So all men are created equal, except for those who were created by God to be slaves to the others.
Conveniently, the slavers decided God had, by a “manifest declaration of his will, set one (the white man) above another (the black man),” with the blacks meant to eternally serve the whites. IOW, black slavery is God’s Will and therefore a good thing.
However, it is ahistorical to blame this interpretation of Locke on Jefferson and the Founders. They were all perfectly clear that slavery was a contradiction of the principles of the Declaration, and a Very Bad Thing. They just didn’t know how to get rid of it without disastrous consequences, so they played for time in hopes the situation would resolve itself. Their hope was that slavery would gradually become less profitable and critical to the South’s economy, as it had in the North.
Unfortunately, the cotton gin was invented and slavery became more profitable, not less. Over the first decades of the 1800s southerners gradually developed the notion that slavery was a Good Thing, not unreasonably trying to find a justification for something they were so dependent on economically.
God placed his own children into slavery.
They were all perfectly clear that slavery was a contradiction of the principles of the Declaration, and a Very Bad Thing.
Agreed.
They just didn’t know how to get rid of it without disastrous consequences, so they played for time in hopes the situation would resolve itself.
Jefferson had submitted a bill to the Virginia Burgess to emancipate all slaves, which was defeated. The King continually negatived colonial laws, which explains why the framers explicitly rejected all attempts to grant the federal government that power. In 1769 Jefferson submitted a bill allowing manumission, a version eventually passed in 1782 which he signed as Governor. He also argued for the freedom of a slave in Howell v Netherland, stating 'under that law [the law of Nature/God's law] we are all born free'.
Their hope was that slavery would gradually become less profitable and critical to the South’s economy, as it had in the North.
I'll give you credit where credit is due, you understand that slavery existed due to economic issues, not that every American simply desired to own a slave.
Over the first decades of the 1800s southerners gradually developed the notion that slavery was a Good Thing, not unreasonably trying to find a justification for something they were so dependent on economically.
There were more abolition societies in the South. The notion that slavery was good was based on the prevailing sentiments of blacks - in their native lands - were barbarians, cannibals, practiced witchcraft etc, so their introduction to Christianity and European culture was seen as benevolent in comparison.