Letter to the Editor: 1776 Report looks at slavery during our nation’s beginnings

Since February is Black History Month, I want to say something about slavery at the time of our nation’s founding. In response to the 1619 Project, which is being taught in our schools, former President Donald Trump established The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission to better educate us about our history. The result — the 1776 Report — was published in January. The following are excerpts from that report:

Slavery has been more the rule than the exception throughout human history. At the time of the American Revolution, the Western world was just beginning to repudiate slavery. The Founding Fathers were straddling both sides of this issue. The charge has been made that they were hypocrites who didn’t believe in the principles they stated in the Declaration of Independence; therefore, the country they built was based on a lie.

George Washington owned slaves but came to detest the practice and wished for a plan to abolish it. Jefferson also owned slaves, but, in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, he strongly condemned it. James Madison insisted the Constitution should not condone having property in men. Benjamin Franklin was president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. John Adams opposed slavery his entire life.

At the Constitutional Convention, a number of compromises were made to get the Constitution passed. The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by an anti-slavery delegate to prevent the South from counting their slaves as whole persons to increase their congressional representation, which might have resulted in pro-slavery articles. The Constitution did forbid any restriction of the slave trade for 20 years after ratification, but at that time, Congress immediately outlawed it.

The First Continental Congress agreed to discontinue the slave trade and to boycott other countries that engaged in it. The Second Continental Congress reaffirmed this policy.

The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The Founders knew that slavery was incompatible with that truth. The Declaration, together with the Constitution and its amendment process, set the stage for the abolition of legal slavery. We should be proud that this movement began in the United States.

I hope that, when we judge our past, we do so from the perspective of truly knowing what life was like then. That creates understanding instead of reactive hatred.

Lorraine O. Gloede

Dover