[7speter]

>The Founding Fathers would be deeply ashamed of us, I think.

Sorry, but the founding fathers who held other humans in bondage for all sorts of free labor?

Those founding fathers, or did I wake up in a parallel universe this morning? Let me check wikipedia…

[mistrial9]

> the founding fathers who held other humans in bondage for all sorts of free labor

Actually, slavery was a bitter dividing line among the founders of the USA. It is intellectually lazy to ascribe slavery to all of the founders of the USA. It also insults those who were vocally and politically against slavery, from the very earliest days. You can find many examples with any effort at all.

[beepbooptheory]

Is there anything at all to be said about the fact that slavery ended up being permissible anyway? Or is that just lazy?

Like, doesn't the sheer magnitude of the inhumanity that actually existed in these times kind of overshadow whatever armchair-enlightment some guys voiced?

How could you be aware of what they did in those times even the slightest bit, and yet still be concerned that one might "insult" guys who have been dead 200 years? How can that even make sense?

[mixmastamyk]

Slavery wasn't invented in America. It was common during the Roman Empire and thousands of years before that. Blaming 18th century folks for not righting every wrong up to their time is lazy, as it would be to attribute full-responsibility to you today for something improved and looked down upon in the future.

(None of us are fully independent but gain and suffer inertia from history and society at large.)

Still, we can learn from Ancient Greece, American Founders, as well as folks today.

[beepbooptheory]

I apologize, this is such a strange way to be positioned to all this. The point of bringing up something like the practice of slavery in early America is not about "blaming" people about anything. They are already dead! Many generations over. This conceit that the bare acknowledgement of history itself should merely serve to assign blame or culpability to certain people or another feels just so wrong.

The point is that it happened. It was determined and sustained by countless totally mechanical and impersonal conditions and tendencies. Just as the operative ideologies in play in the minds of all our fave founding fathers can only be viewed from our purview as some composite of factors, not as some collection of good guys and bad guys. To point out that maybe they should not be a moral compass to us today is not scapegoating them in some grand moral court of human existence! Its just making a point, and urging historical context as a tool to maybe be a little more rational about our world today. There is nothing at stake but that.

[mixmastamyk]

This whole thread is a bit weird now rereading it. My post was pushing back on the narrower idea that past folks' ideas in subject area A should be disregarded because they may have participated in now unacceptable subject area B. Also that Americans tend lack context around the subject.

[7speter]

Yes it was so divisive in the late 18th century in what became the U.S. that the founding father punted the issue so that the 13 states would ratify the new constitution. The issue was swept under the rug until that rabble rouser Abe Lincoln got elected, and all the slave states seceded between the time he got elected and inaugurated, sone 80 years after the signing of the declaration of independence.

Feel free to downvote because I’m not gonna accept your revisionist history.

[sapphicsnail]

Almost all of the founding fathers either owned slaves or weren't willing to stick their necks out to stop it. We absolutely should question their judgement.

[mistrial9]

less than ten seconds of research:

$googlesearch "how many signers of the US Constitution were slave owners?"

25 Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, about 25 owned slaves. Many of the framers harbored moral qualms about slavery.

Historical Context: The Constitution and Slavery

[devilbunny]

Politics is the art of the possible. Given what post-slavery America looked like for the former slaves (not much different), the question becomes: do you care so much about slavery, which is an ancient institution, that you give up the idea of forming a united front?

Was it good? No, it was a bad idea. But that's something we say comfortably from our homes in a large, powerful country. In 1787... this was a remote and weak place. If you wanted the slave-dependent colonies to join, you had to either buy their slaves from them or allow it to continue. And there wasn't enough money to buy them.