Failures and Reparations: Slavery and the American Revolution

Yes, the Founding Fathers caved on slavery. The concession to certain southern colonies on the issue of slavery was made primarily to keep those colonies from jumping ship on declaring war against England. Because those southern leaders depended on slavery to keep their economies going, they wanted it preserved.

Thomas Jefferson’s original Declaration of Independence included a paragraph condemning slavery as a “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a…