4 ms·

I don't think the ends of splitting from Britain in any way justified the decision of allowing slavery to occur.

• elastic_church 10y ago
  I don't either, he saw the writing on the wall of how those people rationalized their practice of dehumanizing individuals with religion and abstractions and the enterprisers that would take advantage of it
• SiVal 10y ago
  Slavery was already occurring, so NOT splitting from Britain was ALSO a decision to allow it to occur. Many wanted the split from Britain to cause slavery to end. Nobody was proposing that it begin. Southern colonies insisted that they were going to continue slavery. If the north agreed to leave slavery unchanged, they would go along with the split, allowing other changes, and they would keep slavery. If not, they would not cooperate, there would be no split, no other changes, and they would keep slavery. Either way, slavery would remain unchanged. The decision to leave slavery unchanged did not "allow slavery to occur".
• Spooky23 10y ago
  It wasn't an a or b proposition, and the notion that it was is revisionist bunk. Slavery was more important to the southern economy, but slavery existed in New York as fully legal until phaseout began in 1799. It wasn't eliminated until the 1820s. Monied interests in most states/colonies would have have permitted the loss of their property without compensation.
• paulddraper 10y ago
  > the decision of allowing slavery to occur There was no such decision to be made (or at least no such decision on the table). The decision was whether to have slavery-permitting states in the US, or slavery-permitting states outside the US.