Sunday, February 03, 2019

New York State As John C. Calhoun

A thoughtful essay on John Calhoun and the parallel of New York State.  Slavery and abortion....

...From the “safe, legal, and rare” formulation Hillary Clinton famously pronounced during her husband’s presidency and again offered as recently as 2008, we have somehow arrived at a point where abortion advocates want women to “shout your abortion.”...

Which trajectory is very close to the shift in pro-slavery rhetoric between ~1800 and the Civil War.  John C. Calhoun "shouts his slave-owning" and triggers the gunfire of Sumter.

 ... a new generation of slavery advocates arose that supported the institution even more than their fathers and grandfathers had. Sen. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina was foremost among these. In 1837, Calhoun gave a speech in the Senate that marked the transition to a new, more aggressive pro-slavery ideology...

...in that speech, Calhoun referred to slavery as "a positive good."  Andrew Cuomo is not nearly the orator nor the intellectual as Calhoun, but he is in the same ballfield, anyway.

The essay ends with the observation that only one side will prevail in this battle.

Indeed.

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