How could the founding fathers sign the declaration of independence?

What lifes not fair? You mena to tell me that we weren't all created equal with equal opportunities. Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it. My family has worked very hard through the generations to get ahead and stay ahead and I am currently doing the same so that my kids can flourish. If someone is a slave in America today it is because they chose to be. Back in school there were plenty of lazy saps who were just following in their parents lazy footsteps, but they made the choice not to make something more of themselves. Why should I have to work my tail off to pay the way for someone whos too lazy to fend for themselves. If you want something then you better earn it, because there are no free lunches in this life. There are plenty of people who have come from the direst of situations to enjoy the fruits of their hard work. You reap what you sow, no more and no less.

I realize you are a troll, but...

The DoI was a document that gave reasons why the colonies were leaving England. In a draft of it, Jefferson actually had provisions in it that George was allowing the slave trade to continue as a reason for leaving.

he [the king of Britain] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

[From Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), 1:426.]

And yes, he had slaves, but things were not that simple either.

I laud your hard working spirit.

I condemn your selfishness as well as your poor reading comprehension.

Slavery--as I noted in the post above--usually happens off shore in other countries. Yes, businesses have figured out that the American constitution forbids the creation of slave labor by and large within the US (it still happens with many undocumented workers here.) Technology and advances in transportation have allowed us to export the slave relation. Out of sight, out of mind. Much of the labor that goes into the good you use on a daily basis is simply sewing, no reaping in sight. (Pardon the pun.) Slave labor.

Fine, if you want to go out into the wilderness, build a hut of sticks and eat what you kill then go right ahead. As far as I am concerned civilization would be much better without hippies like you.

Of the 56 signets, far less than half were slave holders. Ben Franklin founded the first abolitionist group in the country. A large number were clergy who opposed slavery. It is unfortunate that most folks draw a blank trying to name a signer once they get past Jefferson. Government schools in action again.

Not a historian wrote:

Fine, if you want to go out into the wilderness, build a hut of sticks and eat what you kill then go right ahead. As far as I am concerned civilization would be much better without hippies like you.

You make no sense at all!

Oh I forgot, killing anything would be cruel and violent and take too much time away from your philosophising about how the world should be. Hippies like you only eat fruit and berries that have already fallen off the tree, isn't that right. I'm done wasting my time with you.

Old track coach 27 wrote:

Of the 56 signets, far less than half were slave holders. Ben Franklin founded the first abolitionist group in the country. A large number were clergy who opposed slavery. It is unfortunate that most folks draw a blank trying to name a signer once they get past Jefferson. Government schools in action again.

Ignorance is hardly limited to graduates of public schools.

I think most people could name John Adams.

Not a historian wrote:

Oh I forgot, killing anything would be cruel and violent and take too much time away from your philosophising about how the world should be. Hippies like you only eat fruit and berries that have already fallen off the tree, isn't that right. I'm done wasting my time with you.

I am not blind to the necessity of violence. However, I do abhor the slave relation.

These sorts of arguments run counter to the American constitution, a great document. The promise of that document has not yet been fulfilled. The work of democracy is ongoing and difficult.

Do you believe the history of freedom was done when they freed the black slaves in the North American South? Might there still be a little work left to be done, a future for freedom in addition to a past?

Not to go on and on (too late), but the larger point is that the founding fathers saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as laying out a plan for the work of building a democracy. These are guiding documents for this work. Signing them, or believing in them, does not mean believing in a utopian world that has already been achieved. It means pledging to work on behalf of those ideals, as it becomes possible, with what power we have, as individuals and as a nation.

Happy New Year!

Eradicating Nazi-Zionism from the United States and the World remains the biggest single Constitutional challenge of the the past 70 years. Basically the battle is over where the Constitution begins and ends, at the borders of the United States proper, or does it apply to the entire World.

This is why I fault Jefferson more than the dumb redneck racists from Sout Carolina. Jefferson's writings prove that he knew it was wrong. Yet every move he made for his entire life blocked abolitionists from lessening the grip of slavery on the US. He blocked legislation of reducing imported slaves and also fought for its continued expansion west.The hypocrisy is worse than the outright racial stupidity of the deep south.

Old track coach 27 wrote:

A large number were clergy who opposed slavery. It is unfortunate that most folks draw a blank trying to name a signer once they get past Jefferson. Government schools in action again.

Nice irony. Please name these large number of clergy who signed the DOI and opposed slavery? (Hint: There was only one clergyman who signed the DOI, John Witherspoon)

It's 2011 now. As Americans, we know the truths of the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Human Genome Project, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and Malcolm X. So how can we today in 2011 subject Semitic Muslims to the scourge of Nazi-Zionistic Racism and Apartheid, when we as Americans could not live under those rules and have fought to the death against it ourselves.

You’re right.

Sitting Bull should have drafted the Constitution.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

Old track coach 27 wrote:

A large number were clergy who opposed slavery. It is unfortunate that most folks draw a blank trying to name a signer once they get past Jefferson. Government schools in action again.

Nice irony. Please name these large number of clergy who signed the DOI and opposed slavery? (Hint: There was only one clergyman who signed the DOI, John Witherspoon)

Do you people not realize that the Bible had slaves in it? Slavery was not only a real concept in bible, it was accepted then too. Why would the "clergy" have had a problem with it? Equality and human rights are new concepts people...don't try to superimpose them into scripture. It's just too anachronistic and a poor attempt at revisionist history. Does that mean it's right? No. But, to pretend like Christians should not have done it ignores the Bible itself.

Do you people not realize that the Bible had slaves in it?

I'm sure you people realize that the US has more slaves today (11 Million) in 2011 than it did in 1861 (5 Million).

11 Million Palestinians are held by US coloniaiists in Palestine, and surrogates in Jordan and Eqypt.

The institution of Slavery is stronger today in the United States that every before.

Jefferson Davis wrote:

Do you people not realize that the Bible had slaves in it?

I'm sure you people realize that the US has more slaves today (11 Million) in 2011 than it did in 1861 (5 Million).

11 Million Palestinians are held by US coloniaiists in Palestine, and surrogates in Jordan and Eqypt.

The institution of Slavery is stronger today in the United States that every before.

Urine idyut.

Exactly what function are these "slaves" performing? Also, if you want to make a reasonable point, try pointing out the 11 million in terms of current population, not the population from 1861.