I’ve read a book or two about the Founders, yet somehow this information sounds more than a little skewed towards current obsessions than that of the Founders.
You surely have a source for this idea about the nature of the Founders’ college educations; and I’m curious who is on this list of Founders.
Also, are you including those who owned slaves on the list of those opposed to slavery?
Their education is something that has not really been explored like it should be. Most people read what our Founders wrote and do not read what our Founders read.
By Founders I am referring to are all the men who influenced or worked with the men who signed the Documents, and including the signers.
I looked up the educational background of all the Founders. 50% of them graduated from an American colonial college, with only a dozen of that group graduating from a university in England. I took those two groups and compared their opposition to slavery and it came down to nearly everyone who graduated from the colonial colleges opposed slavery. The men who graduated from the British universities nearly all had no problem with slavery. I was somewhat amazed when I saw the result.
You have to know that slavery in those days was exactly like abortion is today. It is a legal institution and good luck trying to get rid of it.
When Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence he had an editorial board working with him. He had great penmanship and he had a good way with words. He wrote a first draft which included a couple of paragraghs denouncing slavery. When his editors read it they essentially said, "You know, we agree with you but this is a declaration of independence from the king so you need to focus on him. We cannot do anything about slavery right now. It will have to be left to another time."
Slave ownership is not the marker. They were stuck with the institution that the king of England had given to them. Jefferson made that point in the Declaration. But, they were powerless to change it at that time.