Why the Founding Fathers Don’t Get a Pass on Slavery

One of the constant criticisms I receive when discussing the role the founders played in promoting slavery in America is that we can’t judge people from the past by today’s standards. Yes, they founded a nation literally built on slavery while barely mentioning the word, but following established norms is the argument. Some go as far as to say they laid the groundwork for eradicating slavery, while in the case of Thomas Jefferson, for example, the opposite is true. The truth is, the founders were not all of one mind, and a variety of views on slavery existed. Even at America’s inception, slavery wasn’t simply the accepted and unquestioned norm. Some founders knew better, but ultimately they either compromised or were outvoted by those who were reaping the benefits of slavery.

I’ll start by discussing some of the founders that illustrated that slavery wasn’t simply accepted worldwide and in America when it was a fledgling nation. A dozen years before the United States Constitution went into effect in 1789, John Jay, when helping write the first Constitution for the State of New York, tried to abolish slavery but failed. In 1785, he and some friends formed the New York State Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves. He helped establish the New York African Free School to educate slaves and personally provided financial support throughout his lifetime.

In 1799, while Governor of New York, Jay passed an act requiring that all children born of slaves would be born free. You can accuse Jay of being gradual in some of his efforts. His father was one of the largest slave owners in New York, and John Jay personally owned slaves. He began a practice of buying young boys and freeing them after years of service after he considered he’d gotten a proper return.

I use Jay not as an example of perfection but as someone who knew slavery to be wrong, particularly the type of chattel slavery where children were born slaves, which was almost unique to America. In addition to serving as Governor of New York, John Jay was America’s first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

John Adams, the second President of the United States, was a founder with more than a few things to say about slavery.

Adams never owned slaves though ten of the first twelve Presidents did, eight while serving as President. His son, John Quincy Adams, the sixth President, was the other exception.

Adams recognized the economic advantages of slave ownership but felt morally constrained from owning slaves. He took great pride in refusing to own slaves, but as a private citizen or even President, he did little to convince others of his position. He was another gradualist who was in no rush to end slavery but is an example of those who knew slavery was wrong and wanted to see it end. In 1777, he advised Massachusetts legislators not to attempt to abolish slavery for fear of the ramifications. How much could he have been against slavery if he accepted it, I cannot say? I can say he unequivocally knew it was wrong, as did many others at the time.

A number of the founders had complicated relationships with slavery. Alexander Hamilton gained a reputation as an abolitionist but was less than dedicated to the cause and married the wealthy and slave-owning Eliza Schuyler. He also supported many of the compromises that allowed slavery to flourish in Southern states. Benjamin Franklin started as a slaveholder and believed black people were inferior until his friend Samuel Johnson took him to a school for black children. He learned that black people were not inferior but limited by a lack of education and opportunity. He ultimately became an advocate for ending slavery and wrote a public letter in 1789 calling for the training and education of freed slaves and petitioned Congress in 1790 unsuccessfully to end slavery.

While some of the founders can be called conflicted, others apologists, others did what they could to make slavery the basis on which the economy was built and being a conduit to their personal wealth. Much of how the nation’s vision regarding slavery was shaped by a battle between the founders from Virginia and South Carolina. Charleston was the nation’s largest port receiving African slaves and was economically dependent on the practice’s continuation. Virginia had the most slaves and was reliant on “natural increase” (I’ll get back to that shortly) for most of its slaves. Because of failure to rotate crops and other causes, tobacco was on the decline in Virginia, and they needed profits from the sale of their domestic slaves further South and West.

South Carolina founders like John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Pierce Butler successfully won protection from the Virginia contingent who wanted to end the International Slave Trade under the pretext it was on behalf of the human rights of the slaves. In the Constitution, Article One, Section Nine: Clause One, forbade the International Slave Trade ending for a minimum of twenty years to protect South Carolina’s interests. Meanwhile, the Virginia slave owners, led by Thomas Jefferson, made plans to rid themselves of the competition of imported slaves to prosper from the sale of domestic slaves without competition from South Carolina.

We now arrive at the part where no claim of prevailing standards can shield the founders, Jefferson in particular. A more detailed description of the “natural increase,” which was the foundation of their plans, would mention the forced breeding that slave women underwent to keep the profits flowing. In a letter from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, he noted the economics of slave breeding.

When the twenty years were up, Jefferson was then President. He had spent the year prior ensuring that the first day the International Slave Trade could be eliminated, January 1, 1808, it was gone. He said all the right words, talking about human rights, morality, and reputation. But this founder wasn’t striking a blow against slavery in America, which wouldn’t end for over 50 years, but creating a pathway to make himself and other Virginia and Maryland slave owners richer.

However slow John Adams and John Jay were to act and Hamilton willing to compromise, they weren’t as complicit as Jefferson in profiting from the often brutal practices designed to keep children’s flow to be sold. They included forced marriages or less formal relationships with bucks likely to produce bigger and stronger children who obtained better prices on the trading block—rape by the masters or their friends and family members. Laws were changed from what had been the British custom America had adopted to follow the mother’s bloodline, absolving white fathers of any responsibility for the children of slaves and making those children slaves as well.

Slave owners in Virginia and Maryland, made exporting slaves, many the product of slave breeding, a primary source of revenue. In Virginia, the sale of slaves surpassed tobacco as its primary export. Slave breeding was one of the most despicable and least advertised practices in American history, and the founders set it all in motion in the Constitution of the United States. Jefferson, who owned over 600 slaves cumulatively and only set two free during his lifetime, was more guilty than anyone. Slaves built his monuments to himself, the University of Virginia, and Monticello. Many of his slaves were sold to pay off the enormous debt he’d accumulated, establishing his legacy after his death.

Many historians have written about Jefferson and his complicated history with slavery. Many have tried to portray him as a benevolent slave owner though evidence exists he allowed the beating of the slave boys who worked in the nail factory at Monticello. Historian Edwin Betts withheld a letter proving Jefferson’s condoning the practice because of how his image would be harmed. The Jefferson family denied for decades that Jefferson fathered any of the children of slave Sally Hemings, his widow’s half-sister, until DNA evidence removed any doubt. The relationship is now mostly portrayed as consensual, never questioning how a 14-year-old slave girl could refuse?

When it comes to judging the founders, I reject the claim that they must be held to a lower standard because many people knew and did better. The founders changed laws to perpetrate different practices than the rest of the world and enshrined them in the Constitution. The man that gave us the flowing language of the Declaration practiced something else entirely. Read those words and try to say he didn’t know any better. The founders were men and therefore fallible; they also made choices, concessions, and deliberate plans to continue slavery. To those who say they cannot be judged, I’m afraid I have to disagree.

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This post was previously published on Black History Month 365.

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