Kevin Hardwick writes: "I think it is a bit misleading to suggest that the founders, as a group, were overtly critical of slavery." I never said there was unanimity. In this country there is never unanimity on anything. My point is that if we are going to establish benchmarks of the moral standards of the founding generation, it is not a bad thing to look to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin – all of whom denounced slavery (can we throw in Lafayette and Kosciuszko too?). Nor is it off point to examine the records of the Constitutional Convention, where we find the smoking gun, the deal being struck--John Rutledge of South Carolina: "Religion and humanity [have] nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle." (Read that aloud to the people who say we are founded on Christian principles.) When we look at the standards of some of the leading figures of the age--the topmost founders--we find revulsion against slavery. So it is impossible to argue that the founding generation had no notion of slavery's evil--they knew it well and they made a deal with it. I agree with Prof Kaminski that a window of opportunity for emancipation began to close; but that means it was open. George Washington said the same thing (see his striking letter to John Laurens about the failure of the Revolutionary War emancipation plan: "That Spirit of Freedom which at the commencement of this contest would have gladly sacrificed every thing to the attainment of its object has long since subsided, and every selfish Passion has taken its place--it is not the public but the private Interest which influences the generality of Mankind nor can the Americans any longer boast [to be] an exception."). When we look back and judge them for keeping slavery, we are not judging them by our standards but by the words of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin. I develop these points in much more detail in the second half of my book "An Imperfect God." You could start with the chapter on the Revolution: "So Sacred a War as This" (a quote from John Laurens, speaking of the moral necessity of emancipation amidst a "sacred" revolution for liberty). Henry Wiencek