Replies

“The biggest problem is that the founding fathers were hypocrites when it came to slavery, or too fearful of upsetting southerners and didn’t have the balls to carry their “All men are created equal” beliefs from the Declaration of Independence into the Constitution.”

I’ve seen enough of your replies over the years to have thought better of you. This shoots right past ignorance and into willful stupidity. George Mason. Read a little, maybe learn something. The incompatibility of the institution of slavery was well recognized by our Founders. Extricating themselves from it proved far more complicated than recognizing the problem, however. Political wrangling and alliances between northern and southern states guaranteed the perpetuation of it at the Convention.

Mason, brilliant man that he was, predicted war over the matter, and the destruction of the new nation. For all intents and purposes, he was right. He was bitterly opposed to the practice but held slaves all his life, and manumitted none of them in his will. Why was that, do you suppose? Hypocrite? No, you’re nowhere near his moral or intellectual equal, and yet you deign to stand in judgment. Phffft.

As I said, read a little. Here’s a start, since you appear to need a push:

http://www.gunstonhall.org/georgemason/slavery/views_on_slavery.html

Mason, brilliant man that he was, predicted war over the matter, and the destruction of the new nation.

Yes, please, quote Mason. The man who said slavery was the most disgusting thing to happen to the United States and that slave owners were petty tyrants, and who spoke out against slavery and claimed it would lead to war, but who believed the Constitution should protect slave owners, and who wouldn't even free his own slaves when he died.

I'll jump on your side for a moment and go along with the view that abolition could not have happened in the 1780s in the whole of the US, even as it had happened in the previous decade in England and even as abolition was occurring in the northern states.

Even if they decided to allow people to continue owning slaves, which they did, there was absolutely nothing stopping the founding fathers who owned slaves from freeing every one of their slaves upon the creation of the United States. It wasn't like there wasn't a precedent - men like John Adams refused to own slaves or employ slave labor.

Let people continue to own slaves in those states that allowed it, but set the example by freeing every one of their own slaves, and speak out about how it's the right thing to do.