2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary's historian refutes Sanders claim that this country is "created on racist principles". [View all]malthaussen
(17,175 posts)... if this or that article is cited, one can then argue about the interpretation of the clause, and generally one ends as one begins. Mr Wilentz is trying to make the argument that, because the Constitution nowhere formally recognizes slavery, racism was not in any way an underpinning of the foundation of the country. He's also stealthing in an argument that the issue of slavery was left up to the States, which has certain implications for modern Constitutional issues.
He ignores any racist implications of the slaughter of the indigenous population (which he might again, if pressed, declare was an affair of the states, although being a Jacksonian scholar he should know that the Federal government was involved with said slaughter up to their bayonets). And after all, who is to say we wouldn't have slaughtered the indigenes if they had been white, anyway? It's not like European history isn't full of exactly such slaughters.
-- Mal