We are all born into circumstances over which we have no control. There are genetics, financial resources, family assets, a prevailing culture and legal system, a religious theme in the household (or not). It is often called "The Birth Lottery." Some win, some lose, but most get a mixed bag.
Many of the Founding Fathers were born into a culture where chattel slaves were an economic and personal fact. Neither they nor their parents nor their relatives and friends considered ownership and exploitation of slaves to be "evil." Indeed, I have no doubt that from birth they were all uniformly taught that the slaves were inferior human beings (maybe less than human) whose lives would be much, much worse had they not been removed from their ancestral homes in Africa, and to take proper care of one's slaves was a virtuous thing. Their ministers and preachers reinforced this message continually, and they collectively had no doubt of the truth of it.
To reject slavery for moral reasons would have bankrupted each and every one of them who freed his slaves, and would have made the Emancipator a pariah among his peers. None of the plantations generated sufficient revenue to compensate paid farmhands, even if a sufficient supply of them could be found - which they manifestly could not.
To sit here comfortably, three hundred years later and condemn these men for not having freed their slaves is irrational, unfair, and preposterous. Slave owning did not define them, just as an adulterous relationship does not define a contemporary married person. We are the sum of all of our actions and influences. Take off a few points if you like for the slave owners, but to deny their greatness is arrogant and vacuous.
Nobody is without faults, either today or in the past. Which is worse, owning and keeping slaves, or fathering children and abandoning them? What about seeing this going on all around and doing nothing to stop it?
Your virtue is bullshit.
Many of the Founding Fathers were born into a culture where chattel slaves were an economic and personal fact. Neither they nor their parents nor their relatives and friends considered ownership and exploitation of slaves to be "evil." Indeed, I have no doubt that from birth they were all uniformly taught that the slaves were inferior human beings (maybe less than human) whose lives would be much, much worse had they not been removed from their ancestral homes in Africa, and to take proper care of one's slaves was a virtuous thing. Their ministers and preachers reinforced this message continually, and they collectively had no doubt of the truth of it.
To reject slavery for moral reasons would have bankrupted each and every one of them who freed his slaves, and would have made the Emancipator a pariah among his peers. None of the plantations generated sufficient revenue to compensate paid farmhands, even if a sufficient supply of them could be found - which they manifestly could not.
To sit here comfortably, three hundred years later and condemn these men for not having freed their slaves is irrational, unfair, and preposterous. Slave owning did not define them, just as an adulterous relationship does not define a contemporary married person. We are the sum of all of our actions and influences. Take off a few points if you like for the slave owners, but to deny their greatness is arrogant and vacuous.
Nobody is without faults, either today or in the past. Which is worse, owning and keeping slaves, or fathering children and abandoning them? What about seeing this going on all around and doing nothing to stop it?
Your virtue is bullshit.
