A More Perfect Union

By Jarvis L. Collier

A More Perfect Union

A historical, constitutional, legal, political, cultural analysis of our beloved America. The author explores where our nation has come from, with practical suggestions for our future.

Bristling with research, history, and anecdotes, its applications promise to inform and inspire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662462337

Book preview

cover.jpg

A More Perfect Union

Jarvis L. Collier

Copyright © 2022 Jarvis L. Collier

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-6232-0 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-6624-6233-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1

Bill of Rights: First 10 Amendments (Framers' Intentions)

Chapter 2

Additional Amendments (Addressing Omissions)

Chapter 3

African Diaspora in American Slavery

Chapter 4

American Civil War

Chapter 5

The Reconstruction Era

Chapter 6

Civil Rights Era

Chapter 7

The Prevalence of White Privilege

Chapter 8

Black Lives Matter

Chapter 9

Black Personal Responsibility Part I

Chapter 10

Black Personal Responsibility Part II

Chapter 11

Ongoing Challenges in America

Chapter 12

What January 6, 2021 says about America?

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

About the Author

Dedication

To members of the following churches/ministries:

St. Reed Baptist Church, Los Angeles, California

Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Los Angeles, California

Bethlehem Baptist Church, Richmond, California

Mt. Olive Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas

Calvary Baptist Church, Los Angeles, California

Fellowship Baptist Church, Los Angeles, California

Jarvis Collier Ministries, Nation wide

Pleasant Green Baptist Church, Kansas City, Kansas

Several Denominations across America

Over fifty-plus years, through their pastors and parishioners, I have learned a lifetime of biblical principles, theological insights, and spiritual applications. I am sharper, deeper, and better due to pearls of wisdom gleaned from each station along my Christian journey.

Other Books by Jarvis L. Collier

Biblical Challenges for Christian Singles

The Preacher's Journey

A Passion for Excellence

Seeking the Kingdom

Living in the Faith Dimension

A Time to Speak!

Whatever Happened to Christian Evangelism?

Faith of Our Fathers

Go Big or Go Home

Uncommon Leaders

Prologue

Yale professor Akhil Reed Amer writes in a powerful book The Words That Made Us regarding America's profound constitutional heritage. He widens readers' knowledge to the many ideas, theories, arguments, and documents which shaped the Framers as they struggled to conceptualize a unique experiment in self-government. This masterful work synthesizes history and law, drawing on several anecdotes and narratives. He explores the persuasive Federalist Papers while bringing all readers into the constitutional conversation, introducing familiar and unfamiliar voices that enrich the story. These conversations are brought to life as colonial Americans of all stripes (excluding Africans, indigenous peoples, women, and others) participated, adding their boisterous, sophisticated, contradictory ideals and ideologies to the mixture regarding legal and political first principles.

America's rupture from the British Empire in 1776 results from profound passions, deep tensions, grievances, frustrations, and underlying forces. Amer asserts that a well-known figure, Benjamin Franklin, presciently interprets the coming struggles of disjointed colonists with an impetus for unity, despite hidden ramifications. In considering union, colonists are both talking to one another as well as trying to talk to London.

Professor Amer's scholarship and research demonstrates that Revolutionary America is usually remembered as bullets flying, tea chests splashing into the river while canons roared. Yet he argues, a canon can roar, but it cannot speak. There is more to the story of America's establishment. He aims to provide the broader context for worldviews, philosophies, pamphlets, cartoons, and written influences impacting the Framers.

Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution incorporate the work of a large body of people. Each document arrives after early drafts, revisions, gatherings, conferences, letters, analyses, battles, setbacks, new conditions, further drafts, new theories, new influences. Of course, historians nod to and note the special contributions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and other seminal leaders among the Framers. The ratification of the majestic writings envisions a robust work for the establishing generation as well as for posterity. Critically, they appreciate the more perfect union ethos.

Included in Professor Amer's analysis is America's constitutional Achilles heel: slavery's contradiction with the stipulated articulated ideals of freedom and equality for all. Other scholars reference slavery as our country's original sin. Whatever the metaphor of choice—Achilles heel or original sin—either requires radical redress (surgery in the former, repentance in the latter). We cannot move toward a more perfect union until, at every level, leaders and citizens alike apologize for early omissions, applaud progress already made, then apply ourselves to the unfinished, hard work before us.

Introduction

The title of this book pivots on the preamble to the US Constitution, a document noted for its epic, majestic, sweeping, persuasive words:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense…and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America.

Consequently, to achieve the objectives of the American experiment in democracy makes it incumbent upon all citizens to unite for the realization of the more perfect union. In other words, the union of America requires collective, perpetual engagement.

Yet over 240-plus years of turbulence, strife, and conflict, the phrase we the people has been expanded—on paper. Today, we continue the struggle to fully embrace all Americans irrespective of origin, race, ethnicity, class, gender, or other human differences. In America, all should include all.

By definition, a democracy is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. This ideal requires tough work by all citizens. To form the more perfect union, America requires citizens to speak up and speak out—through op-Eds in various media, town halls, protests, demonstrations, voting, aided by a free press. The objective involves a rigorous challenge to those who would lead others, at all levels. Without a king or inherited monarchy, lacking historical precedent, in America citizens must do the hard work of forming, reforming, and sustaining its freedoms and ties as the country matures. In fact, the union is forever being formed and reshaped as new situations and new scenarios develop.

Indeed, the president is not the chief uniter of the country. (Though with a bully pulpit or a large megaphone, he should be!) Nor are both houses of Congress the ultimate uniter. (They pass legislation in a partisan environment.) Nor are state governors or legislatures the major instruments of unity. (Fifty different states/other territories could hardly offer a national paradigm.) The special interests represented by lobbyists (for every industry and group) militate against other interests. National unity is lost amid conflicting interests.

Thus, America has been, from her inception, an evolving nation. From the outset, the Founders knew they were forming a more perfect union. Famously, Benjamin Franklin, when asked what he and the Founders had done in that sweltering 1776 Philadelphia hall room, replied, We have designed a democratic republic. Now, the question is if you can keep it.

In the early 1830s Alexis de Toqueville, French aristocrat, diplomat, philosopher, and historian wondered as to the viability of the young America. Historically, America was being buffeted by major forces—the market revolution, Western expansion, and Jacksonian democracy. These forces could and would radically transform our national life.

With his curiosity piqued, de Toqueville set out for America. He arrived to witness a glorious tableau: villages, groups, new authority structures, exciting ideas, pamphlets, speakers, native lands, and endless possibilities. He planned to investigate America's leading ideologies, individuals, and institutions. After extensive research as a detached, objective social scientist, de Toqueville organized his observations and conclusions in the 1835 publication, Democracy in America.

From that publication, historians seized upon a famous line: America is great because America is good; should America cease being good, she shall cease being great. At all times, through all means we should aspire to live up to the eminent Frenchman's observation of our national character. American democracy hinges on that good ideal—on parchment, in principle, and by practice.

I shall argue in this brief book that America was conceived in sin—allowance of African slavery—yet she has the template for goodness, treat all citizens with respect, decency, fairness. Now, we can witness a birth or rebirth of freedom and decency and democracy as we embrace the more perfect union ideal.

Consider that phrase: a more perfect union.

The other animating notion for this book has been captured in the image on the front cover. There we present an image of America's famed Liberty Bell. If you notice, the bell has a large crack in it. Some wise white men met in Philadelphia (city of brotherly love) to envision a new nation. The glaring contradiction was there from America's inception: Framers debated the notion of freedom in the grand salon, while their slaves languished outside in the courtyard. No one noticed the contradiction. If they did, they hid the truth, which was in plain sight.

Some theorize the crack was the inadvertent manifestation of it being moved from one place to another. Others assert that the crack resulted from a blacksmith's error. Yet I suggest that the crack is metaphorical, signaling a flaw, incompleteness, or what still must be formed.

America has a crack in its history, a crack in race relations, a crack continuing to the present—in income, wealth, health care, education, housing, fairness, justice, and opportunity. This book aims to form or mend those breaches in opportunities and outcomes. Indeed, America has been a profound contradiction from its inception. Together, we must accomplish the work of forming this more perfect union.

Truth be told, in addition to ignoring the rights of those of African ancestry, early settlers stole Native American lands. Then, they legitimized the torture and subjugation of indigenous peoples. Moreover, Framers as chauvinists ignored the full intelligence of women, native Americans and those of African ancestry. We sorely need a better reading of impartial history, one which dispels the egregious myths of a kind John Smith and a docile Pocahontas. Empirical truth is infinitely more complex than surface appraisals. For another example, Christopher Columbus, a renowned world explorer, could not have discovered America in 1492. Indeed, the vast continent of North America was already populated by native peoples. How can anyone claim to discover what was already there?

The special case of colonists' treatment of Africans remains an ugly, indelible stain on America. Some secular historians have referred to the buying of other human beings as beasts of burdens, like animals, as America's original sin.

The cover also features the American colors—red, white, and blue—which illustrate and embody patriotism. Those of us who are political centrists must reclaim patriotism from political conservatives. The notion of patriotism should never be the sole province of white, ex-military, rural, non-college-graduate, lower-income persons, some of whom favor camouflage apparel while brandishing rifles, pistols, and other weapons. In addition, blacks, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Latino, urban, college-educated, middle-class persons are true American patriots.

I assert that the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution blanket of freedom, dignity, and opportunity belong to all Americans whether native born, immigrants, naturalized, or all who are now here. If we pledge allegiance to the United States flag, sing the national anthem, obey the laws, pay taxes, vote, serve on a jury, we are all American patriots!

Along the uneven journey to form a more perfect union, this book has several chapters, beginning with a brief examination of the Founding documents. We shall then consider an egregious period: African slavery. It shall be followed by an analysis of the Civil War. That armed conflict led to the Reconstruction (literally and figuratively) of our nation. A hundred years later, we embark upon the civil rights era (nonviolent challenge to Jim Crow segregation). Black progress has, at intervals, been stymied by white privilege; we shall discuss its persistence. As intelligent adults, we shall explore black personal responsibility in several dimensions. Further, we shall examine the recent notion that black lives matter. Finally, we shall close on an optimistic note of future hope.

Indeed, millions of Africans died along that perilous Middle Passage. They were not quantified. They were forgotten. (Six million Jews dead in the Holocaust remains seared in memory because some felt the need to make an assessment.) Finally, slaves' arrival in America heralded an odyssey of faith, repudiating the very concept of freedom, dignity, and representative democracy.

The New York Times commissioned a wonderful historical perspective, The 1619 Project, which captured wide attention. It was lauded by many and lambasted by others. Its purpose was to examine the roots of slavery in shaping centuries of American progress and retrogression, up to the present moment. Driven by economic incentives as well as a monstrous concept of white superiority this nation was conceived. Is it any wonder then that the child, America, would be disfigured, with a damaged psyche, birth defects, and special needs?

For over four centuries, since 1619, Americans have grappled with the notion of forming a more perfect union.

As of this writing, in the twenty-first century, four-hundred-plus years after the dastardly, damnable crime, the official apology in 2008 by then-president Bill Clinton was an easily forgotten effort to persons of African heritage. It did not fully assuage four hundred years of broken hearts nor blasted dreams. Without a full, decisive, official apology, there can be little resolution of the initial breach, hurt, and hypocrisy. Without that kind of an apology, the breach or the sore spot remains.

I heartily affirm the assertion that the oppressed are not responsible for solving the legacy of oppression. Racial inequality has long plagued this aspirational, exceptional, complicated nation. Social injustice represents an embedded plague on the noble intentions of the Framers of this nation. The ugly facts of America's racist past should not be denied by current citizens. Facts are stubborn things. Four hundred years of denial of the abuses and indignities visited upon those of African ancestry will not obviate the truth!

All tend to agree that the original racism, degradation, segregation, and oppression of black forebears can only be remedied by policies and programs aimed at lifting their present-day black progeny.

Starting in the 1990s and extending to the present, the US Congress, especially Democrats, has discussed reparations for African descendants of slaves. They galvanized public opinion under the banner of representing the African diaspora. The form of reparations could have been direct payouts to African descendants of slaves; financial subsidies to black institutions (black colleges and universities, faith-based organizations, charities, banks, businesses, fraternities and sororities, and more); or enhanced affirmative-action programs. Whatever the form of remedies enacted, they could be a meaningful beginning to ending the enduring stigma, suffering, and stain of slavery. Unfortunately, congressional legislation has never made it beyond the discussion stage. Today, HR 4 would establish a commission to study the feasibility and details of reparations. The idea is that study will lead to ideas for implementation. Ironically, many Republicans refuse to even study the matter.

Reparations have been tried in several nations. Israel initially resisted German billions, calling it blood money. After years of resisting these financial overtures, Israel accepted the economic stimulus to provide for their infrastructure. In addition, South Africa redistributed valuable land owned by whites under apartheid. Though vehemently opposed by whites there, white-owned land was a form of reparations to blacks there for decades of legal discrimination and forced segregation. Apartheid in South Africa was the parallel manifestation of what transpired in America.

It has been difficult to escape the fact that America was established on a lie!

The exalted, sweeping words of Thomas Jefferson, one of the Framers, were tainted because, along with other proponents of freedom, he was at the time a slaveholder. Of course, all Framers were flawed, were of a depraved mind. Though they gave the world a tremendous template of freedom and democracy, none should overlook the personal hypocrisy in their deeds.

If that act were not enough, Jefferson and the young slave Sally Hemings had several children together. Think of it: slave and master in sexual intimacy! Hemings could hardly have denied the carnal advances and fleshly desires of her master and owner. Jefferson, though brilliant in laying the foundation for a new nation, was captive to his racist, paternalistic, white superiority environment. Ironically, the biracial Hemings lineage shares a lofty heritage with the vaunted Jefferson family of Monticello, to the consternation of white secular historians. Incredibly, both sides share giant family reunions annually!

The Framers used two phrases, all men are created equal and we the people, clearly without envisioning slaves, women, or Native Americans. Literally, Framers might have been accompanied to Philadelphia by their slaves, ironically, without recognizing their slaves' inclusion in either phrase. In addition, writing home to wives regarding their important work, most Framers could not countenance her equality. No historian can convincingly express why the Framers omitted indigenous peoples from the warm embrace of freedom and dignity.

Further, thirteen original disparate colonies realized the resources of neighboring colonies to actualize their collective potential in forming one strong nation. In other words, leaders of individual colonies surmised that capital, aspirations, might, and hopes might be better focused if used for a common dream: building a strong nation. If the American ideal of a democracy proved successful, it could serve as a template for others in the then-known world, as well as sovereign nations to come.

Historically, leaders of America have challenged America to be both good and great. At critical inflection points—Civil War, Reconstruction, World War I and II, Jim Crow segregation, civil rights movement, after 9/11 terrorist attack—intrepid, influential leaders have appealed to the inherent goodness out of our countrymen.

Who am I? What grants me license to pen this treatise on America?

Searching for a descriptive introductory identity, I am a black Christian social theorist. My academic training was earned from well-recognized institutions (undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles [UCLA] and graduate studies/degree from Southwestern Baptist and Fuller Theological Seminary). I have lectured across America and other countries. In addition, God has gifted me to write/publish twelve books on varied subjects. I have served as an adjunct professor/lecturer for a few Bible colleges and seminars. Further, I have served in multiple local civic capacities. With humility before God, as a recipient of his grace, I have received dozens of awards, plaques, and commendations from distinguished groups and organizations.

Historically, America has championed the views/perspectives of academics, professors, intellectuals, celebrities, media pundits, corporate titans, a few prominent Christian ministers, journalists, artists, politicians. Mostly, each speaks to the fields and themes for which they are well-known. Some authors' works are augmented by ghost writers.

These concepts and words are my own, written by me on my computer. They emerge from years of worship, prayer, observations, reading various texts, months of intense research, two to four hours of daily reflection on topics, and an equal number of daily hours before my computer screen.

Every word in my self-definition has been carefully chosen: Black. Christian. Social. Theorist. I aspire here to present a range of themes: history, constitution, biblical, spiritual, theological, practical, cultural, race, education, justice, health care, policing, immigration, wealth, black personal responsibility. Indeed, my portfolio is quite wide and far-ranging.

First, I am black / African American. Proudly, since birth, I have identified with the stresses, struggles and successes incumbent upon an analytical, intelligent, serious black man in America.

Further, for most of my life, I have celebrated the joy of transformative life through Jesus Christ. Since 1968, Christ has been my Savior and my Lord. Daily I relish learning, listening, and obeying his biblical principles and promptings through God's Holy Spirit dwelling within me. Through the Word of God, worship, prayer, grace, submission, faith, and application of moral/ethical precepts, I am sustained as a dedicated follower of Christ. I sincerely believe that Jesus Christ is the center around which all of life revolves. There is no solution to contemporary conundrums without him. Unequivocally Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation, peace, and hope with the Heavenly Father in glory!

Then by training and intellectual exposure, I am a theorist. Yet I do not bask only in the theoretical, philosophical, esoteric, nor do I ruminate on the metaphysical. Instead, in reaching my conclusions, I combine faith in God, His Word (the Bible), reading three to four reputable daily newspapers, fact-based magazines, journals, online discussions, novels, poems, music, sports, and corporate notions. These sources provide discipline, determination, idealism, realism, professionalism, optimism, pragmatism, and a bit of cynicism.

Further, I employ a well-crafted formulation of self-identity: I am unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian. Further, I vacillate between a preacher who writes or a writer who preaches. Either way, I live under a divine obligation to bear witness to objective truth. On my best days, friends might describe me as collegial, intelligent, articulate, sharp, precise, wise, prudent, measured, fussy, strategic, tactical, optimistic, persistent, resilient, faithful, kind, compassionate, generous, loving.

On my worst days, I might be viewed as driven, obsessed, unforgiving, tough, irascible, vituperative, zany, silly, judgmental, haughty, a bit arrogant, but fully aware of God's grace upon me! My life creed is, Lord, I am available to you for glory, honor, and blessing others. Please use me to the fullest extent.

Indisputably, my analyses, ideologies, and solutions are shaped by and grounded in a Christian, black, biblical, theological, pragmatic, progressive, egalitarian, compassionate, capitalistic worldview.

I fervently believe in the economic theory of capitalism while quite sensitive to its inherent pride, greed, callousness, wickedness, failings, and selfish proclivities. No economic system other than capitalism offers individual opportunities for striving, drive, determination, discipline, knowledge, wisdom, skill, ambition, education, exposure, experience, expertise, preparation, training, with commensurate compensation. The economic theory of free-enterprise capitalism is not the cause of extreme income inequality or wealth variance. (A separate book is necessary to evaluate the flaws of capitalism.)

Some of the wealth disparity between races derives from generational issues, systemic racism, unfair policies, unequal access to capital, immorality, inadequate work ethic, wasting time, lack of exposure, sloth, ignorance, dysfunction, bad advice, poor choices, satisfaction with relatively little in a land of plenty, and more.

Having lived more than sixty years, I am the product of divine grace, mercy, love, parents, mentors, colleagues, teachers, professors, authors, reading, lecturers, experiences, exposure, and expertise. Also, mentors, family, and friends have indelibly shaped my knowledge, insights, conscience, and perspectives. While I have not seen it all, at this stage of life, I have seen enough!

Yet with daily optimism, there lies before me a great deal I can and I must learn regarding the human condition. Every day produces a new idea, an adventure, an epiphany for a joyful journey. I live by the inspired, inerrant, authoritative, definitive principles of the