Well, there's a precise statement for you: a hell of a lot of them were...
Thank you Mr. Obvious. Anyone who has taken American History knows that some of the signers of the Constitution were in favor of slavery and that's why those clauses are in the Constitution.
A debate takes two opposing sides, or doesn't it?
How do the opinions of one side of the debate invalidate the efforts of those who wanted it banned, at a time when in many places in the Americas it was still being practiced? Hell, how much better was the serfdom practiced until the early part of the 20th century in Eastern Europe.
Indeed, how does that invalidate what I said, which is that our children are being taught that all the Founding Fathers were slave owners and/or were in favor of slavery? That ok with you? You don't think that's a lie?
Get a grip and give some thought to the times in which they lived, and stop judging the people of the past by the standards of today. Give them the credit for being eons ahead of where other political ideologies wound up, which was using the guillotine to bring about democracy.
As for Washington, you besmirch him by using a simplistic reduction of what was a complicated man and situation. If one reads his private papers as well as the public ones, one can see that his attitude toward slavery changed over the course of his lifetime. He started out a typical southerner of his time, born into slavery, just as much as his slaves were born into it. Over time that changed. "
Moral doubt about the institution first appeared in 1778 when Washington expressed reluctance to sell some of his enslaved workers at a public venue or split their families. At war’s end, Washington demanded without success that the British respect the preliminary peace treaty which he said required return of escaped slaves without exception. His public statement on resigning his commission, addressing challenges facing the new confederation, made no explicit mention of slavery. Politically, Washington felt that the divisive issue of American slavery threatened national cohesion, and he never spoke publicly about it. Privately, Washington considered plans in the mid 1790s to free his enslaved population. Those plans failed because of his inability to raise the finances necessary, the refusal of his family to approve emancipation of the dower slaves, and his own aversion to separating enslaved families. His will was widely published upon his death in 1799, and provided for the emancipation of the enslaved population he owned, one of the few slave-owning founders to set them free. Because many of his slaves were married to the dower slaves, whom he could not legally free, the will stipulated that, except for his valet William Lee who was freed immediately, his enslaved workers be emancipated on the death of his wife Martha. She freed them in 1801, a year before her own death, but she had no option to free the dower slaves, who were inherited by her grandchildren."
You might try reading his actual will. I found it quite moving.
We also fought the deadliest war in our history because of slavery, brother against brother, on our own soil. Is that still not enough for you? Or do you want to debate me about whether Lincoln just wanted to save the Union rather than free the slaves? Given the simplicity of your analysis of Washington, I don't doubt it. You'll lose. I've read dozens of books on Lincoln and I assure you I know him and his motivations for every statement he made far better than you do.
Maybe you should go and tell the cities in England which grew fat and rich on the cotton from southern cotton fields to fuel their cloth mills to pay reparations too, or maybe a better idea would be to concentrate on the Arab and African countries where slavery is actually still practiced.
Americans in name only like you make me tired. I have no time to waste in debating people who because of their own indoctrination will oversee the downfall of this country.
WOKEDOM will be the death of this country, and that will be because people like you just don't get it.