I Was Wrong, But We Can Make It Right by John B. Haydon

Author:John B. Haydon [Haydon, John B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Personal Memoirs, Social Science, Biracial & Multiracial Studies, Race & Ethnic Relations
ISBN: 9781645383390
Google: l6zFzgEACAAJ
Publisher: BOOKBABY
Published: 2021-12-07T04:28:15+00:00

Section 2

The Faustian Bargain at the Birth of Our Nation and Its Repayment

The “Faustian Bargain” involves a person who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for power Essentially, such a bargain was struck at the founding of the United States, whereby the institution of slavery was accepted by the new nation (and acknowledged in the Constitution as legitimate) in exchange for the southern colonies joining the union.

What a fateful political decision it was not to face up fully to the issue of American chattel slavery at the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted. That may be understandable, but the long-term negative consequences have been beyond belief, and they continue, despite 600,000-plus casualties in the Civil War and countless thousands (millions) of lives damaged (sometimes ruined) from the founding of our country to the present, with no end in sight to the continuing human harm being inflicted.

The serious question is whether the creation of our nation was worth it, at the cost of denying the humanity of so many fellow children of God. What a Faustian bargain with the devil! What if, instead of thirteen original states constituting the new nation, the founding fathers had insisted that the price of admission to the new nation was the elimination of slavery, to which maybe eight colonies would have agreed. No one knows for sure whether such a nation could have survived in view of the fact that the economy of the United States was, to a large extent, based on the institution of slavery, and slavery produced the country’s only significant exports. Nonetheless, the union of the thirteen colonies was achieved at a huge, huge cost. Black people are still paying for this bargain.

Probably, it does no good to ruminate about the bargain which was struck in order to form the United States, except to point out its consequences and to recognize that we must not continue to compromise the underlying issue, as did our nation’s founders. This issue was originally the issue of slavery and now is the issue of racism. We continue to compromise (with the devil) by permitting the existence and influence of racism, white supremacy, and the oppression of citizens who white America has the audacity to consider somehow lesser. In fact, we do this by denying that basic liberties belong to everyone, without exception.

One speculates that we may need to undertake such a radical step as a new “peaceful civil war,” where the admission to a new U.S. is based on full acceptance of our founding principles, including elimination of oppression to those who appear to be different than white Americans (whether non-citizens, Black, brown, Asian, LGBTQ, or whatever). Sad, but maybe we’d only get a few takers.

It is possible that we have so neglected and negated in practice our founding principles that, if they were put to a vote, they would fail to be readopted? Put another way, if the Declaration of Independence proposition that “all men are created equal” (so that every citizen

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