![]() Everyone being equal implies that no person - not even the a king atop his golden throne - had the right to tell a lowly peasant to obey him. Setting an example that slavery was becoming a thing of the past was all one could do.įurthermore, the Founding Fathers were not selfish, for “all men are created equal” was their gift to the world. restrictions on importing Africans and enslaving them in newly settled territories in North America. Worst still, slavery would have lasted for much longer had the South been an independent country unhindered by U.S. The United States would have fractured had the founders been too vocal about their views. Supporting emancipation would have prompted Southern states like Georgia and the Carolinas, which relied heavily on slave labor, to leave the union. So were Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin who both condemned slavery through civil society groups. Yet, he knew its truths all along when he freed his own slaves. George Washington never lived to read Jefferson’s letter in 1826. If man made slavery possible, man can also abandon it. Weightman, Thomas Jefferson wrote “the palpable truth (is) that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” The idea that no one is born a slave suggests slavery must have been an artificial institution. The truth is far detached.įirst, the Founding Fathers were not hypocrites. It is almost as if the Founding Fathers crafting the phrase were selfish hypocrites who reserved equality only for men in their own likeness. British poet Samuel Johnson lamented its irony, writing in 1775 “we hear the loudest yelps for liberty coming from the drivers of” black individuals. People have been questioning the sincerity of the phrase “all men are created equal” ever since its debut in the U.S.
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