Slavery - Feb 2012

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Slavery - Feb 2012

How could our Founders, on one hand, write “all men are created equal”and, on the other hand, continue to own slaves? George Washington explains: "Both houses and slaves were bequeathed [handed down by will] to us by Europeans, and time alone can change them; an event... no man desires more heartily than I do…"

"On this estate (Mount Vernon) I have more working Negroes, by a full [half], than can be employed to any advantage… [But] to sell the over-plus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species.”

Frederick Douglass, a former slave, understood our Founders: "The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men… I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration… With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression… Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense…”

It takes courage to stand against injustice. The example of our Founders is no less relevant today. History illustrates that any number of events could change our lives overnight. If we should witness our neighbor treated cruelly or unjustly let us also have courage to stand and say, “all men are created equal”.

“There is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity [Slavery]”. -Thomas Jefferson

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"I never mean… to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished..." -George Washington