Something important to think about when dealing with history or leaders: failure or being wrong in one area does not mean they are wrong in all areas or worthy of contempt. What they did right, praise, what they did wrong, condemn, and think wisely and rationally about it. I think the founding fathers of the USA did an awful, awful lot very right.

Jefferson and Washington inherited an economic and social practice that was longstanding, legal and normal in the context of the times, but both men knew it was evil, and both men wanted it ended. Washington freed his slaves, something considered quite radical at the time. Jefferson, as Jim clearly showed above, detested slavery. He even tried to write a condemnation of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but Congress edited his words out.

The ultimate solution to the issue was not easy, and war was the only thing that worked. 600,000 Americans died in the war that ended slavery. No political plan was ever produced by Congress or by the states which would have ended it. To suggest that these two great men could have somehow waved a magic wand and put an end to slavery, and that because they did not they were evil men, is simplistic beyond belief.

To wit, check this out: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790a-02.pdf
With my handy-dandy M$ Excel, I’ve extrapolated the following data (1790/91 US Census) based on total population counting the slaves as 5/5 & the # of congressional Representatives that each State would receive**, likewise @ 3/5 & 0/5. Of course, the only ones that get to vote are Free White Male — women, others & slaves need not vote.
==============================================
USA|5/5 REP | # | 3/5 REP | # | 0/0 REP| # |Slave % of Pop
ME | 96,540 | 4 | 96,540.0| 4 | 96,540 | 4 |0.00%
MA |378,787 | 13|378,787.0| 13|378,787 | 13|0.00%
VT | 85,539 | 3 | 85,532.6| 3 | 85,523 | 3 |0.02%
NH |141,885 | 5 |141,821.8| 5 |141,727 | 5 |0.11%
PA |434,373 | 15|432,878.2| 15|430,636 | 15|0.86%
NY |471,116 | 16|469,254.4| 16|466,462 | 16|0.99%
CT |237,946 | 8 |236,840.4| 8 |235,182 | 8 |1.16%
RI | 68,825 | 3 | 68,445.8| 3 | 67,877 | 3 |1.38%
NJ |184,139 | 7 |179,569.8| 6 |172,716 | 6 |6.20%
DE | 59,096 | 2 | 55,541.2| 2 | 50,209 | 2 |15.04%
KY | 73,677 | 3 | 68,705.0| 3 | 61,247 | 3 |16.87%
NC |393,751 | 14|353,522.2| 12|293,179 | 10|25.54%
MD |319,728 | 11|278,513.6| 10|216,692 | 8 |32.23%
GA | 82,548 | 3 | 70,842.4| 3 | 53,284 | 2 |35.45%
VA |747,610 | 25|630,559.2| 22|454,983 | 16|39.14%
SC |249,073 | 9 |206,235.4| 7 |141,979 | 5 |43.00%

Please recall that this census was taken less than 15 years after our Declaration of Independence. So who really had it in for the Slaves?

While it would seem that the Southern States gained much over the original allotment** from this census, it was only because no one really knew what the population was at the time of the constitution.

The 3/5 compromise turned out to be a Pyhrric victory for the Slave owners, as their political strength was indeed diluted over the years to come as that peculiar institution would grow rapidly at the turn of the century hence.

By the way, since women were excluded from voting, did that mean the founding fathers hated them? That they saw women as unsuitable to exercise political power did not necessarily mean that women were any less equal or deserving of the rights given by God that they claim for themselves?

Plus one must remember that even then, the early settlers came from all walks of life & all over Europe. It was not some monolithic migration of Brits. In fact, English barely made it as the official language by one vote over German.

Bottom-line, some saw no problem with holding slaves, some were middle-of-the-road and others were totally against it. If you thot journalism & political passions are red-hot today, try reading some of the ye olde heralds of the day.

The topic of slavery was as hot as abortion, hate crimes, PC or same-sex topics of our day. Look at how long Roe v Wad has been in the politic mix, where there is nominally 2 people (mother & baby) involved, compared to slavery where it could involve a owner and 10s or 100s of slaves.

In any case, those who were against slavery knew that sooner or later we would overcome, just as surely we today pray that we shall overcome our nasty ‘little’ habit of killing our babies.

As natural law would have it, that day will be sooner rather than later simply because of the Roe effect and for lack of a better term, the current conservative baby boom — conservatives tend to have 2+ kids while liberals content themselves with one, if any, ensuring their eventual extinction

**US Constitution, Article 1, Section 2:
Clause 3: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. (See Note 2) The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

Methinks we’d be far behind from where we are today, racism & counter-racism notwithstanding.

Ciao

Ciao

I think this is an important observation. I look at it from a systems perspective.

Power was held primarily by white males. However, it doesn’t matter from a system standpoint. Our founding fathers stood on the shoulders of western thought, and formulated a system to keep power from dominating them.

The key here is that the SYSTEM they developed was designed to prevent tyranny from oppressing anyone in the power class.

As soon as women or minorities are redifined into the power the class, the system protects them through the same dynamics. Those dynamics are not perfect, and it has taken a lot of time and effort to get into the protected class, but that was inherent in the original design.

In my opinion, its the best design in the history of man. The key is making sure that the individual is the core definition of the protected class, regardless of membership in other classes.

Also, having so many people in the United States who do not know our fundamental rights is indeed troubling. Freedom requires an educated populace whom know how their rights are derived in order to keep them. In the words of Irving Dillard in “The Spirit of Liberty”: “I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, not constitution, no law, no court can save it.” We are in trouble if we as a nation do not wake up and realize that by not knowing our individual and corporate freedoms; our country, our freedoms, our very liberty is at stake. Again, good post.

The reason the war was fought was to keep the south from seceding. It was very much like our war of independence from England. The US declared its independence and England went to war to try and prevent that. Same exact thing happened to start the civil war, just different reasons for declaring independence, that’s all.

Point is, the union didn’t go to war over slavery, ie to free the slaves. Even the Emancipation Proclamation was nothing more than a political ploy that didn’t work. Freeing the slaves was not a real issue during the war for most people, including Lincoln.

I might ask what possible good it would do to expunge the original wording from the body of the Constitution, even if such a thing were legally possible. To simply erase part of historical fact does no one any good.

You are argument would make more sense if slaves were not considered “chattle.” As you probably know, slaves were not insured as persons but as property. While your supposition may be plausible, I am not convinced that conveys the true story.