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You know there were people back then that were very much anti-slavery?

scythe 3y ago
A list that includes John and Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton, who eventually cajoled all of the other Founding Fathers into condemning slavery and (except for Madison and Jefferson) freeing all of their slaves.
pc86 3y ago
Of course there were, especially regarding the chattel slavery we had in the US that was very much different than slavery in other parts of the world, and historically. They were also very much in the minority, and most people were at least indifferent to it. My point is that it's easy to take our 2023 ethics and apply them to people in the 1700s but all that does is prove you don't have a proper context or frame of reference for history. It lets you conveniently ignore things in the most intellectually lazy way. I mean, look at my comment's parent and GP. In reverse order, a perfectly rational and reasonable point about how the framers drank a lot while writing a document that would found a new country (and perhaps the difference between how it affect those people vs. his family). And the knee-jerk, lazy, boring response of "yeah but SLAVES."
- pessimizer 3y ago
  > And the knee-jerk, lazy, boring response Do you think that this response is innovative and thoughtful? Somebody literally said that the framers of the US constitution were collectively some of the "most functional human beings in history" and they were reminded that those people were vile and violent. If you're a black American, you have a reasonable chance of being one of their descendants because they would buy human beings to rape. They also accomplished many things, and some of them wrote very interesting things. Jefferson was often very insightful, but he also raped slaves. Lots of drunks have written interesting things.
jhallenworld 3y ago
An interesting case is the state of Georgia, which was a free state check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Georgia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Georgia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Whitefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Whitefield Of course people knew slavery was wrong, but profits. We may not have slavery today, but the same kind of people are around, for example against minimum wage increases or for non-compete agreements.

A list that includes John and Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton, who eventually cajoled all of the other Founding Fathers into condemning slavery and (except for Madison and Jefferson) freeing all of their slaves.

pc86 3y ago

Of course there were, especially regarding the chattel slavery we had in the US that was very much different than slavery in other parts of the world, and historically. They were also very much in the minority, and most people were at least indifferent to it. My point is that it's easy to take our 2023 ethics and apply them to people in the 1700s but all that does is prove you don't have a proper context or frame of reference for history. It lets you conveniently ignore things in the most intellectually lazy way. I mean, look at my comment's parent and GP. In reverse order, a perfectly rational and reasonable point about how the framers drank a lot while writing a document that would found a new country (and perhaps the difference between how it affect those people vs. his family). And the knee-jerk, lazy, boring response of "yeah but SLAVES."

pessimizer 3y ago
> And the knee-jerk, lazy, boring response Do you think that this response is innovative and thoughtful? Somebody literally said that the framers of the US constitution were collectively some of the "most functional human beings in history" and they were reminded that those people were vile and violent. If you're a black American, you have a reasonable chance of being one of their descendants because they would buy human beings to rape. They also accomplished many things, and some of them wrote very interesting things. Jefferson was often very insightful, but he also raped slaves. Lots of drunks have written interesting things.

jhallenworld 3y ago

An interesting case is the state of Georgia, which was a free state check out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Georgia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Georgia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Whitefield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Whitefield Of course people knew slavery was wrong, but profits. We may not have slavery today, but the same kind of people are around, for example against minimum wage increases or for non-compete agreements.