The Founders and Slavery: Hypocrites?

Progressive critics are fond of discrediting the Founding Fathers, pointing to failure to prohibit slavery in the Constitution as evidence that their convictions about equality were selective. In reality, that is not the case; rather, Jefferson writes that their collective hope was that the passage of time, and the natural influence of constitutional government would eventually eradicate slavery in a peaceful manner.

The following video is a clip from Q&A 6 of Hillsdale’s Online Course: “Constitution 101" featuring Professor of Politics, Mickey Craig, and John Miller, Director of the Dow Journalism Program and Hillsdale College.

Watch the full Q&A here

Transcript:
John Miller:

I'd like to start with a question about the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence gives us the words "All men are created equal" but he was a slave holder. He didn't even free his slaves at the end of his life the way George Washington did. Does that make him the world's biggest hypocrite?

Mickey Craig:

I don't think so. I think he did actually manumit five or six of his slaves. But still, there's a great contradiction and it's, I think, at one level correct to call him a hypocrite. He believed deeply that slavery was unjust and he did not free his slaves.

But I think the way to think about Jefferson and the way I talked about it in my lecture was that Jefferson understood that slavery was wrong and the founding generation believed that slavery was wrong. Jefferson has many private letters where he expresses the opinion that slavery is even bad for the master as a matter fact on his character.

I think when you think about the founders and Jefferson in particular, what you have to look at is to see that they did take gradual, incremental action against slavery, that they understood it was wrong but they didn't know how to solve the problem immediately in the complete way. You see the kinds of things I mentioned in my lecture, Jefferson's role in prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory. Jefferson signs the legislation in 1808 ending the slave trade and [its] encouragement.