“The legacy of slavery forces us to confront this question: How do we judge the founders of our nation who owned slaves?
“Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of
Independence and our third president, owned slaves. George
Washington, revolutionary hero and first president, was one of the
largest slave owners in the nation. James Madison, the prime
architect of the Constitution and fourth president, held slaves. So
did Patrick Henry, best remembered for saying 'Give me liberty or
give me death.' The same is true of George Mason, one of the most
eloquent advocates for individual rights. In fact, 17 of the 55
delegates to the Constitutional Convention owned a total of about
1,400 slaves. Of the first 12 U.S. presidents, eight were slave
owners.”
(“How Should We Judge Our Nation’s
Founders?” Constitutional Rights Foundation. 2017.)
That “peculiar institution” of slavery, as our nation’s founders often referred to it, contradicted our creed of liberty for all. It divided our nation and led to the Civil War, the bloodiest war in our history. And, it continues to affect us today as we grapple with issues of prejudice, racism, intolerance, and inequality in America.
Now, as America and its schools deal with the academic concept of critical race theory and its core idea is that race is a social construct, and that racism is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies, critics charge that the theory leads to negative dynamics and divides people into “oppressed” and “oppressor” groups.
People who oppose teaching
the truth about slavery and the sins of people like the founding
fathers contend that by honoring someone, we are not claiming the
person is 100 percent perfect. They say we must judge all persons by
the age they lived in and by their achievements, looking carefully at
their strengths and weaknesses.
Others say they find it
difficult to respect anyone as a national hero who
participated
in slavery. They point out that many of the founders recognized
slavery as evil but continued to own slaves. Instead of fighting the
evil, they argue, these men actively participated in and benefited
from it. These include many men who served in the office of President
of the United States.
What is the sad truth? During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, slaveholding was common among the statesmen who served as president. All told, at least 12 chief executives – over a quarter of all American presidents – enslaved people during their lifetimes. Of these, eight held enslaved people while in office.
(Evan Andrews. “How Many U.S. Presidents Owned Enslaved People?” History.com. September 03, 2019.)
The twelve presidents who were slave owners at some point during their lives were the following:
George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison,
James Monroe,
Andrew Jackson,
Martin Van Buren,
William Henry Harrison,
John Tyler,
James Polk,
Zachary Taylor,
Andrew Johnson, and
Ulysses S. Grant.
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Polk, and Taylor all owned slaves while living in the White House. What about Washington? Remember although President Washington oversaw the construction of the house, he never lived in it. It was not until 1800, when the White House was nearly completed, that its first residents, President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, moved in.
(“Slavery and the White House.” The White House Historical Association. 2021.)
In addition to presidents who owned slaves, the U.S. government both employed enslaved laborers to help build the White House (1792-1800) and to reconstruct it following the War of 1812 (1814-1817). These slaves helped in every stage of building construction, from the initial quarrying and transportation of stone to the construction of the Executive Mansion. They worked alongside craftsmen, white wage laborers, and other free African-American wage laborers.
Would it surprise you to know that the commissioners for the District of Columbia, charged by Congress to build the new city under the direction of President George Washington, turned to African Americans – enslaved and free, but primarily enslaved – to provide the bulk of labor that built the United States Capitol and other early government buildings?
Most of these enslaved laborers were hired out from slave owners from southern Maryland, northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C. on a contract basis. The owners collected a wage from the commissioners while providing clothing and some medical care to the enslaved laborers. The commissioners typically provided workers with housing, two meals per day, and basic medical care.
(“Slavery and the White House.” The White House Historical Association. 2021.)
Notable Exceptions
It should be noted that two presidents early in our country's history refused to be enslavers, and they also happened to be the first father and son who served in the office.
John Adams, the second president, did not approve of enslavement and never enslaved anyone. He and his wife Abigail were offended when the federal government moved to the new city of Washington and enslaved workers were constructing public buildings, including their new residence, the Executive Mansion (which we now call the White House).
Yet, John Quincy was not an abolitionist, and he was not among the first leaders of the anti-slavery movement. As president, he was largely quiet on the subject. But as a representative from Massachusetts after his Presidency, John Quincy would fight in Congress to limit slavery, despite threats against his life and the desertion of his allies, and he denounced it until the moment he died. As early as 1820, long before taking a public stand, he privately raised the prospect of a new union founded on the principle of “total abolition.”
(Louisa Thomas. “So Palpable a Stain: The Adams Family and Slavery in Washington, D.C.” The New Yorker. April 25, 2016.)
John Quincy Adams, the sixth president and the son of John Adams, was a lifelong opponent of enslavement. Following his single term as president in the 1820s, he served in the House of Representatives, where he was often a vocal advocate for the end of slavery. For years, Adams battled against the gag rule, which prevented any discussion of enslavement on the floor of the House of Representatives.
(“John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule.” Bill of Rights Institute. 2021.)
Before we praise the Adams family too much, we should realize that their real life was more complicated. The census records for that same year, 1820, show a female slave under the age of fourteen living in the Adams residence. The slave was almost certainly not owned by John Quincy.
Louisa Thomas, staff writer at The New Yorker writes …
“But Adams was human, and he lived in Washington, and, like every politician in Washington – even one whose watchword was integrity – he made compromises. He and Louisa may have rented her from her owners and paid her (and, perhaps, her owner) wages, a common practice in Washington at the time and something we know that the Adamses later did. Or she may have been owned by a member of the extended family who frequently lived with them, sometimes for long periods of time—most likely one of Louisa’s nieces or nephews. Louisa’s father, Joshua Johnson, was a Southerner. The Johnsons, including the families of Louisa’s sisters—her closest friends—owned slaves."
(Louisa Thomas. “So Palpable a Stain: The Adams Family and Slavery in Washington, D.C.” The New Yorker. April 25, 2016.)
And, historians point out the Adamses had close friends who were wealthy slave-owners. They also attended parties hosted by many prominent southern slave-owning families, including the Taylors and Calhouns – parties made possible by enslaved labor.
John Quincy Adams claimed to hate the partisan power of the “slaveocracy,” but as long as traders and owners acted lawfully, he did not object to enslaved workers waiting on him at his friends’ and family’s homes. Although he later claimed that he “abhorred slavery” and did not allow it in his family, there is considerable evidence to suggest that Adams relied on enslaved labor even during his White House years.
(Lindsay M. Chervinsky and Callie Hopkins. “The Enslaved Household of President John Quincy Adams.” The White House Historical Association. January 03, 2020.)
And, How About Grant?
U.S. Grant – who served two terms between 1869 and 1877 – was the last president to personally own enslaved people. The former commanding general of the Union Army had kept a lone Black enslaved man named William Jones for about a year on the eve of the Civil War.
In 1859, Grant either bought or was given the 35-year-old Jones, who was in Grant’s service until he freed him before the start of the War. Grant would later sum up his evolving views on slavery in 1878, when he was quoted as saying that it was “a stain to the Union” that people had once been “bought and sold like cattle.”
(Sean Kane. “Myths & Misunderstandings | Grant as a slaveholder.” American Civil War Museum. November 21, 2017.)
Historians write that Grant’s views on slavery evolved over time, his relationship with slavery was complicated and demonstrates the pervasiveness of the institution in antebellum America. Grant’s father, Jesse, was firmly anti-slavery. However, his son’s attitudes toward slavery were more ambivalent, at least from what we can discern of his opinions before and during the Civil War. “I never was an abolitionist, Grant wrote to his friend and patron, Elihu Washburne, in 1863, “not even what could be called anti-slavery…” In fact, while at West Point, Grant seemed to gravitate toward southern cadets like his friend and future foe James Longstreet.
(Sean Kane. “Myths & Misunderstandings | Grant as a slaveholder.” American Civil War Museum. November 21, 2017.)
Briefly, here's how the Grant slavery story goes.
Grant married Julia Dent, the sister of his West Point roommate Frederick Dent.Through the Dents, Grant began a long pre-war immersion in the environment of slave-owning planters near St. Louis. Julia’s father, Frederick Dent, owned 30 enslaved people and had “given” Julia four enslaved people when she was a child: Eliza, Dan, Julia, and John. There is no evidence he legally transferred ownership to Julia but from her writings it is clear she considered them hers.
In 1854 Grant left the military and tried to make a go of it as a farmer on land adjacent to his father-in-law’s in St. Louis. There, he worked alongside Frederick Dent’s enslaved laborers to build a house for his family that they dubbed “Hardscrabble,” and in the late 1850s Grant managed his own property and Frederick Dent’s White Haven farm.
Finding farming less lucrative than he’d hoped, Grant asked his father for a loan. Jesse Grant reportedly replied, “Ulysses, when you are ready to come North I will give you a start, but so long as you make your home among a tribe of slave-owners I will do nothing.”
After the death of Julia’s mother, the Grant family left “Hardscrabble” and moved to her father’s farm, “White Haven,” which Grant managed from 1854-1859. Novelist Hamlin Garland, an early biographer who spoke with Grant’s Missouri neighbors, wrote …
“The use of slaves on the farm…was a source of irritation and shame to Grant. Jefferson Sapington told me that he and Grant used to work in the fields with the blacks. He said with glee, ‘Grant was helpless when it came to making slaves work,’ and Mrs. Boggs corroborated this. ‘He was no hand to manage negroes,’she said. ‘He couldn’t force them to do anything. He wouldn’t whip them. He was too gentle and good tempered and besides he was not a slavery man.’”
(Hamlin Garland. Ulysses S. Grant; His Life and Character. 1898.)
So the conclusion reached? Grant “may have been initially ambivalent to the institution of slavery but his wartime experiences showed him that it was morally and practically indefensible and that African Americans would not only make strong allies in defeating the Confederates, but respected citizens in the reunited nation to follow.” As the 18th President of the reunited nation, he was an advocate and defender of the freedmen’s newly acquired rights, earning the admiration of Frederick Douglas, who believed, “To Grant more than any other man the Negro owes his enfranchisement.”
(Sean Kane. “Myths & Misunderstandings | Grant as a slaveholder.” American Civil War Museum. November 21, 2017.)
How the Word Is Passed
Clint Smith III has written an essential book – a New York Times best seller of nonfiction – to help us get closer to necessary accountability. How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America (2021) is a bold and deeply reported look at how the story of American slavery lives on in the present day.
Jamil Smith, Senior Correspondent at Vox, says, “It (the book) arrives when those who exploit political power are now using critical race theory as a bogeyman to prevent any education about these topics, any true reckoning with their consequences – and, therefore, any real change.”
(Jamil Smith. “Clint Smith III on confronting slavery’s legacy in America.” Vox. August 27, 2021.)
Clint Smith III writes, “For so many of them (people using CRT as a bogeyman), history isn’t the story of what actually happened. It is just the story they want to believe. It is not a public story we all share, but an intimate one, passed down like an heirloom that shapes their sense of who they are. Confederate history is family history in which loyalty takes precedence over truth.”
Clint Smith concludes …
“Our country is just a web of contradictions, a web of hypocrisy, a web of cognitive dissonance. And that is who it has always been …
“And part of our work is to, I think, ensure that we ourselves, first and foremost, have a clear-eyed understanding of that. And that more and more people develop a clear-eyed understanding of that, so that we do not misunderstand why our country looks the way that it does today. That we don’t use notions like the idea of meritocracy or the idea that if you just work hard, everything will work out for you, or good things will happen for you. That we don’t allow those sort of socially constructed mythologies to overly romanticize our country to the point where we can’t see it for what it actually is.”
(Jamil Smith. “Clint Smith III on confronting slavery’s legacy in America.” Vox. August 27, 2021.)
How else can we evolve as a nation unless we – all of us – see the United States of America “for what it actually is”? Part of that view is understanding that twelve presidents were slave owners. Did we learn that in school? No. Should we know the truth? Of course. We must ask ourselves how our very lack of education continues to serve our own prejudiced views and perpetuate systemic racism.
PLEASE WATCH “Why we shouldn’t forget that U.S. presidents owned slaves.” PBS News Hour.
"When you sing that this country was founded on freedom, don’t forget the duet of shackles dragging against the ground my entire life." This how poet Clint Smith begins his letter to past presidents who owned slaves. In honor of Black History Month, Smith offers his Brief But Spectacular take on the history of racial inequality in the U.S.
We must confront this terrible legacy if we wish to understand the past as it relates to the present and to the future. Attempting to deny access to the truth is divisive and detrimental – sure to encourage furthering of Lost Causes and a tolerance of past injustices.
Even worse, denying the truth encourages extremist groups to use their own interpretations of the “peculiar institution” to stoke the embers of racism and servitude. Neo-Nazis, antisemites, and militias –White nationalist hate groups – use propaganda to gain new recruits seeking racial domination and the suppression of minorities.
How do we judge the founders of our nation? If we’re not conscious of a complex past filled with contradictory ideas of freedom and justice, we suffer from a shortsightedness diagnosed by the philosopher George Santayana:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
From “Abolition Of Slavery In the District of Columbia” (1862.)
John Greenleaf Whittier (Anti-Slavery Poems In Wartime)
WHEN first I saw our banner wave
Above the nation's council-hall,
I heard beneath its marble wall
The clanking fetters of the slave!
In the foul market-place I stood,
And saw the Christian mother sold,
And childhood with its locks of gold,
Blue-eyed and fair with Saxon blood.
I shut my eyes, I held my breath,
And, smothering down the wrath and shame
That set my Northern blood aflame,
Stood silent, — where to speak was death.
Beside me gloomed the prison-cell
Where wasted one in slow decline
For uttering simple words of mine,
And loving freedom all too well.
The flag that floated from the dome
Flapped menace in the morning air;
I stood a perilled stranger where
The human broker made his home.
For crime was virtue: Gown and Sword
And Law their threefold sanction gave,
And to the quarry of the slave
Went hawking with our symbol-bird.
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