Class Update: 11-5-12 and 11-6-12

Happy election day! Today at the beginning of class we had our own mock election which everyone in school participated in. It will be interesting to see who wins and if it will match the country's vote. After our "election" we talked about whether or not the Constitution was pro-slavery. Interestingly enough, we found out that Frederick Douglass first believed it to be pro-slavery but then changed his mind. We looked at his points for both sides of the argument and then had to make up our own minds. I believe that the Constitution was anti-slavery. The founding father could have easily began the document with "We the citizens", "We the delegates", or even "We the upper class white men" but they didn't. They said the people of the United States deserve rights and this is one of the reasons I think the Constitution did not support slavery. Yesterday we talked about 5 people who were very outspoken about their opinions of slavery. It seems as though the highly educated rich people with no hardships in life where pro-slavery. I think this is because they had no way to relate to slaves or the lives they live. In most cases they probably owned slaves themselves and thought only of the money made when a business holds slaves. Before this we made Venn Diagrams about three true accounts of slavery. They showed that some slaves could have kind masters and better lives while others where forced to endure extreme hardships and suffer greatly.