It's worth noting they were well aware of the contradiction and slavery mainly got a pass to avoid an immediate civil war with the southern colonies. So yeah, t

It's worth noting they were well aware of the contradiction and slavery mainly got a pass to avoid an immediate civil war with the southern colonies. So yeah, they made choices for purposes of political expediency, but they weren't totally unaware of the contradiction. Thomas Jefferson was actually in sort of a "tough" spot (I say this without sympathy or defense) because it was widely recognized in his intellectual circles that slavery was wrong and against the many ideas he and his peers espoused, but his own personal wealth was so tied up in it that he had to make intellectual excuses for it (see Notes on the State of Virginia).