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Are you sure the majority of the Founders were slaveowners?In defense of the 18th century Founders, even most the slaveowners among them weren't as proud of their squalid system as the slave lovers of Dixie were in the 1860s. The leaders of the South regressed while the rest of the country progressed.

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics."

--Alexander Stephens