The Truth About Slavery

by Michael Medved - February 18th, 2009 - USA Today

Historians usually cite six names as the most significant Founding Fathers: George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Of these six, three (Adams, Franklin and Hamilton) identified themselves as abolitionists, denounced slavery as a great evil and never owned slaves. The three slave masters (Washington, Jefferson and Madison, all Virginians) also expressed horror at the institution and agonized over their involvement with it. Washington made arrangements to free his slaves at the end of his life, while Jefferson wrote a first draft of the Declaration of Independence (rejected by his colleagues) that denounced slavery.

Not one of the six favored slavery. NOT ONE. More than half the nation was made up of free states. As noted in the article, slaves made up 13% of the population, with 87% of the nation's people and all the most prosperous states being FREE STATES. (In an interesting footnote blacks still make up 13% of our population to this day.)

Yet slavery was the norm all around the world at the time our nation was formed. For a nation to have such strong abolitionist sentiments at its creation was rare and unusual.

After slavery was abolished, there was little change in the economic success of our nation, because slavery was not an important element in our progress. Freedom and free enterprise were the engines that drove America.

However the hate-America brigades of the Democrat party, the party that actually defended slavery and fought its abolition, do not tolerate the truth. They spread the lie that America was a slave nation and that slaves were the foundation of our wealth. Like the lies of the resolution that triggered this article, hating America for being a slavery based nation is a favored myth of the socialist movement that is currently taking hold the reins of power.