Were the American Founding Fathers Heroes Despite Owning Slaves?

[Apope16]

As a Liberal Progressive who is both a descendant of African slaves and Native Americans, I have seen my friends tearing down statues associated with American Founding Fathers. Statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson have been desecrated. Even Lincoln, the Great "Emancipator", has been defaced. I have been an activist and supporter of the Black Lives Matter Movement. I am appalled by these actions.

The argument of those who support tearing down statues of the likes of Washington and Jefferson and any founder that had an imperfect viewpoint that doesn't fit the standards of decency 200 years in the future--is that they are a disgrace. That because of their support of enslaving black people that they were not heroes and their statues should be torn down. This, despite the fact that people like Washington, Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson are on U.S. Currency. The left hails FDR despite his Japanese Internment Camps. JFK is a hero despite being problematic in the #metoo era.

At some point we must recognize that history is human. It must be seen in context. Contributions to our country should be seen in that light.

If we are to be a society that brings former criminals (many black and brown) back into the fold of society, giving them voting rights and resources with compassion and love regardless of why they served time in prison--then surely we can recognize the great contributions of our Founding Fathers.

There is a historical truth about America that we must come to accept despite the pain and the maimed blood of our ancestors--and that is the fact that if the question of "slavery" was proposed to be addressed in its entirety, our country would not have survived. Virginia and the Southern Colonies would not have supported independence. The same Southern States would not have signed the Constitution. History is more than judgment, its context.

[MrOracle]

They were great men who did incredible things that changed the world, INCLUDING setting the stage for ending slavery worldwide (as a legal institution, anyway) - but they were also men of their time living in the reality of their day. They were imperfect, yes. Some owned slaves, yes. But it is completely unreasonable to judge them by modern standards, except as a lesson to fix going forward.

The left's Cancel Culture isn't really about slavery or black rights - it's part of a more general Marxist uprising. That's why there can be no debates, no communication, no dialog - you either agree with their ever-changing causes of the hour, or they will do their best to destroy you. And lately they have even been destroying their own supporters if they question anything, or use the wrong word or phrase, regardless of context.

They can't allow themselves to be questioned, because their answers are ridiculous and provably wrong, so instead, they attack any dissenters by calling them racist or sexist and going after their jobs and friends.

Once you realize that, you can see that it's political theater by people trying to overthrow the country with Marxism. Many don't even bother trying to hide it - they admit it openly when they think it is safe to do so.

It's good to see that some people are using their own eyes, ears, and brains, and not simply repeating the talking heads on TV.

[UncleJessieRabbit]

Yes. Communism (also Fascism) is coming back once again and we need to ready up and protect ourselves.

[cth96190]

Yes, the Founding Fathers were great men.
If the morononic useful idiots of Communism who are trying to erase history (they need to read Orwell) actually knew and understood the history, they would know that most (perhaps all) of the Founding Fathers were opposed to slavery.
Slavery continued past 1776 only because of the need for unity to defeat the British.
As Bismark said, politics is the art of the possible.

[geri_]

If we've eradicated animal farming and meat eating in 200 years time, would you want your great grandkids to consider you a terrible person because you ate meat?

It was a horrible part of history, but we've learned and moved on from it, and without that period of history, a huge number (maybe even most) black Americans wouldn't exist today.

[ttnnkkrr]

that is quite possibly the most eloquent analogy for the lunacy of today

[geri_]

Thank you

[G3tAClue]

I’m just upset that the memory of these men have to be disgraced. They died 200 years ago, let them be at peace and leave them alone. Without these men, we wouldn’t have a country. Of course they weren’t perfect but neither are the people tearing down statues. I think our country could stand to learn a little humility.

[hellionthesagereborn]

Well one, even if we were to pretend that this has something to do with slavery (it doesn't hence them attacking George Washington who was an abolishionist later in life as well as abraham lincoln who literally ended slavery, or them tearing down the statue of Fredrick douglas a black freed slave who fought his entire life to end slavery, amongst others), then why are they only attacking western society?

If you look the US, if we go by states, were the earliest group to oppose slavery. We had several states end slavery in the 1700s, the majority of the non democrat states had ended it before 1830s (England wouldn't end it until 1833) and all of htem before 1845 with the exceptions of again, the democrat owned states. Meanwhile Asia wouldn't end slavery until around the 1930s (and actually end it later then that), the middle east not until the 1950s and sixties and africa not until the 1970s and in the case of Mauritania not until 1981. Why then, is the US and the west being painted as the ones who created slavery?

In addition if this was about slavery why are they not calling out the democrats? The democrats were the party that maintained slavery, protected it, fought a war to keep it, created segregation, created (to be more precise they were derived from the democrats rather then being actively created by them) the KKK (which killed both blacks and white republicans), created literally EVERY SINGLE JIM CROW LAW THAT HAS EVER EXISTED, and created segregation.

Meanwhile the republican party was literally founded to end slavery, the first republican president was Abraham Lincoln who ended slavery, they then fought a war to end slavery, they then proceeded to have the first 9 black congressmen, as well as voted into law the 14th amendment which barred not just slavery but racial discrimination, and voted in with a republican majority almost every single civil rights act from 1872 to 1993(the only exception being the 1991 civil rights act which was passed with a democrat majority, ironically it being an act that made it more difficult for minorities to sue for discrimination). Yet, some how slavery is the sin of ALL of america despite the fact that only PART of america, the democrat part, actually supported it?

Isn't it then odd, that democrats are the only ones not having to own up to this "racist past"? In addition, why is it that Africans owning white slaves (for thousands of years mind you) never talked about? Why is white slavery which was in fact more common for most of history (the turks, ottoman turks/persians, huns, mongols, and African burbers all routinely enslaved whites (This was one of the reasons why Rome had conflict with Carthage because they continued to raid the coast lines and enslave roman citizens) never talked about? Why are only whites guilty of this?

The fact is none of this has anything to do with slavery nor does it have anything to do with racism. This is about destroying our society because these groups which are very socalistic want to destroy us and replace us with their own system that they believe is better.

This is how every socialist revolution starts, with the destruction of the culture, then their past in order for them to be completely unattached and thus more malliable to indoctrination. Again, this has nothing to do with slavery or htey wouldn't be destroying the statues of abolishionists, they wouldn't be using race in place of class (what socialists normally use to topple civilizations), they would be able to provide arguments, and would engage in discussion instead of trying to wrest control of society from the citizens.

[Anonymous]

Do i think they were hero? No more then i'd say a scientist or professor is a hero, except for George Washington since he did single highhandedly rallied men and won battles.

I think OP should've said "Do you think the Founding Fathers were good people despite owning slaves"
And i'd say its not that easy, everyone wants to believe in 100% good and 100% evil then 99% of the time they simply don't exist. Everything is subjected and complicated. I will personally say that the overall, the founding fathers did more good then bad, the freedoms and liberties they paved way to ending slavery and fighting racism even today.

I'll ask anyone who disagrees, are you a bad person for wearing clothes, drinking coffee, throwing away electronics, eating meat or watching porn, all of which are produced by some form of inhumane working conditions, oppression and modern slavery. And if you didn't know that, now you do and you're probably still going to do it. Yes you can live your live without any of those luxuries and slight help end a little suffering in the world, but again its too inconvenient. So i'll say that the founding fathers were shitty for owning slaves. However the nation they build gives us, the people, the rights and powerful to end slavery and fight against against.

And the thing is, if you were born in the south during slavery you probably would've owned slaves too. It doesn't make slavery any less evil however, nor does it take away all the ideological / cultural importance America has. I'd honestly say the founding fathers were on a grey morality. Half were more good and didn't like slavery but had to go along with because America would've fell apart as other leaders wouldn't have joined if they didn't get to keep slaves and we'd be living in a completely different world, maybe the South would still be here and joined the Nazis, maybe nobody could've stopped the soviet union, I don't know. But the founding fathers had to work out a system that allowed for the most liberty and freedom possible within the confines of a government. But i just look at the actions and try to relate to the context of everything.

[jsincal]

As a minority, I can say we need to understand, our founding fathers lived the best they could in the society at the time. Even if they owned slaves, we must forgive them because they didn’t live in todays standards.

If you must crucify, let’s look at our own past. Everyone of us has an ancestor who did marry young girls, 100+ years ago. At least somewhere down the line. Usually what we consider are minors in today’s standards. They would be considered sexual predators or pedophilies. Should we accuse that of them? Should you be crucified for your ancestors?

All in all, I do admire Washington, Jefferson, Franklin etc. but I do not admire people like Andrew Jackson. Not a fan at all. I have my personal limits. And I’m sure others do as well.

We all have to not only make a collective decision for us today but we need to make that decision for the further generations. We don’t want it to where the future sees us as destroyers of our foundation. For what is the lesson in the future? We are just unforgiving of the past? Because all of us today will do something that the future will have a hard time accepting. They’ll have an ideal image of you being a good person but when they see your porno log in the future, the kind of porn sites you were going to, they might just be critical of you as we are with our founding fathers.

So forgiveness... is the healer of today and the future.

[loveslongnails]

Hold on to your hat there, brother. There's a big difference being having "an imperfect viewpoint" and being an absolute total dick head. Jefferson and Lincoln were very smart, yet conflicted men who held some sort of moral standard. Even though slavery was accepted then in the North, during both their times, it was a cause of conflict for Lincoln (at least).

Washington, and Jackson, on the other hand, were absolute pricks. Both of those men DIRECTLY ordered genocidal acts against Native Americans, which you should "know" if you have Native American ancestry. Washington even ordered the burning of the villages of the Indians who fought on his own SIDE !! Asshole. Neither one of them are worth a shit in my book, Presidents or not. It's no wonder to me they're 2 of Trump's favorite guys!!

I do agree that this violence against public statues is wrong, and it should be handled very differently. As to your assertion about dealing with slavery in its entirety, we'll never know the answer to that for certain, but it IS a good point to consider. So is the point that it may have been far better to NOT have formed a single country. The record of the government of the United States is shameful, and that's why the "story" of America's history gets twisted and lied about. What you're witnessing is 150 years of pent up frustration, and some of the truth seeing daylight.

[JDavid25]

Yes they were heroes because the whole philosophy of the United States was the promise of freedom.. George Washington and others before him and after knew too well what oppression was.. Which is why they rebelled and started a new world.. Washington and Jefferson were conflicted because they owned slaves.. Thomas Jefferson even admitted that his initial subconscious thought on "Black" people was wrong, and like Washington wanted to free the slaves but it was a more complicated issue than just freeing them.. Plus Slavery was a legal institution and was the norm for thousands of years.. So just abolishing it was not as easy as it would sound today.. But Washington and Jefferson started to realize that Slavery was evil like many other people in early America and the West who started to get into the philosophy of free people and Democratic Republics..

[jgokgotit]

Yes they were heroes. Owning slaves was wrong, but before the birth of the United States there was really no such thing as freedom at all. The government had no Bill of Rights to limit the powers of the government. Government could pretty much do whatever it wanted. The freedom the Founding Fathers created was not true, complete freedom, but it was the first stab at it. Without the founding fathers, the path to ending slavery would not have been possible. We went from no personal freedoms/pawns of the government to the concept of a Bill of Rights limiting the government with rights to only a select few to the end of slavery to the civil rights movement to the rights we have today. If we go back from the beginning of history to now, you can see tremendous progress for the rights of individuals. We are not where we need to be, but we have come a long way. This is EXACTLY why we need to preserve history, not tear it down.

[Anonymous]

My mothers maidan name is TasunkaSka I am half white and half native American my father's half is Czechoslovakian and Irish. They were immigrants during WWI. I dont believe tjere, is any systemic racism in this country to this day. I know that liberal policy and programs have caused more harm than good. My mother jokes that I'm a "pink person" because she "red" and my father "white" I do not believe that there is systemic racism as of 2020. Why others believe who believ the opposite of me just tells me they dont do their research.

[winterfox10]

Yes, they were heroes. Nobody wants to think about it now, but the reality is that most people, of all ethnicities, have slave blood in their veins. Somewhere along the line, no matter where you are from; one of your ancestors had a whip to his/her back, and somewhere else, your ancestor was the one holding the whip. Slavery is a thing that happened (s). We like to think that we have evolved passed that point intellectually, but slavery still exists today; we just justify it differently, and it will absolutely happen again (and probably a lot sooner than anyone wants to admit).

[cath15]

I think we should draw a line between historical figures who’s main reason we remember them is something bigoted/racist/genocidal, and historical figures who are remembered for something completely apart from that. Take the founding fathers: they’re not remembered for having slaves, they’re remembered for founding the USA. But confederate generals are only remembered for fighting to keep slaves. That is why i agree with taking confederate statues down, but not those of the founding fathers etc

[lanadelrey25]

Let's say there was ancient cave art done by an evil caveman. Would you go and paint over it just so you could "feel better' ? It's history. Leave it be

[cath15]

That’s exactly my point, if the thing why we remember the person is positive there’s no need to do anything about the memory of that person

[Kimgary]

Encouraging slavery has been since the beginning of time, even in the Old Testament the Bible supported slavery before the coming of Christ changed a lot of things, so I don’t believe bringing down their statue is going to change anything. They did the right thing as it was at that time and they were seen as heroes for what they did, they made the country what it is today and history cannot forget them.

[captain_voidwalker]

Yes they were, what they set in motion eventually ended slavery as an institution. There is also a lot about slavery that is left out of school, for instance that most slaves brought to America were already in fact enslaved by other Africans back in Africa. And that not every slave master was abusive towards thier slaves, in fact most treated thier slaves far better than they were treated in africa. Thomas Jefferson in fact took huge personal risks to educate his slaves to read and write.
Also not every slave was black plenty of Irish found themselves also enslaved.
Slavery is terrible but back in the founding fathers day the world was terrible and at great personal risk to themselves, they set in motion a society that would right many of the wrongs once perpetrated in history.

[FrePhill]

Have you seen the Henry Fonda film, The Grapes of Wrath? Are you familiar with 1890 Johnson County massacre or May Day Haymarket riot? Did you know workers from Russia and many other cities throughout the world were protesting labor exploitation which was the rise of Bolshevik Revolution. Anarchists, Socialist, Communism opposed the Class War struggle (call Red Scare by Democrat Woodrow Wilson) (read True Flag by Stephen Kinzer).
There has been a campaign going back to perhaps the founding of America (read. Counter Revolution of 1776 by professor Horne) Thomas Paine encourages this struggle for human decency and liberty but Federalist Party had a different campaign. Michael Parenti Democracy for the Few and Howard Zinn A People’s History of United States wrote about this.

[Chaddwith2ds]

Yeah they were!
here’s the deal. You CANNOT judge people of the past using the moral standards of today. You can’t! Back in the day, people hadd slaves. They gifted slaves, they made money using slavery. It was not considered badd back in the day. We have gotten better these days. Now we have and are slaves, they just know they have to give us little things to keep us quiet and give us the illusion of freedom to convince us that we are free. We are not free. Not in the true sense of the word. We are all slaves and don’t realize it.

[Kaneki05]

America was legit built off killing native Americans. So i don't really support the foundation of america anyway and none would be heroes to me. No one outside of my morals would be heroes to me. Even if they did something worthwhile that could be praised.

[zagor]

Are you aware that Native Americans also killed off Native Americans? To the extent of eliminating certain tribes?

[Kaneki05]

@zagor duh and i don't agree with that either

[Anonymous]

Yes they were heroes. Our history and sense of pride is being torn down and its not because of racism. This is being done as part of a revolution. Why else tear down Lincoln, Grant... Many of those who are tearing down and defacing statues are communists and marxists. They dont care about Black Lives and if they succeed their first order of business will be to kill those who brought about the anarchy that fueled the revolution. I will have no tears for anyone killed at that point, only for those left to live under an oppressive regime

[Zelda_5]

They were human. They did bad things and they did good things. They did what was the norm in that time and defacing statues of them won't change anything, it will just get people mad at you.

[Bandit74]

Ultimately I don't care too much about this either way, but I think it's stupid to judge people of the past by the morals of today. Also instead of destroying the statues, put it to a vote and if the majority want them gone then at least put them in a museum.

[Nalix]

Yep. Most people who were rich enough to back then had slaves. Many around the world still do. Also, no one is perfect, and many of the people throughout history who did great things that greatly benefited the rest of humanity also did some pretty awful things too. Turns out that "great and terrible" often do go together.

[Eagle_93]

"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

If future generations are not taught the good, the bad, and the ugly of history, well it would be horrible, but of course history repeats itself... so it could happen again.

[purplepoppy]

No they were heros because they owned slaves. Poor people don't make history and slavery gave these men the edge over their competitors nobody in their right mind back then would have declined a slave or two

[Grond21]

Slavery was ubiquitous at the time. There was no edge. It's the very fact that the constitution says all men are created equal, which they didn't live up to, that allowed us to end slavery 80 years later.
Which Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr, Fredrick Douglas, and others explicitly stated. They also thanked the Founding Fathers for their views and courage.

[purplepoppy]

If slavery was ubiquitous then anyone without slaves would have been at a huge disadvantage. We can't blame people for owning them

[Grond21]

Wait, are you saying slavery was good or bad?