What does Barbara Streisand have to do with this?
You so conveniently forget that slavery was legal under the Constitution and some of the Founders were slave-owners.
I forgot nothing but your point is irrelevant.
I believe Thomas Jefferson was a prominent one,yet we quote Jefferson's views on many other points of freedom.The ownership of arms comes to mind.(Which I would be surprised if Jefferson promoted amongst his slaves!)
Actually jefferson was a very minor participant in the founding of our country. He was hired because he was a gifted writer and showed his strength on the DOL. He was also a committed Francophile who would rather we patterned our country after France. He had no participation in the formation of the Articles of Confederation and openly eschewed the Constitution.
The Southerners feared,and I believe rightly, that they were going to be deprived of their legal property without compensation.And they were.
Thank you for making my point. The southron slavrocrisy availed themselves of their constitutional rights when it suited them, and then abandoned them whenever they didn't get their way. Cowardly. Feckless. Traitors.
Far better and cheaper it would have been had the abolitionists passed a law declaring the end of slavery in the United States with the provision that slave owners would receive fair compensation.
That was one of the potential solutions presented and summarily dismissed by the slavrocrisy.
I think the Southerners fought as much against the arrogance of the bog city self-righteous New Englanders as anything.
And the unionists fought against the bog(sic) self-righteous slavers. So what?
And just who built most of the ships anyway.
Irrelevant.
The issue of “ex post facto” laws is addressed in the Constitution,I think.
Irrelevant.
Declaring a heretofore legal activity suddenly illegal and confistcating(sic) the property related without payment is itself unethical.
What does that have to do with anything?
Be very careful about using the giant club of the government to force YOUR wishes.
Again, what does that have to do with anything?
If you feel strongly enough then you are free to request Mr. Robinson or the moderators ban me and all those who dare disagree with you.
I believe that is is an established courtesy to "ping" a party if you quote or name them. This is jimrob's house and his rules. All I was saying is that he probably wouldn't appreciate FReepers soiling FreeRepublic's reputation by besmirching one of America's greatest presidents. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how wrong. ;-)
This statement is tremendously silly; almost as silly as the claims being made by the slavers on these and similar threads.
Had Jefferson's influence been merely limited to the propagation of ideas already codified in Virginia, he would still have been an important founder, even if he had not written the Declaration.
The importance of the Declaration itself really can't be understated, and it was more than simply an elegant regurgitation of ideas already ascendant in the Enlightenment.
You forget he was governor of [by far] the most powerful and important state of the Union during the Revolutionary War.
You also forget the influence he had on Madison, who was central to the writing of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and on Monroe.
The resistance of his Party to the demons of the darker nature of the Federalists was also important, and would not have been successful without his prestige.
Only Washington is more important to the founding of America than Jefferson. Without Washington, there is no USA. But Jefferson's presidency is part of a Founding that was still going on in 1800; and his first term was as successful as that of any American President. Serious historical arguments should not throw the baby of the American Founding out with the dirty bathwater of Jefferson's often contradictory actions and words on slavery.