Slavery and the American Founding: Hope and Hypocrisy in the Age of Enlightenment

Since 1776, the Founding generation has been portrayed as creators of a new world where liberty and freedom were the inherent birthright of all peoples. The Founders, although brilliant, were nonetheless human and fashioned a country conceived in liberty and freedom for themselves. The enslaved, women, and other minorities were not part of the original Founding documents. ＂All men created equal＂ was a political statement, not some ethereal message of Enlightenment understanding.

This book demonstrates that to understand the American Founding is to understand the totality of America. The American Founding and the so-called compromises forged by state delegates to ensure national unity, despite existing alternatives that could have rejected enslavement, defined the period from 1765 to 1800 and planted the seeds for a horrific civil war. Two of the most debated words from the Age of Enlightenment--freedom and liberty--not only made America independent but also made it dependent on an execrable system rejected by most of the European thinkers who inspired the uprising against Britain.

Jude M. Pfister is a public historian working for the National Park Service in Morristown, New Jersey, with experience in many of the most important historic sites in the United States.