I GOOGLED "what did James Madison say about slave revolts" and in glancing at the "AI" which I would rather not come up as it is an abominable use of resources and often just reguritates bad research from most often-clicked on sites and saw something that looked both familiar and a little dodgy. :
Kind Treatment as a Deterrent: Rather than just relying on force, Madison suggested to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 that the "danger of insurrections from foreign influence" should actually act as a "motive to kind treatment of the slaves". He believed avoiding excessive cruelty would reduce the likelihood of mass rebellions.
If the "AI" had the research skills of an intelligent high school Sophomore, he'd have looked for the primary document and read that. though it had been included in Madison's notes on the deliberation of the drafting of the Constitution, it wasn't something he said but was was part of what should be considered an infamous statement by Oliver Ellsworth (the drafter of much of Article 3 of the Constitution, the Judiciary Act, which gives us some the now more regrettable aspects of the judiciary, and the second Chief "justice" of the Supreme Court) in support of the importation of slaves because so many of them were worked to death in the rice swamps of South Carolina and Georgia. Essentially endorsing an act that would gain infamy when it was such as the Krupps and Farbens and others who worked slaves to death for their profit during WWII. It should be common knowledge that such thinking and intent as that went into the framing of the Constitution.*
Mr. ELSWORTH. As he had never owned a slave could not judge of the effects of slavery on character: He said however that if it was to be considered in a moral light we ought to go farther and free those already in the Country. -As slaves also multiply so fast in Virginia & & Maryland that it is cheaper to raise than import them, whilst in the sickly rice swamps foreign supplies are necessary, if we go no farther than is urged, we shall be unjust towards S. Carolina & Georgia. Let us not intermeddle. As population increases poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless. Slavery in time will not be a speck in our Country. Provision is already made in Connecticut for abolishing it. And the abolition has already taken place in Massachusetts. As to the danger of insurrections from foreign influence, that will become a motive to kind treatment of the slaves.
Oddly, the "AI" links to the White House Historical Society website in a rather revealing article about how James and Dolly Madison treated the slaves held by them, it's not pretty reading though it's presented in probably as pretty a way as they dared to present it during the last decade. But in my quick reading of it I didn't find any reference to the passage quoted.
* Another reference given by "AI" in that search went to an NPR article dealing with the fact that the Second Amendment, far from being anything to do with freedom in the face of an oppressive government, was actually written for the benefit and safety of slave-holders in slave states who were afraid of slave rebellions.
It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And ... James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. ... The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings.
The drafting of the "Bill of Rights" included such "rights" as the right of slave-holders to suppress those held in slavery from attempting to do what the founders and framers had done, or rather the free Black men and landless white and recent immigrant men who formed the backbone of the Revolutionary Army had done for the slave-holders and aristocrats, fight for THEIR rights.
Maybe in the month leading up to the massive lie of the 250th, I should do more on the founding and framing. When you look at it with an eye to the fact that most of the framers and founders were deeply morally corrupt - as all slave-holders and financiers are - you can see why we are living with such corruption now.
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