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Jon Stewart on "the Daily Show", 1-4-12, interviewed Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, who wrote the book: "A slave in the White House. It's the story of Peter Jennings, a slave who could read & write, who himself wrote the first White House Memoir, titled something like, Memories of James Madison. Jennings was owned by James Madison. 8 of our earliest presidents owned slaves, Dowling Taylor said. Jennings thought Dolly Madison would free him upon James Madison's death, but she didn't. ( Jennings wife and children had been sold to another Virginia family). So Jennings borrowed $200 from Daniel Webster to buy his own freedom, and then worked for Webster to buy his family's freedom. He was able to later buy a small piece of property, and house, and often forged papers for other slaves, his great granddaughter told Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. Jon Stewart read what President James Madison had once written about slaves, calling them thieves, and he did not have a good opinion of them at all. Yet Madison is responsible for the Bill of Rights. I've read that half of the signers of the Constitution owned slaves. What a compromise for those that didn't. I've read George Washington didn't dare release his slaves while he was alive, for fear of repercussions by his neighbors. And now, the signers of Grover Norquist's Pledge, don't dare end the Bush tax cuts, even for those making more than $1,000,000.00 a year, after deductions. This is "...the land of the brave"

Labels: "A slave in the White House", by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor