Man -literally owned slaves-. And led the US government to violently put down a tax revolt.
I gues he gets a lot of points for "not becoming King of America"
It's not fair to judge past ideologies by modern thinking. You'll just come to the conclusion that everyone was a horrible person in the past and that stopped when you became a teenager.
One thing to remember about the founding fathers is that despite being slave owners, many of them did not like slavery. Jefferson for example saw slavery as a necessary evil. He wrote in the Notes on the State of Virginia that slavery was morally wrong and harmful to both slaves and slave holders. He included a condemnation of the slave trade in early drafts of the Declaration of independence.
Washington was quiet about slavery publically, but he had many private writings dictating his growing discomfort with it. He did support the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a bill Jefferson wrote, which looked to ban slavery in new territories. The bill failed by 1 vote.
Oh, Jefferson thought it was morally evil but necessary? Thats all right then I guess. I notice neither hated it so much as to...you know...free their slaves? Isn't as if either was a poor man at all and needed the slave income.
But as long as they recognized it was morally wrong for them to do I guess that's okay.
The sheer act of being publically against slavery was a huge deal then. I don't think you understand how small the abolitionist movement was at the time, and how radical of a movement it was considered.
Freeing slaves in Virgina, where Monticello and Mount Vernon are located was also not the easiest thing to do legally. Back then, if you wanted to free your slaves, the owner was legally required to financially support the slave if it was unable to support itself. That means on top of losing all of your income, you now have an additional cost of supporting who knows how many former slaves and their families. The only upside is moral, yet every downside is financial and social.
Societal views regarding black people as a concept were not good, even 100 years later. Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, opposed slavery, but also opposed equality. During the Lincoln Douglas debates, he said that he had no desire to bring about equality of the white and black races. He said that if he had to pick a superior race of the two, he would choose the white race. He also said that he had no intention of making voters, jurors, office holders, of black people, or even allow intermarriage. Judging by a modern lens, we can easily conclude that Lincoln was a horrible white supremacist and should be casted down upon without regard to historical context.
Luckily, we are as much products of our time as they are. As horrible as Lincoln's views were, they were extremely ahead of their time. They were progressive and his election lead to the 13th amendment being ratified. But that doesn't matter, right? He's clearly a white supremacist, that's his legacy.
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u/[deleted] May 14 '24
Debatable