There’s tons of excuses. But I think that’s one of the big reasons America gets so much crap for slavery. We put these great ideals on paper, and then right off the bat chose not to live up to them. Add in the fact that by the time the Revolution happened a lot of Europe was already moving away from slavery and we kept it around for almost 100 years. We’re the country with the worst “look” for our slavery period.
There is no “we”.
Once you get over that the “slavery” guilt is seen as stupid.