SLAVERY AND MORALITY IN THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: TRANSCENDENTALISTS’ STAND

ABSTRACT : This article intends to put in parallel the fundamental principle of the Declaration ofIndependence of the Founding Fathers and the practice of slavery in order to demonstrate not only itscontradictory rhetoric but also to demonstrate the position of the Transcendentalists. For, despite thefundamental principle of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness cherished and idolized by the FoundingFathers, the practice of slavery was far from reaching its epilogue. By declaring in the Federal Paper that all menare created equal, the Founding Fathers did not mean the individual equality. Rather, they meant the equality ofthe American colonists as the people of the United States, which brought them to systematize slavery and takepolitical commitments that federally and constitutionally recognized the status of slavery. It is in that sense thatthe Transcendentalists raised with hue and cry to denounce and fight against the practice of slavery.

KEYWORDS: Founding Fathers, Slavery, Morality, Declaration of Independence, Transcendentalism.