George Washington:  Founding Father and Slave Master

--by Robert Arvay
(this commentary is freely available for reprint)

After World War 2, Germany rose from the ashes of defeat to become a modern, civilized nation.  It also confronted its Nazi past.  While many war criminals were put to death or imprisoned for the atrocities they had committed, many other evildoers escaped punishment.  Some of these were hunted down by the law enforcement officials of Israel and other nations.  Years after the war, Nazi leader Adolph Eichmann was caught, publicly tried, found guilty and put to death for his unspeakable crimes of inhumanity.

Some people are not satisfied that Germany did everything possible to expiate its guilt.  Despite millions of its people dead, its homeland carved up between the victors, and lasting international shame, some people say it was not enough.  Nothing, however, could have been enough.  The horrors inflicted by Nazis upon the innocent can never be fully atoned for by earthly punishment.  Yet, whatever else one may say, Germany did come a long way, rising from the darkest depths of evil to the sunshine of humane civilized standards.

The reason for mentioning this is neither to condemn nor to excuse present-day Germans, but to reflect upon and analyze a frequent criticism of the United States, and in particular, its Constitution. 

When the Constitution was ratified in 1791, it became the highest law of the land.  It embodied the highest ideals of any nation in history.  Its concepts of human rights, enshrined in law, and implemented by social contract, represent the pinnacle of human virtue.

It also continued slavery as a legal institution.  Slavery in America was evil, an evil that cannot be overstated.  It separated men from their wives, and mothers from their children.  It condemned innocent human beings to living out their entire lives beneath the whips of cruel overseers.  To fully list all the evils of slavery is too agonizing, and too shameful for any decent American to bear.  But they are many, and they are without justification.

Some say that the American Civil War of the 1860s was punishment for the sin of slavery.  It was, but no earthly punishment could suffice.  Nearly a century and a half after the end of slavery, its after-shocks persist, in the form of racial tensions, the disintegration of the family, and the enactment of supposed civil rights laws that do much good and more evil, more evil because political opportunists use those laws to perpetuate grievances instead of enacting solutions.

All of which brings us back to the Founding Fathers, including truly great men, men such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

These men were nothing like the Nazis, nothing at all.  Having said that, it must also be said that no excuse can be made for their part in the atrocities of slavery.  And no excuse is sufficient to explain why the Constitution permitted slavery.

To that extent, we must, as a nation, be humble about our history.  And we must seek to reconcile the ideals of the Constitution with the sordid history of slavery.

Unlike the founding of National Socialism under Adolph Hitler, the American dream of 1776 was never an evil plot to destroy human decency.  Failure to recognize the difference is crucial to understanding where America has been, and where it can go.  It is the difference between inherent evil, and incidental evil, between evil intentions, and misguided intentions.

In 1776, slavery had already been a social institution for millennia.  For thousands of years, humans had lived under the cruelty of bondage, the indignity of forced servitude.  The British Empire did not outlaw it until 1802.  The French had practiced it when they founded the island territory of Haiti.  It persists in Africa and the Middle East to this day in various forms.  Communist nations disguise it, but the essence is the same.

Half of America knew that slavery is an evil, and by every peaceful ploy and means, struggled to end it.  The Civil War, although not primarily fought to end slavery, was brought about by the schism, by the fact that, as Abraham Lincoln said, quoting the Bible, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Yes, the Constitution permitted slavery, but every principle underlying it cried out, then as now, against bondage.  Human rights, human dignity, and human freedom are its heart and soul.  The compromise, permitting slavery in only some states, seemed at the time necessary and practical.  In hindsight, it turns out to have been neither.  The free states would have been better off without the slave states.  Independence would have been less certain, achieved more slowly, and come at a much higher cost, but the outcome would have spared us from the lasting legacy of human bondage which plagues us to this day.

Let us not, however, buy into the argument, posed by some, that because the Founders committed their grievous error, that because they committed this original national sin against God and humanity, that therefore, the principles underlying the Constitution itself make it a fundamentally flawed document.

The Bible shamelessly records the Twelve Apostles of Jesus as being so deeply flawed as individuals, that it seems inconceivable that most of them would rise above their sinfulness and revolutionize the world, even at the cost of their own freedom, at the loss of their own lives.  The Bible, unlike the Constitution, is perfect.

In contrast, the Constitution is imperfect.  It was, however, prayerfully and devotedly constructed by fallible men, sinners, apostles of freedom— and while it is imperfect, it is far from being fatally flawed.  Its core principles are at the height of human achievement.

Contrary to what our present president says, it was not a mistake that the Constitution does not mandate a government that provides all manner of goods and services to its people.  Such a mandate leads inevitably to slavery.  We’ve come too far away from slavery to put it back in our Constitution now.

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