Letters...................

 

From my infancy I was taught to love humanity and liberty. Enquiry and experience have since confirmed my reverence for the lessons then given me, by convincing me more fully of their truth and excellence. Benevolence toward mankind excites wishes for their welfare, and such wishes endear the means of fulfilling them. These can be found in liberty only, and therefore her sacred cause ought to be espoused by every man, on every occasion, to the utmost of his power. As a charitable but poor person does not withhold his mite because he cannot relieve all the distresses of the miserable, so should not any honest man suppress his sentiments concerning freedom, however small their influence is likely to be. Perhaps he “may touch some wheel” that will have an effect greater than he could reasonably expect.  

-John Dickinson, from his first Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania

Been reading The American Revolution at 250: Twenty-Four Historians Reflect on the Founding.  More than a few historians are troubled by the contradiction between the sentiments of liberty inherent in the Founding and the reality of enslavement.  250 years and a bloody civil war later, we are still dealing with the echoes of that contradiction.  Reading  Dickinson's first letter, the question arose, "was Dickinson a slave owner?"  Google says yes.  Dickenson College puts it this way: "The founders of Dickinson College believed in the principles of the enlightenment and yet still found ways to rationalize ownership of other human beings."