Then why did some of the framers/founders own slaves?
Bassett, Blair, Blount, Butler, Carroll, Jenifer, Jefferson, Mason, Charles Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Rutledge, Spaight, and Washington. Madison also owned slaves, as did Franklin,
The founders owned slaves because it was profitable and they didn’t see black folk as being quite as human as white folk.
Just for the record, whites as indentured servants were treated just as poorly as the slaves, oftentimes living and working alongside slaves if they didn’t have valuable skills. Nearly 80% of indentured servants did not survive to see the end of their indentured service. Fortunately, mine did survive.
I am not judging those who owned slaves as being evil people. It is foolish to look centuries back in time and judge those people by our moral standards today.
One of the nastier, lesser known facts about New England is that early settlers to Massachusetts, Connecticutt and Rhode Island, after winning a war against local Indian tribes, packed the Indian survivors into ships and sold them into slavery in Africa. This was not what we today would term “christian behavior”.
By the 19th century there was a growing realization in Europe and America that slavery was morally wrong BECAUSE black slaves were human beings. This sentiment grew to such an extent that abolition became a politically powerful movement. Eventually England made the sale and transport of slaves illegal within its Empire.
We Americans, unable to come to a civilized solution, resorted to war.