lifers have established the Constitution meant to apply to the unborn? That is a viewpoint contradictory to history, isn't it? That would be me applying a future court finding to the current interpretation and understanding of the Constitution and the law today, and that would be devoid of logic and rationality.
I have shown you where the legislation you've presented, says NOTHING about desegregation or integration of blacks into white society. Not one damn word about that! It DOES indicate equality, but we have to look at history in perspective of the times, to determine what they meant by "EQUALITY" ....A modern, post-1954 interpretation is irrelevant to that discussion! In 1875, it was considered completely "equal" to require black men and white men to both take a literacy test to vote! It was considered completely "equal" to require all voters to own property or pay a poll tax! And the literal policies of racial segregation, were said to be "separate but equal" as if, we had already established a criteria for "equality" through the actual segregating of society!
Segregationists would argue in Plessy, that policies of segregation actually HELPED promote racial harmony! Putting blacks in separate schools, actually helped them avoid the stigma of being black, the ostracizing for being different, they were saved the "shame" of their race, so we were actually doing them a favor, helping them to realize "equality" in society, by segregating them! I shit you not... THIS was their argument!
To me, it would be absolutely laughable (if it weren't so sad), to believe that 1875 Americans were advocating integration or racial equality in ANY way, because that is simply not what history shows. You keep wanting to interject little "gotchas" on minutia of what is said, as if you are disproving some point I have made, but so far, you haven't. Let's take ALL of the assorted "red text" corrections you've interjected... let's pretend for a moment that you are 100% correct in your conclusions... how does any of it change the fundamental point I have made in the opening commentary of this thread? It doesn't! Because all it amounts to, is your inane ignorance of history and historical facts, and lack of comprehension of reality and rationality.