[krapp]

So what? That doesn't affect the morality of slavery one bit. Subjective and relative moral questions do exist, but slavery isn't one of them.

Likewise, Ben Franklin being a founding father doesn't somehow balance the scales in that regard. The existence of the United States doesn't retroactively make slavery ok.

[WalterBright]

What is moral and what isn't changes with the times. For example, blaspheming could get you murdered by the state in medieval times. The colonies had different views of morality, especially religious morality. It was immoral to work on the Sabbath. It was immoral to have sex before marriage.

The Founders saw fit to abolish the nobility, and disassociated religion from government. We've forgotten what an enormous leap both of those were (each of the colonies had an establishment of religion). I've seen endless documentaries on the founding of the country, and there's no mention of either of these.

Half of the colonies did abolish slavery. But, again, if it was demanded of the other half, the Union would never have happened.

Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington all held slaves.

I am certainly not advocating slavery. I'm merely pointing out that people should be judged on the morality of their times, not today's morality. If we judged past people by our modern standards, they would all be condemned.

[krapp]

You say that people should be judged by the morality of their times, yet as has been pointed out to you, these men were judged by the morality of their times, and condemned by many for their participation in slavery.

Also, if we must judge by the morality of the times, we must also view abolishing the nobility and separating church from state to be immoral and unchristian. You seem to want to avoid a "modern moral framework" when it would tarnish the reputation of a founding father, but embrace it otherwise. You're not advocating slavery, but you don't want to judge slaveowners harshly.

It's perfectly fine to acknowledge the good that people do, while also acknowledging the evil. Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington all held slaves, and they were all evil for doing so. If we judged past people by our modern standards, they would all be condemned, and if we believe at all in some form of moral progress (which you must, since you bring up American freedom and the establishment of a secular republic as virtues) then we can condemn them all for some things.

[WalterBright]

I wonder how the future will judge you and I.

I've lived long enough to see a distinct shift in what people consider moral and immoral. Are you certain in your moral rectitude? (I am, even though I fall short of it, and change my mind now and then.)

> these men were judged by the morality of their times

Half the colonies considered slavery to be moral in their time. So much so that, a few years later, fought and died in a terrible war to defend it.

[krapp]

I can't control how the future judges me, if at all, and I won't let fear of that affect my own morality.

But I don't own other humans as property, so at least I have that going for me.

>I've lived long enough to see a distinct shift in what people consider moral and immoral.

And yet you have no issues making moral judgements yourself, as you so often do in political threads. You seem to believe in the absolute moral good of the US and free market capitalism, and the absolute moral evil of socialism and leftism, but you just can't bring yourself to say the founding fathers were immoral for owning slaves. Why? Because maybe in the future slavery might come back and someone might say "That Walter Bright guy didn't even believe in slavery that shmuck, we should tear down his statues forthwith?" Is that really how you think?

I'll leave you with the last word, since you're starting to go in circles. Good night.

[WalterBright]

> Is that really how you think?

Nope. It is wrong that Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington kept slaves. But they grew up in a society that accepted slavery, and so harshly judging them as evil is unjust.

But they did make the leap of getting rid of the notion of nobility, and separating church and state. In that they rose above what was the accepted norm, implemented their new ideas. Those were huge changes for their time, and that makes them great men. That they did not go all the way to today's morality is an unjust indictment of them.

P.S. Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson would have been drawn and quartered if the British had captured them. Are you that brave? I doubt I am.

[Teever]

Walter, you sort of gave the game away with this last post when you wrote 'It is wrong that Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington kept slaves.' It was wrong, but by whose standards exactly? Not the standards of the time as half the colonies, by your own account, thought it was fine. So you're judging them by a fixed standard that sits above the mores of 1787 and is the exact thing you spent the entire thread insisting people shouldn't do.

Not only that, but you just did it again when you said that they 'rose above the accepted norm' by abolishing nobility and the dominance of religious institutions because 'rose above' only means something if there's a fixed height to measure against. You can't say "they rose above the norm" and 'don't judge them against anything but the norm' in the same paragraph. So I wouldn't say that the position you're taking is one of historical relativism but more of a universalist with a conspicuous discontinuity on at least this specific issue.

As someone who is fond of American history but is relatively unknowledgeable about the pre-civil war era this thread and previous conversations that we have had on George Washington have piqued my interest, so I did some digging.

Even if we provide the most charitable interpretation of your argument that the American founding fathers were a 'product of their time' that kind of defense only works when someone is blind to a wrong because nobody around them has conceived of or articulated an objection to slavery but that certainly isn't something that can be said in this situation. So, let's use the examples of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington to see why that isn't the case.

THOMAS JEFFERSON

Thomas Jefferson enslaved roughly 600 people over his lifetime, holding about 130 at any given moment across his numerous properties. He initially inherited his slaves from his father and in far greater numbers from his father-in-law. Despite being an owner of hundreds of slaves throughout his lifetime Jefferson was critical of the practice and advocated for restrictions on the practice.

His draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a passage [0] criticizing King George III over the British slave trade which was struck by the Congress. The passage read as follows:

"he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce..."

At the time he wrote this Thomas Jefferson was thirty-three and he owned about 175 people.

Somewhere between 1781-1785 (I'm seeing a lot of different publishing dates for this and I'll leave it to someone else to pin down the exact date if they're interested) in Notes on the State of Virginia Jefferson wrote of slavery: "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other"[1] and argued that it corrupted the slaveholders' own children, who learned tyranny by imitation. Jefferson even wrote "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."[1]

The Virginian abolitionist Edward Coles[2] who in his youth had been neighbours with Jefferson wrote to him in 1814 asking him to lead an emancipation movement. Jefferson replied that he was too old to do so and he counseled Coles to stay in Virginia and keep his slaves rather than free them. Coles ignored him, moved to Illinois and freed his.

So what motivated Jefferson to hold these incompatible views and maintain his abhorrent practices while counselling others to do the same? Why the thing which you value most Walter -- money.[3] Thomas Jefferson lived beyond his means his entire adult life and died owing more than $100,000.[4] The people that he enslaved were his collateral and capital. In an 1820 letter to his son-in-law John Wayles Epps Jefferson wrote, "having scruples about selling negroes but for delinquency, or on their own request. but your proposition gets me over these scruples as it is in fact to keep them in the family." and went on to tell Eppes, "I know no error more consuming to an estate than that of stocking farms with men almost exclusively. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. what she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption."[5] Keep in mind that Jefferson wrote this six years after he told Coles that he was too old to lead an emancipation movement.

This doesn't read like a man who was oblivious to the consequences of his actions or his financial motivations. This reads like a man who knew what he was doing was abhorrent but wasn't willing to stop because it would have led to his financial ruin and suffering.

[0] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0...

[1] https://archive.org/details/notesonstateofvi1787jeff/page/27...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Coles

[3] https://youtu.be/5V6GHnxEJjg?t=108

[4] https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/debt

[5] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/ Jefferson/03-16-02-0052

(My full comment was too large so I have had to split it into two comments)