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Comment by hfuyf65 | Hacker News Reader

You seem to be ignoring political realities on the ground by framing it this way. I am not certain it helps the discussion.

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I don’t believe I am ignoring the political realities. The way I see it, slavery was a hotly contested political issue in America at the time. In another comment of yours in this thread you mention “the exclusions that were made with defaults” but I see no evidence that these were truly the defaults in the way that, eg slavery in ancient Greece (my knowledge of Ancient Rome is fairly basic so I can’t comment on that) was a default that few if any members of the polis questioned. The framers of the constitution absolutely inhabited a moral world in which it was possible to denounce slavery for the abomination it was.

> You seem to be ignoring political realities on the ground by framing it this way.

Could you expand on what you mean here, particularly as regards the comment you're responding to?

<< By "the people" you mean the leaving aside the ~600,000 enslaved along with all the women and native people who could not vote.

On cell so I don't really want to write a whole essay.

The poster focused exclusively on the excluded without considering that the exclusions that were made with defaults that do not align with today's values. It is almost like complaining about Romans severely puniahing their slaves for disobedience. It completely ignores the reality of the world the person lives in and judges them based on today's expectations.

The 600k op mentioned were not relevant to his 'constituency' or one he seemed to speak for, and, arguably, Jeffeson himself.

From his perspective, they were not more capable set of men.

Jefferson advocated for the gradual emancipation of all slaves in the United States. He very well knew slavery was an abomination. Nevertheless, he enjoyed its fruits.

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