There is a forgotten history to this country, that a large number of people came here GENUINELY believing that all people were equals, and had been believing that since the English civil war.
At the time of founding a large minority of the population of America were Quakers. By the Civil War, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa were Quaker majority states.
The only reason we're forgotten is because the Civil War wiped us out. Huge numbers of Quaker men (paradoxically) enlisted in the early "Union Generals are shit" phase of the war, and continued enlisting in the "Grant gets people killed" phase of the war.
The survivors mostly converted to Lutheranism or Methodism because they were sending all the Union Army chaplains.
You see, prior to 1838, black men could vote in PA. They lost that in the 1838 convention and regained it in 1870.
But that occurred because PA was no longer majority Quaker, they'd moved west (and been outnumbered by Irish pouring into Philadelphia). Ohio had de facto black suffrage (despite its crummy 1802 constitution), and Iowa had explicit black suffrage from the day its constitution was enacted to now.
Quakers.
There is a forgotten history to this country, that a large number of people came here GENUINELY believing that all people were equals, and had been believing that since the English civil war.
At the time of founding a large minority of the population of America were Quakers. By the Civil War, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa were Quaker majority states.
The only reason we're forgotten is because the Civil War wiped us out. Huge numbers of Quaker men (paradoxically) enlisted in the early "Union Generals are shit" phase of the war, and continued enlisting in the "Grant gets people killed" phase of the war.
The survivors mostly converted to Lutheranism or Methodism because they were sending all the Union Army chaplains.
I know about Quakers, but Pennsylvania still had slavery and didn't have racial equality.
The Dutch did, and it was outlawed before the revolutionary war was even finished with the Gradual Abolition Act.
It didn't really abolish slavery, only set it in motion, and there still wasn't racial equality.
Yes and no.
You see, prior to 1838, black men could vote in PA. They lost that in the 1838 convention and regained it in 1870.
But that occurred because PA was no longer majority Quaker, they'd moved west (and been outnumbered by Irish pouring into Philadelphia). Ohio had de facto black suffrage (despite its crummy 1802 constitution), and Iowa had explicit black suffrage from the day its constitution was enacted to now.