2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary's historian refutes Sanders claim that this country is "created on racist principles". [View all]malthaussen
(17,195 posts)Please allow me to correct what seems to be a misapprehension on your part, however, I do not equate indentured servants with slaves. They are a whole 'nother smoke.
As for challenging the underlying principle, I was thinking specifically of overt challenge. I don't remember reading many discussions about whether the institution was valid, just about what status and protections the enslaved should have. Clearly the anti-slavery sect had some pull, because the institution was not overtly enshrined in the Constitution (which is the point Wilentz is laboring). But whatever Jefferson might have said to Madison while they were boozing it up in the City Tavern, I'd have to go with the interpretation that, by remaining silent on the subject, they tacitly approved it (for the best of reasons, of course, since there would have been no Union if they had not). And then there is the subject of the Indians -- for even if one were to place the best interpretation he pleases on the Africans, the racism towards the indigenous population was certainly abundant, even if "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" was also not written into the Constitution. As I say downthread, there is some real (GOP-level!) irony in a fan of Andrew Jackson trying to sell that the country was not founded on racist principles.
-- Mal