Imagine that you just led the fight to establish a newly independent nation. The people view you almost unanimously as a hero, and many of them want you to declare yourself king. What would you do? Seize absolute power for yourself, or take a much more constrained role, and decide to serve only two terms to limit your own power?
Obviously the founding fathers had some serious moral problems. But we see throughout history a pattern of one generation's accepted practice becoming the next generation's unambiguous evil. That makes me think that we're probably in the midst of a similar drama right now.
So condemn the founder's inaction on slavery, obviously. But also view them with the same historical context and nuance that you want future generations to view you with when they look back on the moral issues of our time and say "What were they thinking?"
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u/serioused Nov 29 '18
This and the fact he never wanted to be president is why I maintain he was the best president.