We were told once, by virtue of our bondage, that we could never be American. But it was by virtue of our bondage that we became the most American of all.
Beautiful wording to show how against the opposition that founded this country, it has actually created the exact thing it sought to destroy.
Liberated by war, then, they did not seek vengeance on their oppressors as Lincoln and so many other white Americans feared. They did the opposite.
I feel as though this is very accurate to what is happening today with the BLM movement's opposition. Many think that it is an attack on our democracy and it is just a power grab by black citizens when in fact it is trying to give our stance of democracy more stable ground to hold itself and to finally get equal power, not more.
And so in Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence, he tried to argue that it wasn’t the colonists’ fault. Instead, he blamed the king of England for forcing the institution of slavery on the unwilling colonists and called the trafficking in human beings a crime.
This was very surprising to me as I did not know Thomas Jefferson recognized that his and many others arguments were counteracted by their actions and then tried playing the blame game without owning up to their mistake.