ronburgundy
Contributor
The thread title refers to the irony the founders like Thomas Jefferson were able to distill the ideas of the Enlightenment into the founding principles within the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, due to all the leisure time afforded them by slavery.
Jefferson was incredibly well read and consumed much of what had been written in six different languages before and during his life. This is what allowed him to distill powerful Enlightenment ideas about individual liberty into the founding documents.
All of that constant reading, learning, and thinking was made possible by all of the leisure time he had due his owning of slaves which gave him wealth without having to work.
In fact, the works that he other founders read were themselves often the product of wealth and leisure time of those authors (such as John Locke) enabled by slavery or other forms of inhumane abuse of others (Locke benefited indirectly from his own and his fathers association with the English Kings whose wealth was based in the slave trade).
Yet, the ideas and coherent principles of government they lead to were what laid the foundation for the ultimate end of slavery and other unjust servitude, and to ultimate voting rights for all people within those nations that embraced the Western Enlightenment. Locke explicitly opposed slavery on the same principle that opposed inherited nobility. Jefferson himself, despite being a hypocrite, saw that his own words and the government he helped create would lead to the end of slavery. His refusal to free his slaves doesn't imply his words were insincere or that he didn't understand that slavery violated those principles. It just means he was also too greedy to give up his life of luxury that depended upon slavery.
Thus, slavery created the conditions that enabled the kind of thorough philosophical and political reformations and progress that would ultimately help bring an end to the practice of slavery and at least marginalize the ideology that rationalized it (though that mentality is seeing a resurgence).
Of course, this unintended positive byproduct of slavery for moral and political progress does not lessen the immorality of those who engaged in and supported it. Its just an interesting ironic fact of history, although it does imply that slaves "built America" in more ways than commonly thought of, and that everyone who enjoys personal liberty today owes the former slaves a greater debt than they realize.
Jefferson was incredibly well read and consumed much of what had been written in six different languages before and during his life. This is what allowed him to distill powerful Enlightenment ideas about individual liberty into the founding documents.
All of that constant reading, learning, and thinking was made possible by all of the leisure time he had due his owning of slaves which gave him wealth without having to work.
In fact, the works that he other founders read were themselves often the product of wealth and leisure time of those authors (such as John Locke) enabled by slavery or other forms of inhumane abuse of others (Locke benefited indirectly from his own and his fathers association with the English Kings whose wealth was based in the slave trade).
Yet, the ideas and coherent principles of government they lead to were what laid the foundation for the ultimate end of slavery and other unjust servitude, and to ultimate voting rights for all people within those nations that embraced the Western Enlightenment. Locke explicitly opposed slavery on the same principle that opposed inherited nobility. Jefferson himself, despite being a hypocrite, saw that his own words and the government he helped create would lead to the end of slavery. His refusal to free his slaves doesn't imply his words were insincere or that he didn't understand that slavery violated those principles. It just means he was also too greedy to give up his life of luxury that depended upon slavery.
Thus, slavery created the conditions that enabled the kind of thorough philosophical and political reformations and progress that would ultimately help bring an end to the practice of slavery and at least marginalize the ideology that rationalized it (though that mentality is seeing a resurgence).
Of course, this unintended positive byproduct of slavery for moral and political progress does not lessen the immorality of those who engaged in and supported it. Its just an interesting ironic fact of history, although it does imply that slaves "built America" in more ways than commonly thought of, and that everyone who enjoys personal liberty today owes the former slaves a greater debt than they realize.