Tea at Trianon: Overturning Roe Has Just Begun

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Overturning Roe Has Just Begun

From The Federalist:

Both abortion and slavery rely on the ability of someone with power deciding that someone weaker should be at his mercy. William Wilberforce is one of the most prominent figures of the anti-slavery movement. His wisdom on the subject of slavery translates perfectly to reflect the struggles facing the pro-life movement.

“A trade [slavery] founded in iniquity, and carried on as this was, must be abolished, let the policy be what it might,” notes Wilberforce. “Let the consequences be what they would, I […] determined that I would never rest till I had effected its abolition.” When there’s a grave injustice going on, especially when it is enshrined in public policy, the stakes are that much higher.

The enslavement of Africans was an entrenched institution in the United States for 224 years. Two hundred and twenty-four years of our country owning and abusing other human beings by staunchly maintaining that slaves were not “persons” (sound familiar?). It took more than two centuries of brave activism, protesting, forming anti-slavery organizations, lobbying, and even war just to solidify that African-Americans were people with equal rights.

Frederick Douglass, one of the most famous abolitionists, knew strife was not reason enough to surrender. He makes that clear in a speech he gave in 1857: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its mighty waters.” (Read more.)