Rhode Island Quotes
This law required the treatment of Blacks as whites were then treated with respect to indentured servitude—a limit of 10 years after which the person would be free. However, this law was poorly enforced. The “General Court” was the name for the legislature of the Rhode Island colony.
Lopez and Elizer were Jews who had escaped the persecution in Portugal to come to America. They and other non-Christians could live and work in Rhode Island but could not vote or hold public office by a previous decision of the Rhode Island Assembly. See {619707}.The Jews had petitioned for their civil rights.
In the history of America
Washington and his staff had throughout the Revolution wanted to enlist Negroes but were thwarted by the Southern and conservative blocs of the Continental Congress when they tried it in the South. However, they finally succeeded in Rhode Island. Other states followed when it was clear that the Rhode Island experiment had been successful. See {614120} for the policy statement of the legislature and {614119} for the motto and a picture of the Negro regiment. This was however not the first Black military unit in North America. The Loyalist Governor of Virginia had formed a regiment comprised of slaves who he emancipated. See {636965}.
Lopez had come from Portugal and had been living in Rhode Island for 9 years and was active in shipping, whaling and candle making. He, and another Jew, Issac Elizer, petitioned the Rhode Island Superior Court for naturalization and citizenship rights. The court turned them down and they appealed to the Rhode Island Assembly—then not only the legislature but the highest court in the colony. The assembly came up with a compromise. The Jews were allowed to continue to live and work in Rhode Island but they could not hold public office or vote. They told the Superior Court to reconsider the case however as Lopez and Elizer were model citizens—but for religion just the kind the colony wanted. This case and many others were known to the founding fathers who were determined to put a stop to the practice of conditioning voting and office holding rights on adhering to the particular sect of the majority of the colony. Lopez and Elizer then appealed again to the Superior Court.
The penchant for Southern conservatives to always blame outsiders whenever there were local people demanding change or reform may have begun here. It reached its peak in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. There was however, a conscious effort of the Massachusetts Patriots to have descriptions of their revolutionary activities sent as newspaper articles throughout all the colonies quickly after the events. The Americans thus were able to frame all the issues, before the reports could get to London and the British thus got their viewpoints to the public weeks and months after the revolutionists did.
The President with Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, and several members of Congress, came to Brown to get ideas of how colleges should operate as there were very few colleges in America, and more were needed. Note the classic language of political flattery. Washington was really polished as “retail” politician as this quotation demonstrates.
There was an armed attempt of one party to take over the government of Rhode Island. The Government used the state military to put down the rebellion leading to this Supreme Court Case on the legitimacy of using the military. See {616594}.
