This Don't Seem Right!

Yummy! Hotdogs stuffed with applesauce!

(Typical shop class letter opener at School #91)

I think most Americans know that many of our Founding Fathers had slaves. Eight of our early presidents owned slaves, even while they were running our newly minted, supposedly freedom-loving country.

Should our reaction to this fact be that a lot of people owned slaves back then, and after all, it was legal? Or should we argue instead that anyone with half a brain and a shred of human decency would have recognized the hideous immorality of it all, even back in 1790?

There was already a large and vocal opposition to slavery, so why weren’t George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton smart enough - or moral enough - to do the right thing?