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Modern scholars have convinced our generation that our founding fathers and mothers were all racist slave owners. This argument is part of what is fueling unrest in Minneapolis right now. The American Miracle Expanded does a deep dive into our push to condemn slavery from the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.
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Last June, IFA covered The American Miracle: Our Nation Is no Accident, a docudrama by Timothy Mahoney based on the book of the same title by Michael Medved. It’s now available on DVD and streaming, and there’s a follow-up documentary.
The American Miracle Expanded is more than just the deleted scenes from the original film. The interviews were quite extensive, so there are 24 segments for a total of 152 minutes of new footage.
The segments fall into three categories:
- “Foundations of Liberty,” asking the question, “Was the Founding of America a Miracle?” and looking into the ratification of our Constitution.
- “The Unknown Washington,” revealing more miracles that preserved our first president.
- “Slavery and the Founders,” exploring how a majority of our founders wanted to abolish slavery, but keeping the union together was the higher priority.
“Slavery and the Declaration of Independence”
This section in “Slavery and the Founders” uncovers the details behind Thomas Jefferson’s condemnation of slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence.
In the documentary, Fred Kaplan, author of His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer, said, “Jefferson abhorred slavery.” Though he owned slaves, Mr. Kaplan said, “He thought it was moral evil, an institution he felt he was stuck with.”
One of Mr. Jefferson’s complaints to England — approved by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman — was that slavery was forced upon them by King George:
…he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce… (punctuation and emphasis in Thomas Jefferson’s “original Rough draught”)
The majority of the colonies wanted to condemn slavery (eight to five), but South Carolina threatened to secede and take Georgia and North Carolina with them. This would have kept British troops stationed on our shores and prolonged our fight for independence.
The documentary was filmed — in part — at Houston Christian University’s scale replica of Independence Hall. The team interviewed Dr. Chris Hammons, who is a Professor of Government at the University. He said:
That Declaration of Independence is the first time really in the history of humanity and civilization where a people steps forward and says slavery is immoral. … Slavery is an institution that has been around since the beginning of time, before written human history. And for the first time, you have people putting a crack in that box of slavery and saying it cannot coexist with the principles of liberty. …all that stems from our belief that there is a Creator God that made us in His image, Who gave us these rights, and that we were all equal and valued and loved in His eyes and not to be taken advantage of. And you don’t see that principle in other parts of the world, right? It is really unique to the American founding, and while that generation didn’t get it right and struggled with it going forward, they started that movement by putting those beautiful words in those founding documents.
“Deferring the Slavery Issue for 20 Years”
Though the condemnation of slavery was ultimately left out of the Declaration, the topic was revisited at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Mary Thompson, Research Historian of the George Washington Presidential Library, said:
The Southern delegates absolutely said that they were going to go home without finishing this process if the North kept pushing the issue of slavery, and if the Southern delegates go home, the new government won’t work. It’ll never happen. And so everybody agrees that they will table this issue. They decided they would not touch this issue again until 1808 because it’s too divisive.
The hope was that in those 21 years, the South would have time to switch to an economy free of slavery. Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Joseph Ellis, said the founders were thinking that slavery “is truly at odds with the values we believe we are fighting for in the Revolution. By that time, however, the Republic will have gotten through its infancy.”
However, in those decades, the cotton “gin” (short for engine) was invented in 1793, and Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase of 1803 doubled our territory. These events increased labor demands and postponed the promise of liberty until it had to be settled with the Civil War.
The American Spiritual Heritage Project
IFA is celebrating our spiritual heritage this year, and our plan is to add this story to Independence Hall’s zip code (19106) in Philadelphia for The American Spiritual Heritage Project, but you don’t have to wait for that to reclaim the anti-slavery spirit from our nation’s founding and rededicate our nation to God’s truth that all men are created equal.
Lord, we thank You that You inspired many of our founders to address slavery in the ways they were able to do. Please forgive us for putting off the abolition of slavery! Heal our land today.
Post your praise to the Lord working in our nation’s past and your prayers for our future in the comments below. We may use some for that page in The American Spiritual Heritage Project.
Rich Swingle has presented in 42 nations on six continents, mostly with his own one-man plays. He plays Gunning Bedford in The American Miracleand The American Miracle Extended. Rich and his bride Joyce Swingle have 41 screen children. The Swingles live in New York City. www.RichDrama.com. Photo Credit: Fathom Entertainment.
