All language subtitles for The Founding Fathers & Slavery- America’s Greatest Historical Paradox - Full Documentary

It is one of the most vexing questions
of the revolutionary era, why so many of

our great founders were simultaneously
slavers.

How can people who spoke words like all
men are created equal still hold

hundreds of thousands of people in
bondage?

All men are created equal. What does
Thomas Jefferson really mean by it?

Most people of this generation
understood that this was contradictory.

So the truth is that among the major
southern founders, most of them are

owners. George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry,

George Mason, on and on and on.

So there is a contradiction.

This fundamental.

between liberty and slavery.

America's founding fathers championed
the causes of both liberty and slavery

during their lifetimes.

But to better understand this paradox we
first need to travel back in time to

examine why so many people were willing
to come to America.

Part of our tradition in this country
that is really historically quite

is that people come to the colonies
seeking greater freedom.

The great European immigration had to do
with religious freedom, it had to do

with economic freedom, it had to do with
economic opportunity.

It felt to them like the land of
promise.

You hear the concept of God, gold, and
glory.

People that in England would never,
never have been landowners were becoming

landowners in the New World.

And they had that first beginnings of
the American dream.

Their general perspective on coming to
the colonies varied based on where they

were going.

If you're talking Virginia, it's a
company that founds Virginia, and

looking for that gold that the Spanish
had found in Latin America, and that

eventually turns out to be tobacco.

If you're talking New England colonies,
you're talking the Puritans, and they're

coming because they're being religiously
persecuted in England.

The religious situation in Europe was
very difficult.

There was a lot of refugees coming out
of Europe because of the conflicts

associated with the Reformation, which
began in the 1510s in Germany with

Luther. This ends up driving a lot of
the colonists to America.

You have people who have suffered under
the wars of religion that took place in

the 17...

And they're trying to find a space where
they can practice their faith without

that kind of danger.

But you also then had the problem of the
state -approved church and then the

quote -unquote nonconformist. There were
all kinds of persecutions at various

levels. Their preachers were not allowed
to preach because they were not state

approved. It was called the Great
Ejection, where they were ejected from

pulpits and from their livelihoods. And
their congregations, in some cases, were

not allowed to assemble.

But, I mean, it went beyond that. In the
space of just a couple of days,

hundreds of ministers in Scotland lost
their life. There were cases of them

being drowned and of them being burned.

The Puritans left England beginning in
1630 in giant numbers. The pilgrims had

come before them ten years earlier in a
ship. They came in fleets. One

Englishman talked about standing at the
dock and seeing these fleets of ships

leaving for the New World with the
Puritans aboard and saying, it appears

all of England is emptying itself.

John Windsor was the first governor of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and in a

famous address that he gave, on the boat
coming over from England to

Massachusetts. He refers to the idea
that the Massachusetts colony, and of

course later on this was applied to
America more generally, that the colony

would be a city on a hill.

They said the eyes of all people are
upon us.

They're watching what we're doing.

And people in England, people in Europe,
know that we are going with these great

ambitions to set up a colony in the way
that God has called us to do.

And they will be ready to mock us if we
fail in this great calling.

And so he was calling, I think, the
colonists of Massachusetts, at least, to

great kind of moral accountability.

A hundred years before the founders,
John Winthrop and Christianity were

a profound influence on early American
culture.

But if this is true, how did an
institution like slavery ever get a

America?

Enflame it as an institution as old as
civilization itself.

You can find it in the Bible. You can
find it in ancient African society.

You can find it in Asian society, Greek,
Roman society.

It's not seriously questioned until the
last 250 years of human history.

And if you think about that timeline,
you're looking at 10 ,000 years, and you

have just this little tiny sliver of
time that it's suddenly unconscionable.

Once you got into America, slavery is
different than it is in any other part

the world.

We call it chattel slavery.

It is based off of race, skin color.

What's so unusual about the
transatlantic slave trade is the racial

It's the only time in the history of
slavery that slaves have been defined in

terms of racial construction.

If you look in the Roman period, for
example, you have great diversity of

origins among slaves.

From the 16th century on, slavery is
increasingly associated with Africans.

And that's very unusual in human
history.

The Atlantic slave trade is really very
misunderstood.

Slaves were basically captured in
African wars by other Africans, or were

captured explicitly for the slave trade
by African merchants on the coast.

who went to the interior, who then
marched their charges, most of whom were

to the coast, and then these African
merchants sold them to European flavors.

The first Africans that are brought in
on record are 1619 or when 20 people

brought in. They are brought in
indentured. Indentured servants are

work for a time period, and then they're
given their freedom.

Indentured servitude began because there
was a system in place in England. You

had the serfs, you had the fives, the
upper class were certainly owning the

farms.

Indentured servants signed a very large
contract. It was torn in half.

They kept half.

The person they were working for kept
half.

And when you finish your servitude, you
put that contract back together, and

that's how you got out of your
servitude.

In that document, you would receive a
plot of land.

And so you know from the beginning
there's an end point.

With enslavement, there is no end point.
You're going to be an enslaved person

of color. Your kid's going to be
enslaved.

Their kids are going to be enslaved.

There's not an end point.

Over a period of time, those who wanted
to come to the New World under the

indentured servant process pretty much
came.

And it became harder and harder to find
folks that were willing to come over or

wanting to come over.

And so that left somewhat of a vacuum of
a labor supply for the New World.

Slavery is an institution that develops
over time in the colonies. The first law

in Virginia is created in 1660 that
changes indentured servitude to slavery.

Over a period of 350 years, we've got
fairly good data on the distribution

of enslaved peoples.

as they arrive in the Americas. 45 %
went to Brazil. About another 40 % went

islands in the Caribbean.

And another 10 or 11 % arrive in what's
called the Spanish Circle Caribbean.

That means that 3 % of the total slave
trade terminated in

North America, on the North American
mainland.

We know slave ships were horrible
experiences for enslaved people.

You would have someone laying on top of
you. Where you went to the bathroom is

where you sat.

If someone got sick next to you, you
would most likely get sick also.

There's cases where whole boats would
catch pink eye. There was no cure,

obviously, so you would go blind.

So slave ship captains would line those
enslaved people up and throw them

overboard. There was rumors that sharks
would follow behind these boats on a

daily basis because there was a meal
always waiting for them. But yet we gave

them names like the grace of God, good
intent.

There were probably four Africans
carried across the Atlantic for every

European before 1820.

That gives you some idea of the scale of
the operation.

Just about any port that sent voyagers
on long -distance ventures around the

Atlantic world had a stake in the
transatlantic slave trade.

In the 1700s, Charleston was a major
port of entry for enslaved Africans.

Upwards of 40 % of the Africans who came
into America came in through the

port of Charleston.

If you're doing rice in South Carolina,
people of African descent brought the

technology, the hydrology, all of the
skills to do the rice industry came out

Africa. Rice, sugar.

It was grown in all parts of Africa.

When you go into the low country and you
see those rice fields, Drayton

Plantation in Charleston, South
Carolina, and others, you have to flood

land, un -flood the land. There's canal
systems that go through these rice

fields. Africans were very aware of how
to do this, and Europeans knew that, and

they were going in to get those people.

In slavery, they had what they referred
to as field hands and house hands.

My understanding, what was told to me,
is that my ancestors were the house

hands. And I always explain whenever I'm
questioned, why do you involve yourself

with the place that was once a
plantation that had your ancestors

That is a part of my history.

And to take that out, then I am
disregarding my ancestors, and they have

too much in terms of...

blood, sweat, and tears to do that.

It's not a single choice. No decision
maker says, let's establish chattel

slavery on the continent of North
America.

It happens gradually, starting in the
17th century, and tobacco becomes a cash

crop in the Upper South.

A condition, an economic and racial and
social condition gets created that's

there by the time you get to the middle
of the 18th century.

When you see Drayton Hall, it's
important to remember that this

established in 1738.

We think the house was completed by the
early 1750s.

1738, George Washington was six years
old.

Thomas Jefferson had not been born.

When you see a site like Drayton Hall,
this in a way establishes the...

basis for plantations in which many of
these founding fathers grow up.

By the mid -18th century, all of
America's founding fathers had arrived

scene. But in critiquing their lives,
How much consideration, if any, should

given to the slave culture into which
the founders were born?

Slavery, even in the 18th century, was
without a doubt the most important

institution in America.

It is the institution that shaped not
only the Southern agrarian way, but also

the trade in the North. It is really
what makes possible the optimism of

America.

Slave labor is essential to what was
being produced in the American colonies

the time. Without slave labor, the
economy falls.

It's almost like gasoline. If we lost
gasoline as a fuel today, would our

economy stop?

Absolutely.

George Washington was born and always
lived in a society, in a culture,

in a place.

where slavery was the norm.

Slaves had combed his hair. Slaves had
dressed him. Slaves had put on his coats

in the morning and brought him his
chocolate and his tea.

That was the life he lived in.

It was a common way of transferring
assets from one generation to another to

give slaves, along with land. And
Jefferson inherited some 50 slaves from

mother and father.

He also inherited notions of slavery as
a despotic, cruel, ugly institution.

He referred to slavery as unremitting
despotism and described a scene from his

childhood where he had seen a parent
abusing a slave. He didn't say whipping,

but he said giving vent to passions
against a slave. And he could see how

power of slavery turned slave masters
into very, very cruel people.

There's some really interesting stories
that James Madison Jr., the president,

is going to grow up with.

Probably the most affecting is that his
grandfather, Ambrose Madison, who

started this plantation in 1723, was
murdered by slaves. He was poisoned.

about how you might change your persona
as a

master, right, if you knew that your
grandfather was murdered just

20 years ago by the same slaves who are
still living here.

Slavery had a very, very strong
psychological component.

If you had a whole class of highly
skilled artisans and household servants,

you did not want to beat those people to
get them to work. You wanted them to

work willingly.

And Ben Franklin actually talked about
this. He said that one of the most

important things that a slave actually
owned was his goodwill, and he could

direct his goodwill where he pleased.

And if you could win the slave's
goodwill by a few cheap favors and some

kindnesses, then you would get a lot
more work out of him than if you abused

him. That brand of slavery existed
alongside the crueler, whip -driven

slavery.

One of the things about the New World is
this misconception that everyone had

enslaved people.

And that's simply not true.

The vast majority of people did not own
enslaved people.

just like all the way up to the American
Civil War.

And also, not everybody had these huge
plantations where they had 100 enslaved

people. Most people had one enslaved
person.

It was very rare that someone had over
20 enslaved people during the American

colonies. It did happen, but it was
rare.

John Adams never had slaves. This is
something that the family was very proud

of. He was a farmer.

At one point, he had 140 acres of land
as a young lawyer before he went off to

the Continental Congress.

And he even writes about how he could
have saved a lot of money if he had

slaves. But he wouldn't do that because
he morally did not believe in slavery.

Sam and John Adams were both among the
first American revolutionaries who

truly did understand the contradiction.

between Americans' commitment to liberty
and the ownership of slaves.

Now, of course, it was much easier for
the political leaders of Massachusetts,

where slaves constituted an
infinitesimal part of the population,

it was for political leaders in Virginia
or South Carolina to do so.

America's 18th century world was full of
slavery, with many founders being slave

owners themselves.

So why is it that America's founding
fathers are still considered such great

of liberty?

It was a unique time period in the
formation of any nation that there were

many like -minded men willing to have
these conversations about what does self

-governance mean, that were able to join
forces and envision together.

a government that we now call the United
States of America.

Their writings, their thoughts, their
ideas impacted not only our nation, but

the whole world. The idea of democracy,
the idea of people being free.

The liberty or death speech comes in
March 1775.

The colonies are aware that likely
within weeks they are going to be facing

invasion by the British.

to come and arrest the leaders of the
resistance movement among the patriots.

Patrick Henry had been involved in the
resistance movement for 10 years with

George Washington and, to a lesser
extent, Jefferson and Madison.

And there was a motion in the convention
to try one more time to petition the

king for political relief.

And so Henry took the floor of the
convention and he says, look, I've been

involved in this movement now for a long
time.

Now is the time for us to take courage
and begin to prepare for war.

At the end of the speech, he says, I
know not what course others may take,

as for me, give me liberty or give me
death.

And I think that the delegates really
knew that there was no other way than to

take up arms against the British.

He helped make what was begun as a
conflict between political

leaders. in America and political
leaders in Great Britain, a conflict

all of the American people.

The members of the Continental Congress,
particularly those who promoted the

independence movement and signed the
Declaration of Independence, understood

what could happen to them if they were
captured and treated as traitors by the

British government, which was brawling
and quartering. The victim, he would be

disemboweled very slowly.

one body part removed after another.

Then his body would be cut in four
pieces and his head would be mounted on

stake. They understood that could be
their fate.

The founders gave us our independence.

They won a war against the most powerful
military in the world.

The Founders gave us the ideals that
defined and continue to define our

Those early years are a fragile time in
American history. It wasn't a foregone

conclusion that the experiment in
governance would succeed, that it would

ultimately lead to the United States of
America that we have today.

Another question to pose is why these
particular men who were slave owners and

not all the others who were slave owners
who would become loyalists, why do

these particular men take the risks they
do to try to establish this new

country? It's easy to understand why
somebody would reject the revolution who

was in Washington's position.

He had a lot to lose.

He had a lot of property. He had a very
high rank in society.

I mean, it's really extraordinary that
they do what they do.

The more you study George Washington,
the more you admire him. You discover

personal courage, his rectitude, his
devotion to the country, his moral

and his incredible, firm sense of
justice.

Jefferson said of Washington that his
sense of justice was the most inflexible

that Jefferson had ever seen.

George Washington was a moral leader. He
was a spiritual leader.

He accepted the leadership of the
Continental Army and refused to be paid

his service. He felt that that was his
obligation to his colony and eventually

his country to serve in such a capacity.

Jefferson would have to rank as one of
the greatest intellects.

of all time in modern times.

So he had this power, he had this
charisma that influences this moment.

He's the one who wrote the most famous
words in American history, we hold these

truths to be self -evident, that are the
core of the political catechism and

eventually become the basis for the 14th
Amendment and for civil rights

legislation.

The list of John Adams' accomplishments
in founding the United States are pretty

lengthy. If we look at that famous cast,
he's not a soldier like George

Washington. He's not a writer and editor
like Thomas Jefferson.

But John Adams is a talker. He can talk
his way in and through most situations.

And it's for this reason that he's given
diplomatic commission after commission.

John Adams had a role in the proceedings
in writing the Declaration of

Independence and making that happen.

This was a huge feat for this body of
men now to

write this document to the King of
England and articulate all of the

the colonies were declaring
independence.

And they had to get 13 separate colonies
to agree.

on separation from Great Britain. All
these different people who were coming

together for one reason, to declare
independence.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were two
of the lead figures in that group, and

Benjamin Franklin.

And John Adams suggested that Thomas
Jefferson have the assignment of writing

the Declaration of Independence.

The fact that Jefferson, with Adams'
choice to write it, because he's a

Virginian and he's an excellent writer,
and...

He can write it in less than 20 days.

It's impressive.

Ben Franklin is there for so many of the
important moments of the American

founding. He's a diplomat, and he's, of
course, there at the Constitutional

Convention.

Once Americans had declared their
independence, he went back to France and

helped negotiate with the French
government vitally important French

to the American military effort.

I think James Madison, being the father
of the Constitution, he had to do not

only the intellectual work, he also
knows that sometimes you do the best you

and you make compromises. We would not
have the Constitution we have today if

hadn't been for someone who was both a
romantic and a pragmatic.

When he is drafting the Bill of Rights,
he's going to call for the freedom of

religion, followed by the freedom of
speech, press, assembly, petition.

Well, there's a reason religion is
first, because without the freedom to

believe, without the freedom to think,
the rest of those rights really have no

meaning. So I kind of love the fact that
our Bill of Rights starts with the

ability to think freely.

You have many great contributors to the
democratic DNA of the country today. As

Benjamin Franklin was to Jefferson, so
is Madison to Monroe, and all these...

links of friendship and shared
institutions were this fabric that knit

together, that gave it strength, and I
think this ability, the political will,

to pull off almost the impossible, which
was the Declaration of Independence,

the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.

America's founding fathers expanded
liberty in ways that the world had never

seen before.

So how is it possible that these men of
liberty could also be deeply involved in

slavery?

You can't understand the founding
fathers' notions of liberty without

that those definitions of liberty were
shaped because every day they saw the

lack of liberty in the people they held
in bondage.

When you look at the founding fathers,
we can never take away what they set up

for our country.

But yet we should never forget that they
held enslaved people and allowed for

this country in total to have 4 million
enslaved people by the time of the

American Civil War, which we are all
still benefiting from today because that

enslaved labor was worth about $80 to
$90 billion in today's money.

We fought a war for freedom from England
while holding another people group in

bondage. How do you justify that?

Without founding fathers, I would say
they had slaves because it was property,

and property equals money.

All the American colonists, whether they
owned slaves or not, were complicit in

it. Certainly Benjamin Franklin, who
owned two slaves during his life, was

complicit because he advertised slaves
regularly in the Pennsylvania Gazette

therefore made money over the sale of
slaves.

There's a letter that Abigail Adams
sends to John. It's March 1776. The

have just evacuated Boston.

And Abigail is concerned about the
Virginia militia and how true they'll be

the Patriot cause.

And what Abigail says is, if they won't
grant liberty within their own

households in the South, how will they
promote it for all of us and create an

American republic?

One of the paradoxes of the Liberty of S
speech is the fact that here is a

slaveholder speaking to other
slaveholders about not only speaking

to other slaveholders, in the speech
itself, using the language of slavery.

Henry, by all accounts, was...

physically dramatic in the closing
phrases of the liberty or death speech

he talks about how the king and
parliament are going to manacle the

colonies with chains of slavery.

And he's supposed to have put his arms
out like this as though he were an

enslaved man and then dropped them as
though the chains broke.

If parliament can do all these things,
the ultimate...

situation is that it's going to force us
into political slavery.

At the founding, at the moment of our
birth as a nation, 20 % of the total

population in 1776 is African American.

And 90 % of them are residents south of
the Potomac and are slaves.

George Washington came to believe that
slavery was almost inevitable.

He regretted it.

He deeply regretted that that was how
the South had developed.

But that was how the South had
developed, and that was the basis for

Southern economy.

And the South had these large
percentages, 50 % or more black enslaved

population. And he believed that if
those people were freed abruptly, what

they do? Where would they go?

How would they act?

Given those constraints, he thought the
South was trapped.

In his lifetime, Jefferson owned more
than 600 slaves.

At any one time at Monticello, there
were probably around 100 to 115

slaves. The top number of slaves was
about 140.

At the end of his life, Washington
himself owned about 123 slaves. There

360 slaves in all at Mount Vernon.

Washington spying slaves.

He works them hard and he pursues them
when they run away.

He doesn't question the institution in a
moral way. At least there's no evidence

that he does before the revolution.

When he calls, finally, as president, to
adopt a bill of rights, he

writes a collection of amendments he's
willing to endorse and advocate to give

rights to free men.

He doesn't say to human beings. He
doesn't say to all people. He talks

And so he envisioned a difference. He
envisioned a class -structured, racially

divided society.

And he would think that taking away the
right to own slaves would be

an act of tyranny.

We have to remember that the 18th
century looks so different from our

world that it sometimes is difficult for
us to comprehend their daily life.

Everybody existed in a hierarchical
relationship of some kind.

There was husband -wife, parent -child,
master -servant, master -slave.

And everybody identified themselves
within these hierarchies. And this was

way the early modern world worked. And
slavery was another unequal relationship

amongst many.

In that period, we can really begin to
see...

A rather unsettling truth about slavery
emerged, something that we don't really

quite grasp today, is that slaves were
money. They were a form of cash, and you

could use them to pay off your debts,
and you could use them to transfer

to family members.

When Jefferson wanted to raise cash to
expand Monticello in the 1790s, he

mortgaged 150 of his slaves to a Dutch
banking house and essentially took out

what we might think of as a slave equity
loan.

The Dutch bankers opened a $2 ,000 line
of credit for him in Philadelphia, and

that's what he used to rebuild
Monticello.

In 1792, he drew up a profit and loss
memo, and he wrote down a formula. He

said that the slave population increased
at the rate of 4 % a year, and he

included that 4 % increase under the
profit column in his memo.

It was a...

Really very cold calculation.

He was counting the babies, literally,
and realizing that this increase in

population was increasing his capital
assets.

And this was a view he continued to hold
for his entire lifetime.

These men, in fact, became princes. And
you need these

things, not humans, to follow without

any question.

And it supported a lifestyle of James
Madison, of George Washington, and so

In the final years of the Revolutionary
War, Jefferson began writing what would

become his only book, Notes on the State
of Virginia. He wrote it in response to

questions from a Frenchman.

inquiring what this new nation would be
like and what it consisted of. And

Jefferson, even though he hadn't been
asked, wrote a long section about

slave law, and African Americans in
general.

This was a period in which people like
Jefferson were really trying to figure

out what race was, what kind of
differences there actually existed

people. The notes on the state of
Virginia is the product of him.

trying to figure out whether enslaved
African Americans were naturally

or whether their centuries of
enslavement had reduced them to this

inferior state.

First of all, we look like and smell
like orangutans.

We can't think. We can't create.

We are human.

And we don't have the capacity to do
anything but provide labor.

He said that they were wonderful
singers, they understood music, but they

not write poetry, they could not put
together a story, that their memories

defective, they couldn't remember things
very long, which actually sort of

fitted them for slavery because, he
said, their griefs are transient.

I mean, they forget from one week to the
next what was done to them.

He kind of paints himself into this
intellectual corner in which slavery

for blacks because they're sort of
naturally slaves, that they can never be

citizens, they can never be free men in
the same way as white men.

It's an old position. It's a position
you might see in Aristotle, talking

some peoples are naturally slaves.

But he's doing it in what we would call
kind of a pseudoscientific racism.

There are some interpretations that say
that he...

developed that strong, very offensive
language as a warning.

He knew people like himself were
engaging in interracial sex with

women. And he really thought that this
was going to ruin the homogenized

of the nation that he really held very
dear.

Enslaved women were subject to unwanted
sexual advances from masters,

and a lot of children were produced.

Through these liaisons, one way to
maintain control over enslaved people is

not only use physical violence of
whipping, but the sexual violence of

threatened rape.

Some passages were so offensive and so
nasty as to sort of warn his

fellow planters that you're engaging in
sex with an animal, so don't do it.

There is a certain hypocrisy in the
center of Jefferson's life because One

the arguments he makes is that I cannot
free the slaves because if we free them,

they will intermarry with whites. The
word miscegenation doesn't exist yet,

that's what he's talking about.

And yet we now know, beyond any
reasonable doubt, that he was himself

of at least four mixed -race children
with Sally Hemings. So he was living a

and using that very lie as a reason
to...

avoid any attempt to end slavery.

When Jefferson was writing about race
and slavery in notes on the state of

Virginia, suddenly a different mood from
the rest of the writing took him over,

and he had this nightmarish religious
vision, and he suddenly said, I tremble

for my country when I reflect that God
is just, and the Almighty has no

attribute that will take side with us,
meaning us, the slaveholders.

He had a vision of the spirit of the
slave rising from the dust and

engaged in an all -out race war against
the masters. And that notion filled

him with horror.

as justification both for and against
slavery.

Throughout the centuries, much has been
made about the biblical story called the

Curse of Ham.

But what does the Bible really teach
about chattel slavery?

The colonists in general lived in a very
heavily religious atmosphere.

For instance, if they owned a book at
all, it would be the Bible.

In New England, you see that literacy
rates are very, very high as compared to

what you would see in Europe at the
time. And that's because they were so

insistent that people needed to be able
to read their Bibles.

And if you need to make a rigorous anti
-slavery argument, it has

to be based on the Bible.

And wherever you look in the Bible,
There's usually a level of

inference they have to go to. The golden
rule, for instance, do unto others as

you would have them do unto you, is one
of the most common arguments against

slavery. But the slaveholders would say,
well, I treat my slaves well. That's

what the New Testament commands me to
do.

If I was a slave, I would want a slave
master who treats me well. And so I'm

fulfilling that obligation.

For them, I could see how they could
look at the institution of slavery as an

opportunity to be stewards.

For the patriarch of a family, he is a
steward of ultimately all that is God.

And that includes not only his family,
but his slaves, yea, even his animals,

yea, even the creation.

If you try to think big picture of what
the Bible has to say about slavery, what

was actually going on back then
versus...

What we have in our minds in terms of
race -based slavery, chattel slavery,

is not what's going on there.

The word, both Hebrew and Greek, the
normal words used that are often

slave, you look in other translations
and they have the word servant. What we

know is that it was never race -based.
In most slavery, at least within

Israelite context, it was voluntary.

The way that Jesus responded to slavery
is pretty much that it was just kind of

a fact of life.

And the fact that he doesn't come out
and condemn it really doesn't mean that

condones it either.

Slave owners were very good at pulling
passages out of the Bible that they used

to support the institution of slavery.

They would hold religious ceremonies
where they say that enslaved people

to respect their master, and they would
do this on a Sunday.

The curse of Ham as it was developed was
supposedly a proof text whereby

Christians could live with chattel
slavery.

In Genesis chapter 9, after Noah
recovers from the flood, one of his

sees him when he is inebriated and
dishonors his father.

The result of that is that there is this
curse.

What's interesting, though, the curse
isn't given to Ham.

explicitly, the curse is put upon one of
his sons, Canaan, Noah's grandson.

And so it really should be called the
curse of Canaan.

Some people have tried to say that this
curse of Ham was really the curse of

having dark or black skin.

In colonial America, that very obscure
reference to the curse of Ham was

easily picked up and used by...

many interpreters and many preachers to
label blacks as inferior

in ways that legitimated the whole
institution of slavery.

The problem with that is that there is
absolutely nothing stated in the text

that has anything to do with race or
skin color.

Biblically, you just can't make the
connection. And there is not a Bible

you could find that would even try to
make that connection.

Prior to the Revolution, nobody is
saying that slavery is wrong. The only

who are saying things are people like
the Quakers, who were considered a

strange. The Quakers were primarily
considered strange because they were

pacifists, but the fact that they
thought slavery was something that was

didn't help.

Quakers sent people to Williamsburg to
lobby the legislature to try to take

actions against them. slavery, including
to path laws to make it easier for

slaveholders to free their slaves.

Manumission is what that's called.

Henry received a letter from one of
those Quakers, Robert Pleasence, who

along a book of essays about the wrongs
of slavery.

And Henry thanked Pleasence in a letter
in 1773.

Henry says, point blank, isn't this
amazing in this time of strong feelings

about rights and liberties that I am a
slave holder and that I hold slaves of

own purchase.

So he doesn't give himself the out that
the Tidewater aristocrats, our family

has had them for generations.

And then he goes on to say that
basically until we can figure out what

about slavery, the best thing we can do
is treat them decently, make sure that

they're brought up in the church and
what have you.

The Methodist church, John Wesley in
particular, was very interested in

evangelizing slaves.

What I find interesting is that they
were also evangelizing slave owners.

And in some cases, slaves became
Christians before their owners.

So it was not only the slaves who were
being evangelized, because sometimes God

brought them to himself before they
brought the slave owner and used the

as an evangelistic vehicle.

The Declaration of Independence phrase,
all men are created equal, is the most

important ideal that comes out of the
American Revolution.

But in writing these famous words, did
the founders really mean that all men

created equal?

And further, how is it that historians
and scholars all have such different

opinions about exactly what that phrase
means?

The Declaration of Independence is much
more than a declaration of independence.

We actually declared our independence on
July 2nd, 1776.

The Continental Congress put out a very
short Declaration of Independence

saying, hereby resolved, these colonies
are and ought to be free and independent

of Great Britain.

What happened on July 4th, we offered
the world a justification for our

independence. We explained to a candid
world why.

We deserve to be independent.

What's more, we did so by appealing to a
set of universal principles, all men

are created equal, that we posited as
the fundamental self -evident defining

truths that would guide this new nation.

Jefferson intentionally made the
Declaration of Independence broad and

because we have to remember it's a
political document.

It's being written to convince Americans
that they should support independence,

which was not an easy decision.

And so Jefferson and his committee in
the Continental Congress write the

Declaration in very broad, accessible,
motivating terms.

When he wrote the Declaration and said
all men are created equal, I firmly

believe, and other scholars do too, that
he meant to include African Americans

in that statement.

And this was the young phase of
Jefferson, the emancipator.

Early in his career, Jefferson was an
avid opponent of slavery. And he did

introduce legislation, in the Virginia
legislature at least, that would

help ban the slave trade. I think it's
important to differentiate between the

slave trade and slavery.

But in Jefferson's mind, and in many of
his colleagues' minds, the end of the

slave trade would help erode slavery and
eventually... bring about emancipation.

All men created equal. When Jefferson
wrote that, in my view, we have to take

that at face value because all men are
created equal.

That includes black people.

I believe that they were talking about
the same thing that scripture talks

about. We're all equally valuable in
God's eyes.

Inherently valuable because we're
created in his image.

Jefferson believed if he kept, and John
Adams helped him work through this as

well, if they kept life, liberty, and
property, which was the original intent

the inalienable rights, well, what was a
property in that day? A slave.

So they then changed it to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

They felt they were doing two things at
that moment.

One, they were not enshrining slavery,
so it could be destroyed.

Secondly, they were planting a time bomb
in the Declaration that would destroy

slavery because how in the world could
you stand for equality and protection of

life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness and keep a whole class of

slavery?

It's my thought that he meant to say and
should have said, Even in reflection

now, all white men are created equal.

In fact, all white property -owning
white men.

Clearly, all men were not equal, given
by their maker inalienable rights. Well,

what rights? You own me, so I don't have
any rights.

I wish that Thomas Jefferson and all of
his fellow Americans believed

that that phrase, all men are created
equal in the Declaration, was designed

the ultimate rationale for the
elimination of slavery.

I think that's reading back in time our
own values too far.

Thomas Jefferson, in drafting the
preamble, was greatly influenced by his

Virginia colleague, Colonel George
Mason, who just a week before In writing

Virginia Declaration of Rights, Mason
wrote that all men are by nature equally

free and independent and have certain
inherent rights. That is a less elegant

way of saying what Jefferson said.

That was the original draft of Mason's
first article in the Virginia

of Rights.

His Virginia colleagues stood up.

and said, wait a minute, Colonel Mason,
what about slaves?

Won't that encourage slaves to desert
their masters?

So the Virginia Revolutionary Convention
added a phrase

that all men are by nature equally free
and independent when they enter

into a state of society.

So in other words, both the Virginians
in late June of 1776 and

the Americans on July 4th of 1776 were
taking a very

important, even radical step in
asserting the equality, not of

all of mankind, alas, but of all
American citizens.

And they were not.

prepared to embrace African -American
slaves as American citizens

at that time.

Jefferson's phrase, all men are created
equal, has really become a touchstone

for America. It is the language of
nationhood, and it's a very fraught

phrase as well, because what it means to
us is not what it meant to Jefferson.

When he wrote that phrase, he was
actually asserting the right of British

America as being equal to Britain.

So while we think of it as individual
equality, that idea really hadn't

when Jefferson was writing the
Declaration of Independence.

That idea didn't emerge until the wake
of the French Revolution, the idea of

individual equality.

Now, so when they're talking about human
beings, or all men in this case,

they're talking about theoretical people
that live in a state of nature.

They're not talking about sort of any
individual in any real sense. They're

talking about rights that exist for
individuals after governments are

They're talking about a philosophical
world. This is a very common framework

that Jefferson is drawing on.

This is what John Locke uses when he's a
philosopher, talking about the origins

of government. So this is a little bit
of philosophy in the beginning.

In a state of nature, everyone was free
and equal.

White, black, man, woman, child, Indian.

He certainly did not mean everybody was
free in the here and now. If you look at

the next phrase in the Declaration of
Independence, it talks about...

Forming a new government, forming a new
civil society in which the men who made

the laws could do what they wanted.

The interesting thing is, when people
read that document, immediately,

immediately they weren't thinking about
philosophy.

They started thinking about themselves.

And so you see, in one of the great
moments of the revolution, is that when

American patriot movement claims natural
rights, as their justification for

rebellion, it opens up Pandora's box
because now everybody can claim natural

rights in any time that they feel like
their own rights are violated.

John Adams famously says, if we recourse
to the state of nature, then everyone

will have a claim. Every man who is not
worth a farthing, every boy of 12 years

old, and every woman will start claiming
that they have a right as well. And so

that, I think, is what happens. And we
see this immediately in Massachusetts.

There's enslaved people who start
petitioning, saying, in your

says that all men are created equal.

Well, we're enslaved.

It doesn't seem to be fair, and so what
happens? You end slavery in

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont,
many northern states immediately, and

then you get gradual emancipation in
some of the northern states as well over

the next generation, all based on this
rhetoric that's unleashed unwittingly

in the Declaration of Independence.

And yet in the South...

They, in many ways, viewed it quite
differently.

There had been a series of decisions
issued in England, most famously the

Mansfield decision, where the judges in
England began to turn the tide against

slavery. And those sorts of decisions
frightened the slave owners of the

American South, particularly in South
Carolina.

Their right to own slaves was one of
their fundamental rights that England

threaten, and they fought a revolution
to protect their right to own slaves.

was a tension that existed within the
movement that could easily be covered by

simply saying, we're fighting for
liberty, knowing that the liberty they

talking about might be very different.

The Constitutional Convention in 1787 in
Philadelphia sought to unify the 13

colonies and was the catalyst for the U
.S. Constitution.

However, in ratifying the Constitution,
did the founders codify slavery and make

compromises they should not have made?

The question around the Constitution is
really the question of what are the

issues that stood in the way?

of america coming together as a nation
and i would argue the most important

issue was the issue of slavery the
constitutional convention was convened

initially to amend the articles of
confederation that just weren't working

had closed off shipping on the
mississippi the brits were misbehaving

north the states were slapping tariffs
on each other's imports the articles of

confederation were not working and that
we needed a better government in 1787

about a fifth of the population

the entire country was in bondage.

And that was something that all of these
men knew that they were going to have

to deal with somewhere down the road.

Slavery was front and center in the
minds of all of the delegates in the

Constitutional Convention.

They knew how much was at stake.

Let's rule one thing out right at the
beginning.

There was no way that the framers of the
Constitution could have abolished

slavery in the Constitution.

If they had done that, we would have had
basically two warring nations, the

slave -owning side and the non -slave
-owning side.

James Madison records in his notes that
he objected to having the Constitution

admit property in man.

So he understood that the Constitution,
had to avoid mention of the word

slavery, at the same time that it
protected slavery in very specific ways.

Many northern delegates were opposed to
slavery.

Most of the delegates from the north had
either freed their slaves themselves or

had never owned slaves.

Where from the south, everyone, every
delegate from the south was a slave

Some of them were the largest
slaveholders.

in America.

George Washington, of course, had vast
numbers of slaves between the ones he

owned and the ones that were the
property of his wife.

The people from the Carolinas, but they
would be backed up by the ones from

Georgia. They made it clear that they
would not vote for the Constitution in

Philadelphia or later ratify it if it
didn't protect the institution of

against encroachment by the future
national government.

We have to remember that slavery was
legal in every single state at the time

the Constitutional Convention.

Northern states were complicit,
particularly when it came to the

fugitive slaves. In Article 4, Section
2, the Constitution specifically states

that if a slave flees from one state to
another, that he will not be freed.

by the laws of the state to which he
flees, but instead will be delivered up

back to the master.

How do you treat the enslaved
population?

Are they considered people when it comes
to representation?

Are they considered property when it
comes to taxation?

Ultimately, the South wanted the
enslaved population to count in helping

have greater numbers of representatives
in the House of Representatives.

Northerners did not want this to happen
and said, well, if you're going to count

slaves as people for your purposes of
representation, but you don't want to

claim them as people, then we want
slaves counted as property when it comes

for taxation.

After debating it off and on all summer,
they arrive at this fraction of

three -fifths.

Why not two -fifths? Why not 50 %? There
was a precedent about three -fifths in

the Articles of Confederation, but it is
a fundamentally confounding fraction.

But it was probably the only way that
the movement to create a single nation

could have gone forward.

Had the framers been idealists who said
we refuse to compromise, slavery is

wrong and therefore we will not sign off
on any document that fails to abolish

it, then you would have had no
constitution and no country and

of ever getting rid of slavery.

From a purely moral point of view, the
abolitionists say it's not our business

to try to figure out what's politically
possible. It's only our business to...

pronounce what is morally right and
wrong.

There's no question that they had the
moral high ground.

It's also no question that if they had
their way, the Union would have been

destroyed.

While that compromise allowed the
constitutional debates to move forward,

some ways it marked forever America's
notion of inferiority of African

by saying that they could only be three
-fifths of a person.

really was something that scarred
America and scarred the African

psyche until very, very recently.

The other compromise that was made is
the decision to allow the southern

to continue to import slaves from Africa
for 20 years after the

Constitution is ratified.

There were only two states represented
at the convention who insisted on

that. that they be allowed to continue
importing slaves.

South Carolina and Georgia.

The other state delegations were simply
unwilling to look the South Carolina and

Georgia delegates in the eye and say, if
you don't like the abolition of the

international slave trade, then walk.

Between 1788 and 1808, Nearly as many
slaves

were imported into America from Africa
as had been imported during all of the

decades before that, since the first
importation of slaves in the early 17th

century. But then that brings us to the
question, should they have compromised

on the issue of slavery?

And the answer to that question,
unfortunately, is not a short answer.

As American slavery entered the 19th
century, many founders began to support

repatriation to Africa movement.

However, could this plan really have
been the solution?

to the slavery dilemma.

I think the problem wasn't essentially
economic.

I think the problem was essentially
racial.

Namely, even if you wanted to end
slavery and were prepared to pay owners

it, at a certain point in time, by the
time you get to 1800, there are about 1

million slaves.

The problem is when you free them, where
do they go?

It's easy to end slavery in the North,
and they do it state by state.

Every state has adopted legislation
ending slavery or putting it on the road

extinction. And every state south of the
Potomac where the population is much

more black is going to find it almost
impossible to do that.

Here in the agrarian South, enslaved
people were such a large proportion of

population that it scared, especially
landholding whites.

to think of that population as still
present yet free.

It's very important for us to realize
that Jefferson did not envision a

nation. That's why he was such a
proponent of colonization. He really

that in order to become a free people,
they would have to return to what he

thought was their homeland in Africa.

Monroe was the governor of Virginia in
1800.

That was the year of one of America's
most important slave rebellions, or at

least a planned rebellion, by a slave
named Gabriel, owned by a man named

Prosser.

Monroe begins its correspondence with
Jefferson, and this is with the Virginia

Assembly's support, about maybe
colonizing or transporting some of the

rebels instead of executing them.

And as a result, President Jefferson...

begins negotiations with Britain to
possibly send free American slaves to

Leone, which is a British colony on the
western coast of Africa.

That's actually where black Americans
who had joined the British during the

American Revolution and had been given
their freedom by the British during the

war, they were afterwards sent to this
colony, Sierra Leone.

Madison was one of the founding members
of the American Colonization Society. It

started in 1816, and it was sort of a
futile attempt at finding a solution

to slavery.

The idea was that they were going to
take proceeds from land sold in the West

buy slaves from their owners and send
them across the Atlantic to what we now

know as Liberia.

You had newly freed people of color who
are saying, why should I go back to

Africa? I'm the third or fourth
generation.

I've lived my entire life in the New
World. Why should I want to go back to a

land that I know nothing about?

This provision did indicate the extent
to which

America's founders were not prepared to
live.

with freed African and African American
slaves.

As American liberty entered the 19th
century, Washington and Franklin had

away, and all the other founders were
growing old.

But as history unfolded, Were the
Founding Fathers leaving behind subtle

on how they really felt about the
institution of slavery?

We have to remember that there are
different founders with different ideas.

And certainly I think some of them did
believe that slavery was on its way out

as an institution. And I think,
honestly, many of the Virginians

This was largely because their
plantations were slowing down. They were

to wheat as a crop. They had a reserve
of labor. They couldn't use the slaves

that they had. So many believed that
slavery was on its way out.

Benjamin Franklin came to realize...

Initially, through Quaker influence in
Philadelphia, first of all, the slave

trade was an abomination.

And by the end of his life, his very
long life, in the 1780s, he came to the

realization that we had to do something
about slavery.

By 1785, Franklin had finally freed, not
sold, freed the last

of his slaves.

And by 1787, he was president of the
Pennsylvania Society.

for the abolition of slavery in that
state.

In the first Congress, he submitted a
resolution, along with a few other

Philadelphia anti -slavery people,
calling for the first Congress to, one,

the slave trade, and secondly, to
discuss ways to put slavery on the road

extinction, some gradual emancipation
policy.

James Madison was the guy that deep
-sixed the Franklin proposal in

and made a ruling essentially that the
federal government could not rule on

slavery as it existed in the state south
of the Potomac. They could rule on it

in the western territories, but not
south of the Potomac.

The Virginia legislature passed in 1782
an extremely liberal manumission law

allowing slave owners to free slaves at
will, whereas before that, slave owners

had to get special permission.

from the state legislature and prior to
that from the royal government to free

slaves. So there was a real birth of
liberalism in the Virginia legislature,

entirely controlled by slaveholders
during the revolution.

Virginians, especially prominent
Virginians like Jefferson and Madison,

up talking about slavery in a certain
way that makes it seem like

they are fundamentally opposed to it.

They're really opposed to the slave
trade.

But they want to have the high moral
ground in this conversation, Jefferson

of all, especially, because it's really
important to him. They learn to talk in

a way that is dominated by
circumlocutions. It's a way of thinking

talking that allows them to coexist with
slavery while convincing themselves

that they're opposed to it.

You see Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry,
James Madison all expressing moral

concerns about the institution of
slavery.

And they do nothing about their own
possessions in slaves.

They don't free them upon their death.
They don't free them in their will. They

pass them on to their descendants.

James Madison came under tremendous
pressure from his private secretary,

Coles, to free his slaves, and Madison
didn't do it. Jefferson came under

pressure. There were lots of people in
Virginia who were freeing slaves. I

we say that it was impossible, but it
wasn't. Lots of people were doing it.

In Henry's case, Henry had 17 children
and was proud of the fact that he was

able to give the boys stake of property,
plantations. He was able to give all

the girls dowries.

And part of his wealth was these slaves
that he owned. He did not free them at

the time of death. Indeed, his will
stipulates which one went to his wife.

in a couple of cases, he gave slaves to
others of his descendants.

Washington was most open to questioning
ideas of slavery, probably during the

American Revolution when everything was
in flux.

and when he was surrounded by young men
like Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton

who were pushing him on this issue.

And by the mid -1780s, you're starting
to get Washington writing things like,

one wants to end slavery more than I do,
but it has to be done by legislation.

He sees it as a moral problem.

According to Washington's family, after
the Revolution, he stopped taking

communion. So that's a big change.

according to them, in his life.

It's a big change that they saw.

The other big change that happens in the
war is that he changes his mind about

slavery, and I think the two are very
related.

He gets back from the war in December
1783, but he finds that everything in

Mount Vernon has sort of fallen apart
while he's been gone for eight years.

Among the regulations that Virginia put
in place, for freeing a person's slaves.

You had to be able to continue to pay
for the upkeep of anyone who was

considered elderly.

They also had to continue to support
children up until the age of majority.

So this is a really substantial
financial commitment, even after these

are freed, and he doesn't have the money
at this point to free them.

He has to get back into working that
plantation.

And since it came with a lot of slaves,
it was those slaves that worked the

plantation.

And they were his capital.

He's trying to find a way to get out
from under the system, but can't until

will, essentially, is the only measure
he gets.

When he was dying on his deathbed, he
asked that two wills, his two wills be

brought to him, and he decided which to
keep and which to tear up.

And we don't know exactly what was in
the other will, but he tore up one and

it tossed in the fire.

And he said, this is the will we're
going with. And that was the will that

included freeing his slaves.

When George Washington wrote his will in
the last summer of his life, he

specified that all of the slaves that he
owned in his own right, roughly 123

people, were to be set free after the
death of his wife, Martha.

Washington also called for the education
of the young slaves and training of

everybody up to the age of 25 in a
skill.

And he said no one should be exiled from
the state. It was really a remarkable

document. Washington was saying
everything that Jefferson would not

slaves were smart enough to read and
write, that slaves were amenable to

training, that slaves had a right to
live in this country.

that they had a right to live here as
free people and that they should not be

exiled.

Washington was always a political actor.

His decision to free his slaves in his
will is part of that leading by example.

It must have been something he thought
about to a great extent.

Both Madison and Jefferson did
eventually go broke due to their

than anything else.

They each owned these large plantations,
and they each lived lifestyles that

were beyond their means.

As Madison is getting older, he always
talks about slavery.

It's an issue he can't get away from. He
is literally haunted by it. He just

can't find a solution for it.

And in fact, in his final advice to my
country, which is published

he says, The advice nearest to my heart
and deepest in my convictions is that

the Union of the States be cherished and
perpetuated.

Let the open enemy to it be considered a
Pandora with her box open, and let the

disguised one be as a serpent in the
Garden of Eden.

I think it's pretty clear that the
disguised serpent is slavery.

And he realizes by the 1830s that
slavery is going to tear us apart, and

nothing he can do about it.

The story of America's founding fathers
is replete with paradoxes, full of both

liberty and slavery.

But today in the 21st century, how
should we view these men and their

It's very hard for a 21st century mind
to get back into an 18th century

worldview. It is an interesting moment
in...

In American and world history, it
shouldn't just be seen as a simplistic

of hypocrisy that goes wrong.

There are these juvenile interpretations
of the founders.

It's like a cartoon.

They're the greatest people in the
history of the planet, and then you turn

They're the deadest, whitest males in
American history.

Playing that kind of cartoon game, we
should stop doing that. We should

with them as imperfect figures.

who we can learn from because of their
imperfections as well as what they did

well.

There's a tendency within historic
preservation to have what I would call

ancestor worship, and they become not
real people. What's fascinating is that

you realize these were very human
beings.

The fact of the matter, it wasn't just
Thomas Jefferson or a South Carolina

slave owner.

It was virtually every white man and
woman.

in America, North and South, who were
not prepared to embrace Africans and

African Americans as fully equal.

It happens in the life of every Virginia
politician is that if they took steps

to try to mitigate slavery, it would go
up against a

kind of silent majority.

of public opinion, you can look at the
lives of Henry, of Jefferson, of

countless Virginians who tried to do
something about slavery and basically

out that it was politically suicide.

Americans of the Revolutionary Era
really are the first people, because

of their articulation of these doctrines
of liberty,

to be forced to come to terms with the
contradiction between slavery

and their devotion to liberty and
equality.

The American Revolution opened a window
of opportunity for change in all ways.

Changes in class structure, changes in
economic relations, changes in social

organizations, and changes in slavery.

In 1774, two years before the
Declaration of Independence was written,

were no abolitionist societies in
America.

And then these ideas are proclaimed, and
these ideas take on a life of their

own. And you see the gradual abolition
of slavery in the North, and eventually

the Civil War that Lincoln justifies by
appealing to the principle of equality

at the heart of the Declaration of
Independence.

Even though Jefferson...

could not bring himself to do the fully
right thing. He articulated those

beliefs that have touched people's
hearts through the ages that have led to

freedom for people around the world. And
the process continues. The struggle

goes on. We're not there yet.

It's crucially important to help people
understand that slavery is not a black

story. It's not a southern story.

that in some ways it's a quintessential
American story. Without understanding

that, we as Americans don't know who we
are.

I think the real question we ought to be
asking today is, did the founders, in

their capacity as statesmen, did they
push hard enough against Southern

interests to hem in slavery and put it
on the path of extinction?

That, I think, is where the debate
should be happening.

There's a certain amount of anger about
my ancestors having been enslaved.

But in the meantime, I refuse to hold

any bitterness because it's like a
burden.

You have to let go at some point.

For the revolutionary generation,
slavery was wrong.

And ironically...

In making that judgment, they give us
the standard against

which we measure their failure.

I like the fact that we're going in the
direction of all men are created equal.

It's part of, I believe, why we were
able to eventually abolish slavery in

America.

I don't like to think of them as
villains or heroes. As an historian, I

to think of the founders as people who
struggled with the world they inherited,

tried to imagine a world that they could
create, did the best that they could to

do it, and failed really badly when it
came to the question of slavery.

It's a word of caution to us that we
need to be careful when we condemn

in the past for...

doing things that we consider to be
horrible, we undoubtedly will be judged

the future in a way that we can't
imagine now.

There are people who argue that it is
somehow wrong to criticize the founders,

to recognize their humanity. It seems to
me that that's fundamental danger,

because if we suppose that the only
people who can lead us have to

be perfect.

There's nobody who answers to that
description.

We claim that something is true and then
we fall short of it ourselves.

That to me is the simplest explanation
for why someone like Thomas Jefferson

could on the one hand believe slavery to
be wrong and on the other hand himself

possess slaves.

He was a human being. He was made of the
same crooked timber that all human

beings have been made since the dawn of
time.

They started the conversation.

I mean, that's what I believe. That's
what I abide by, that they started the

conversation about liberty, equality,
justice, and freedom. They didn't end

conversation. They started it.

Thank you.