The Founding Fathers and Slavery

[Royal Frankia]

Simple: destroying the economies of half the states was a deal-breaker.

It would have led to the dissolution of the Union at a time when the federal government could not corral the states back together.

[Parxland]

The First post is half-assed and ill-thought. The poster should be ashamed to have demonstrate so little intelligence with their text. I strongly encourage the poster to strengthen their empathy before revisiting this subject, since they're liable to get punched in the face if they dare to air this 'opinion' in real life to the wrong party.

While I'm not eager to wade into the giddy hipness of someone who has taken their first college level history class and now feels like they're unlocking the truth to the masses (gosh golly, you're saying many of the founding fathers owned slaves and were shitty to women, non-land owners, indigenous people, poor people in general? You don't say...), not confronting issues 'because someone might punch you' is even more repugnant an idea.

You get used to the idea when you figure out that not only are you powerless to affect anything beyond yourself, but the consequences can blow up in your face way more than you thought it would. It's not great, but.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Refer to my first post. I'd say "know your shit" in your case before you commit.

[San Lumen]

Hopefully this will contain my debate with San Lumen to one thread.

As much as Americans love to glorify the freedoms the Founding Fathers gave them with the Constitution, it's important to remember not everyone was free to enjoy these new liberties. Not only were women denied the right to vote, slavery remained a legal institution within the United States. Why did the founders allow slavery to remain? Was it apathy, was it the inability to do so, or was it white supremacy?


I believe they never intended to release the slaves. Less famous founders aside, Washington owned slaves (though he did free most) and had dentures of slave teeth, Jefferson raped one of his slaves, and very few founders even bothered to suggest such a thing.

Inability, for the most part, though the states in the South would not be fond of the idea of wrecking their cash crop industry. Slavery had largely been phased out in the North, where the clime permitted crops such as wheat or corn rather than say cotton or tobacco. Also you have to remember that Washington personally had to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, and I do imagine hostility would be much greater to say abolishing slavery at that time. The power of the individual states was also much, much greater, to the point where the Union was at risk of being dissolved multiple times before the Civil War.

Slavery existed in the States, though it was practiced in the Caribbean and Brazil at that time. Based on statistics, slaves in North America had a higher survival rate than say slaves that had gone to the other European colonies where cash crops like sugar were grown. In fact, the majority of slaves that went across the Atlantic were shipped to replace those that had perished from the harsh work and the diseases that circulated at that time.

The Founders were brought up in a different world, for the most part, and have been lionized greatly. You have to remember that they were not saints, but their sins were no greater than those of that time. As time progressed the abolitionist cause grew in strength, which led to patrols along the African coast to stamp out the slave trade in later generations.

Washington signed the slave trade act of 1794 which limited American involvement in the slave trade.

[Kowani]

laughs in Benjamin Franklin

This is ironically, only half true. Slavery was only economically beneficial to the landed classes who owned slaves (and northern whites who made the clothes I guess). But poor southern whites? No, slavery was economically harmful to them-yet they were some of its most fervent supporters.
Reconciling this contradiction requires an understanding of the ideology of white supremacy that slavery espoused.

more importantly it requires looking at how the slave revolt in Haiti went for the whites

You misunderstand. If the slaves in Haiti had been emancipated, they would not have revolted afterwards. A slave revolt is infinitely more likely than a "recently-liberated" revolt ever would be. That there were no poor white people in either slave Haiti or the Antebellum South advocating for abolitionism is, in fact, testament to the pervasiveness of white supremacy and psychological bribes.

[Neanderthaland]

You can't really expect people not to be products of their time. Liking a historical figure is mostly an exercise in looking past those qualities which you find distasteful - which will almost always be there - in favor of those that you find laudable.

The issue when it comes to Nationalism generally, and American Nationalism in particular, is that you're essentially told that you have to like these people. Have to forgive their failings. Must only see the good in them.

And the good news is that there is plenty of good there. Including a fair number of them who opposed slavery to some degree or another, which was a fairly progressive stance at the time. The bad news is that this fact, and the relatively recent nature of all of this, actually only serves to make this dissonance more acute. Older nations, whose great national heroes tended to live closer to a thousand years ago and were basically moral monsters, tend to have an easier time letting their founders off the hook. William the Conqueror hardy gets any flack for that one time he decimated Yorkshire. Romanians delight in their prince's tendency to make man-kabobs. Norwegians take pride in their ancestor's period of prolonged pirate insurgency. But American chattel slavery, and the scars it has left on society, aren't so distant that we can laugh them off. Or, at least, it is in very bad taste to do so.

[-Ra-]

I don't think anyone is denying that the founding fathers were racist. Most everyone, including the most hardened abolitionists, were racists by our standards. That's not the issue.

As to the issue of slavery, many--most--founding fathers wrote disapprovingly of the practice. George Washington, for instance, was initially apathetic about the condition of his slaves, but the Revolutionary War changed his view. Upon his death, he ordered that all his slaves be freed and resolved that they would not be separated from their families.

Yes, it is hypocritical that they owned slaves themselves. That shouldn't be overlooked. Slavery is a horrendous institution. No doubt. However, it's also important that we recognize that people don't laud the founding fathers for being slaveowners or for supporting slavery. People love the founding fathers for creating the first democracy since Ancient Rome. You ought to remember that the political system that people like Washington put in place, the ideas that they expounded, and the ethnic they prescribed ultimately led to the abolition of slavery.

"All men are created equal" are not mere words on parchments. They are the fiber of the democratic creed. They're worth fighting for, dying for and killing for. Let's remember the founders, however imperfect they have been, for gifting the world the radical idea that government exists to serve the people.

[Cannot think of a name]

Idolizing politicians is dumb anyways. Try to name one leader that was absolutely scandal free and benevolent to every life they affected. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Well, here's the rub and something that the skinny jean crowd tend not to understand. It's not an either/or proposition.

The founding fathers were not remarkable because they were beings of pure light and intent that descended upon the colonies to Tinkerbell a perfect union into place. They were a bunch of lawyers and land owners and slave owners who had points of view that either didn't age well or were shitty no matter what the age. These waddling examples of imperfection whose lives and beliefs can be critiqued did form a sustainable framework for a self governed country at a time that such a thing wasn't common and put in the one caveat that has made all the difference: The idea that they might have fucked up. That whatever it is they think solved all the problems, it hasn't. People will change and the country will need to be able to change with it. They created an ideal that they never lived up to and the country they created never lived up to, but-often kicking and screaming-the country has been dragged closer and closer to that ideal. The framers didn't free the slaves. They didn't enfranchise poor laborers. They didn't give women the vote. But they created a mechanism for the country to do so, and in a way created a system that would force itself to do that.

It's not that great men did good things. It's regular ass shitty men created a system that could be better than those who created it. All you have to do is engage with it. That's why the status quo loves hipsters. Go ahead, get disenfranchised by the lives of people from 250 years ago. Squint your eyes enough that you can't tell the difference between political parties. Talk about the insurmountable power of industrial complexes. Take your hands off the wheel and let the devil drive. You get to pretend that you're not the sucker in this scenario.

[Neanderthaland]

Idolizing politicians is dumb anyways. Try to name one leader that was absolutely scandal free and benevolent to every life they affected. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Well, here's the rub and something that the skinny jean crowd tend not to understand. It's not an either/or proposition.

The founding fathers were not remarkable because they were beings of pure light and intent that descended upon the colonies to Tinkerbell a perfect union into place. They were a bunch of lawyers and land owners and slave owners who had points of view that either didn't age well or were shitty no matter what the age. These waddling examples of imperfection whose lives and beliefs can be critiqued did form a sustainable framework for a self governed country at a time that such a thing wasn't common and put in the one caveat that has made all the difference: The idea that they might have fucked up. That whatever it is they think solved all the problems, it hasn't. People will change and the country will need to be able to change with it. They created an ideal that they never lived up to and the country they created never lived up to, but-often kicking and screaming-the country has been dragged closer and closer to that ideal. The framers didn't free the slaves. They didn't enfranchise poor laborers. They didn't give women the vote. But they created a mechanism for the country to do so, and in a way created a system that would force itself to do that.

It's not that great men did good things. It's regular ass shitty men created a system that could be better than those who created it. All you have to do is engage with it. That's why the status quo loves hipsters. Go ahead, get disenfranchised by the lives of people from 250 years ago. Squint your eyes enough that you can't tell the difference between political parties. Talk about the insurmountable power of industrial complexes. Take your hands off the wheel and let the devil drive. You get to pretend that you're not the sucker in this scenario.

It's a shame there's no up-vote function.

[The Lone Alliance]

The problem is that while some of the founding fathers found Slavery to be wrong and they thought it was something that needed to happen they saw abolishing it in the same way people see "full luxury space communism", as a wonderful idea in theory but as the "Perfect world" doesn't exist, therefore it will never happen.

Kind of like how everyone has agreed that "People starving to death is bad" for centuries yet World Hunger is still a thing. Is everyone on the planet a hypocrite in that case, I mean prettty much everyone on the planet agrees "Starvation is bad" yet people are still starving to death. That makes everyone hypocrites.

Just like when people complain about Chinese slave labor when posting from their Iphones.

[Cannot think of a name]

While I'm not eager to wade into the giddy hipness of someone who has taken their first college level history class and now feels like they're unlocking the truth to the masses (gosh golly, you're saying many of the founding fathers owned slaves and were shitty to women, non-land owners, indigenous people, poor people in general? You don't say...), not confronting issues 'because someone might punch you' is even more repugnant an idea.

You get used to the idea when you figure out that not only are you powerless to affect anything beyond yourself, but the consequences can blow up in your face way more than you thought it would. It's not great, but.. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, the parts I understood of this is not in any way true, so I'm going to guess the parts that sound like gibberish are also not true.

Refer to my first post. I'd say "know your shit" in your case before you commit.

Sure. That's certainly a thing you just said.

[Aeritai]

Its possible to admire the achievements that the Founding Fathers did for our country while also condemning them for their slave practices.

[The Lone Alliance]

Its possible to admire the achievements that the Founding Fathers did for our country while also condemning them for their slave practices.

One thing that I've started to believe the more I read into the founding fathers is the paradox of Jefferson.

Jefferson supported the French Revolution where the aristocracy were executed and destroyed (Despite being an American Aristocrat), he pointed out that the tree of liberty needed watering with the blood of patriots and tryants and that the country itself might need a good revolt every few decades or so, and his ultimate dream for the United States was an entire nation of Free Farmers with enough land to grow their own food and enough material means to live in peace as an Agrarian classless society.

So does that mean Jefferson ultimately believed that the tyrants that needed removing included people like him?

[Infected Mushroom]

They were casual racists (it just never occurred to them that non-whites should have the same rights). They went about their days in the plantations, battlefields, commerce halls etc fully cloaked and soaked in the racial assumptions of the day.

That annoys me a bit but it’s hardly their most glaring fault.

The biggest fault, as things sit with me, is that they engaged in armed treason against the British Crown out of opportunism. It speaks volumes about their moral character and when you combine it with the casual racism; it’s just not heroic behavior.

[Picairn]

Gotta repost it here:

If the Founding Fathers had tried to ban slavery or granted women suffrage then there would have been a civil war in 1789. And the rich, populous Southern slave states would have won.

The whole point of the Constitution is basically the FFs throwing up their arms in the sky and said: "Fuck it, enough with this endless arguing. Let's compromise and solve these problem later when the US has finally become a unified, strong nation". And solve those problems they did.

But I guess for some people, ideology matters more than effective governance. At least you can proclaim you have preserved your principles while the enemy's gun barrel points down at your throat, right? It won't matter if you are dead.

In addition, the victors of the 1789 Civil War would have enshrined slavery into the Constitution. Your principles and all that shit are automatically erased if you lose.

[Aeritai]

Its possible to admire the achievements that the Founding Fathers did for our country while also condemning them for their slave practices.

One thing that I've started to believe the more I read into the founding fathers is the paradox of Jefferson.

Jefferson supported the French Revolution where the aristocracy were executed and destroyed (Despite being an American Aristocrat), he pointed out that the tree of liberty needed watering with the blood of patriots and tryants and that the country itself might need a good revolt every few decades or so, and his ultimate dream for the United States was an entire nation of Free Farmers with enough land to grow their own food and enough material means to live in peace as an Agrarian classless society.

So does that mean Jefferson ultimately believed that the tyrants that needed removing included people like him?

Well Jefferson did say:

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

So maybe?

Source: https://www.monticello.org/site/researc ... nquotation

[Washington Resistance Army]

Pretty much all the evidence shows it wasn't abolished in the 1700's because of inability. Much like the reason the electoral college became a thing is because the south was really powerful and would have it no other way.

[Catsfern]

If the nation had not allowed slavery when it was founded the nation would never have been founded.

[Torisakia]

They simply kept slavery because the technology for time travel so they could go forward in time and get all this fancy automated work stuff wasn't available yet. Unfortunately they weren't think in the really long term.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

Idolizing politicians is dumb anyways. Try to name one leader that was absolutely scandal free and benevolent to every life they affected. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Andrew Yang?

[Punished UMN]

"Nows not a good time. Maybe later we can fight for rights" a common refrain from those who won't stand up.

It simply wasn't possible in 1787. The south would have walked out of the convention.

As much as I hate to agree, this is p much true, the balance of power then was in the favor of the slave states.

[Ethel mermania]

well the founders from Boston, New York and Philadelphia, were pretty much abolitionists from the get go. Jefferson and Washington didn't like the system even though they were part of it.

Discussing slavery during the revolution would have been assine as each state was sovereign. For the constitution, they had bigger fish to fry. Forming the government would have been impossible if they tried to remove slavery in 1789. The founders put a 20 year stoppage of the conversation into to constitution just to give the new nation a chance to take hold.

Politics is the art of the possible, folks seem to forget that these days.

Aside from the fact To say all the founders felt one way or the other is a pretty cartoonish take on American history

[Ifreann]

I don't think it's very useful to talk about why the Founding Fathers did or did not do something, as if they were one entity with one will. Some of those men were slave owners and realistically would have been motivated by their own financial interests to maintain slavery no matter what else was going on. To those men, slavery was hardly some terrible compromise that they had no choice but to make to preserve their fledgling nation, slavery was what lined their pockets.

[West Leas Oros 2]

Idolizing politicians is dumb anyways. Try to name one leader that was absolutely scandal free and benevolent to every life they affected. Go ahead. I'll wait.

It's an exercise of pure folly to act like we can find someone with no blood on their hands, and likewise it is foolish to assume any system can be bloodless. We must simply strive for whatever gives us less to bleed.

[Ethel mermania]

Well, here's the rub and something that the skinny jean crowd tend not to understand. It's not an either/or proposition.

The founding fathers were not remarkable because they were beings of pure light and intent that descended upon the colonies to Tinkerbell a perfect union into place. They were a bunch of lawyers and land owners and slave owners who had points of view that either didn't age well or were shitty no matter what the age. These waddling examples of imperfection whose lives and beliefs can be critiqued did form a sustainable framework for a self governed country at a time that such a thing wasn't common and put in the one caveat that has made all the difference: The idea that they might have fucked up. That whatever it is they think solved all the problems, it hasn't. People will change and the country will need to be able to change with it. They created an ideal that they never lived up to and the country they created never lived up to, but-often kicking and screaming-the country has been dragged closer and closer to that ideal. The framers didn't free the slaves. They didn't enfranchise poor laborers. They didn't give women the vote. But they created a mechanism for the country to do so, and in a way created a system that would force itself to do that.

It's not that great men did good things. It's regular ass shitty men created a system that could be better than those who created it. All you have to do is engage with it. That's why the status quo loves hipsters. Go ahead, get disenfranchised by the lives of people from 250 years ago. Squint your eyes enough that you can't tell the difference between political parties. Talk about the insurmountable power of industrial complexes. Take your hands off the wheel and let the devil drive. You get to pretend that you're not the sucker in this scenario.

It's a shame there's no up-vote function.

Agreed.

[Picairn]

Well, here's the rub and something that the skinny jean crowd tend not to understand. It's not an either/or proposition.

The founding fathers were not remarkable because they were beings of pure light and intent that descended upon the colonies to Tinkerbell a perfect union into place. They were a bunch of lawyers and land owners and slave owners who had points of view that either didn't age well or were shitty no matter what the age. These waddling examples of imperfection whose lives and beliefs can be critiqued did form a sustainable framework for a self governed country at a time that such a thing wasn't common and put in the one caveat that has made all the difference: The idea that they might have fucked up. That whatever it is they think solved all the problems, it hasn't. People will change and the country will need to be able to change with it. They created an ideal that they never lived up to and the country they created never lived up to, but-often kicking and screaming-the country has been dragged closer and closer to that ideal. The framers didn't free the slaves. They didn't enfranchise poor laborers. They didn't give women the vote. But they created a mechanism for the country to do so, and in a way created a system that would force itself to do that.

It's not that great men did good things. It's regular ass shitty men created a system that could be better than those who created it. All you have to do is engage with it. That's why the status quo loves hipsters. Go ahead, get disenfranchised by the lives of people from 250 years ago. Squint your eyes enough that you can't tell the difference between political parties. Talk about the insurmountable power of industrial complexes. Take your hands off the wheel and let the devil drive. You get to pretend that you're not the sucker in this scenario.

This is gonna get featured in the Awesome Quotes thread. Thank you for your meaningful contribution.

If I might add, the reason they created a system and mechanism favorable towards change is precisely why they are great men. At the time when European monarchies were still massacring revolutionaries and suppressing democratic reforms, the Founding Fathers allowed the American people to change and fix the injustices of the system. This feature is a central core to the Constitution itself, it means that the Founders respect the mandates of the people when they desire change.