Slavery, women's rights, and the founding of America

Actually, the Declaration of Independence was put forth as a legal document justifying the breakaway of the colonies from British colonial rule.  Though it is not considered a document of law today it nevertheless was the clear guiding force behind the Constitution that was written to secure the rights declared in the DOI.

It is not really fair to judge the founding of America based on our concept of liberty and equal rights today, BNG.  Instead, you have to you consider the times when our government was founded.  The practice of slavery was hardly a universally condemned act at the time.  Slavery has in fact endured among mankind from the beginning of recorded history and surely before.  It was the "enlightened" European slave traders, usually with the cooperation of the African tribes themselves who provided and sold the slaves to the traders, that brought slavery to the colonies and kept it flourishing.

Though it is no justification for slavery ever existing in America, slavery existed in Africa before the arrival of the Europeans and endures to this very day.

Not giving women the right to vote may not have been very enlightened but neither was it out of pace with the rest of the world either.  To condemn the US for that oversight is no more valid than condemning the Bible because women were considered mere property during that time.

The founding of America, however flawed due to the temprocentristic attitudes regarding slavery and women and considerations of self-interest inherrent in most endeavors by man, was nevertheless a bold and shining moment in history by a group of radical and progressive thinkers.

DQ