14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)

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WHY DO MUSLIMS HATE DOGS?

Man's Best Friend? Why Traditional Islam Views Dogs with Caution

In an age when Americans spend over $100 billion annually on their pets and treat dogs as furry children, the Muslim immigrant community’s reserved attitude toward canines often strikes native-born Americans as puzzling even troubling. When a Muslim mayor officiates a police dog’s swearing-in ceremony or a Somali-American congresswoman keeps a pet dog, controversy erupts within their communities . To understand why, we must look beyond modern sensibilities to the theological and cultural foundations that shape traditional Islamic views on dogs.

The Quranic Foundation: Respect Without Intimacy

The Quran itself does not condemn dogs. In fact, it mentions them positively. Surah Al-Kahf (The Cave) tells of the “Companions of the Cave” believers who fled persecution with their dog, who guarded their entrance while they slept for centuries. The Quran also permits eating game caught by trained hunting dogs (5:4), acknowledging their utility. Another well-known tradition recounts a man who earned paradise simply by giving water to a thirsty dog .

These passages reveal something important: classical Islam recognizes dogs as valuable creatures worthy of kindness. The problem is not hatred of dogs but a theological framework that distinguishes between utility and domestic intimacy.

The Jurisprudential Divide: Four Schools, Four Views

Where the Quran is silent on dogs’ ritual status, Islamic jurisprudence filled the gap and the scholars disagreed significantly. The four major Sunni schools of thought offer different rulings that continue to shape Muslim attitudes today:

The Hanafi school (predominant in Turkey, Central Asia, and South Asia) teaches that dogs are not inherently impure, though their saliva is. Keeping dogs is permitted for valid purposes: hunting, herding, guarding property, or serving as guide dogs. Purely “recreational” pet ownership, however, reduces one’s spiritual rewards .

The Maliki school (dominant in North and West Africa) takes the most permissive stance, holding that dogs are entirely pure including their saliva. Some Maliki scholars even permit dogs as pets .

The Shafi’i school (followed by many Somali, Egyptian, and Southeast Asian Muslims) considers dogs impure in their entirety fur, saliva, and body. Contact with a dog requires ritual washing seven times, one with purified earth.

The Hanbali school (influential in Saudi Arabia) largely aligns with the Shafi’i position on dogs’ impurity.

These differences explain why a Somali immigrant following the Shafi’i school recoils from a dog’s touch while a Turkish Muslim might keep a shepherd dog without theological anxiety. Neither view is “un-Islamic” both derive from centuries of scholarly tradition.

The Hadith: Angels, Black Dogs, and Reward

Several prophetic traditions, or hadith, shape Muslim attitudes toward dogs. The most famous warns: “Whoever keeps a dog that is not used for hunting, herding livestock, or guarding land, two Qiraats will be deducted from his reward each day”. This teaching accepted across all four schools establishes the principle that dogs are tools with specific functions, not household companions.

Another well-known hadith states: “Angels do not enter a home where dogs, pictures, and statues are found”. For observant Muslims who believe angels bring blessings and protection, this creates a powerful incentive to keep dogs outdoors.

Perhaps most controversial is the tradition about “black dogs being devils.” Critics of Islam sometimes seize upon this to claim the religion teaches hatred of dogs. But scholars across centuries have interpreted this as referring to a specific outbreak of rabid black dogs during the Prophet’s time a public health measure later abrogated. The Prophet himself, after all, prayed in the presence of dogs and commanded compassion toward them.

Culture Compounds Theology

Theology alone does not explain Muslim wariness toward dogs. Culture and lived experience play powerful roles. In many Muslim-majority countries, dogs roam streets as semi-feral scavengers unvaccinated, often diseased, occasionally dangerous. Muslims who grew up in Egypt, Somalia, or rural Turkey did not encounter golden retrievers wagging tails in air-conditioned homes. They encountered packs of dogs that chased children and spread rabies.

Mona Shadia, an Egyptian-American columnist, captures this cultural dimension: “When we were little, my sister was chased by a dog on two different occasions. She got bitten once in the thigh and still has a round scar there. I was petrified of dogs”. For her, the aversion was visceral and cultural, not theological though outsiders often mistake it for religious fanaticism.

The Modern Tension: Assimilation and Identity

As Muslim immigrants settle in Western countries, tensions arise. Children raised in American culture plead for puppies like their classmates, while parents struggle to balance tradition with their children’s desire to belong. Some families compromise with “outside dogs” kept in yards. Others, like Minneapolis Somali immigrant Shamsudir Mohamud, openly embrace dogs despite community criticism.

This tension has become politicized. One scholar notes that anti-dog sentiment among conservative Muslims correlates with other markers of religious conservatism the same voices emphasizing dogs’ impurity often emphasize women’s veiling and traditional gender role. Meanwhile, Islamophobic activists seize on Muslim dog aversion to portray Muslims as fundamentally alien to Western culture, using pet ownership as what one scholar calls a “racial hinge” to create false choices between pluralism and pet culture .

A Conservative Reflection

From a conservative perspective, the Muslim approach to dogs offers a useful contrast to modern American pet culture. Where we have elevated dogs to the status of “fur babies” spending fortunes on gourmet food, emotional support certifications, and even funeral plots classical Islam maintains a clear hierarchy. Dogs are creatures of utility and, like all animals, deserve kindness. But they are not family. They do not belong in bedrooms or on furniture. They do not receive inheritance or wedding invitations.

This is not hatred. It is a traditional understanding of proper boundaries between human and animal a sensibility that would have been familiar to most of our grandparents, regardless of their religion. When a Muslim asks you to keep your dog from jumping on them, they are not expressing bigotry. They are observing purity laws that, for them, connect everyday life to the divine.

Understanding these nuances matters. In an era of polarization, we need fewer caricatures of “Muslim dog-haters” and more appreciation for the rich, complex tradition that leads observant Muslims to say: God’s creatures deserve our compassion, but some boundaries preserve our dignity and devotion.

#Dogs #Islam #Muslims

The Great Misunderstanding: Birthright Citizenship and the True Intent of the 14th Amendment

 

The Great Misunderstanding: Birthright Citizenship and the True Intent of the 14th Amendment

For decades, a fundamental misunderstanding of the United States Constitution has allowed a loophole large enough to undermine the very nature of American citizenship. The debate over birthright citizenship the automatic granting of U.S. citizenship to children born on American soil, regardless of the parents’ legal status—has reached a fever pitch. As the nation grapples with border security and the rule of law, it is essential to return to first principles. From a conservative perspective, the question is not whether we are a nation of immigrants, but whether we are a nation of laws. A clear-eyed reading of the 14th Amendment, grounded in the original intent of its framers, reveals that this amendment was never intended to guarantee citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. It was, instead, a specific remedy for a specific evil: the enslavement of African Americans.

The Original Intent: A Remedy for Slavery

To understand the 14th Amendment, we must understand the historical context in which it was written. Ratified in 1868, in the aftermath of the Civil War, the amendment was a direct response to the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision. In that ruling, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that Americans of African descent, whether free or enslaved, could never be citizens of the United States. The primary purpose of the 14th Amendment was to overturn that heinous decision and establish a constitutional guarantee of citizenship for freed slaves and their children.

The framers of the amendment men like Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan and Representative John Bingham of Ohio were explicit in their goals. They sought to enshrine in the Constitution the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared that “all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power” were citizens. The phrase “not subject to any foreign power” is critical. The framers understood that citizenship was not merely a function of geography; it was a function of jurisdiction and allegiance.

When Senator Howard introduced the Citizenship Clause, he explained that it excluded “Indians not taxed” (tribal members who maintained their sovereign allegiance) and “persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, or who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers.” In other words, the framers recognized that mere physical presence on U.S. soil did not automatically confer citizenship if the individual owed allegiance to a different sovereign.

For the Radical Republicans who drafted the amendment, the concept of “subject to the jurisdiction” meant full, political allegiance to the United States something the children of slaves certainly possessed, as they had no other sovereign to claim them. It did not mean simply being subject to American laws, such as traffic laws or tax codes. It meant being subject to the complete political authority of the United States, owing no foreign allegiance.

The Illegal Alien Loophole

The notion that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is a modern invention, unsupported by the text, history, or judicial precedent for the first century following its ratification.

The operative text reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

For a conservative textualist, every word matters. The key clause is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” When illegal aliens cross the border without inspection or overstay their visas, they are not “subject to the jurisdiction” in the sense intended by the 14th Amendment. They remain nationals of their country of origin. They owe allegiance to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, or whatever nation issued their passport. While they must obey our criminal laws (as any visitor must), they are not subject to the full political jurisdiction of the United States. They cannot vote, serve on juries, or be drafted into the military. If they commit a crime, upon serving their sentence, they are deported to their home country a remedy not available for full citizens.

This interpretation is not a fringe theory. It was the prevailing understanding of the law for generations. The Supreme Court addressed this issue indirectly in Elk v. Wilkins (1884), where the Court held that Native Americans born on reservations were not automatically citizens because they owed allegiance to their tribal nations. The Court reasoned that being “subject to the jurisdiction” meant not merely being bound by U.S. law, but being free of any conflicting foreign or tribal allegiance.

If a Native American born on a reservation within the geographic boundaries of the United States was not automatically a citizen because of their allegiance to a tribal sovereign, how can we argue that the child of a non-resident alien, who is a citizen of a foreign sovereign and present in the U.S. illegally, is automatically a citizen? The inconsistency is glaring.

The Policy Consequences

While the legal argument is paramount for conservatives who believe in originalism, the policy consequences of misreading the 14th Amendment are equally troubling. The current interpretation has created a perverse incentive structure that actively encourages illegal immigration.

“Birth tourism” and “anchor babies” are not offensive slogans; they are rational outcomes of a broken system. When any person who can successfully set foot on American soil regardless of how they arrive can guarantee that their child will receive a U.S. passport, Social Security number, and the right to sponsor their parents for immigration (once the child turns 21), we have effectively eliminated any deterrent to illegal entry. We have told the world that the borders are open to anyone who is pregnant or willing to become pregnant.

This undermines the very concept of sovereignty. A nation that cannot control its borders and cannot define who enters its political community is not a sovereign nation. As conservative jurist Judge James C. Ho, a George W. Bush appointee, noted before his appointment to the bench, “Birthright citizenship is not mandated by the Constitution. It’s a policy choice that we’ve made. And if we decide to change that policy, we’re free to do so.”

Conservatives argue that citizenship should be a bond of shared values, allegiance, and lawfulness not an accident of geography. When we grant the most precious right in our republic the right to citizenship to individuals whose parents have violated our laws to be here, we cheapen that right for everyone. We also place an enormous burden on states, particularly those along the southern border, which must bear the costs of education, healthcare, and social services for a population that is, by definition, present in violation of federal law.

A Clarification, Not an Amendment

Opponents of reform argue that ending automatic birthright citizenship would require a constitutional amendment. This is incorrect. What is required is a clarification of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Because the Supreme Court has never squarely ruled on whether the children of illegal aliens are covered by the Citizenship Clause, Congress has the authority to pass legislation defining the term.

The Supreme Court’s decision in *United States v. Wong Kim Ark* (1898) is often cited by proponents of unlimited birthright citizenship. But that case dealt with a child born to lawful, permanent residents (legal immigrants) who were domiciled in the United States. The Court explicitly stated that it was not ruling on the status of children born to “foreigners who pass through the country” or those who are “temporarily within the Republic.” The children of illegal aliens who are, by definition, not lawfully domiciled fall into exactly that category.

A conservative Congress can pass a law stating that, for the purposes of the 14th Amendment, a person is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States only if they have at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or an alien in active military service. Such legislation would simply restore the original public meaning of the amendment as understood by its framers.

Conclusion

The 14th Amendment is one of the noblest amendments in our Constitution. It was written in blood to right the original sin of slavery and ensure that formerly enslaved people and their descendants could never again be stripped of their birthright. To honor that legacy, we must refuse to distort it.

Conservatives believe in the rule of law, the sanctity of borders, and the importance of allegiance in the definition of citizenship. The current interpretation of the Citizenship Clause does violence to the text, ignores the intent of the framers, and creates perverse incentives that encourage lawlessness. It is not an act of hostility to immigrants to insist that our laws mean what they say. It is an act of fidelity to the Constitution.

It is time to read the 14th Amendment as it was written: a guarantee of freedom for the enslaved, not an open-door invitation to the world. By clarifying the meaning of “subject to the jurisdiction,” we can restore the integrity of American citizenship, secure our borders, and ensure that the great gift of citizenship is reserved for those who come to our shores legally and with the intent to embrace the full allegiance that our republic demands.

#14thAmendment #Slavery  #Immigration #Constitution

 

The Constitutional Tug-of-War: Presidential War Powers and the Iranian Conflict

The United States finds itself engaged in significant military operations against Iran, launched by President Donald Trump without prior congressional approval. This action has reignited a constitutional debate nearly as old as the Republic itself: what can a president do militarily without Congress saying yes? To understand the current situation, one must look at the constitutional text, the historical precedent set by Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam, and the legal arguments that conservatives use today to justify preemptive action against existential threats.

The Constitutional Framework: Article I vs. Article II

The Constitution deliberately divides war powers between the legislative and executive branches. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 grants Congress the power "To declare War." Meanwhile, Article II, Section 2 designates the President as "Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States".

This division was no accident. The Framers sought to prevent unilateral military action by requiring legislative deliberation before committing the nation to armed conflict. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 69 that the presidency would be "nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military forces" while Congress retained the authority to authorize war.

However, the Constitution's text left room for interpretation. What does it mean for Congress to "declare war" in a world of preemptive strikes, humanitarian interventions, and nuclear proliferation? Presidents from Truman to Biden have exploited this ambiguity, arguing that their Commander-in-Chief authority allows them to defend American interests without waiting for congressional action.

The Vietnam Precedent: LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin

The Vietnam War represents perhaps the most significant expansion of presidential war powers in American history and a cautionary tale about executive overreach.

In August 1964, reports emerged that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin. President Lyndon B. Johnson used these reports to secure congressional passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression".

What Congress did not know at the time was that the second attack the one that prompted the most aggressive response almost certainly never happened. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara withheld critical information from LBJ, including that the U.S. commander in the Gulf had expressed serious doubts about the initial reports and called for a full investigation before any retaliatory action. McNamara proceeded with the strike execute order without consulting the president about what he had learned.

Contrary to the popular narrative that LBJ manipulated the incident to expand the war, the reality is more complex. Johnson initially resisted pressure from his national security advisers to escalate. He had refused to retaliate two days earlier and, after learning the truth about the questionable attack, halted CIA-managed commando raids and naval patrols near the North Vietnamese coast.

Yet by 1965, facing unanimous recommendations from his advisers and fear of being blamed for "losing" South Vietnam, Johnson capitulated. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution became the legal justification for massive escalation over 500,000 U.S. troops were deployed, and the war claimed over 58,000 American lives.

The lesson of Vietnam is that Congress willingly delegated its war-making authority to the executive branch and paid a terrible price. In 1971, Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but the war continued for two more years. By 1973, a war-weary Congress passed the War Powers Resolution over President Nixon's veto, attempting to reassert legislative control by requiring presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of military action and limiting unauthorized deployments to 60 days.

The War Powers Resolution: A Flawed Mechanism

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was intended to restore constitutional balance, but it has largely failed in practice. Presidents from both parties have treated it as an unconstitutional infringement on executive authority.

The Resolution's weaknesses are evident today. Under its terms, President Trump was required to notify Congress within 48 hours of launching strikes against Iran—which he did. The 60-day clock began ticking. But unless Congress affirmatively acts to stop the conflict through a concurrent resolution (which requires a simple majority in both chambers) or cuts off funding, the president can continue military operations.

When Senate Democrats recently introduced a War Powers Resolution to limit Trump's actions in Iran, it failed 47-52, with only one Republican Senator Rand Paul joining Democrats in support. House Republicans rejected a similar measure 212-219. This pattern reflects what critics call the "constitutional abeyance" of war powers: Congress complains about executive overreach but lacks the political will to enforce its authority.

The Conservative Legal Argument: Article II and Inherent Authority

From a conservative perspective, President Trump's actions against Iran rest on solid constitutional ground. The argument proceeds along several lines.

The Commander-in-Chief Power

First, conservatives emphasize that Article II vests the President with the "executive Power" and designates him as Commander-in-Chief. This is not merely a ceremonial title but an active grant of authority to direct the armed forces in protecting the nation.

Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking on the Senate floor in support of Trump's actions, argued: "The president, as commander-in-chief, has the ability to use our armed forces to protect our nation. And Congress, if we disagree with that choice, has the ability to terminate the action, taking the money away, and that's the check and balance that was created a long time ago".

This view holds that the president's constitutional authority to use force does not depend on Congress's permission. Congress's role is not to authorize military action in advance but to fund or defund ongoing operations the so-called "power of the purse".

The "Scale and Duration" Doctrine

Second, conservative legal thinkers have long argued that not every use of military force constitutes "war" in the constitutional sense. The Declare War Clause, they contend, applies only to conflicts of significant "scale and duration" full-scale wars like World War II, not limited strikes or operations.

This reasoning traces back to William Rehnquist, who as Assistant Attorney General in 1970 opined that President Nixon's incursion into Cambodia fell "short of war" and was "the sort of tactical decision traditionally confided to the Commander in Chief in the conduct of armed conflict".

The Trump administration applied similar logic to justify the 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities (Operation Midnight Hammer) and the capture of Venezuelan President Maduro. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel argued that these operations did not rise to the level of "war" requiring congressional authorization.

Preemption and Self-Defense

Third, conservatives argue that the President has inherent authority to use force in self-defense, including preemptively, when the nation faces imminent threats. This is particularly relevant to Iran.

Iran has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984. It has provided weapons to groups that have killed American service members, developed ballistic missiles capable of striking U.S. allies, and pursued nuclear weapons capability. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Iran blocked international inspectors from assessing its nuclear facilities.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the objective of the war is "to destroy Iran's current weapons capacity and missile production, and end their pathway to nuclear weapons". From a conservative perspective, allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons would pose an existential threat to the United States and its allies one that the President cannot wait for Congress to debate.

Historical Practice

Finally, conservatives point to historical practice stretching back to the Founding. Presidents have ordered military action without prior congressional authorization on hundreds of occasions. As Senator Jim Risch noted on the Senate floor, "the vast majority of presidents in American history have ordered kinetic acts, just like President Trump has done, without going to Congress".

This list includes President Jefferson's actions against the Barbary pirates, President Polk's maneuvers that led to the Mexican War, President Truman's intervention in Korea, President Reagan's invasion of Grenada, President Clinton's Kosovo campaign, President Obama's Libya intervention, and President Trump's first-term strikes on Syria and Iran.

If this long-standing practice were truly unconstitutional, conservatives argue, courts would have struck it down. Yet the Supreme Court has consistently avoided ruling on the merits of war powers disputes, treating them as "political questions" best resolved by the elected branches.

Legalizing Action Against Iran: The Conservative Case

Applying these principles to Iran, conservatives see a compelling case for presidential action without congressional approval.

First, Iran's status as a state sponsor of terrorism provides a legal foundation. Since 1947, the United States has maintained that states supporting terrorism against American interests forfeit normal protections of sovereignty. The 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine authorized military assistance to any Middle Eastern nation threatened by communism, and subsequent administrations have expanded this principle to counter-terrorism.

Second, Iran's nuclear program represents an imminent threat that cannot be addressed through congressional deliberation. Unlike the Gulf of Tonkin incident which conservatives acknowledge was based on faulty intelligence Iran's nuclear ambitions are well-documented. The White House maintains that Iran rejected negotiations on reining in its nuclear program, leaving military action as the only option to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Third, the scale of the current operation while significant does not constitute "war" requiring congressional declaration. The administration has stated that American ground troops are "not part of the current plan". The campaign relies primarily on airpower, special operations, and naval forces. If the conflict expands beyond these parameters, the administration could return to Congress for authorization.

Fourth, Congress retains its constitutional check through the power of the purse. The administration reportedly intends to seek supplemental appropriations to fund the war potentially up to $50 billion. If Congress disapproves of the military action, it can simply refuse to appropriate funds. This is precisely the mechanism the Framers envisioned: the President commands, but Congress pays.

A Constitutional Middle Ground?

The debate over presidential war powers is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Both sides have plausible constitutional arguments, and historical practice supports a range of interpretations.

What emerges from the Vietnam experience is that congressional authorization, when given, has consequences. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a blank check that LBJ cashed with tragic results. Today, some conservatives argue that Congress's refusal to act its failure to pass a War Powers Resolution or cut off funding constitutes implicit authorization.

Others, like Senator Chris Murphy, argue that the burden should be reversed: "If a War Powers Resolution becomes the way we debate war, then the burden is forever shifted" away from Congress to affirmatively authorize conflicts before they begin.

For now, the constitutional balance tilts toward the executive. As Professor John Yoo, a prominent conservative legal scholar, observes: "Congress is, of course, free to try to stop any military intervention, but I think the Constitution and historical practice require Congress to do this primarily through its power of the purse".

Conclusion

The question of presidential war powers is ultimately about who decides when America goes to war. The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, but the President the power to command. Two and a half centuries of practice have blurred this line, with the executive branch accumulating more authority with each conflict.

LBJ's experience in Vietnam illustrates the dangers of congressional delegation without oversight. But it also reveals a president initially reluctant to escalate, pushed forward by advisers and the fear of political consequences.

Today, President Trump's actions in Iran test the same constitutional boundaries. From a conservative perspective, these actions are justified by Article II authority, historical practice, and the imperative of preempting an existential threat. Whether one agrees or disagrees, the legal arguments are serious and rooted in a coherent constitutional vision.

What remains clear is that Congress's role in war-making depends not on what the Constitution says, but on what Congress does. As long as the legislative branch lacks the political will to enforce its authority through the power of the purse, war powers resolutions, or impeachment the president will continue to set the nation's course in war and peace.

#Article1 #Article2 #Constitution #Trump #Iran

Blacks Who Owned Slaves

 

Blacks Who Owned Slaves ... Their Families Need To Cut Some 'Reparations Checks' ... Reparations Checks ... Right???

"Based on historical records, determining a definitive "top 10" list of Black slave owners ranked by the number of people they enslaved is difficult. Census data varied, and many of the most prominent individuals are known for their wealth and social standing rather than for holding a precise numerical rank.

However, the most frequently cited Black slave owners who held a significant number of enslaved people include:

William Ellison Jr. (c. 1790–1861)

A former slave in South Carolina who became a successful cotton-gin manufacturer and planter. By 1860, he owned 63 slaves and over 900 acres of land . He is often cited as one of the largest Black slaveholders in the state.

Antoine Dubuclet (1810–1887).

A free Black sugar planter in Louisiana. He inherited a plantation and expanded it significantly; by 1860, he owned over 100 slaves and was considered one of the wealthiest Black slave owners in the state .

The Metoyer Family (led by Marie Thérèse Metoyer, 1742–1816).

A prominent family of free people of color in Louisiana. By 1830, the family collectively owned 287 slaves, making them one of the largest slave-owning families in their parish .

Widow C. Richards and Son P.C. Richards.

In 1860, this family operated a large sugar plantation in Louisiana and owned 152 slaves, which was the highest number owned by any Black slaveholder in the state that year .

Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry

Wealthy Black slave owners in South Carolina. In 1830, they were recorded as owning 84 slaves each, for a combined total of 168.

The Pendarvis Family.

 A prominent family in South Carolina during the 1730s. They owned the largest rice plantations in the region and held over 123 slaves.

Richard Edward Dereef (1798–1876).

A former slave in South Carolina who became a lumber trader and politician. He owned up to 40 slaves, all of whom were noted to have a darker skin complexion.

A Note on the Context of Black Slave Ownership

It's important to understand the complex and varied circumstances behind Black slave ownership, as it differed greatly from the system of chattel slavery enforced by white slaveholders.

The Scale Was Small

In 1830, for example, there were 3,775 free Black people who owned slaves, but they held a total of just 12,700 enslaved people. In contrast, white slaveholders owned over 2 million. The vast majority of Black slave owners held only one or two slaves, often for very specific reasons.

A Means of Protecting Family:

A common practice was for a free Black person to legally "own" their spouse or children who were still enslaved. This was often a loophole to keep families together in a system that did not legally recognize their familial bonds and made manumission (the act of freeing a slave) extremely difficult .

Social and Economic Ambiguity:

Many successful Black slave owners, like William Ellison, were of mixed race and occupied a complex social position. While they achieved economic success, they were still subject to racial discrimination and did not enjoy the same legal protections as white citizens . Their ownership of slaves was, in some cases, a way to navigate a society built on a racial hierarchy for economic survival.

I hope this information provides a clearer picture of this complex historical topic."

#Slaves #Slavery #History #Blacks #African Americans

Kamala Harris is a descendant of an Irish slave owner in Jamaica

Hamilton Brown, from Co Antrim, was paid equivalent of €11m in compensation by British government to free slaves after ban

What Is The History Of Kamala Harris' Grandfather Owning Slaves?

The Chains We Carry: Kamala Harris, Hamilton Brown, and the Abolitionist Imperative

Recent discussions about Vice President Kamala Harris’s possible descent from Hamilton Brown, a notorious Irish slave owner in Jamaica, have sparked political controversy. For some, the revelation is framed as hypocrisy or a “deep, dark secret” meant to undermine her identity as a Black woman. For others, it is simply a genealogical curiosity. But from an abolitionist perspective one that seeks not only the end of chattel slavery’s legacy but also the dismantling of the ideological frameworks that sustained it this conversation offers something far more important than political ammunition.

It offers a mirror.

The Story, as It Stands

The claim rests on an essay written in 2019 by Kamala Harris’s father, Donald J. Harris, a Stanford economist born in Jamaica. In it, he traced his lineage to his paternal grandmother, Christiana Brown, whom he described as a descendant of Hamilton Brown, the founder of Brown’s Town, Jamaica . Hamilton Brown, born in County Antrim, Ireland, around 1776, emigrated to Jamaica as a teenager and became a wealthy planter and enslaver. Historical records indicate he owned at least 121 enslaved people in 1826 and traveled to London to lobby against abolition. When Britain finally outlawed slavery in 1834, Brown received over £12,000 in compensation more than $12 million in today’s currency for the 1,200 enslaved people working his plantations .

However, it is critical to note that the genealogical link remains unproven. Snopes rates the claim as “unproven” due to conflicting records and a lack of definitive documentation. Leading genealogist Megan Smolenyak, who traced the Irish roots of both Joe Biden and Barack Obama, states plainly: “There is no paper trail proof at all”. The connection relies largely on family lore and the prevalence of the Brown surname in the region.

But whether Kamala Harris is biologically descended from Hamilton Brown is, from an abolitionist standpoint, almost beside the point. The deeper truth this controversy illuminates is far more uncomfortable and far more universal.

The System, Not the Individual

Abolitionism is not merely the historical movement that ended chattel slavery in the British Empire and the United States. As a living framework, it demands that we confront the structural violence of racial capitalism and its enduring afterlives. From this perspective, fixating on whether a specific politician does or does not carry the DNA of a specific enslaver is a distraction one that plays into the very logic abolitionism seeks to undo.

Why? Because the discourse of individual culpability suggests that the evil of slavery resides in singular “bad actors” like Hamilton Brown. It implies that if we can distance ourselves from them if we can prove we are not their descendants we are somehow untainted. This is a comforting fiction. The reality, as abolitionists understand, is that slavery was not a collection of individual moral failings but a global economic system. It built the modern world. Its profits financed banks, universities, and industries on both sides of the Atlantic. Its logic of racial hierarchy continues to shape policing, housing, healthcare, and economic inequality today.

We are all living in the house that slavery built. Whether our ancestors were enslaved or enslavers or, as in the case of most Black descendants of the Caribbean and American South, both does not absolve us of the collective responsibility to dismantle its legacies.

The Violence of “Consensual” Narratives

A crucial element of this story that must not be overlooked is the nature of the connection between families like the Browns and the Black families in Brown’s Town. Historians note that Hamilton Brown never married but is believed to have fathered as many as thirty children, many with enslaved women. This was not romance. As scholars of slavery have long documented, what some euphemistically call “consensual relations” between enslavers and the enslaved were, in the context of absolute power over another human being’s body, a form of sexual violence.

As The Conversation notes: “Even if consensual, the idea that Black offspring of a white plantation owner benefited from slavery is, of course, nonsense”. These children were born into bondage, their bodies property from the moment of birth. They were often separated from their mothers and denied any inheritance or status.

When we reduce this history to a political talking point “Kamala Harris’s family owned slaves” we erase the experience of the enslaved women whose bodies were exploited to produce that lineage. We ignore the reality that, as historian Brent Staples writes in The New York Times, the enslaved women in Jamaica were subjected to systematic terror, including the documented predations of enslavers like Thomas Thistlewood, who recorded 3,852 acts of intercourse with 138 women he owned over 37 years .

Ireland’s Complicated Legacy

The response in Ireland to the Harris story has been markedly different from the celebration that greeted Barack Obama’s Irish roots. In Ballymoney, near Brown’s birthplace, there is silence rather than street parties. This discomfort reflects a difficult truth: Ireland was both colonized and colonizer. Irish people were subjected to British oppression and displacement, yet many like Hamilton Brown became active participants in the British imperial project, including the enslavement of Africans .

Hamilton Brown himself was likely a descendant of settlers brought to Ireland during the Plantation of Ulster, a colonial project that displaced native Irish Catholics. He likely identified as Scotch-Irish or British rather than Irish. His story is not a simple tale of Irish victimhood but a reminder that oppression often reproduces itself across contexts, as the oppressed find new subjects to dominate.

For abolitionists, this is a critical lesson: solidarity cannot be assumed based on shared experience of suffering. The struggle against white supremacy requires confronting how Irish immigrants in the Caribbean, despite facing their own hardships, ultimately benefited from and reinforced anti-Black racial hierarchies .

The Deeper Truth in Donald Harris’s Essay

Lost in the political noise is the actual content of Donald Harris’s original essay. It was not a political gotcha but a meditation on family, loss, and identity. He wrote about his grandmother Christiana Brown, who owned a dry goods store, and about his maternal grandmother, Iris Finegan, a farmer and educator. He wrote about his grief when Christiana died in 1951, when he was just fourteen.

He wrote, too, about bringing his daughters, Kamala and Maya, to Jamaica to walk them through the “richness and complexity” of Brown’s Town a town named for an enslaver but built by the labor of the enslaved and their descendants . He was not celebrating Hamilton Brown. He was honoring the resilience of the women who carried the family forward despite the violence of their origins.

Christiana Brown was born around 1889, forty-six years after Hamilton Brown’s death. She was likely the daughter or granddaughter of an enslaved woman on one of his plantations. Her existence, like that of millions of Black people in the diaspora, testifies to the survival of a people who built families and communities out of the wreckage of bondage.

Abolition as Forward-Looking

From an abolitionist perspective, the question is not whether Kamala Harris should be ashamed of her ancestry. The question is what she and all of us will do about the continuing legacy of slavery. Will we acknowledge that the wealth inequality, mass incarceration, and political disenfranchisement that define American life today are direct inheritances from the system Hamilton Brown fought to preserve? Will we support reparative policies that address these harms? Will we confront, rather than weaponize, the complexities of our shared history?

Kamala Harris’s response to questions about her identity has been characteristically direct: “I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it”. From an abolitionist perspective, that is the only sustainable position. The work of liberation has never required purity of lineage. It has required clarity of purpose.

The enslaved women of Jamaica did not wait for their genealogies to be untangled before they resisted. They ran away. They poisoned their enslavers. They preserved African spiritual practices. They built families under impossible conditions. Their descendants whether they carry the surname Brown or Harris or something else entirely inherit not only the trauma of that past but also the legacy of that resistance.

Conclusion

The controversy over Kamala Harris’s possible descent from Hamilton Brown tells us less about the Vice President than it does about our collective discomfort with the complexity of history. We want clean narratives: heroes and villains, the oppressed and the oppressor, with no overlap. But the reality of the Atlantic slave trade defies such simplicity. Most Black people in the diaspora are descended from both the enslaved and the enslavers, the product of violence but also of survival.

Abolitionism, properly understood, does not demand that we disown our ancestors. It demands that we own our history all of it and commit to building a future that honors the dignity of every person. Whether Kamala Harris is biologically descended from Hamilton Brown or not, she is descended from Jamaica, a country that received more enslaved Africans than all of the North American colonies combined. She is descended from people who survived a system designed to destroy them. That is not a liability. That is a legacy of resistance.

And it is that legacy, not the DNA of a long-dead enslaver, that deserves our attention. The chains we carry are not the names in our family trees. They are the systems of inequality that slavery built and that we have yet to fully tear down. The work of abolition the real work is just beginning.

   #KamalaHarris #Kamala #Harris #Jamaica

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The Paradox of the Polling Booth: Why Voters Betray Their Beliefs

 

People vote for politicians that support policies that go against their faith beliefs to include abortion and lawlessness including riots and looting by progressives and the Political LEFT. WHY?

My Opinion:

This country would be much better off if more Blacks, Christians,  Catholics, and Jews would simply vote their faith instead of just showing up at 9am and 11am on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

The Paradox, the Polling Booth: Why Voters Betray Their Beliefs

It is one of the great moral paradoxes of modern American politics. Year after year, exit polls reveal a stunning contradiction: a significant portion of self-described Christians, traditionalists, and culturally conservative Americans cast their ballots for politicians who champion policies that are antithetical to the very foundations of their faith.

We are not speaking here of minor disagreements over marginal tax rates or infrastructure spending. We are speaking of fundamental moral questions. We are speaking of the aggressive expansion of abortion on demand, up to and including the moment of birth, funded by taxpayer dollars. We are speaking of the systematic dismantling of the family unit. And perhaps most glaringly, we are speaking of a political alliance with factions of the Progressive Left that have normalized lawlessness riots that burn city blocks, looting that destroys small businesses, and a criminal justice philosophy that prioritizes the comfort of repeat offenders over the safety of innocent families.

How does this happen? How does a person who sits in a pew on Sunday morning, who professes belief in the sanctity of life and the necessity of order, vote for a platform that celebrates the opposite?

To understand this betrayal of belief, we must look beyond simple political labels. The answer lies in a toxic combination of emotional manipulation, a radical redefinition of virtue, the economic idolatry of the "single-issue" voter, and a spiritual failure within the Church itself.

The Tyranny of "Compassion"

The most potent weapon in the political left’s arsenal is the hijacking of the word "compassion." In the conservative view, genuine compassion is rooted in truth and order. It is the firefighter rushing into a burning building; it is the parent disciplining a child to prevent a lifetime of ruin; it is a society establishing laws that protect the most vulnerable the unborn.

For decades, the Progressive Left has successfully reframed compassion asthe absence of judgmen. To vote against a policy, no matter how destructive, is framed as "harsh" or "uncaring." Consequently, many believers fall into the trap of what can only be called emotional utilitarianism. They are swayed by the argument that to vote against a candidate who promises free goods whether student loan handouts, subsidized housing, or expanded entitlement programs is somehow un-Christian.

They forget the biblical admonition that "if a man will not work, he shall not eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10) and that charity is a virtue of the individual and the church, not the coercive power of the state. They have been convinced that a politician who promises to take from Peter to pay Paul is exercising "mercy," while a politician who argues for the rule of law and economic opportunity is being "mean."

But what kind of mercy is it that offers a temporary government check while hollowing out the inner cities with policies that defund the police, leading to spiraling crime rates? What kind of compassion advocates for the "right" to abortion, which results in the deaths of over 60 million preborn children since *Roe v. Wade*? It is a counterfeit compassion, one that feels virtuous to the giver but is lethal to the receiver, particularly the poor communities that Progressives claim to champion.

The Normalization of Lawlessness

Perhaps the most baffling aspect of this political allegiance is the embrace of lawlessness. We have witnessed, in recent years, a sustained campaign of political violence: autonomous zones in American cities, the burning of police precincts, the looting of family-owned businesses, and the harassment of citizens in their own neighborhoods.

When asked to condemn this behavior, many on the political left equivocate. They speak of "mostly peaceful protests" while buildings burn behind them. They push for bail reform that releases violent criminals back onto the streets hours after their arrest. They advocate for the defunding of police departments, resulting in longer response times and emboldened criminals.

Yet, the faithful voter who aligns with these politicians often rationalizes this away. They tell themselves that the riots are "isolated incidents" or that the looting is a justified expression of "frustration." They ignore the clear teaching of Scripture and indeed, the basic requirements of a functioning society that rulers are "God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer" (Romans 13:4).

When a political movement excuses arson, apologizes for looting, and demonizes the police officers who hold the line between civilization and anarchy, it is not merely making a policy error. It is aligning itself with the spirit of chaos. For a person of faith to endorse such a platform is to endorse the destruction of the very stability required for families to thrive. The single mother in the inner city does not need a politician who sympathizes with the mob that burned down the grocery store where she buys her milk; she needs a leader who will protect her community with the full force of the law.

The Idolatry of the Wallet and the "Single Issue" Trap

Historically, the critique from the left against conservative voters was that they were "single-issue" voters focused on abortion. Today, we see a mirror image: a new kind of single-issue voter has emerged on the center-left, and their issue is economic anxiety mixed with secular tribalism.

For many middle-to-upper-class voters who hold traditional faith beliefs, their vote is ultimately purchased by the promise of material security. They may privately believe that abortion is murder and that allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports is unjust, but they prioritize the perceived stability of their 401(k) or their social standing in elite circles.

This is a form of idolatry. It places the material comforts of this world above the moral integrity of the soul and the health of the culture. The conservative worldview holds that without a moral foundation, the economy is ultimately meaningless. What good is a rising stock market if the culture is committing infanticide? What good is a tax cut if your children are being indoctrinated in schools to hate their country and question their God-given identity?

By prioritizing tax policy over life policy, these voters trade their birthright of moral authority for a mess of pottage—a temporary economic stability that will evaporate the moment the social fabric frays completely.

The Great Deception: Redefining "Social Justice"

The Progressive Left has also masterfully exploited the language of "social justice." In its classical, Judeo-Christian understanding, justice is giving each their due. It is fairness under the law. However, the modern progressive definition of justice is indistinguishable from *vengeance* and equity of outcome.

Voters of faith are told that to support law-and-order candidates is to be "against" minority communities. They are told that to oppose the radical gender ideology permeating schools is to be "anti-LGBTQ." They are bullied into silence and then into compliance.

But a conservative analysis reveals the lie. The policies of the Progressive Left have been disastrous for the very communities they claim to love. The push for no-fault divorce devastated the Black family structure. The expansion of the welfare state created a cycle of dependency that trapped generations in poverty. The defunding of the police led to a spike in homicides in minority neighborhoods that were already underserved.

When people of faith vote for these policies, they are not voting for justice; they are voting for a narrative. They are voting for the comforting lie that they are "on the right side of history," rather than standing firm on the timeless truths that actually lift people out of poverty and protect the innocent.

A Failure of the Pulpit

Ultimately, the blame for this political schizophrenia cannot rest solely on the voters; it rests largely on the failure of religious leadership. For decades, many mainstream pulpits have gone silent on the non-negotiables of moral law. They preach a "social gospel" devoid of the power of the resurrection, focusing on feeding the stomach while ignoring the soul.

Where are the sermons on the sin of shedding innocent blood? Where are the clarion calls against the idolatry of the state? Too often, pastors have traded the prophetic mantle for a 501(c)(3) tax exemption, afraid to "politicize" the pulpit.

But the Gospel is political in the truest sense it speaks to the polis, the city. When the church fails to teach its members that a vote for a platform of abortion is a vote for the slaughter of the innocent; when it fails to explain that a vote for lawlessness is a vote against the biblical mandate for order; then the flock is left to be shepherded by cable news pundits and campaign ads.

Conclusion: Choosing the Blessing or the Curse

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses set before the people of Israel a choice: a blessing if they obeyed the commandments of God, and a curse if they turned away. While America is not ancient Israel, the principle remains: nations that abandon the moral law particularly the sanctity of life and the rule of law invite their own destruction.

Voting for politicians who champion abortion and lawlessness is not an act of political pragmatism; it is an act of spiritual confusion. It assumes that one can separate the moral character of a leader from the practical outcome of their policies. But one cannot. The policies of the Progressive Left are not neutral administrative matters; they are a moral declaration.

To defund the police is to declare that the safety of the innocent is less important than the feelings of the guilty. To codify abortion is to declare that convenience is more valuable than life. To excuse riots is to declare that property destruction is a valid form of political speech.

For the person of faith, the polling booth is not merely a civic duty; it is an extension of the conscience. To vote for that which God condemns is to invite the very chaos and suffering that such policies inevitably produce. Until voters of faith recognize that there is no such thing as a morally neutral vote and until they choose leaders who respect the sanctity of life and the necessity of order they will remain complicit in the very lawlessness and moral decay that grieves their own souls.

#Faith #Christians #Jews #Catholics 

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