Was the United States Founded On Slavery?

 We often hear people who hate their own country, tell us that the United States was founded on slavery; that it was founded on racism.  Unfortunately, our public education system has done an abysmal job of teaching history.  In many cases, public education has actually perpetuated this idea of how the country was founded.  But it is not true; certainly not in the way that they are claiming.

It is true that racism has existed for centuries, but has existed this way everywhere and in every culture in the world.  It doesn't matter what color the people are, they all have racist views of the people of other colors throughout the world.

One of the first things that these people cite as reason for their belief is the "three-fifths compromise".  This has been taught in public school and has formed the opinion in the minds of millions of student, but it is a horrible misunderstanding (misstating) of what the three-fifths compromise was and what it really meant.  and the truth is, it meant exactly the opposite of what people think it meant.

First of all, the three-fifth compromise was not a statement of individual worth.  It was a compromise to deal with slave states that wanted to count their slave population in the census, and therefore have an advantage in power and representation in the House of Representatives.

The frames of the country wanted these states to join the union, but they all agreed that slavery would have to ultimately be eliminated, but if the slave states were counting their slave population, they would maintain power in Congress, and would never end slavery.  So a compromise had to be made.

At first, the framers stated that we could hardly count slaves in the census if they were not citizens and not allowed to vote.  The slave states countered that although the slaves are not slaves, they were like livestock and a part of the population.  The frames countered by stating that if that were the case, the union states would count their cattle.

This debate went back and fourth, and they finally settled on the three-fifths compromise.  And this compromise, I've still over-simplified since the ratio was different for female slaves.  But non-the-less, this was the compromise settled on.   It gave slave states extra seats in the House of Representatives and electoral votes.

The compromise had an affect of allowing the slave states to push for and elect pro-slavery presidents, but ultimately, this advantage didn't last.

After the Civil War, that compromise was nullified with the 14th Amendment.

But the three-fifth compromise is not the only reason the people that insist that the United States has always been a racist country, are wrong.  There's also the phrase "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness", drafted into the Constitution by Thomas Jefferson.  The statement came from European philosophy and the current colonial discourse.

The original phase was "Life, Liberty, and Property".  The aspect of property was mentioned because of how things were in feudal Europe, where the lords, governors, kings, could take private property of the workers are any time they felt like it.   So the concept of private property being protected under this new government, was a primary concern.  However, the founders felt that this would allow the slave states to assume a Constitutional right to their property, which would include slaves.  The founders wanted to avoid anything that would ingrain slavery in the new country.

The word "property" was changed to "happiness" because they knew that not everyone owned property.  Poor people, indentured servants, slaves, couldn't claim property, but they needed to be included and have the aspirational right to happiness and for self determination.

In another case, in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote to King George III, and condemned him for waging a "cruel war against human nature itself" and keeping an open market where "men were bought and sold".  This ultimately was dropped from the declaration in order to get a unanimous vote, which they wouldn't have gotten without the slave states.  But statement shows the intention of the frames from the very beginning of the country. 

Vermont abolished slavery in their state constitution in 1777.

In Massachusetts, it was determined that slavery was illegal in 1781.

Six states had abolished slavery by the time the US Constitution took affect.

There was a federal ban on slavery in the new western territories in 1787.

There are other examples of how the country was founded with a different mindset from what we are being told over and over.