Ultimately, I think they left us with a pretty good document from which to glean basic rights, although not ALL of our rights.
Exactly.
The floundering fathers knew that the world belongs to the living and that is why they created a system of government which could be changed as needed.
They were, just as we are now, forced to compromise their principles to accomodate realities beyond their ability to correct, and they knew it, too.
Each slave is counted as a fraction of a person (!?!) for determining representatives!?
Come on, even the supporters of slavery understood how basically nuts that was.
the floundering fathers were NOT idealogues.
They were practical men who understood that shit happens exactly as we understand it.