We need to look afresh at the vision which, partially obeyed and partially disobeyed, drove the best of the past.
I think we’d all do things differently if we could rewind the time machine and go back to the constitutional convention. We wouldn’t be nearly as easy on chattel slavery, for one thing. Even bad old Britain abolished it in 1776 of all years. The historical fix for this, the tumult of the Civil War, gave us all a master we didn’t want, the master of Washington DC.
The question of slavery WAS a topic during the Constitutional Convention. A
HOT topic. In order to get the Constitution, the question of slavery was kicked down the road.