The Founding Fathers and slavery.......

[NOVA]

Washington explained his views on slavery in several different writings. In two letters to the Marquis de Lafayette, who had assisted the United States during the Revolutionary War, Washington expressed his desire to see the emancipation of the slaves in America. In 1783 Washington wrote, "The scheme, my dear Marquis, which you propose as a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this country from the state of Bondage in which they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work…." Later Washington wrote in 1786, “your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country…”


http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/classroom/slavery3.html

• "Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, or morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both."
  -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, 1816

• "I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil."
  -- Patrick Henry, letter to Robert Pleasants, January 18, 1773

• "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free."
  -- Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

• "[The Convention] thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men."
  -- James Madison, Records of the Convention, August 25, 1787

• "There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it."
  -- George Washington, letter to Robert Morris, April 12, 1786

• "We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man."
  -- James Madison, speech at the Constitutional Convention, June 6, 1787

• "Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence."
  -- John Adams, letter to Robert Evans, June 8, 1819

• "It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused."
  --John Jay, letter to R. Lushington, March 15, 1786

• 
  Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labour of slaves.
  -- James Madison, Letter to R. H. Lee, July 17, 1785 (Madison, 1865, I, page 161)

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes/slavery.html