There are few bigger examples of how poorly our education system is than when it comes to the issue of Slavery

Slavery was forced onto the American colonies by the British and the economy was dependent upon it, especially in the South

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The Governors of those colonies were not chosen by the colonists, they were picked by the British Government and owed their loyalties to the King

Being a Governor was a political appointment and a way to enhance your standing in society

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The Colonial Governors were not accountable to the colonists so they set up a system designed to ingratiate themselves to the Crown by producing more tax revenue

Slavery was the way they chose to increase production and revenue and was forced into usage in all 13 colonies

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Anyone who owned large amounts of property, like many of our Founding Fathers, had to own slaves in order to be able to produce the tax revenue that was demanded of them by the Governors

This system of excessive taxation without having representation led to the Revolution

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Not only did the colonies not have representation in Parliament, they also didn’t even get to choose their own Governors or have a say in who became Governor over them

Yet they were taxed by the Crown and Governors and forced to adopt their economic policies

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Therefore when the Revolution was over and America had won her freedom from the Crown, it was simply not possible to abolish Slavery and keep the Union together

In 1776 America was 13 little colonies that had purposely been kept from cooperating with each other

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The colonies had been treated like sports teams, they cooperated in order to form a league but were also competitors against each other

There was no United States or colonies at the time, it was a group of influential and wealthy men from each colony with similar grievances

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Who united together under a common cause, independence from the Crown

However, they had always been raised to be Virginians or New Yorkers and thus they prioritized a system that benefitted their colony the most

It was in doubt that the 13 colonies would even stay unified

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Uniting was determined to be in their own best interests because the French controlled land to the North and West of the colonies and the Spanish controlled land to the South

Many of the Founding Fathers remembered the French and Indian War they had fought in

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That was a war where the French allied with the American Indians in order to take control of some colonies away from the British

There was a certainty that the French would start a war against colonies that were not United together

Then there was the Spanish

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The Spanish were brutal in how they treated their colonies

They saw the Natives they colonized as being subhuman and they would have brutalized any colony that tried to go it alone

So the colonies had to unify, but as One or as Two?

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If the Colonies had separated into Two, the Spanish or French would have openly allied with the Southern Slave colonies in order to start a war with the North because the North was the Industrial Hub and the South was the Agricultural Hub

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Europe had been at war between the British, French, Spanish, and Germanic tribes for Centuries

Their war would have simply moved to a different theater, America

The only way to allow the Colonies to have self-rule without foreign interference was to Unite as One

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That unification required many compromises, not just Slavery

Slavery is the one remembered the most because of the Civil War less than 100 years after

The Civil War would have occurred earlier and truly split the Nation if not for the 3/5ths Compromise

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The Southern colonies wanted to have their cake and eat it too

They wanted to have the slaves count in the population Census, but also be treated as property with no Rights

The 3/5ths Compromise is what led to the eventual end of Slavery

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The compromise allowed slaves (not just Blacks in those days) to be seen as humans and not property

It prevented slavery from being expanded just for political power

It started the process of the end of Slavery in America

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History requires not just learning Who What Where and How, it requires understanding Why

Why means understanding the decisions that led to the situation that the people found themselves dealing with

Looking back in judgment without understanding the situation they faced...

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...at the time shows ignorance and arrogance to think that you believe that you could have done it better than they did

In many ways our Founding Fathers were many times smarter and more intelligent than modern “historians”

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Especially those like Kruse or Wells who slander the Founding Fathers with their 21st Century thinking that comes from the Ivory Towers of Academia and not from actually living with hardships and tyranny

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