While we sit down with family and friends to start enjoying the holiday season, as African Americans we have a lot to be thankful for. One of the things we should be thankful for is that we are sitting at the table instead of serving it. Thats right, if John J. Crittenden had his way, a lot of us would be standing in a line with other servants behind somebody, getting ready to serve them turkey and mash potatoes.
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Massa: “Leroy… put some of that gravy on my mash potatoes….”
Leroy: “Yes suh…”
Ms. Massa: “And Leroy after you finished putting the gravy on the Massa’s mash potatoes, I want you to come over here and put my fork in my hand and move my plate closer, so I don’t have to reach down that far to get my food… as a matter of fact, I want you to scoop my food up and then hand me the fork… I’ll tell you what I want…
Leroy: “Yes Mam… here I come…”
Massa: “LEROY STOP RIGHT THERE!! PUT THAT KNIFE DOWN!!!
Yessiree, we have a lot to be thankful for.
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So, John Crittenden was a senator from Kentucky. He had held various positions throughout his political career and in 1860 was a U.S. senator. As far as slavery was concerned Crittenden was considered a moderate. When the issue of slavery was discussed, a moderate in those days meant that they didn’t see slavery as being the main problem but saw secession as being the most important issue. In other words, “Faque the Nigras!!,” y’all need to stay in the Union. Many candidates from the former Whig party which would eventually morph into the Republican party held that belief, including Abraham Lincoln. Keeping the Union intact was the main goal… It became even more of an imperative after the Confederates whipped that azz at the Battle of Bull Run in the first large engagement of the Civil War. After that whooping… the North was like “Aww sugar, sugar!! Now we gonna MAKE y’all stay in the Union!!”
The North thought that the war wouldn’t last but a few months, but it went on for years. After about two and a half years of azz whippings by the Confederates… that “We gonna make y’all stay,” argument was losing steam fast. People in the North were like… “WTF… let them go…” It was around this time that Lincoln framed the war differently. Not only were we gonna make y’all stay, but we gonna take y’all enslaved people too!! All that free labor and free pussy… that’s over with!!
That did it. You can always count on some people looking at what’s on another person’s plate if you want to start some BS. With the new imperative, the North started whipping some azz of their own and the rest is history… but before then…
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North: If you walk out that door… Ima whip it!!
South: “Slam!!!”
People: Did the South just walk out that door and slam it??!!!
North: HELL YEAH!!! I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!!! (SLAM!!)
Outside: Banging and hollering… then silence…
People: Where is the South at…??
North: Wait a minute… I need my bat… here it is… I’ll be right back…
Outside: Banging and hollering… bleeding and praying… begging and swearing to gawd…
People: Where is the South at!!? Didn’t you have a bat!!?? I thought you said you was gonna….
North: JUST SHUT UP!! SHUT THE (CUSS WORD) UP!!
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Sometime soon we are going to do an overview of the Civil War. I have many articles in Hill1News of the battles, but I think taking a look at the big picture would be interesting too… anyway back to our topic.
So, You Want Relief?
This is the site where John Brown was hanged. It was a field in 1859. He was actually hanged in this homeowner’s yard which is now a private residence. There is a small stone memorial next to the house on the exact spot. I didn’t take a picture of it… less my memorial be put right next to his for taking pictures of someone’s house with their children playing on the steps…
So, like I said, when the North and South went to war the North was more interested in maintaining the Union. Crittenden was no different. The year before the war started, he proposed a compromise. Now there had been many compromises put forth to avoid a war. The Missouri Compromise, which banned enslaving people in some states, while permitting it in others, the Compromise of 1850, which gave us the Fugitive Slave Act, while abolishing the slave trade in Washington DC and allowing each state to decide for itself whether to enslave people or not among other provisions. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and allow the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide the issue based on popular sovereignty. That just means in some places in the territories you could enslaved people and other places you could not. In theory every other town in the territories could welcome enslaving, while the other did not. It was based on what the people in that jurisdiction wanted.
One man in history wasn’t putting up with that BS and started cutting off heads… true story… his name was John Brown. John Brown and his sons had sabers they would use to lop off the heads of racist… They were eventually run out of there and ended up in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. West Virginia didn’t become a state until 1863, that’s why it was Harpers Ferry, Va, back then. Of course, that story ended in tragedy when he tried to raid the armory there. After the failed attempt, he was tried, convicted and hanged in Charles Town, Virginia.
Even the Dred Scott decision was a sort of compromise. Although President Tyler at the time swore to gawd he would leave it up to the Supreme Court to decide, it was later learned that he had words with the Chief Justice which in essence said, “If you let that nigg*r go free, the Confederates will be using my toilet stool by midnight…” So yeah, when Scott sued for his freedom, the court told him, you have to be an American to sue in federal court. According to the court, no black person in America was an American citizen… because if they were, they could seek relief with the federal government… which was trying to keep the Union together over the issue of slavery. Also, it didn’t hurt that President Tyler enslaved human beings too, but wanted to remain above the fray, especially in DC which was an abolitionist foothold. That’s why he did the dirty in secret.
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Alka Seltzer: Look we need you to come up with a catchy saying for our product… what have you got?
Ad Exec: Well, a long time ago, my great Grandpappy told me this story and it has stayed in my head all these years. His daddy used to live in the frontier just before the Civil War. So, one day his pappy was in the saloon and this fellow came up to him and smacked him across the lips. His pappy said, “What did you go and do that for!!?” The man told him, “I hear you a nigra lover!!” Well, his pappy told the man, “So what if I am! I’ll tell you what!! Why don’t you kiss my…” The man then pulls out his pistol and told his pappy… “It’s time for a dirt bath…!! His pappy told him, “Well a dirt bath is better than no bath… it would be a relief…” The man said “Oh yeah!! Say good bye twinkle toes!!! He takes his iron out and puts it up to his pappy’s temple. What happened next is anybody’s guess. It happened so fast… one second the man was standing there with a pistol to his pappy’s head and the next second, he was on the floor with his head lopped off!! The news of the fight spread near and far. His pappy became famous!! They even made a ballad about it… It went like this…
“Lop, Lop, kiss, kiss, oh what a relief it is… Lop, lop, kiss, kiss, oh what a relief it is…”
Alka Seltzer: YOU’RE HIRED MR. BROWN!!
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My Dear Old Mammy
Okay, I’ll keep my day job… anywho… so yeah there were other compromises besides Crittenden’s.
Now what made the Crittenden Compromise so dastardly was its pure evil intent. The Compromise wanted to enshrine slavery into the Constitution! Here is what it would do…
1. In the North enslavement would be prohibited. In the South it would be recognized and could not be interfered with by Congress. States would be admitted to the Union from any territory with or without slavery as their constitutions provided. (Most of the black population lived in the South…)
2. Congress was forbidden to abolish slavery in places under its jurisdiction, such as a military post, within a slave state. (If you were a black solider… the last thing you would want to do was piss off yo’ commanding officer… CO: “Transfer that nigra to Fort Mammy Georgia… Have my secretary, Miss Blue Eyes accompany him…”
3. Congress could not abolish slavery in the District of Columbia so long as it existed in the adjoining states of Virginia and Maryland. (I’m like John Brown now… WTF!!)
4. Congress could not prohibit or interfere with the interstate slave trade. (You could sell enslaved people no matter what state you were from.)
5. Congress would provide full compensation to owners of rescued fugitive slaves. (Now this one is a little tricky. So, if an enslaved person made it to a free state, the government could sue that jurisdiction which broke the fugitive slave law and pay the owner for the loss. The jurisdiction could in turn could sue the persons preventing the return of the enslaved. If they couldn’t find the enslaved person, they could grab any black person they wanted to, and give him or her to the Massa… okay no they couldn’t… well not legally.)
6. This last amendment is the one which made me choose to write about the Crittenden Compromise…
“No future amendment of the Constitution could change these amendments or authorize or empower Congress to interfere with slavery within any slave state.”
That meant that once this amendment was passed, it could not be revoked. Enslavement would exist in the United States for as long as the United States existed.
They say Crittenden was found in a field not far from the Capitol deceased… with a watermelon “up in there…” that’s what the historical document says… “Up in there…” I don’t know what “up in there” means… but it sounds unpleasant….
Okay, I’m messing around, that’s not what happened to him…
Forty- Eight Nigras
Just after the Civil War and the Northern defeat at the Battle of Bull Run… also known as the Battle of Manassas, Crittenden was at it again, with the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Crittenden enslaved people as did the co-author of this resolution, Andrew Johnson. If Andrew Johnson’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was Lincoln’s vice president and became president after Lincolns assassination. Anyway, these two politicians came up with a resolution that basically said, “Faque the Nigras This Time Too!!” All we want is for you to stay in the Union, you can have your enslaved people. Now, it might surprise you, but the resolution passed! It was put forth right after the Battle of Bull Run, when they saw the Rebs weren’t messing around. Another surprise was that Lincoln was in favor of the resolution! Well, it’s not really a surprise… Lincoln had to consider the border states. If Maryland reneged and joined the Confederacy, then for all intents and purposes, Washington D.C would be surrounded by the enemy. With Kentucky and Tennessee to the west, Maryland and Delaware to the North and Virginia to the South, it would be like a line from a movie I heard… “We all negroes now…” Border states are states that remained in the Union but were permitted to keep enslaved people.
Anyway, the resolution passed, but didn’t have any legal consequences… It was more of a “Let me tell you something move…”
After the resolution passed, Crittenden went back to his home in Kentucky but had to withdraw when the cities of Frankfort and Lexington were captured. He returned after the Battle of Perryville when Union forces opened up a case of Whip Ass TM on Kentucky. Afterwards he returned to congress where he took up the cases of Kentuckians over what they called illegal military arrest. He opposed the admission of West Virginia as a state on the grounds that Virginia had not given it the authority to create a state from its territory and he opposed the Emancipation Proclamation. I’m not even going to talk about what he thought about enlisting black soldiers. He was like… ” I dare a nigra to pick up a gun and point it at a white man!! I double dare ya!! Ima tells you right now… I know forty-eight Nigras on “one” plantation that ain’t gonna like it if I hear a Nigra pointed a gun at a white man!!”
Although Crittenden was 75 years of age in 1863 and ready to retire, he was talked into running again. Shortly after his confirmation, he became ill. He died on July 26, 1863, in his hometown of Frankfort, Ky., and is buried there. Crittenden County and the city of Crittenden in Kentucky are named in his honor. I don’t want to brag, but I’m thinking about capturing a rattle snake and naming it in his honor too… how fitting would that be.
Thanks for reading ©Hill1News
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