Founding Fathers Friday: 11/6/09 Slavery

One of the most frequent tactics employed to discredit America's Founding Fathers is to say that the Founding Fathers were all pro-slavery racists and hypocrites. If you can discredit the Founding Fathers, then you can also discredit the Constitution, as has been the agenda of many progressives in our government.

African-American professor Walter Williams:

“Politicians, news media, college professors and leftists of other stripes are selling us lies and propaganda. To lay the groundwork for their increasingly successful attack on our Constitution, they must demean and criticize its authors. As Senator Joe Biden demonstrated during the Clarence Thomas hearings, the framers' ideas about natural law must be trivialized or they must be seen as racists.”

The fact is, slavery was not introduced by the Founders; slavery was introduced in America nearly two centuries before the Founders. In fact, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay noted that there had been only a few serious efforts to dismantle the institution of slavery prior to the Founding Fathers.

In fact, one of the reasons given by Thomas Jefferson for the separation from Great Britain was a desire to rid America of the evil of slavery imposed on them by the British.

“I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery].”
-George Washington

There were signers of the Declaration and Constitution that were in favor of slavery, there is no doubt. Slavery was so entrenched in their economy that they were in fear of losing it, just as socialized healthcare is now about 70% of England's economy and they are in fear of dismantling their current system.

However, the three-fifths clause in the Constitution was not a measurement of human worth; it was an attempt to reduce the number of pro-slavery proponents in Congress. By including only three-fifths of the total numbers of slaves into the congressional calculations, Southern states were actually being denied additional pro-slavery representatives in Congress. It was a PLAN to eventually end slavery. The founding fathers knew that they had to create a unified country to survive.

"[W]hy keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil."
-Charles Carroll, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Kate Mason Rowland, Life and Correspondence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1898), Vol. II, pg. 231.

"That men should pray and fight for their own freedom and yet keep others in slavery is certainly acting a very inconsistent as well as unjust and perhaps impious part."
-John Jay, President of Continental Congress, Chief-Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Governor of New York. Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, Henry P. Johnston, editor (New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1891), Vol. III, pp. 168-169. In a letter to Dr. Richard Price on Sep. 27, 1785.

"Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity... It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men."
-Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Minutes of the Proceedings of a Convention of Delegates From the Abolition Societies Established in Different Parts of the United States, Assembled at Philadelphia, on the First Day of January, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety-Four... (Philadelphia: Zachariah Poulson, 1794), p. 24. "To the Citizens of the United States."

The argument that the three-fifths clause was to degrade and discount black American is completely false and was, in fact, to assure that there would be more of those against slavery in Congress than those in favor of, in order to end slavery.

What version did you learn? What version are your children learning?

Further Reading:

The Real George Washington
The Real Thomas Jefferson
The Real Benjamin Franklin
Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence