The book review in question was of Volume I; from what I've been able to ascertain, Bancroft published it originally in 1834. You may be referencing a later edition.
That's the beauty of this particular situation. Virginia passed the law. The King vetoed it. Virginia replied, begging the King to do the right thing. It was a three phase process, and we have all of it, right here in black and white text to look at. And again, Virginia was not the only colony who faced this garbage.
I have not stated one whit about the characterization of the slave trade.
What I found odd was that you decried modern historians for "playing the race card" when the same source you relied upon regarding the slave trade (inhumane as it was) likewise stated that their opposition to it was also rooted in preference for whites over blacks. (And all the other primary sources pulled by woodpusher more than suffice to validate this sentiment.)
Even as tensions over slavery grew through the antebellum years, prominent voices in the North and South likewise showed a general preference for one race over another.
It is true that many Founders were opposed to the slave trade for moral reasons. It is also true that many of the same retained their slaves after slipping free of Great Britain after the Revolution (at which point maintaining that the British Crown still imposed the institution upon them becomes a nonsensical proposition).
It is also true that many of these Founders openly disclosed a preference for white folk (or people of European stock in general) over that of black folk from Africa.
These are not mutually exclusive positions.
Fair enough. I'm in agreement to move on from Bancroft.
"What I found odd was that you decried modern historians for "playing the race card" when the same source you relied upon regarding the slave trade"
I think you didn't realize I had such quick access to the original sources and could do it without needing a historian at all.
Unless I'm reading this wrong. I could infer another meaning from this phrase. Are you actually admitting openly that the idea is the pettiest and deepest form of gotcha, devoid of any real result whatsoever? -And wouldn't add any value at all to the discussion either. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here and stay more with the topic, but wow. That's quite a shallow thing to admit to.
Unless both of those two are wrong, and you're trying to defend left wing historians who are the source of all this poison. But why would you do that when they're working hand and glove with the media to destroy everything?
"likewise stated that their opposition to it was also rooted in preference for whites over blacks."
The document I cited does not state that. You're inserting your own racial bias. Here is what the text says:
We are sensible that some of your Majesty’s Subjects in Great Britain may reap Emoluments from this Sort of Traffick, but when we consider that it greatly retards the Settlement of the Colonies with more useful Inhabitants, and may in Time, have the most destructive Influence, we presume to hope that the Interest of a few will be disregarded when placed in Competition with the Security and Happiness of such Numbers of your Majesty’s dutiful and loyal Subjects.
A slave is generally less useful than a free citizen, that's not a skin pigment issue. Adam Smith talks about that, among numerous others. The Pilgrims talked about that, in their notes from that first year when they almost died, the whole lot of them. They imposed a form of collectivism at Plymouth Rock, and everybody felt they were made into slaves so nobody did any work and everybody starved. This is simple classic capitalism 101 here, nothing at all racist about it.
"at which point maintaining that the British Crown still imposed the institution upon them becomes a nonsensical proposition"
On the contrary. The Founders may have potentially had (and very likely did have) a sense that being an independent country was a foregone conclusion. When the war was coming was only a matter of time. So setting up a new country that has 2, 3, or 4 or more free-soil "states" within it and perhaps only 9 slave states, that's a much more favorable situation to have to deal with than setting up a new country that is 13 to 0 all slave, all the time. This simply makes a ton of plain common sense.
I will not back off the notion that the empire forced slavery on the United States. A monarch's veto or a governor's non-compliance is not a 20 second proposition. It's results reverberate for decades. Especially something such as this which lands in the timing of when it does. And double especially since it was done numerous times across numerous colonies. There were enough Americans who had had enough of slaving to make a good show of it and actually get some laws passed. This was NOT an American problem. America was the SOLUTION to the problem, as America usually is.
Had the crown not interfered, at least 2-4 colonies would've been unmistakenly abolitionist prior to Independence. That's simply a matter of the unmistakable historical record.
I would say just the same as how powerful of an effect that the empire's gun grabbing effect had in the mid 1770s. We were always going to end up with a second amendment. It was only a matter of time. The king ensure that one too. Much of what America was at the beginning came to be explicitly because the Founders looked at the tyranny across the atlantic and said "we want the opposite of that nonsense over there".
The slaving was masterminded over there. Not over here. Again, Bristol and Liverpool(U.K.); Spain and all they did, Portugal, France/New Orleans/Haiti, and more. James Otis Jr. said treat everybody the same regardless of color way back in 1765. Perhaps one of the first Americans, Otis's early speeches are considered some of the main sparks of actual Americanism, not just "hey some people on some land". Abolitionism was tied up with the Patriots movement. That wasn't Toryism. The crown was all in on slaving. The vetos are just icing on the cake.
Shameless plug article in case it is needed later:
"It is also true that many of these Founders openly disclosed a preference for white folk (or people of European stock in general) over that of black folk from Africa.
These are not mutually exclusive positions."
They're more mutual than you'll care to admit. Generally the differences of usefulness arise out of their status as slaves, that's not endemic to how people are born, and that's something that's seen in the old authors. Pretty sure Adam Smith. This very document cited above says that very thing. It's not racial, they're looking for more useful people - aka free people. When someone such as a Benjamin Banneker was spotted, he got simple respect because it was so patently obvious. Racialists don't care for excellence, they care for color absurdities. Most of that happened after the time frame of the American Revolution - and I do mean as well in the islands. The racial strife we spend so much time bickering about is not nearly as U.S.-American exclusive as we are lead to believe. Jamaica had some terrible issues of race after time frame of the American Revolution. Why do you think Jamaica is demanding reparations?
Of all the plantations known anywhere, the sugar plantations down on the islands may very well have been the very worst of all of them.