For the first time in history, a great war was fought to end slavery. 300,000 Northern soldiers died in that war. They died to secure for the slaves a freedom that the slaves were not in the position to secure for themselves. Even the Civil Rights Movement was not a break with the American founding. [...] Where did Martin Luther King get his 'promissory note'? Not from the segregationists. He got it from the Declaration of Independence. It was the American founding that established the principles that made possible the success of the Civil Rights Movement.
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Dinesh D'Souza Gates and other scholars estimate that in the period before the Civil War, there were approximately 3,500 free blacks who owned more than 10,000 black slaves. In South Carolina and Louisiana, Gates points out, the percentage of free blacks who owned slaves was approximately the same as the percentage of whites who owned slaves.
Dinesh D'Souza Slavery existed all over the world. The Egyptians had slaves. The Chinese had slaves. The Africans did. American Indians had slaves long before Columbus. And tragically, slavery continues today in many countries. What's uniquely Western is the abolition of slavery. And what's uniquely American is the fighting of a great war to end it.
Dinesh D'Souza Steve Jobs, did he rip people off? He created products that people didn't even know they wanted or needed. But once he made them available, they clamored for them and stood in line to buy them and freely spent their money for them. There's no rip-off. Capitalism works not through coercion or conquest, but through the consent of the consumer.
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