Liberty-Double Standard?

Liberty – a Double Standard?
An Analysis of the Founding Fathers and Slavery

In order to establish ‘Liberty’ at any cost, the founding fathers utilized slavery to form the fledgling nation that would embody this dream, labeled the land of liberty and the home of the brave - America. As inhabitants of America we can choose to believe that America was and continues to be a land of just laws and equality for all. In so doing, we must ignore or rationalize the whole period of history of slavery as a necessary evil, a means to justify the end. We can even justify this action as following some natural law, for indeed it has been a part of the collective history of mankind. In reality, slavery is a brutal system. Some believe without slavery America, as a country would not have been possible. Today, we write off the actions of the past, attributing them to people who didn’t understand what they were doing was wrong. Although saddened by the past, many people have accepted the notion that in order for us to live free today, a certain group of human beings had to be exploited. These unfortunate people were not allowed to possess the very thing our forefathers were fighting for. Today, we glorify and marginalize these people who suffered unbelievable hardship, seeing them now as simple casualties in the war for true freedom.

As the founding fathers mustered support throughout the British colonies, not yet the U.S.A., to rise up against the tyranny of the British yoke, their rhetoric focused on the natural, God-given rights of liberty and equality of men. As the forefathers fervently spoke out on ‘natural rights’ passions were roused as the idea jarred the sensibilities of the common man to awake to action. At the same time, the colonists and those rousing them to action were keeping thousand of African men, women and children as slaves to further their own economic gains. The British were quick to notice this paradox on the part of the founding fathers. The question then becomes why didn’t the colonies notice this paradox, and if they did, why didn’t they change their present course of action?