[DiogenesLamp]

Naw, sadly, DiogenesLamp is again twisting logic pretzel-like to avoid having to admit the perfectly well-known truth of this particular matter. It's this: before the early 1800s, nearly every American politician professed opposition to slavery, at least in theory and in the long term.

Even if that is true, it has absolutely nothing to do with declaring Independence from England.

Only a fool tries to send mixed messages, and the founders were not fools.

Their intent, and their only intent was to declare Independence, not to get involved in a discussion on the morality of slavery.

Those who claim otherwise are either ignorant or deliberately dishonest.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Their intent, and their only intent was to declare Independence, not to get involved in a discussion on the morality of slavery.
Those who claim otherwise are either ignorant or deliberately dishonest."

You keep dodging the point here, and I think it's deliberate.

The fact is, there was no debate about the morality slavery amongst our Founders.
All of them agreed, in principle, that slavery was evil and should be abolished eventually.

That's why they had no problem with Jefferson's Declaration words of "all men are created equal".
Jefferson's words did not contradict their beliefs in any way.

The only real debate was over how and when to put their beliefs into practice, and for that, some were more eager than others to get started on abolition, but none opposed it, in principle.