The Founding Fathers And Slavery Essay Research — страница 2

monumental. Both laws did little to abolish slavery immediately, but they both were key elements in making it possible to destroy slavery in the long run. These laws restricted slavery from spreading further into the north and midwest and they almost completely stopped the importation of slaves from Africa. They forced slavery into the Deep South. Freehling best sums up the Founding Fathers effect on the long term abolition of slavery in the following passage, “If the Founding Fathers had done none of this if slavery had continued in the North and expanded into the Northwest: if millions of Africans had been imported to strengthen slavery in the Deep South, to consolidate it in New York and Illinois, to spread it to Kansas, and to keep it in the border South; if no free black

population had developed in Delaware and Maryland: if no apology for slavery had left Southerners on shaky moral grounds: if, in short, Jefferson and his contemporaries had lifted nary a finger everything would have been different.”