Commentary
The other day on “The View,” a gentleman named Elie Mystal attacked the Constitution with an argument so astute it could only have come from the mind of a Harvard-educated attorney. From the comfort of a multimillion-dollar TV show,
Mystal declared that the Constitution is “kind of trash.”
“It was written by slavers and colonists, and white people who were willing to make deals with slavers and colonists,” Mystal said. “They didn’t ask anybody who looked like me what they thought about the Constitution.”
The Constitution is trash because it “was written without the consent of black and brown people in this country,” he said.
To look at Mystal’s opinions more closely, in the book he was promoting, the profanity-laced “Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution,”
he wrote that the supreme law of the land is really just “a document designed to create a society of white male dominance.”
Now, I’ve written about the distinctly
anti-slavery nature of the Constitution already, but when presented with such laughable sentiments, I don’t mind repeating myself. I certainly don’t mind repeating historical truth. The fact is, the Constitution (together with the Declaration of Independence) has done more to advance equal rights and civil liberties than any other political document in the history of humanity.
To take Mystal’s complaints concerning the Constitution in turn, he completely ignores the fact that many of the Framers of the Constitution were vehemently opposed to slavery. In fact, in the debates on the Constitution (something which Mystal seemingly hasn’t read), leading voices strongly attacked the institution of slavery.
James Madison himself
said, “Where slavery exists, the republican theory becomes still more fallacious.” Gouverneur Morris
denounced slavery as “a nefarious institution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed,” and even advocated for the slaves’ emancipation and enfranchisement.
“Are they men? Then, make them citizens, and let them vote,” Morris said.
Oliver Ellsworth
said that “he had never owned a slave. ... However, that if it was to be considered in a moral light, we ought to go further, and free those already in the country.” And regarding slavery, Elbridge Gerry stated that “we ... ought to be careful not to give any sanction to it.”
All these things were said during the Constitutional Convention, and the document that was produced signaled to the country that the evil institution was clearly on the way out. James Wilson
announced in the ratification debates that he considered the Constitution “as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country.”
These significant Founding Fathers (and the dozens of other anti-slavery Founding Fathers not identified in this article) aren’t the only noted figures to give their views on the true nature of the Constitution. Strikingly, Mystal entirely refuses to consider the arguments presented in another “black guy’s guide to the Constitution” named Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born into slavery, courageously escaped, and then proceeded to become a leading figure in the abolitionist movement. Upon securing his freedom, he began to seriously study the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States.
Douglass disagrees with the baseless assertions of Mystal in no uncertain terms. Almost as if he was responding to Mystal’s comments directly, Douglass
said, “I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory.”
Far from it being the wretched document attacked by the commentators on “The View,” Douglass defended our founding charter.
“In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. ... Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery,” he said.
Clearly, Mystal doesn’t know his history. On top of that, despite a legal degree from Harvard, he also doesn’t know his law. As noted above, he claims that no black people were consulted concerning the Constitution and that none gave their consent to the document. However, a legal case that he quotes in his book disproves his own arguments.
In Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis’s
dissent in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, he convincingly showed that “in at least five of the States,” black people “had the power to act, and doubtless did act, by their suffrages, upon the question of its adoption.” The historical record shows that African Americans were an integral “part of the people of the United States who were among those by whom it was established” during the ratification process in the various states.
Unfortunately, Mystal and the hosts of “The View” insist on pushing a version of the past that’s fiction instead of fact and that seeks to undermine one of the greatest safeguards of liberty in the world. When you know the truth, it’s clear to see the Constitution isn’t trash.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
