Thoughts on the founding fathers

I got into an e-mail discussion of racism and history recently that I thought you might enjoy. It ended up going all over the place, including evolution and what happens to people who never get a chance to hear the gospel. I'm going to be posting some excerpts over the next couple of weeks. All of this started with a discussion of whether or not politically conservative people are racists:

Just for the record here, if I knew someone who was a racist, I would not be his friend. I would go ballistic if my daughter tried to date him.

I stood at the Jefferson monument earlier this month with my son. I hate going to the Jefferson monument. I hate it because I want to love this man and I want to admire him. I do it because the whole world is indebted to him for the words that he wrote. But I can't forgive him for what he did. Maybe you haven't heard this story?

Jefferson was a spendaholic. The longer he lived, the deeper into debt he sunk. With every bottle of French wine that he drank he was dooming his slaves to what, for most of them, was probably a fate worse than death. People were willing to continue to loan him money because they knew he was good for it -- after his death. The sale of his property would cover his debts.

So I was standing at his monument looking up at him, and all I could think about was that awful moment when his slaves were sold. Husbands and wives, parents and children, in many cases separated from one another, never to see each other again for as long as they lived. I'd vote him off Mt. Rushmore if I could.

Later in the exchange I shared this perspective on the life of Washington:

Washington did much better. Maybe not as well as we would have liked, but much better. He arranged it so that every slave he had the authority to free would be free at his death. No one else in his family supported him in this. There is evidence that he was deeply concerned that his wishes would not be carried out after his death (they were). His wife owned some property separate from George, and did not free any of those slaves before or after she died.

Washington was one of the most famous people in the world when he died, and beyond a doubt the most influential American. It was one heck of a gesture and I suspect that it had a huge impact on the way people thought about slavery.

One other interesting thing on Washington. He was aware of the potential for a conflict over slavery, and could even see that conflict ignited during his lifetime. He told some of his friends that if such a conflict began he would move to the North and fight for the abolition of slavery.