Replies

DiogenesLamp: "Somehow this logic escaped the founders because they continued having slaves for "four score and seven years" after they signed the Declaration of *INDEPENDENCE*."

Sorry, I don't "get" why you even want to debate this point.
The Declaration of Independence declares that "all men are created equal..." etc., and somehow you want to tell us those words don't count, only the word "independence" means anything?
Why?

The logic of the Declaration seems perfectly simple and obvious to me, as does the fact that, to a man, every Founder professed his opposition to slavery, at least in principle and in the long term.

Do I need to prove that point to you?
I've got a long list of quotes from every Founder, expressing their opposition to slavery.
And we know that some took actions against slavery rather quickly.

So, sure, they weren't perfect angels, but all of them thought slavery was wrong and should be abolished gradually, lawfully, peacefully.

DiogenesLamp: "Wasn't about slavery.
Wasn't intended to be about slavery.
History revisionists have made it about slavery.
Was about *INDEPENDENCE* and how states had a right to it. That is all it was about."

But you are the one who keeps picking at this scab, you brought it up, everyone here is simply responding to your claims.
For some inexplicable reason you wish to minimize the importance of "all men are created equal", and we're simply reminding you, that's not the case.

DiogenesLamp: "Looked up the Magna Carta.
The word "equals" is used in there eight times.
Is it about slavery?
Are they speaking of the slaves?
Can you be honest?"

Magna Carta? From 1215? 561 years before 1776?
Are we not talking about an entirely different time and circumstances?
The contexts were entirely different, however, like our Founders after 1776, by 1215, the English had already begun to restrict slavery and ban imports of new slaves.

"Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business, prevalent in England, of selling men like animals."[15][16]

The Magna Carta itself includes universal sounding language, including:

"No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land"

So, it wasn't only about the king and his peers of the realm.

The Declaration of Independence declares that "all men are created equal..."

According to many of you, that is *ALL* it says. You've brainwashed yourselves into thinking those are the only five words contained in the document.

"No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land"

Specifically excluding un-free men. In other words, "slaves."

Yes, they had slaves in England up till the 1700s, and of course English slave traders made quite a lot of profit in the business up to and beyond that era.