Three Abolitionists Paine, Jefferson & Franklin

Three Abolitionists

Paine, Jefferson & Franklin

by

Steffan Stanford

Seventeenth century British philosopher John Locke tied the concept of property to liberty. He said that life, liberty and property were so connected that he drew an analogy of Maid Freedom sitting upon a three-legged stool, with one leg representing life, another liberty, and the final one for property. He argued that were any of these legs removed, Maid Freedom would land on her posterior.

It was accepted as enlightened thought during the time of the American Revolution that if people wished to be free, they must tie their freedom to John Locke's trinity of life, liberty and property. This misguided belief continued until Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. Everyone expected him to follow Locke's hypothesis and found the revolution of the "holy" trinity of life, liberty and property, but Jefferson was too enlightened to do that.

In the Declaration of Independence, he wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

This masterful prose boldly declared that certain God-given rights were absolutely sacrosanct – inalienable – meaning they couldn't be traded or sold nor could they be given away or taken away. Jefferson was a deeply spiritual man who loved God – the God of Liberty, the God of Light.

As a public figure, Jefferson was tenaciously and maliciously attacked by politicians who dared to brand him as an atheist, which was a cruel cut indeed. Their libellous reasoning is better understood when one considers that they subscribed to Locke's premise that freedom was founded on life, liberty and property; they couldn't accept that Jefferson could believe in God unless he was obsessed with property. Of course there is a "god" who is obsessed with property who goes by many names, but for purposes of this essay I will call him the demiurge.

To discard Locke's "property" leg in exchange for "pursuit of Happiness" was truly a revolutionary thought. Even today many claim that Jefferson erred in his decision. Many who debate this issue have difficulty in grasping the workings of the mind of Jefferson, who was ever attuned to the bigger picture of events.

As an example of his far-reaching idealism, when he wrote the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom – an act that declared that their could be no official religion in that state – he set America on a course in which religious persecution would be forever illegal. The First Amendment followed after that statute, which declared that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." Because of Jefferson's efforts, it is illegal to persecute anyone in America for religious beliefs or practices. However, governments have been known to discover ways around constitutions and laws. Just because it is illegal to persecute people, doesn't mean that persecution has been eliminated.

We can now return to the consideration of property versus pursuit of happiness. To have property, there must be the concept of ownership of the property. The concept of ownership is a seemingly innate characteristic in humans. People aspire to own land, buildings, machines, work animals &c. All of these items could be summed up in a single word – PROPERTY. All property, (whether it be produced by the demiurge and takes the form of a stone, a tree, or a kitten – or it is produced by man and takes the form of a board or a building or an automobile), has a consciousness. When people own items, then they are able to exert some level of control over the consciousness that is housed in the thing. In this way, the owner of property exercises control over other beings.

One might ask, "Why do people crave property?" Is it because of an internal desire to control those beings in the property? Or is it due to external programming?

It seems that external programming is the overpowering reason for property desires and acquisitions. Why else would a 5-year-old girl ask for a Barbie doll for Christmas if she hadn't been programmed to want one? Just as the little girl craves a Barbie doll, so are her parents addicted to having control over more "valuable" property.

It is a logical extension of this avarice for property that humans participate in slavery, which is just an extension of the concept of property. Today, some people "legally" possess slaves, but there are many who enslave people by other means. Sometimes these other means are referred to as the "carrot and the stick". Governments enslave their people with combinations of sticks (obligatory statutes and other laws, or by the exertion of raw power over their citizens) and carrots (privileges "given" to citizens). Some governments extend this control over other nations' citizens, effecting wars of many types. Corporations control via economic power; they also offer a combination of carrots (salaries and perks) and sticks (work schedules and assignments). These are examples of modern slavery.

The economic model on this planet is an imitation of the unseen control that comes from the subtle realms. In 1776, Adam Smith called the force that controls the economics of this world an "invisible hand" and he said that the force is remarkable because when a person behaves in a greedy fashion acquiring property, he is simultaneously building the net wealth of his neighbourhood and his country by building his own wealth. What Smith's theory amounts to is: EVERYONE'S GREED LEADS TO EVERYONE'S GOOD. This patently absurd concept is the foundation of today's capitalism.

The argument used to support Smith's proposition by the ruling elite of this planet is that since capitalism is thriving, it is a good thing. Could it not be that capitalism is thriving because the ruling elite on the subtle levels programme it to thrive? My wife, Amitakh, answered this affirmatively in The Spirit World.

The ruling elite on earth use property to control and enslave. The earth's rulers are imitating their masters – the ruling elite of the subtle.

The institution of legal slavery is not new to America, nor the world. Many are the legends involving slavery. Moses supposedly freed slaves the Egyptians had forced to build pyramids; Spartacus is said to have freed the Roman slaves &c. Slavery is a vile business indeed; it deludes participants into believing that they can own others.

Slavery was in full swing in America when the colonies revolted against their mother country and fought for freedom. But, the irony of the American Revolution for freedom is that the legislators who were responsible for breaking away from England by and large supported the institution of slavery.

Not all states allowed slaves. Slaves were primarily housed in the South, where they were often forced to work on plantations. Many of the slaves came from Africa on ships, where after harrowing voyages in squalid conditions, they were deposited on the shores of the southern states. Of course the ships didn't unload in the South and return empty to Africa for a new load. They went up to Boston carrying sugar, which was turned into molasses and rum, forming a wretched cycle of molasses to rum to slaves. It was a very profitable business, so the southern growers' and the northern shippers' greed kept the slave trade going. People's desire to hoard kept the foul institution alive. So much for Adam Smith's lie that everyman's greed leads to everyman's good. So much for Locke's argument that ownership of property leads to freedom.

Benjamin Franklin was an abolitionist. His total opposition to the concept is clearly demonstrated in a 1789 public address of his:

. . . Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. . .

Not only was Franklin well placed in scientific and diplomatic circles, he was very well respected throughout America and Europe. Franklin put his heart and soul into freeing the American colonists and into dismantling the institution of slavery. But, his efforts appeared to be futile because the institution of slavery was still intact when he died.

Thomas Paine was an abolitionist. He had a mind and a pen that literally shook the world. When he was solicited by Benjamin Franklin to leave his native England and travel to America to write his vibrant and revolutionary prose, he came with a single purpose – to strike blows for liberty. Paine arrived in Philadelphia in late November of 1774, and he promptly wrote African Slavery in America, a scathing piece about inhumane treatment of Negroes. Its first line tells the story:

That some desperate wretches should be willing to steal and enslave men by violence and murder for gain, is rather lamentable than strange.

Paine also wrote Common Sense, which forcefully inspired the colonists to revolt against England and its unjust, complex laws that did little but feed lawyers and enslave and oppress people.

When the Revolution was young and the times were desperate, the colonists despaired and were ready to abort the battle for freedom. England seemed to be too great of a foe; it had too much power, too big an army, too great a navy, and it was generally believed by the colonists that the cause was lost. When things were utterly bleak, Paine again struck with his majestic pen, stirring the colonists on in the struggle while sending quakes that shook the core of the British military. On December 23, 1776, Paine wrote the first of the Crisis series. It began:

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: 'Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put the proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to GOD.

Thomas Paine was perhaps the most inspiring writer ever to touch on the subject of liberty, and he, with this mighty pen, failed to accomplish his lifelong goal to see slavery abolished.

Thomas Jefferson was an abolitionist. This might seem strange given that he was a slave owner. He inherited his slaves and he laboured on how to free them – not just his, but all slaves. He realized that he could not just turn them loose or they would suffer an awful fate. So he strove to abolish the institution in America.

He had his first chance when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Before Congress edited that document, it included the following clause:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people of whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.

While the Congress was willing to revolt against England, it wasn't willing to cut itself out of its property (the slaves), so the abolition clause, after bitter debate, was stricken from the Declaration of Independence.

Later, after the Revolution was won, while Jefferson was in France as the American ambassador, Franklin served on the constitutional convention, and he was unable to convince the founding fathers to rule out slavery, and in fact, Article I, Section 9 reads in part:

The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year 1808, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

And, worse, Article V of the U.S. Constitution declared that this awful clause could not be amended before 1808!

The Declaration of Independence was stripped of its anti-slavery clause because of the American Founding Fathers' love of property. By the time the Constitution was written, just 11 years later, the institution of slavery was actually enhanced as sanction of it was affirmatively inserted into the Constitution, which document is the foundation of all laws in America.

It is no wonder the country had sent Jefferson over to France when the Constitution was written. He would have screamed for revolution anew rather than be a party to the Constitution, which contained very few protections of rights for citizens and states yet laid the framework for a vast federal government. When he saw what had been proposed, he did scream so loudly about the document's lack of a Bill of Rights that James Madison reluctantly sought to have certain rights tacked onto the Constitution two years later as amendments (or afterthoughts). It is primarily because of the Bill of Rights that the several states still retain some sovereignty and citizens still retain certain rights. (Ironically, governments in countries like Australia still deny their citizens a basic bill of rights and assert such acts are wholly unnecessary surplusage given how "fair and just" these governments are in regard to civil rights.)

Jefferson later became President and served in that office from 1801 to 1809. But even from that high office, he was impotent to abolish slavery. Of course, he was strapped by the Constitution's vile and unalterable clause in Article I, Section 9.

Finally, in 1861, Abraham Lincoln became the President. In order to shatter the institution of slavery, Lincoln had to abandon certain principles of the Constitution during a congressional recess; he took the opportunity during a short window to commence the War Between the States, which literally ripped the nation asunder in a bloody and hard-fought war. In the aftermath, the slaves were freed, and the thirteenth amendment followed, making it illegal to own human slaves in America.

While slavery is abolished, Americans are still slaves to the ruling elite of the subtle world, who control them via programming. They do it with unseen forces of cycles such as astrology, numerology and through other esoteric means.

Today, even those subtle bands of slavery are being broken. The task of breaking them down is much easier because Rescuers like Thomas Paine began dismantling slavery with grass-roots inspiration, while Benjamin Franklin weakened it with diplomacy and wit, and Thomas Jefferson used the highest reaches of the government to instil the concept of citizens' rights, before finally, Abraham Lincoln broke it to bits. The Light has broken down the institution in the physical world. But, metaphysically, slavery is still very real in this Virtual Reality.

The masters who control us from the subtle realize that time is running out and that their enslaving days are numbered – they are panicking because of this.

Time is a very strange thing. The Warriors of the Light have come here from the future to break the Virtual Reality of the past that we are now living today and call the present. This frightens the evil ones.

The concept that the Rescuers are from the future can be boggling to physical minds, even though one's Higher Self can cope with the concept.

We are temporarily enslaved in this dimension of limitation. Einstein stumbled across the speed of light and limited us by saying that's the maximum speed at which matter can move in the physical universe.

Let's examine this by considering the light that Einstein referred to. First, light as we know it on earth is made up of particles. It is made from matter. It is not Divine Light, but a putrid imitation thereof.

False light can move at roughly 186,000 miles per second. The earth's major source of putrid light is the sun. Astronomers claim the sun is roughly 96 million miles away during much of the earth's orbit. If that is true, and light travels at 186,000 miles per second, then it takes over eight minutes for material light of the sun to reach the earth.

If this is true, and nearly all scientific knowledge on earth today would concur that it is, then when someone looks directly at the sun, he or she is seeing it where it ain't. The earth has been turning on its axis and revolving in its orbit for over eight minutes, so what one sees, just ain't there.

Should one stare at the sun for too long a period of time, he or she could go blind – it can literally burn out one's eyes. But, it ain't where the person has been staring! He or she is looking at the past, but is getting burned in the present.

Another example can be seen observing an American football game. The quarterback, in trying to complete a forward pass, will attempt to hit a receiver with a tossed football. No matter how strong the quarterback's arm, he can't throw it fast enough to pass it directly to a moving receiver. He must lead that receiver, and anticipate where the receiver will be when the ball finally arrives. In other words, he must throw the ball where the receiver ain't at the time if he wants to complete the pass.

Shooting the sun is similar. You must hit it where it is, so the blow won't arrive where it ain't. The Light isn't fooled by illusions such as "past and present" or "motion and no-motion". The Light knows exactly where and what the sun is.

The sun is the demiurge's property and the major source of the putrid light here. Jefferson was far ahead of his time, which is why he abandoned property as a leg on which Maid Freedom sits and replaced it with the pursuit of Happiness. That can and does incorporate pursuit of spiritual happiness, which means liberation from this dark, foul, stinking world of illusions.

It is now time to detach from property and all it's vile implications like ownership and slavery.

Evil is fighting to keep its property by attempting to uphold its illusions, but, the illusions are crashing as we speak. The ruling elite are now using fear to try to bring things back into control. This is a time to resist the fear being generated by those who are pushing buttons in their desperation to save the demiurge's foul creation of Matter. That fear is brought about by programming originating from both the physical and subtle realms.

Don't let fear concern you.

© 2005 Steffan Stanford & AHSAF