4/25: IN Lt Gov Micah Beckwith lied [FN1] about history, the Constitution & slavery. IU History Prof Alex Lichtenstein deemed “frankly, laughable” Beckwith’s argument, that the 3/5 Compromise was passed w/ intent to destroy or undermine slavery. [FN2] Beckwith? 1/14

Claims to be an authority on The Constitution, [FN3] teaches its “history” & admonishes ppl to stay away fr higher education & [its] “secular progressive bias.” [FN4] Beckwith’s bias for ignorance is revealed when s/he tells ppl to stay away fr higher ed. [FN5] 2/14

By contrast, “secular” higher ed’s principle is “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” [FN6] Beckwith, an intellectual coward avoids confrontation w/an adversary on a level playing field, and 3/14

never enters that market. Specific to slavery’s significance in our Nation’s history, IN’s Lt Gov can avoid unsavory facts like slavery’s critical role in our Nation’s founding, [FN7] the monetary value of slaves, and [FN8] how abolition of slavery devastated the South. 4/14

To say that protection of the civil rights and the voting rights for descendants of slaves are not entitled to “special” protection, a whitewash of our history is necessary. But slave States’ laws made teaching of reading, writing & arithmetic criminal offenses. [FN9] 5/14

Jim Crow laws sought to deny to former slaves & their descendants their civil rights, their rights to vote and to have their votes counted. [FN10] Beckwith wants to excise these facts from this Nation’s history. Beckwith’s delusional rant about the 3/5 Compromise? 6/14

Beckwith wants ppl to ignore our history & the role of slavery w/in it so that we can return to a time when white ppl sat on a veranda & sipped mint juleps, but Beckwith has no clue of what those times were like. Until 1/20/17, many considered James Buchanan all-time 7/14

worst POTUS. In his last address to Congress, Buchanan bemoaned: “Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning.” [FN11] Buchanan’s concern was not for people held in slavery who revolted. 8/14

Only if one considers Africans forced into chattel slavery as less than fully human can this sentiment survive scrutiny. Three-fifths, or 60%, of a human being is less than fully human. I approve of this blog. Hell, I wrote it. 9/14

Footnotes:
FN1. The statements could be said to be “unfounded” or “ill-advised,” but the time to be polite about racist statements from a holder of elected office is past. Beckwith lied. 10/14

FN2. Farr, Christian, “Indiana Lt. Governor faces backlash after comments on Three-Fifths Compromise,” NBC Chicago, 4/30/25, accessed 5/4/25.
FN3 In a 2020 effort to win the GOP primary for INCD5, Beckwith’s Facebook page described him as a “CONSTITUTIONAL Conservative.” (sic) 11/14

FN4. Beckwith cites his qualifications for teaching about “constitutional law” as courses from “Hillsdale College as well as a plethora of private studies and research.” I accessed a Hillsdale College on-line course on the Constitution. The course was garbage. 12/14

FN5. Or s/he is saying Hillsdale College is not “higher education.”
FN6. 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
FN7. “Slavery and the Economy: An Overview,” encyclopedia dot com, accessed 5/5/25. 13/14

FN8. Georgia secession statement, Jan 29, 1861.
FN9. Williams, Heather Andrea, “Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom,” Univ of North Carolina Press, p. 13.
FN10. “Jim Crow Laws and Racial Segregation,” Social Welfare History Project, accessed 5/5/25. 14/14