Chapter Summary Of Founding Brothers By Joseph J. Ellis

According to the source merriam webster, the definition of a slavery(n) is the submission to a dominating influence. Slavery in America spurred various arguments, quarrels, but mainly a civil war fought against the Southern Confederacy and the Northern Union. In the book Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis, Chapter 3: The Silence examines the problems of slavery and the disagreements which had led up to a plethora of problems. Slavery dates back all the way to 1619 to Jamestown, America’s first colony. Here slaves aided in the production of tobacco, slaves endured countless hours of labor on places called plantations. These plantations were owned by slave owners who would buy them at slave auctions, once bought they were theirs and they could

In the Chapter, it begins by introducing two Quakers who call for an end for the slavery trade. People such as Jackson question people such as the Quakers, he believes that they’re “evil” and have more motives behind just ending the slave trade. He’s fearful that they want more such as the abolishment of slavery which he believes can’t happen. James Madison on the other who acts as the “voice of cool reason” says that if Jackson had just not talk about the problem at hand, it would’ve just gone away. James Madison like Jackson, is a strong believer that even if the request to abolish the slave trade were the be brought forward in congress, no one would have anything to say except no. James and Madison are representations of what people thought back then about slavery, they both believed that no matter what no one would want to end the slave trade or even go as far as to abolish

I came to understand that many people relied on slaves to perform simple tasks such as bring rice from farms to markets, miniscule tasks that just served as excuses to Jackson’s point. During this debate various other people spoke the matter, hearing from other people such as Laurence spoke on slavery as if it was tradition, he understood that people that accepted slavery did it because it was fixated into the states, slavery was accepted but people understand that it was wrong. The population believed that with time, slavery was end. Elbridge Gerry suggests paying slave owners who allow their slaves to be freed to fight in the war for the amount that they’d bought them for but others argue that the budget of ten million is too low and he knows it himself. Madison even pondered the idea of having the West be have regulated laws which didn’t allow slavery. With time, states such as Vermont and New Hampshire joined the fight on the abolishment of slavery, both states made it illegal to own slaves. Eventually Pennsylvania and Rhode Island would declare it illegal as well, the South knew they were fighting a war that they were slowly losing to the North. By the end of 1790, more than twelve-thousand slaves were free due to the progressive changes the North were making. Thomas Jefferson, a salient founding father wrote