What you don't know about our founding fathers could fill volumes.
Very few owned slaves and most vehemently opposed slavery. Even slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson opposed slavery but they lived in Virginia where it was illegal to free your slaves. Both tried many times to get legislation passed to end slavery or at least let them free their slaves. George Washington was able to free his slaves upon his death but the state of Virginia closed that loophole before Thomas Jefferson died.
When the vote of the 13 original colonies came to end slavery 2 states held out. If it wasn't for those 2 states slavery would have ended when the United States was formed as a nation. But because we were going up against the world's super power to fight for our independence we needed all of the help we could get. Only about 10% of people living here supported independence. That number went up a little when the war started but there was never a majority. So it was imperative that we compromised with these 2 states or we never would have had the military support to gained our independence.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence and later the Constitution fully believed they were signing their death warrants. The all felt that they would be tried and hanged for treason against the English Crown.
Women were not treated like second class citizens. They were treated with respect. It is just that the respect they showed women back then is different than how liberal women demand to be treated today. However, that said, they did not have the right to vote. It was just assumed that husband and wives would always vote the same way. They also assumed that if you did not own land then you had no stake in this country and so only male landowners were allowed to vote. This was the mind set back then. It wasn't based on hate, rather it was based on how people (both men and women) thought back then.
Never ever judge people in history by the standards of today because in 100 years from now those people will look back at us as barbarians.
Oh and BTW only 7% of the country owned slaves. The vast majority of slaves that were imported to the new world went to central and south America. Not the US.
BTW, you used the Crossing of the Delaware painting. Where you aware that there was a black person on that boat and he was NOT a slave. He was there voluntarily fighting in the Revolutionary War for the United States of America.
