Enslavement was a big element of the economy in the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War, and after the independence America gained, it was part of one of the key money-making industries. Many of our founding fathers arose from the south: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and even James Madison. When it came to writing the constitution, it was a conflict of to retain or eliminate slavery in this new country. Several of the northern states had already done away with slavery, but it was a necessity for the southern financial system. The southern elites, like Landon Carter, have lived with slaves their whole life and knew nothing immoral about it. In fact, numerous men like Carter thought the black race to be inferior and it was the duty …show more content…
Was the black race subordinate to the white race? Was slavery justified and moral? What should we have done with freed slaves? How was this going to affect the United States? The freed north and founding fathers just as Alexander Hamilton and John and Samuel Adams did not want slavery for the most part. They lived with freed Negroes and knew what they were capable of and desired the rest of the country free as well. The country was based on this newly founded freedom and liberty of everyone, and these abolitionists rested with that train of thought. On the other hand, the United State was also based on the importance of property rights. Part of the argument of the south and pro-slavers were that slavery was a domestic institution and thought to be personal property, something that no one- neither northerners nor southerners- could possibly pilfer. Dr. Michelle DuRoss of University of Albany writes that Hamilton, granted, was a known abolitionist, had a strong “belief in property rights, or his belief of what would promote America’s interests, [and] Hamilton chose those goals over opposing slavery,” (DuRoss, 1). Hamilton himself knew the importance of personal property, even know he lived among slaves in the West Indies and had to establish himself to become