But it is easy to see how an ignorant person or a detached foreigner would automatically just assume that all the writers were slave owners. Like slavery, the religion of the founding fathers is always debated too. Atheists screw the founding father stories their anti-god way. Religious people screw the founding fathers to their God. I have no dog in that hunt and I don't really care either way. But these guys were praying all the time. To who or exactly what?
George Washington:
"there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it."
John Adams:
"Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States…. I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in …abhorrence." "[My opinion against it slavery has always been known. Never in my life did I own a slave."
Benjamin Franklin:
"Slavery is …an atrocious debasement of human nature."Franklin explained that this separation from Britain was necessary since every attempt among the Colonies to end slavery had been thwarted or reversed by the British Crown. In fact, in the years following America's separation from Great Britain, many of the Founding Fathers who had owned slaves released them (e.g., John Dickinson, Ceasar Rodney, William Livingston, George Washington, George Wythe, John Randolph, and others).”
Benjamin Rush "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."
Alexander Hamilton:
"The laws of certain states …give an ownership in the service of negroes as personal property…. But being men, by the laws of God and nature, they were capable of acquiring liberty—and when the captor in war …thought fit to give them liberty, the gift was not only valid, but irrevocable."
James Madison:
"We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man."
A nuanced study of these founding fathers and revolutionaries, and certainly northern ones shows many were against slavery. In 1775 and 1776 It was in a bizarre compromise to unify the country against the Brits. Also north and south states that caught slavery in the "what is or is not a citizen," definition, which precluded some rights to non land-owners, white or otherwise.
All the northern politicians like John Adams, new that the country would not be whole until the slavery issue was resolved. It was a key piece of the Civil War 1861 to 1865. (1776 to 1865 - not a century)
And so, the country was/is a work in evolved progress (The USA was organized in a compromise, and exists on a slow compromise). But in the end of this song/clip we see Martin Luther King still chanting great ideas and people quoting the Constitution and Declaration of Independence ideals, because normal people believe in them and want them. We’d like to get to back to the plan. Back on this track, to these written ideals.
Right now we are all economic slaves. The system is built so that we just can make just
enough to get by, unless you get some lucky trick or break. They got you covered at every turn, to snare any tax penny they can, any time.
The USA government is a growing Frankenstein monster.
Hock
