Jefferson's contemporaneous notes tell a broader story that some prefer not to acknowledge: “The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia . . . Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under those censures: for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”
Acknowledging the New England Sea Captains role in the slave trade.
But declaring “All men are created equal...” and “endowed by their Creator with Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” sholud have dictated what the ENTIRE nation should have done with both plantation slavery AND the slave trade.