“All men are created equal” means what it says: that according to the law of nature—as opposed to the laws of men—“all men are created equal.” It was neither meant nor understood by the Founders to mean that only free men are equal.

I would hope that by now it is not necessary to debunk the notion that the Founding Fathers of the United States were utterly oblivious of the contradiction between their cause of liberty and the fact that many of them kept slaves. Not only were they aware of the contradiction, they were painfully aware of it, as the following history demonstrates.

“That men should pray and fight for their own freedom and yet keep others in slavery is certainly acting a very inconsistent as well as unjust and perhaps impious part,” wrote Founding Father John Jay in 1785. Three years later, Jay noted that anti-slavery sentiment, though negligible before the American Revolution, increased and “prevailed by almost insensible degrees” during the Revolutionary period.

By 1804, eight of the original fourteen states (Vermont, formerly part of New York, was the fourteenth) had either outlawed or sun-setted slavery,* four other states seriously debated abolition, and slavery was banned in the Northwest Territory. By 1808, "the importation of slaves into the United States or the territories thereof" was legally banned. Considering that slavery was legal in all of the colonies before the Revolution, it seems unlikely that the subsequent abolition of slavery in the northern-most states can be explained without reference to that nagging idea so simply stated by Jefferson. Unfortunately, the fact that the North abolished slavery while the South kept it inevitably led to the Civil War; all attempts to have the Free and Slave states co-exist necessarily failed; secession or complete abolition became the only alternatives.

1777 Republic of Vermont abolishes slavery.
1780 Pennsylvania passes gradual emancipation.
1783 Massachusetts and New Hampshire prohibit slavery.
1784 Connecticut “bars” slavery and Rhode Island “bans” it.
1787 Northwest Ordinance prohibits slavery.
1799 New York starts gradual emancipation.
1804 New Jersey starts gradual emancipation.

1807 The US Congress prohibits "the importation of slaves into the United States or the territories thereof" after January 1, 1808.

*"Sun-setting"-establishing a method by which slavery would be abolished in the future-had the almost unexpected effect of perpetuating tiny slave populations in otherwise "Free" states for several decades; in New Jersey, the last state to take legislative action to gradually abolish slavery, there were still a few slaves in 1860.

Somebody—not clear who—made the following editorial comment on blogstream in response to claims by the Obama camp that the use of a picture of a monkey eating a banana (labeled "Obama '08") is racist.

"Bad taste?
Maybe.

Racism?
No.

C'mon America! Grow up!

The Civil War ended in 1865.
That's 143 years!
There is no one alive today who owned a slave.
There is no one alive today who was a slave.

Has any nation in history ever held on to their pain
so long?

C'mon America!  Grow up!

We are free!  We are free at last!"

--Love and Light from HEALING Creek (Scroll down till you come to it--this is a compilation from various blogs, so it isn't clear to me where the above came from.)

Sorry, can't agree with much of that at all. Racists have used the image of an ape to smear African-descended people for too long, and they still use it: racism still exists. The mixed blessing for African-Americans is that it is finally possible for them to find ways to improve their lot in life by ignoring the racists because racism has been marginalized to some extent. To what extent this is so is a matter of debate within the African-American community and has spilled over into society-at-large. I won't go into that here, but racism still rears its ugly head, and I think that that anti-Obama poster is a good (or, I should say, bad) example. I will argue against Obama's political views, but I will not link these views or his fitness for the presidency to the color of his skin. I would vote for anyone, regardless of race, creed or previous condition etc., if only they seemed to me to have a sound grasp of political-economic realities.

As to the historical questions raised above, yes, it is 143 years since the end of slavery, but only 43 years since blacks in many states began to get back their voting rights that had been denied them since the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s; it has been little more than half a century since equality in public accommodations and education began to come about. There are many people still alive who remember that. (Hell, I remember it.)

“Has any nation in history held on to their pain so long?” Interesting academic question. The answer is yes. Ireland has. Many Middle Eastern countries have. In those cases we are not talking about a mere century and a half but centuries, plural—millennia, even.

"It is possible that peaking [of world oil reserves] may not occur for a decade or more, but it is also possible that peaking may be occurring right now. We will not know for certain until after the fact. The world is thus faced with a daunting risk management problem. On the one hand, if peaking is decades away, massive mitigation initiated soon might be premature. On the other hand, if peaking is imminent, failure to quickly initiate mitigation will impose large near-term economic and social costs on the world."

--”Testimony On Peak Oil,” Dr. Robert L. Hirsch, senior energy program advisor, SAIC, Before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, Wednesday, December 7, 2005, pp. 11-12

This “risk management” conundrum is often mentioned in passing, and the trouble with being "premature" often goes unexplained. Conservation measures clearly must be taken because the demand for oil in the world keeps rising while it is certain that the day will come when oil will become prohibitively expensive to extract. The trouble is that we have no way of knowing when that day will come, and the measures that must be taken should not be taken lightly, yet arguably they already have been taken far too lightly. The measures that have been proposed are often draconian, and already have led to wide-spread misery. More of the same is to be expected as more such measures are taken. The argument is that it will be worse to wait until the oil reserves actually peak, but the short-term consequences of “mitigation” of the impending oil crisis are like a proverbial case of the cure being at least as bad as the disease. A case in point is the much ballyhooed (and lucrative) switch to ethanol fuel. This has contributed to the world food crisis because it diverts corn—the staple of many of the world's poor—toward fuel production. This seems nothing short of criminal to me. People in countries like Mexico are unable to afford to feed their families because of ethanol.

A different alternative fuel source should be found and ethanol should be abandoned as the huge mistake it is. The trouble is that, as Hirsch says in the same report quoted above, the problem is a “liquid fuel” shortage problem. Ethanol has the nice advantage of being a liquid fuel. Can anyone think of another type of liquid fuel that could be economically brought on line within a few years' time? The world's economy currently runs on liquid fuel, principally petroleum-based fuels. With great but not entirely impossible cost, we could convert our cars, planes and ships to another liquid fuel. But if not ethanol, then what? Converting all ocean-going vessels to nuclear energy would be very expensive, but might become necessary. (I remember the 1970s when millions of protesters around the world lined up against nuclear energy, but I now believe that it was a huge mistake to turn away from an energy that is only dangerous if caution is not exercised; with due caution, however, nuclear energy is extremely clean—certainly compared to petroleum or coal.)

Electric automobiles on a large scale seem to be well in the future. Conversion of gasoline engine vehicles to electric or hybrid ones is not going to happen even over a decade without economic hardship, and, in the end, we do not have anyway of knowing if such measures are premature.

I was asked about the presidents' relatedness to royalty. I initially also thought I was being asked about their relatedness to each other. I wasn't being asked about that, but that interests me more than their relatedness to royalty, actually, so I included that in my research. Here's what I came up with:

"[George H.W.] Bush has more connections to British and European royalty than any President of the United States. For example, Mr. Bush is a 13th cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and is related to all members of the British royal family, according to Burke's [Peerage]genealogists. Moreover, he is related to all those who have married into the British royal family, like the Queen Mother, the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of York. Mr. Bush is also related to all current European monarchs on or off the throne, including the King of Albania....Of the 40 American Presidents, 13 have had a direct connection to European royalty. ...Mr. Bush is a direct descendant of King Henry VII, of one of Charles II's mistresses and of Henry VIII's younger sister, Mary, who married King Louis XII of France....According to Burke's, which has traced the genealogy of American Presidential families for years, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams were all related to Edward I. In the 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt were descended from Dutch nobility. Jimmy Carter has kinship ties to noble Scottish and English families, while President Reagan is a direct descendant of the 11th-century High King of Ireland, Brian Boru."

--From a July 5, 1988 New York Times article. (Burke's Peerage can be found in fine libraries everywhere but may not always publish info about American presidents even if they keep track of it.)

Obviously, if Bush, pere was the most connected in 1988, then Bush, fils is equally connected, albeit removed from those royals by a generation more.

Actually, if you allow more tenuous distant cousins, all of the presidents are probably distantly related to royalty.

Related to each other:

According to Joseph Nathan Kane's "Facts About the Presidents," and aside from our two pairs of father and son presidencies [Adamses and Bushes] and one pair of grandfather/grandson presidencies [Harrisons], there is also the case of Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt who were fifth cousins (actually, through his marriage to Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin was "nephew-in-law"--if there can be such a thing--to Theodore.) In addition, both James Madison and Zachary Taylor were descended from one James Taylor, making them second cousins. Zachary Taylor was also a more distant cousin of Robert E. Lee and was the father-in-law of Jefferson Davis.

Again, if you allow more tenuous distant cousins, all of the presidents are probably distantly related to each other. Not only is Barbara Bush a direct descendant of Franklin Pierce, but I think that her husband is actually distantly related to Pierce as well. And so it goes.

Off the subject, but... President Taylor's son, Richard, named after the president's father, was not only Jeff Davis's brother-in-law, but was a Confederate general, and not a bad one. Gen. Taylor surrendered more than a month after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. Taylor surrendered to Gen. E.R.S. Canby.*

*William A. DeGregorio, in "The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents," says that Taylor Surrendered to "General Edward Canby" (p. 177), but Canby hardly ever went by the name Edward, though he sometimes was "Ed.R.S. Canby" in documents. Usually it was as I have it above: "E.R.S." Socially, though, his friends called him by his second name, "Richard." Interesting guy, Canby: Grant said that, as a field commander, he was "insufficiently aggressive," but that as an administrator, he was top notch. During Reconstruction, the U.S. government seems to have sent him to all of the hotspots, especially to states that were in the process of adopting new constitutions so as to be readmitted to the Union. He was later killed while negotiating a peace treaty with Native Americans in northern California. His wife, Louisa Hawkins Canby, is also a fascinating figure. Even though her husband had ordered everyone not to let the Confederates get their hands on blankets and medicines, she took pity on sick and wounded rebels and gave them blankets, medicine and the benefit of her skills as a nurse. The rebels dubbed her "The Angel of Santa Fe." Oh, I forgot to mention: this was when the Confederates (Texans, mostly) invaded New Mexico and captured Albuquerque and Santa Fe for about a month in the early Spring of 1862. Mrs. Canby was, essentially, their prisoner, but they did not have to force her to help the sick; Christian charity was always part of Mrs. Canby's character. Around 1890 or 1891, the Confederate veterans of the New Mexico campaign held a reunion, to which they tried to invite Mrs. Canby; unfortunately, she had passed away by that time.

I have been putting together material about the foreign language educations of American presidents. Seems like an odd subject, but the results are often surprising. It has been a frustrating project, too. If you look at any brief, general biographies of presidents, you are more likely to learn something about their musical education than their language learning. (Did you know that Richard Nixon played keyboard pretty well?) The Internet is a poor source. Online, the best information about the educations of American presidents is to be found at the Encyclopedia Americana (http://ap.grolier.com/browse?type=profiles) and the Miller Center (www.millercenter.virginia.edu/index.php/academic/americanpresident). Still these were not adequate for my purposes. For many presidents, only a biography that goes into the details of a president's early life is apt to have the kind of information I am looking for, so I am slowly making my way through full-length biographies of each president.

So far, I have found out that several presidents were outstanding in foreign languages. (Some others might have to be upgraded when I get more information.)

The following six presidents were fluent in speaking or reading two or more languages, other than English, and were often accomplished scholars.

Thomas Jefferson studied Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Old English. He could also read some Spanish and Portuguese. In some of his languages he was both a scholar and a fluent speaker.

James Madison studied Latin and Greek. He could also read French, Italian and some Spanish and Hebrew. A great scholar, he still read classics in Greek in his old age.

John Quincy Adams studied Latin, Greek, French, Dutch and knew some German and Spanish. A career diplomat, he became a close friend of a tsar of Russia through their common language, French.

James Garfield studied Latin and Greek and taught them. He spoke enough German to give short speeches in the language while campaigning among German-Americans.

Benjamin Harrison studied advanced Latin and Greek with the intention of becoming a scholarly clergyman, but he finally switched to the law.

I am uncertain about many of the presidents at this point. Those presidents who studied the law had to know a little Latin, but did not necessarily have to be fluent. (Until surprisingly recently, one also did not have to attend a college or law school to become a lawyer.) Especially before 1900, a knowledge of Latin was necessary for admission to most colleges or universities. Franklin Pierce, for example, had to demonstrate the ability to write in Latin as well as read Greek just to gain admittance to Bowdoin College. But some presidents almost certainly knew only English. Among them were George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Johnson, the last of whom did not even learn to read until he was seventeen.

A chief difference among U.S. presidents is that some were born poor while others were born wealthy or middle class. The latter two groups had access to education while the first did not. Millard Fillmore, the son of a poor tenant farmer, did not attend a proper school until he was in his late teens. Late in his career, he was offered an honary doctorate in civil laws by Oxford University, the text of which was evidently written in Latin. Explaining why he declined the honor, Fillmore said, "I had not the advantage of a classical education and no man should, in my judgment, accept a degree he cannot read." Abraham Lincoln, who probably possessed the greatest native intelligence of the poor-born presidents wrote that, on the frontier where he grew up, anyone who knew Latin “was looked upon as a wizzard [sic].”

It obviously says something about our American culture that, of those presidents who were born poor, all but Andrew Johnson rose in social status by becoming attorneys or at least studying law (Harry Truman became an administrative judge in Missouri without actually becoming a lawyer), and, for my purposes, this means that they had to learn enough Latin to use legal terms.

The educations of the presidents say a lot about education in the U.S. and the American experience with languages other than English. While it is true that Latin was a staple of traditional education throughout much of the nation's history, people living hand-to-mouth and on the frontier—more president's grew up in both conditions than one might assume—rarely got much of a classical education. On the other hand, on that same frontier there was a good deal of contact with non-English speakers, whether they were Native Americans (who had several language families and many languages within each family), German immigrants, French-Canadian trappers, Mexican vaqueros and even Russian explorers in Alaska and northern California.

The following list shows the languages believed to have been studied, but not always necessarily mastered, by each president.

George Washington (no foreign language)
John Adams (studied Latin and Greek; taught Latin)
Thomas Jefferson (Latin, Greek, French, Italian and Old English; read some Spanish and Portuguese)
James Madison (Latin and Greek; could read French, Italian and some Spanish and Hebrew)
James Monroe (Latin, probably French)
John Quincy Adams (Latin, Greek, French, Dutch and some German and Spanish)
Andrew Jackson (possibly some Latin)
Martin Van Buren (Dutch and Latin)
William H. Harrison (probably both Latin and Greek)
John Tyler ( probably Latin and Greek)
James K. Polk (Latin and Greek; delivered a speech in Latin at his graduation from University of North Carolina)
Zachary Taylor (possibly Latin and possibly Greek; he was tutored by classics scholar Kean O'Hara)
Millard Fillmore (no foreign language education beyond familiarity with Latin legal terms)
Franklin Pierce (Latin and Greek; wrote and spoke Latin)
James Buchanan (Latin and Greek)
Abraham Lincoln (no foreign language education beyond familiarity with Latin legal terms)
Andrew Johnson (none; barely taught himself to read with the help of his future wife, Eliza McCardle)
Ulysses S. Grant (was required to study French at West Point but evidently did poorly)
Rutherford B. Hayes (uncertain, but he was so well educated—graduating from Kenyon College and Harvard Law School—that he must have studied Latin)
James Garfield (Latin and Greek which he also taught; some German)
Chester Arthur (uncertain, but probably studied Latin at Union College in Schenectady, NY)
Grover Cleveland (uncertain, but possibly studied Latin at Fayetteville Academy)
Benjamin Harrison (Latin and Greek)
William McKinley (uncertain, but he might have studied Latin; he attended Albany Law School)
Theodore Roosevelt (studied Latin, French, German and probably Greek; excelled in German but did poorly in classical languages)
William H. Taft (uncertain, but probably studied Latin and Greek; graduated second in his class at Yale)
Woodrow Wilson (studied Latin and Greek, probably a modern language, too)
Warren G. Harding (Latin)
Calvin Coolidge (Latin and Greek; said to be “proficient” in Greek)
Herbert Hoover (at Stanford University, he did well in math, science & English but poorly in German)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (German and French; at age nine, he spent a summer at a school in Germany)
Harry S Truman (High school Latin)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (uncertain; he graduated from West Point where he said he was only interested in sports)
John F. Kennedy (uncertain, but he attended Choate Academy and Harvard University among other prestigious schools where language requirements must have been in effect)
Lyndon B. Johnson (uncertain)
Richard Nixon (uncertain)
Gerald Ford (did poorly in high school Latin) [So did I]
James E. Carter (Spanish; he is said to have read the entire Bible in Spanish)
Ronald Reagan (uncertain)
George H. W. Bush (uncertain, but he attended both Phillips Academy and Yale University where language requirements must have been in effect)
Bill Clinton (had four years of high school Latin and at least two years of German at Georgetown University)
George W. Bush (some Spanish)

Among recent candidates for president, it is said that Barack Obama speaks some Indonesian. (Closely related to Malay, it is a member of the Austronesian language family, one of the largest language families in the world, yet not one with which any U.S. president has been familiar up to now.) Bill Richardson and Christopher Dodd, who both dropped out of the race some months ago, speak Spanish. Another campaign dropout, Mike Gravel, speaks fluent Canadian French, both of his parents having been born in Canada.

In any case, it is back to the biographies for now, until I have answered my question for each president.