The Founding Fathers and the Sin of Slavery

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

“In the inner-cities, where we have food deserts (zones where mainstream grocery outlets have removed their stores), those people have never experienced liberty.  They don’t know what liberty is, and from what they’ve been told, they don’t want it.”

The words by the black pastor from Ohio lingered in my mind.  I feared the task ahead of me may be more like teaching a person blind from birth the magnificence of the colors of a rainbow.

“They don’t know what they don’t know.”

The foundation of the difficulty of teaching liberty is that in a country based on liberty, of which its founding document says that “all men are created equal,” the slavery of a race of people continued for nearly one hundred years.

Early American movements towards abolishing slavery came as early as 1688 when Quakers in Pennsylvania condemned the practice, and urged the leadership of the Quaker church to assist in the elimination of slavery. The Society of Friends did not bring about any action by the establishment, but the petition brought the sin of slavery to the forefront of politics, and initiated a process that eventually led to the banning of slavery in Pennsylvania in 1780.

During the American Revolution, founders like Thomas Paine wrote about the importance of the United States abolishing slavery and freeing the slaves. The Quakers would once again lead the charge, while also joined by other evangelical Christian organizations, in the campaign against slavery, ramping up the effort after the Revolutionary War. With the help of Benjamin Franklin, a reorganized Society of Friends, led the charge. The movement eventually led to actions in all of the states toward the abolition of slavery.

George Mason refused to sign the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787 because it did not have a bill of rights, and because the Framers did not use the opportunity to require an abolition of slavery from every State if they were to remain in the union under the new government created by the Constitution.

Most of the delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in 1787 did not own slaves.  Of those who did, many were abolitionists, or would become abolitionists during their lifetime.

Slavery had been introduced to the English Colonies nearly two centuries before the Founders established independence and Thomas Jefferson penned his line about equality.

President of Congress Henry Laurens explained: “I abhor slavery. I was born in a country where slavery had been established by British Kings and Parliaments as well as by the laws of the country ages before my existence. . . . In former days there was no combating the prejudices of men supported by interest; the day, I hope, is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man will strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the Golden Rule” [“do unto others as you would have them do unto you” Matthew 7:12].

Attempts to dismantle the institution of slavery dot the history of the Colonies prior to the Revolutionary War, and the war itself became a major turning point in the attitude towards slavery.  If the revolutionaries were willing to fight against Great Britain for their own freedom, should not the slaves feel the same way and be given the opportunity to pursue their own liberty?

Many of the Founders did, in fact, lodge complaints against Britain for the policy of slavery imposed upon the Colonies.  Thomas Jefferson wrote, “He [King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. . . . Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [that is, he has opposed efforts to prohibit the slave trade].”

In a 1773 letter to Dean Woodward, Benjamin Franklin confirmed that whenever the Americans had attempted to end slavery, the British government had indeed thwarted those attempts.  “. . . a disposition to abolish slavery prevails in North America, that many of Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, and that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more into that colony. This request, however, will probably not be granted as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed.”

The Virginia Founders were not only not responsible for slavery, but actually tried to dismantle the institution.  John Quincy Adams wrote, “The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself [Jefferson]. No charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country [Great Britain] and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the Memoir of His Life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves.”

Thomas Jefferson actually introduced a bill designed to end slavery, but opposition was provided by the Founders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, who strongly favored slavery.

Despite the support for slavery in those States, the clear majority of the Founders opposed the sin of slavery.

Elias Boudinot, President of the Continental Congress, used the Bible to explain why slavery was a sin, and that America must shed the evil.  “[E]ven the sacred Scriptures had been quoted to justify this iniquitous traffic. It is true that the Egyptians held the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years, . . . but . . . gentlemen cannot forget the consequences that followed: they were delivered by a strong hand and stretched-out arm and it ought to be remembered that the Almighty Power that accomplished their deliverance is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

David Barton on his Wall Builders website explains that “Many of the Founding Fathers who had owned slaves as British citizens released them in the years following America’s separation from Great Britain (e.g., George Washington, John Dickinson, Caesar Rodney, William Livingston, George Wythe, John Randolph of Roanoke, and others). Furthermore, many of the Founders had never owned any slaves. For example, John Adams proclaimed, “[M]y opinion against it [slavery] has always been known . . . [N]ever in my life did I own a slave.”

Samuel Adams proclaimed, “But to the eye of reason, what can be more clear than that all men have an equal right to happiness? Nature made no other distinction than that of higher or lower degrees of power of mind and body. . . . Were the talents and virtues which Heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges? . . . No! In the judgment of heaven there is no other superiority among men than a superiority of wisdom and virtue.”

A signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, said, “[W]hy keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil.”

John Dickinson, a signer of the Constitution, and Governor of Pennsylvania, said, “As Congress is now to legislate for our extensive territory lately acquired, I pray to Heaven that they may build up the system of the government on the broad, strong, and sound principles of freedom. Curse not the inhabitants of those regions, and of the United States in general, with a permission to introduce bondage [slavery].”

Elder statesman Benjamin Franklin, signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, “I am glad to hear that the disposition against keeping negroes grows more general in North America. Several pieces have been lately printed here against the practice, and I hope in time it will be taken into consideration and suppressed by the legislature…That mankind are all formed by the same Almighty Being, alike objects of his care, and equally designed for the enjoyment of happiness, the Christian religion teaches us to believe, and the political creed of Americans fully coincides with the position. . . . [We] earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery – that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage and who . . . are groaning in servile subjection.”

“That men should pray and fight for their own freedom and yet keep others in slavery is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and perhaps impious, part.”  John Jay, President of Continental Congress, Original Chief Justice U. S. Supreme Court.

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. . . . And with what execration [curse] should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?  That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”  Thomas Jefferson

“Christianity, by introducing into Europe the truest principles of humanity, universal benevolence, and brotherly love, had happily abolished civil slavery. Let us who profess the same religion practice its precepts . . . by agreeing to this duty.” Richard Henry Lee, President of Continental Congress; Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

“I have seen it observed by a great writer that Christianity, by introducing into Europe the truest principles of humanity, universal benevolence, and brotherly love, had happily abolished civil slavery. Let us, who profess the same religion practice its precepts, and by agreeing to this duty convince the world that we know and practice our truest interests, and that we pay a proper regard to the dictates of justice and humanity!”  Richard Henry Lee, Signer of the Declaration, Framer of the Bill of Rights.

“I hope we shall at last, and if it so please God I hope it may be during my life time, see this cursed thing [slavery] taken out. . . . For my part, whether in a public station or a private capacity, I shall always be prompt to contribute my assistance towards effecting so desirable an event.” William Livingston, Signer of the Constitution; Governor of New Jersey.

“[I]t ought to be considered that national crimes can only be and frequently are punished in this world by national punishments; and that the continuance of the slave-trade, and thus giving it a national sanction and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of Him who is equally Lord of all and who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master.”  Luther Martin, Delegate at Constitution Convention.

“As much as I value a union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States into the Union unless they agree to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade [slavery].”  George Mason, Delegate at Constitutional Convention.

“Honored will that State be in the annals of history which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of mankind.”  Joseph Reed, Revolutionary Officer; Governor of Pennsylvania.

“Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. . . . It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men.”  Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration.

“The commerce in African slaves has breathed its last in Pennsylvania. I shall send you a copy of our late law respecting that trade as soon as it is published. I am encouraged by the success that has finally attended the exertions of the friends of universal freedom and justice.”  Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration, Founder of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, President of the National Abolition Movement.

“Justice and humanity require it [the end of slavery] – Christianity commands it. Let every benevolent . . . pray for the glorious period when the last slave who fights for freedom shall be restored to the possession of that inestimable right.”  Noah Webster, Responsible for Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution.

“Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over the life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law. . . . The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all.”  James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; U. S. Supreme Court Justice.

“[I]t is certainly unlawful to make inroads upon others . . . and take away their liberty by no better means than superior power.”  John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

In 1774, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush founded America’s first anti-slavery society; John Jay was president of a similar society in New York. In fact, when signer of the Constitution William Livingston heard of the New York society, he, as Governor of New Jersey, wrote them, offering:

“I would most ardently wish to become a member of it [the society in New York] and . . . I can safely promise them that neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity. . . . May the great and the equal Father of the human race, who has expressly declared His abhorrence of oppression, and that He is no respecter of persons, succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.”

Other prominent Founding Fathers who were members of societies for ending slavery included Richard Bassett, James Madison, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll, William Few, John Marshall, Richard Stockton, Zephaniah Swift, and many more. In fact, based in part on the efforts of these Founders, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts began abolishing slavery in 1780; Connecticut and Rhode Island did so in 1784; Vermont in 1786; New Hampshire in 1792; New York in 1799; and New Jersey did so in 1804.

By 1804, as a result of the activism by the abolitionists, legislation had been passed that would eventually lead to the emancipation of slaves in every State north of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon Line.  That legislation kept slavery out of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa.  The Congressional act was authored by Constitution signer Rufus King and signed into law by President George Washington. It is not surprising that Washington would sign such a law, for it was he who had declared, “I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery].”

While the U.S. Constitution did not abolish slavery, it did begin the process.  Article I, Section 9 established that as of 1808, Congress had the authority to outlaw America’s participation in the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Missouri petitioned to become a state in 1818 twice.  By 1819 the debate over Missouri was in full swing.  New York Representative James Tallmadge proposed an amendment to the Missouri statehood bill requiring Missouri to halt the further introduction of slaves to the territory and to provide for the gradual emancipation of the slaves already there.  After much debate, Missouri rejected anti-slave rhetoric, and a compromise arose from the arguments. On March 3, 1820 Maine was admitted to the U.S. as a free state, and Missouri was then admitted to the U.S. as a slave state.  A few months later, on July 1, 1820, at a convention in St. Louis, Missouri passed a pro-slave state constitution.  Missouri was officially admitted to the Union on August 10, 1821.  As a result of the debates regarding Missouri, The Missouri Compromise was passed.  It was an effort by Congress to appease the slave States who feared being overpowered by non-slave States through congressional representation and the Electoral College, and the northern States who did not wish to see slave States added to the union without a non-slave State being added at the same time.  After the admittance of Maine and Missouri, the United States contained twenty-two States, evenly divided between slave and free.

The concept of attempting to keep the voting power in Congress even between slave an non-slave States goes all the way back to the framing of the United States Constitution.  In the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, as a compromise to keep both the north and the south willing to ratify the new constitution, in Article I, Section 2 the delegates established the Three-Fifths Clause.

Opponents of the U.S. Constitution, in an effort to revise history and show the Framers to be nothing more than a bunch of racists, claim the Three-Fifths Clause demonstrates that the Founders considered one who was black to be only three-fifths of a person.  In reality, the clause was designed to reduce the voting power of the pro-slave southern States in the House of Representatives, while convincing them it was a move based on fairness.

The Framers understood that if the U.S. Constitution was to outlaw slavery with a blanket clause, the Southern States would not remain in the union.  The Southern States served as a buffer against the Spanish Empire who was nearby to the south in Florida.  The Framers, while largely against slavery, believed that even the southern States would eventually abolish slavery voluntarily, and likely within the lifetimes of those who were delegates in the convention of 1787.  Besides, a blanket ban of slavery would go against the very purpose of creating a system based on the concept of limited government.

The purpose of the creation of the federal government was so that it could handle external issues, and issues regarding protecting, preserving, and promoting the union.  To guard against the potential of tyranny, however, all local issues were reserved for the local governments.  Slavery was considered a State issue, therefore, to remain consistent with the original intent of the U.S. Constitution, the States would be left with the opportunity to abolish slavery themselves.

While the Framers were willing to make a compromise to keep the pro-slave States in the union with the Three-Fifths Clause (giving some enumeration towards representation based on slave population), the clause also denied the Southern States from having representation based on the whole number of slaves in their population.  In short, the Three-Fifths Clause was a mathematical calculation, giving the Southern States some representation in Congress based on their slave population so that they would be willing to ratify the Constitution, but restricting those States’ political power so that they could not dominate the House of Representatives, and succeed in spreading slavery further.

The Three-Fifths Clause only applied to slaves, and not to free blacks in either the North or South.

Despite the efforts of the Founding Fathers to usher in the abolition of slavery, in the United States slavery remained legal until the ratification of the 13th Amendment following the War Between the States.

By the middle of the 19th century the abolition movement had grown to the point that Northern abolitionists controlled the House of Representatives. In 1850, California was admitted to the Union, and for the first time the number of free states (16) exceeded the number of slave states (15). Also, as a part of the Compromise of 1850, the District of Columbia banned the slave trade.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a part of the compromise of 1850, along with admission of California as a free state.  In order to convince The South to allow the number of free States to outnumber the number of slave States, along with the prohibition of slave trading in the District of Columbia, certain concessions were given to slaveholding in Texas, and the law was written to further enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, of which northern States had been ignoring because they considered the law to be unjust.  Northern states had been passing "personal liberty laws" which was not only designed to keep free blacks from being kidnapped into slavery, but to disallow escaped slaves from being returned to the South.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was put into place to enforce Article 4, Section 2 of the United States Constitution which required the return of runaway slaves to their owners.  The purpose was to compel the authorities in free States to return fugitive slaves to their masters by making it illegal for law enforcement not to arrest escaped slaves and ensure their return to their masters.  The need for the law was induced by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1842, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, which stated States did not have to offer aid in the hunting or recapture of slaves.

The laws were seen by Northerners as making them, and their institutions, responsible for enforcing slavery. In 1854 the Wisconsin State Supreme Court went so far as to declare the law unconstitutional, of which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned in 1859. Those involved with the "underground railroad," and other activities to bring slaves to freedom, like Harriet Tubman, treated the Fugitive Slave Law as just another complication in their activities, and a complication that made them simply change the destination of the runaway slaves to the neighboring country of Canada.

The American Civil War, while slavery was an integral ingredient, was not initially waged solely regarding slavery.  The Southern States were in retaliation against the federal government for attempting to impose its wishes on the pro-slavery States without their permission.

Long before the American Civil War, before the United States was even a sovereign union, General Stark's Revolutionary War cry was, "Live free or die!"

The Southern States believed it was their right to do with slavery as they pleased, so the War Between the States began on the claim that it was a war regarding “States’ Rights.”  The Southern States believed that if the federal government was going to impose its wishes that they abolish slavery upon them, then they were not truly free.  Slavery was considered a lifestyle that they chose to follow, and it was none of the federal government’s business if they chose to live that way.

Slavery had already been abolished in Europe.  Spain abolished slavery both in the motherland, and its colonies, in 1811.  In 1813, Sweden banned slave trading.  The Netherlands followed suit in 1814.  France banned slave trading in 1817, but the ban did not officially go into effect until 1826.  France eventually banned slavery completely in 1848.  In 1833, Britain passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, ordering gradual abolition of slavery in all British colonies.  Shortly after that, Great Britain and Spain signed a treaty prohibiting the slave trade.  Denmark proclaimed the emancipation of slaves in the Danish West Indies, and ultimately abolishing slavery in all of their colonies, in 1846.  In 1858 Portugal abolished slavery in all of its colonies.  Portugal had withdrawn from the slave trade north of the equator in 1819.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States on November 6, 1860; despite not being on the ballot in the pro-slavery States.  The Southern States were alarmed by his election, and the rapid rise to domination of the new Republican Party in Congress.  The Republican Party had been birthed on March 20, 1854, and in half of a decade, using a platform opposing slavery, had risen to the point that the Grand Ol’ Party was in majority control of both Houses of the federal legislature, and the White House.  Between Lincoln’s election, and his inauguration in March of 1861, eleven Southern States seceded from the union.  As an interesting note, in two of the States that wound up seceding, Lincoln was victorious during the election of 1860.  Those States were Virginia and Tennessee.

South Carolina was the first State to secede, making their separation from the union official on December 20, 1860.  Fort Sumter, a military base in South Carolina, remained in union hands despite the secession, and Lincoln’s government refused to abandon the base.  Confederate forces bombarded the location on April 12, 1861, launching the American Civil War.

The countries of Europe, though they had all abolished slavery prior to the commencement of the War Between the States, largely supported the Confederate States of America because the cheap labor provided by slavery kept the prices of the goods coming out of the Southern States low, and from an economic standpoint, the lower prices were preferred.

To protect the Confederacy from invasion by The North by way other than land forces in the interior, European vessels blockaded the northern fleet away from the shores of the Confederate States.

Recognizing the necessity to remove the European countries from the war, Abraham Lincoln used a brilliant political move.  While the war, according to the Southern States, was about States’ Rights, and Northern Aggression, Lincoln knew that if the war was solely about slavery the citizens in Europe would demand their political leaders to withdraw their aid to the Confederacy.  The political move to accomplish his aim was called The Emancipation Proclamation.  Once the Emancipation Proclamation was offered, as expected, the citizens in Europe rose up in protest, and the European fleets were withdrawn.

Any hope by the Confederate States of America to gain official recognition internationally as a sovereign country was dashed by the Emancipation Proclamation, and now any and all slaves who escaped to union forces were considered free, and would be protected by union forces.

The Confederacy was also down to ten States, at this point, as Tennessee had been captured by the union and fully occupied.

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in November 1863 made indirect reference to the Proclamation, which made ending slavery the primary war goal.  Lincoln used the phrase "new birth of freedom", solidifying Lincoln's support among his fellow Republicans. 

Technically, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free all of the slaves, and the abolitionists were concerned that the emancipation of the slaves would no longer be applied after the end of the war.  Therefore, Lincoln campaigned during his 1864 presidential reelection bid on a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery uniformly throughout the United States.  After Lincoln's win in November of 1864, slave States that had not seceded, nor joined the confederacy, began to abolish slavery on their own.  Maryland's new constitution abolishing slavery took effect in November 1864. Slavery in Missouri was ended by executive proclamation of its governor, Thomas C. Fletcher, on January 11, 1865.

The Declaration of Independence declares "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . "

When those iconic words were written, were some men more equal than others? With their cry for liberty, how could the men of that era live with their choice to enslave fellow members of humanity?

It is reasonable that these questions weighed heavily on the minds of the founders, and that the abolition movement found its roots in those very thoughts.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary