Were the American Founders Racist Scumbags? Podcast #1

Transcript: Were the American Founders racist?

We hear it on the daily: America is a racist country. We know it’s racist because The American Founders owned slaves, so of course the country they built ended up being systemically racist. Any disparity between racial groups is evidence of that systemic racism.” No, I don’t write speeches for the Democratic party, they are just unbelievable repetitive.  

Like all historical matters that have been co-opted for modern political purposes, I don’t think this theory is quite right. How can we decipher the true intent of the Founding Fathers? Well, we could watch MSNBC, or we could read their extensive writings on the subject.

Hey guys it’s Commoner, Welcome back to my podcast question mark? I am sick of drawing, today. I have had this script lying around for the past couple weeks, and it doesn’t really fit in my new niche on Youtube, so I thought I would just record myself saying it and present it to you. Thank you so much for listening in.

So, today, I want to talk about the flawed men that built the greatest country on Earth. This will hopefully ruffle the feathers of people on both sides of the aisle, as this topic involves a lot of “nuance” which has gone completely out of style.

Let’s start with the two OG’s and the true framers of our Constitution: Madison and Hamilton. From their writing, it’s clear that uniting all the states under the Constitution was a higher priority than the abolishment of slavery.  The South would not have entered the Union had slavery been abolished from the start. Period. Many of the Northerners, such as John Jay and John Adams who were sympathetic to the plight of slaves, still preferred to allow the institution to exist to get the South in the Union. Why? Because the North on its own could disintegrate among in-fighting or be picked off by the large empires across the sea. For the American experiment to work, for men to be able to govern themselves for the first time in 2000 years, the North needed the South. It was a brutal, unsavory compromise.

Those who quietly hoped for an end to slavery also favored a gradual approach. They wanted popular support from the people to finally inspire the legislature to abolish the practice. Rapid change (a sudden, violent abolishment of slavery) could incite more violence in the cure than was present in the original evil. As such, George Washington demanded that they all follow the law foremost, whatever the law may be.

And honestly, many Founders did believe in racialism, the idea that there are inherent, biological differences between the races, aka they were racists. People on the right don’t like to admit this. These supposed differences in intellect and ability were argued as reasons why a truly equal society could never flourish. So, many of the Founders who detested slavery as an inhumane practice supported a program that returned freed slaves to Africa. Hamilton did not vibe with this plan because he believed that slaves’ natural faculties were identical to their masters, yet the environment in which they had been raised created a “habit of subordination.”  He even advocated for allowing slaves to fight in the American Revolution with their freedom as their reward for their service. By doing so, more soldiers would be added to the American army, and slaves would be freed from an immoral institution right away. We love a based king.

Let’s talk about the big one though: How could Thomas Jefferson write “All Men are Created Equal” in the Declaration of Independence, yet own slaves?  The short answer: he was a hypocrite, but a self-aware hypocrite. In his Notes on the State of Virgina, Jefferson explains how slavery is both inhumane and illogical to anyone who supports Social Contract theory because it assumes basic human equality. He even writes: “No Man was born with a saddle on his back.” He describes how slavery introduced unnatural despotism in America, making tyrants out of slaveowners and their children. And this despotism would not go unpunished, he writes “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” A just God would punish them for their actions; he knew it was wrong, but he kicked the can down the road. This negligence, of course, would force a Civil War a century later.

They knew that slavery was wrong, and they allowed it to exist. It was a moral injustice, end of story. But that moral injustice led to the creation of the freest, most prosperous country in all human history. The country that fought off evil in WWII, the country that people all over the world want to come to. It wasn’t an easy call to make. I’m not apologizing for them, I’m understanding that they were human. I’ve noticed that we often look back at the past with a sense of moral superiority: I would have done the right thing, because it was sooooo obvious. Says the person who wears Nike shoes (child labor), uses an Apple phone (salt mines), and drinks out of a plastic Starbucks cup every single day.

The real question is: can flawed men do great things? If the answer is no, then we should take a sledgehammer to the pyramids and burn every book ever written, minus the Bible. The Founders wrote ideals they did not live up to; but the ideals were and still are wonderful. The incredible the notion that all men were created equal, and they could govern themselves. Do you destroy the art for the sins of the artist?

What if you have nothing to replace it with? What if, the systematic campaign against the artists was concocted to destroy what they made?

This has been BowTiedCommoner, thanks so much for tuning in. If you liked what you heard, why not share this link? Thanks, bestie.