The Founding Fathers and Slavery

        William W. Freehling presents his view of the Founding Fathers and slavery in the article 'The Founding Fathers and Slavery.' He contends that America's Founding Fathers were antislavery but gives viewpoints of other historians to the contrary. The first sentence of the article states, 'Only a few years ago... no man needed to defend the Founding Fathers on slavery.' This implies that there was a change in the interpretation of the Founding Fathers …

…if millions of Africans had been imported to strengthen slavery in the Deep South, to consolidate it in New York and Illinois, to spread it to Kansas, and to keep it in the border South; if no free black population had developed in Delaware and Maryland: if no apology for slavery had left Southerners on shaky moral grounds: if, in short, Jefferson and his contemporaries had lifted nary a finger--everything would have been different.'