Part C
Now consider some facts and details about other men who signed the Constitution:

Governor Morris, the author of the preamble to the Constitution and the words "We the People," was a founder of the Manumission Society of New York, which worked to free enslaved people. He supported education for free Black and recently freed enslaved people and helped fund schools for Black children. At two points in his life, he bought an enslaved person and immediately freed them. During the Convention, he gave an anti-slavery speech that, according to other members of the Convention, was passionate and fiery.
Roger Sherman was the only Founding Father to sign all four of the foundational documents (the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, and the Articles of Association—which changed the new country's trade relationship with England). He never owned slaves and consistently argued against slavery, even during the Convention. He was instrumental in ending slavery in Connecticut.
Although Thomas Paine didn't sign any of the foundational documents, he did, as you know, write "Common Sense," which was key in pushing the public's interest toward declaring Independence. He also wrote articles against slavery, and after the war, he went to England and wrote in support of British abolition efforts. His first published essay in America was "African Slavery in America" (1775). In this essay, he wrote, "Our Traders in MEN (an unnatural commodity!) must know the wickedness of that SLAVE-TRADE, if they attend to reasoning, or the dictates of their own hearts; and such as shun and stifle all these, willfully sacrifice Conscience, and the character of integrity to that golden Idol."
In a 2016 piece about John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams (the only two of the first twelve Presidents of the United States who did not own slaves), journalist Louisa Thomas wrote, "There was then, as there is now, an idealized vision of a grand new experiment in freedom. But, in their lives, there were messy, sometimes intolerable contradictions. The past is like the present, in one important way: it isn't always what we want it to be."
Part D
Reflect on the texts and the details that you read about the lives of some of the Founders.

What observations do you make about their choices?
How do you think free or enslaved African Americans may have felt as their humanity was debated?
Write three to five sentences summarizing your response to the question, "What conclusions can you draw about the men who wrote the Constitution?"