… is from page 186 of Thomas Sowell’s 1994 book, Race and Culture: A World View:
Slavery was “peculiar” in the United States only because human bondage was inconsistent with the principles on which this nation was founded. Historically, however, it was those principles which were peculiar, not slavery.
DBx: Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, George Washington, and other slave-holding American founders can and ought to be criticized for engaging in the heinous practice of human bondage, as well as for their hypocrisy. Yet for their many words and actions in support of the principles of liberty, they deserve also much praise. Regardless of the judgment that you personally choose to pass on each such founder, the indisputable fact is that the liberal ideology that they espoused and risked their lives to further was the acid that finally dissolved the unquestioned acceptance that most human beings for the previous 10,000 years had for slavery.
As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let that celebration be for the institutional triumph, however imperfect, of the liberal creed – a creed that eventually destroyed slavery.
