October 26, 2023 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, our Constitution is the oldest in the world—but did it outwardly support slavery? Dr. Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope, answers this important question which is as relevant today as it was in the time of the framers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Up next another
installment of our series about Us, the Story of America series,
with Hillsdale College professor and author of the fantastic book
Land of Hope, doctor Bill McLay. When the Framers finished
their masterpiece, the Constitution, they knew the impact it would
(00:31):
have upon the world, and he thought it would decide
the fate of Republican government for all of eternity. But
that document wasn't without controversy. Let's get into the story.
Here's Bill McLay.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So the Constitution, the handiwork of this secretive convention, gathered
in Philadelphia in the summer, a hot, muggy summer of
seventeen eighty seven, was finally complete and signed on September seventeenth,
seventeen eighty seven. It's worth stepping back to contemplate what
(01:09):
an achievement this was. Without getting into the details of
the Constitution, just make one point. We've lived ever since
then under the same constitution, the same set of rules
and principles that were being debated and discussed all the
way back in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's remarkable.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We are the oldest constitution in the world. Oldest functioning constitution.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
A lot of people think of America as a young country.
In many ways, we are, but our constitution is venerable.
It's shown its ability to stand the test of time.
It's taken a licking and keeps on ticking. It says
a lot about us that this is the case. To
(02:00):
spense with our constitution as occasionally as advocated is something
that would be very, very troubling because it's always been
a part of us.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's always been a part of the way we have
lived together.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We've altered it, we've amended it, sometimes misunderstood parts of it,
but it's.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
There, and we go back to it again and again
and again.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's like scripture in that way.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's a big country.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's become even bigger than it was in seventeen eighty seven.
It's got profound differences. It did then it does now.
That's why the Constitution's framework is so compelling. It's also why,
I think why you don't see the kind of soaring.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Language in the Constitution that you.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Do in the Declaration. The Declaration is a beautiful document.
It's a work of literature. The Constitution doesn't have the
soaring literary lift of Jefferson's beautiful words. It doesn't make
a lofty pronouncement about human nature or high ideals or
(03:14):
low ideals. For that better, it doesn't do that. It's
not what it's for. The Constitution is a different kind
of document, more like a rule book. It defines with
a lot of room. It tries to define what the
different parts of government.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Did what they didn't do.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But there was, to our eyes and to the eyes
of many at the time, one gaping omission.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The issue of slavery.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Slavery has a long history, and in the New World,
the Western Hemisphere, it's I think true to say that
the exaus distance of slavery has been more the rule
than the exception in human history. It's been sadly a
part of most developed societies. The pioneers of slavery in
(04:13):
Europe were the Spanish and the Portuguese. They got a
head start on the colonization of the Western hemisphere and
introduced slavery along with it. The English followed. In America,
(04:36):
slavery was preceded by an institution called indentured servitude, and
this was a system afore slavery that in many ways
could resemble slavery. An indentured servant would get free passage
to the New World in exchange for essentially being like
a slave. In some instances it's not always but to
(04:58):
be to exist as a coerced form of labor for whatever.
The term of the indenture was five years, seven years,
and then at the end of that time the indenture
would be over the person would be released to be
a free person. It was a harsh deal, but it
(05:20):
was one way of getting to the New World for
people who had no money. Indentured servitude was much more common.
I mean, it was actually the form in which coerced
labor first really makes its way in America. It's a
dismal subject, but at any rate. Africans who came to
(05:42):
the British part of North America were treated as indentured
servants at first, but as the number of Africans grew,
discrimination according to race began to show its ugly face.
This discrimination, this race jdice anti black racism, hardened over
(06:04):
time into the form of laws that were passed by
representative assemblies that relegated Africans and their children to the
status of permanent slaves, that is to be shattle slaves
to being the legal property of the slave owners, just
the same as a as a horse, as a house,
(06:25):
as land, as farm implements, the same way they were
considered property, human beings as property.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Economics drove some of this.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
The demand for agricultural workers grew at the very same
time that the flow of white and deentured servants from
England slowed, and over time the economy of certain states
like Virginia, like South Carolina became dependent on slaves. These
economies were almost entirely dependent. Over fifty percent of the
(07:03):
population of Virginia in the year seventeen.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Fifty was enslaved.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
In South Carolina, it was sixty seven percent in a
city like Charleston, the percentages approached ninety percent by the
time the Founders got to Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven.
Slavery was a fundamental, inescapable part of the American economy,
(07:33):
and yet slavery stood in clear violation of the fundamental
notions of liberty and equality that were enunciated in the
Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self evident,
that all men are created equal. The man who wrote
(07:53):
that Thomas Jefferson himself owned slaves, So did the man
who chaired the Constitutional Convention, George Washington. How could these
men square their stated claims and loyalty to reverence for
our founding documents with these aspects of their own lives.
(08:16):
This is a very important question to us today. Are
we to look back at the founders with admiration? And
if so, how do we understand that historical context has
to be taken into account.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And you've been listening to Professor Bill McLay of Hillsdale
College tell the story of our constitution. It's not the
oldest country, he pointed out, America, but it is the
oldest constitution, and we've altered it, amended it. But there
it is. We go back to it again and again,
Professor McLay said, like scripture. And then there with slavery
(08:52):
haunting the founders, in some ways haunting us today. Fifty
percent of the Virginia population slaves, sixty seven percent of
South Carolina slaves, ninety percent of the residence of Charleston slaves.
When we come back how this all worked out, how
it flushed out with Professor Bill McLay here on our
(09:14):
American stories, and we continue with our American stories and
(09:41):
the Story of America series with doctor Bill McLay, author
of the fantastic book Land of Hope. When we last
left off, Bill McLay was answering the question of why
the Constitution allowed for slavery. Let's get back to the
story here again, is Professor McLay.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Each of us is born into a world that we
didn't make.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
We don't make its rules, we don't make its expectations,
we don't create its infrastructure. We're born into it, and
we make our way in it and through it. These
(10:35):
men lived in their times, not ours, and yet there
is a contradiction that you can't get away from that.
They had stated ideals that were difficult to reconcile with
their lives. Now Washington would end up freeing his slaves
when he died. Jefferson, who wrote beautifully of the injustice
(10:59):
and horror of slaves, disagreed with the practice, to put
it mildly, and later came to see it as a sin.
He wrote, I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just. The Almighty has no attribute which
can take side with us in such a contest. That's
(11:21):
Thomas Jefferson, owner of slaves, a man.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Of his times.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Many of the framers, the men who were involved in
writing the Constitution, were convinced, sincerely convinced that slavery was
on the path to eventual extinction that would just disappear,
and they also believed that compromise in the short term
was necessary to get the Constitution enacted. Roger Sherman, so
(11:54):
important in the fashioning of the Great Compromise, said this,
I disapprove of the slave trade. Yet as the states
were now possessed of the right to import slaves, as
the public good did not require it to be taken
from them, and as it was expedient to have as
few objections as possible to the proposed scheme of government,
(12:18):
I think it best to leave the matter as we
find it. The abolition of slavery seems to be going
on in the US, and the good sense of the
several states were probably by degrees completed. I urge on
the Convention the necessity of dispatching its business. Those are
(12:38):
rather cold and antiseptic words. But what Sherman seems to
realize is that if the nation were split asunder, and
it's very beginning, then it was chances for success as
a nation state in a world of aggressive nation states,
(13:00):
to pursue abolition of slavery in the United States at
the time of the Constitutional Convention would be suicidal for
the nation's future. Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia had
already indicated, and they were not fooling around about it,
that if slavery were to be abolished, they wouldn't be
(13:21):
a party.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
To the Constitution. They simply would not sign on. So
the United States of.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
America would begin its life as this United States of America.
So the defenders of slavery prevailed and won concessions to
protect slavery. The importation of slaves was extended for another
(13:49):
twenty years and then there could be a vote on
the banning of further importation, which did occur, and under
the administration of President Thomas Jefferson, on the issue of representation,
there was the three fifths compromise, which I think has
been misunderstood. It doesn't mean that slaves were to be
(14:11):
counted as three fifths of a human being. The three
fifths compromise came about because there were states that wanted
for slaves to be counted at one hundred percent for
taxation purposes. That is part of the general population, but
zero percent for representation purposes. So the three fifths compromise
(14:34):
was a way of trying to balance the representation of
slaves for both purposes. There's a clause in the Constitution
requiring that fugitive slaves slaves that run away from their masters,
that requires those who find the slaves to return them
to their masters. This is a protection for slavery, there's
(14:58):
no doubt about it. But one of the things that
Madison did that I think is very important. He saw
to it that the language of the Constitution never mentions
the word slavery. There's no protection for the institution itself.
The way he put it was that there would be
(15:18):
no property in man underwritten by the Constitution, no property
in man. He did not want anything to slip in
that would seem to provide a constitutional basis for the
existence of slavery as constitutionally guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
So he was leaving the door open for the.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Constitution to become an entirely anti slavery document. And as
I've said, in eighteen o eight, when the Grace period
ran out, the legal importation of slaves ended.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
But slavery not only continued, but it grew.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
So what do we.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Conclude about this today?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, I think we conclude that the Constitution was an
imperfect document created by imperfect men to deal in the
most prudential way possible, the most prudent way possible with
a difficult situation. Many political problems cannot be solved in
one swoop. They can be managed in the short term
(16:33):
and steered towards a good long term goal. Political necessity
dictated the internal contradictions of a constitution that allowed slavery
in some areas while permitting it to be forbidden in others. Remember,
the Northwest Ordinance explicitly abandoned slavery from the Northwest territories
(16:55):
in the states that would be made up from it.
So the state of slavery, tedy of slavery, the moral
outrage of slavery, would not be eliminated in one swoop,
even when Lincoln. This time, Lincoln was not an advocate
of immediate abolition. He felt that the most important thing
(17:16):
as the Civil War began was to preserve the Union.
So there was an understanding from very early on that
if you didn't have a cohesive, coherent, effective constitution, the
liberty that would result from abolition would not matter for
(17:37):
much if the nation itself couldn't hold together. So it's
wrong to say, and I say this emphatically, it's wrong
to say that the nation, the American nation, was founded
on slavery.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's wrong to say that there are some things that
are right about it.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
It is true the nation was founded with a toleration
of the existence of slavery in places where it was
already established, was.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Already completely legal. It's easy in.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Retrospect to wish that they had, but I think to
think historically about it, you have to come to terms
with the fact that there might not have been an
American nation at all without the Constitution, without the compromises
that made the Constitution possible. And the way that Madison
(18:28):
ended up drafting and crafting the text of the Constitution
made it clear to no less of an observer than
the great Black abolitionist Frederick Douglas that the Constitution was
a glorious liberty document, a glorious liberty document, a glorious
(18:48):
freedom document that did not have a pro slavery taint
to it. It permitted slavery, it tolerated slavery, but it
indoors slavery. That's I think the right way to see.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery himself a Hillsdale College graduate.
And a special thanks to Hillsdale College professor doctor Bill McLay,
author of the fantastic book Land of Hope and the
Young Reader's Edition. By the way, our own Greg Hengler
reads the Young Readers Edition to his seven daughters every night.
(19:34):
I own the book. You too should go to Amazon
or the usual suspects pick up Land of Hope and
the Young Reader's Edition. And a special thanks of course
to Hillsdale College. And they sponsor all of our history stories.
It's a terrific place to go and learn about your country.
Their online courses are free. They teach all the things
(19:55):
that are good and beautiful in life. Go to Hillsdale
dot edu and listen to they're terrific and free online courses.
The Story of America series with Professor Bill McLay here
on our American stories
And we returned to our American stories. Up next another
installment of our series about Us, the Story of America series,
with Hillsdale College professor and author of the fantastic book
Land of Hope, doctor Bill McLay. When the Framers finished
their masterpiece, the Constitution, they knew the impact it would
(00:31):
have upon the world, and he thought it would decide
the fate of Republican government for all of eternity. But
that document wasn't without controversy. Let's get into the story.
Here's Bill McLay.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
So the Constitution, the handiwork of this secretive convention, gathered
in Philadelphia in the summer, a hot, muggy summer of
seventeen eighty seven, was finally complete and signed on September seventeenth,
seventeen eighty seven. It's worth stepping back to contemplate what
(01:09):
an achievement this was. Without getting into the details of
the Constitution, just make one point. We've lived ever since
then under the same constitution, the same set of rules
and principles that were being debated and discussed all the
way back in the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
That's remarkable.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
We are the oldest constitution in the world. Oldest functioning constitution.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
In the world.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
A lot of people think of America as a young country.
In many ways, we are, but our constitution is venerable.
It's shown its ability to stand the test of time.
It's taken a licking and keeps on ticking. It says
a lot about us that this is the case. To
(02:00):
spense with our constitution as occasionally as advocated is something
that would be very, very troubling because it's always been
a part of us.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
It's always been a part of the way we have
lived together.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
We've altered it, we've amended it, sometimes misunderstood parts of it,
but it's.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
There, and we go back to it again and again
and again.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
It's like scripture in that way.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's a big country.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's become even bigger than it was in seventeen eighty seven.
It's got profound differences. It did then it does now.
That's why the Constitution's framework is so compelling. It's also why,
I think why you don't see the kind of soaring.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Language in the Constitution that you.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Do in the Declaration. The Declaration is a beautiful document.
It's a work of literature. The Constitution doesn't have the
soaring literary lift of Jefferson's beautiful words. It doesn't make
a lofty pronouncement about human nature or high ideals or
(03:14):
low ideals. For that better, it doesn't do that. It's
not what it's for. The Constitution is a different kind
of document, more like a rule book. It defines with
a lot of room. It tries to define what the
different parts of government.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Did what they didn't do.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But there was, to our eyes and to the eyes
of many at the time, one gaping omission.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
The issue of slavery.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Slavery has a long history, and in the New World,
the Western Hemisphere, it's I think true to say that
the exaus distance of slavery has been more the rule
than the exception in human history. It's been sadly a
part of most developed societies. The pioneers of slavery in
(04:13):
Europe were the Spanish and the Portuguese. They got a
head start on the colonization of the Western hemisphere and
introduced slavery along with it. The English followed. In America,
(04:36):
slavery was preceded by an institution called indentured servitude, and
this was a system afore slavery that in many ways
could resemble slavery. An indentured servant would get free passage
to the New World in exchange for essentially being like
a slave. In some instances it's not always but to
(04:58):
be to exist as a coerced form of labor for whatever.
The term of the indenture was five years, seven years,
and then at the end of that time the indenture
would be over the person would be released to be
a free person. It was a harsh deal, but it
(05:20):
was one way of getting to the New World for
people who had no money. Indentured servitude was much more common.
I mean, it was actually the form in which coerced
labor first really makes its way in America. It's a
dismal subject, but at any rate. Africans who came to
(05:42):
the British part of North America were treated as indentured
servants at first, but as the number of Africans grew,
discrimination according to race began to show its ugly face.
This discrimination, this race jdice anti black racism, hardened over
(06:04):
time into the form of laws that were passed by
representative assemblies that relegated Africans and their children to the
status of permanent slaves, that is to be shattle slaves
to being the legal property of the slave owners, just
the same as a as a horse, as a house,
(06:25):
as land, as farm implements, the same way they were
considered property, human beings as property.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Economics drove some of this.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
The demand for agricultural workers grew at the very same
time that the flow of white and deentured servants from
England slowed, and over time the economy of certain states
like Virginia, like South Carolina became dependent on slaves. These
economies were almost entirely dependent. Over fifty percent of the
(07:03):
population of Virginia in the year seventeen.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Fifty was enslaved.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
In South Carolina, it was sixty seven percent in a
city like Charleston, the percentages approached ninety percent by the
time the Founders got to Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven.
Slavery was a fundamental, inescapable part of the American economy,
(07:33):
and yet slavery stood in clear violation of the fundamental
notions of liberty and equality that were enunciated in the
Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self evident,
that all men are created equal. The man who wrote
(07:53):
that Thomas Jefferson himself owned slaves, So did the man
who chaired the Constitutional Convention, George Washington. How could these
men square their stated claims and loyalty to reverence for
our founding documents with these aspects of their own lives.
(08:16):
This is a very important question to us today. Are
we to look back at the founders with admiration? And
if so, how do we understand that historical context has
to be taken into account.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
And you've been listening to Professor Bill McLay of Hillsdale
College tell the story of our constitution. It's not the
oldest country, he pointed out, America, but it is the
oldest constitution, and we've altered it, amended it. But there
it is. We go back to it again and again,
Professor McLay said, like scripture. And then there with slavery
(08:52):
haunting the founders, in some ways haunting us today. Fifty
percent of the Virginia population slaves, sixty seven percent of
South Carolina slaves, ninety percent of the residence of Charleston slaves.
When we come back how this all worked out, how
it flushed out with Professor Bill McLay here on our
(09:14):
American stories, and we continue with our American stories and
(09:41):
the Story of America series with doctor Bill McLay, author
of the fantastic book Land of Hope. When we last
left off, Bill McLay was answering the question of why
the Constitution allowed for slavery. Let's get back to the
story here again, is Professor McLay.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Each of us is born into a world that we
didn't make.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
We don't make its rules, we don't make its expectations,
we don't create its infrastructure. We're born into it, and
we make our way in it and through it. These
(10:35):
men lived in their times, not ours, and yet there
is a contradiction that you can't get away from that.
They had stated ideals that were difficult to reconcile with
their lives. Now Washington would end up freeing his slaves
when he died. Jefferson, who wrote beautifully of the injustice
(10:59):
and horror of slaves, disagreed with the practice, to put
it mildly, and later came to see it as a sin.
He wrote, I tremble for my country when I reflect
that God is just. The Almighty has no attribute which
can take side with us in such a contest. That's
(11:21):
Thomas Jefferson, owner of slaves, a man.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Of his times.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Many of the framers, the men who were involved in
writing the Constitution, were convinced, sincerely convinced that slavery was
on the path to eventual extinction that would just disappear,
and they also believed that compromise in the short term
was necessary to get the Constitution enacted. Roger Sherman, so
(11:54):
important in the fashioning of the Great Compromise, said this,
I disapprove of the slave trade. Yet as the states
were now possessed of the right to import slaves, as
the public good did not require it to be taken
from them, and as it was expedient to have as
few objections as possible to the proposed scheme of government,
(12:18):
I think it best to leave the matter as we
find it. The abolition of slavery seems to be going
on in the US, and the good sense of the
several states were probably by degrees completed. I urge on
the Convention the necessity of dispatching its business. Those are
(12:38):
rather cold and antiseptic words. But what Sherman seems to
realize is that if the nation were split asunder, and
it's very beginning, then it was chances for success as
a nation state in a world of aggressive nation states,
(13:00):
to pursue abolition of slavery in the United States at
the time of the Constitutional Convention would be suicidal for
the nation's future. Delegates from South Carolina and Georgia had
already indicated, and they were not fooling around about it,
that if slavery were to be abolished, they wouldn't be
(13:21):
a party.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
To the Constitution. They simply would not sign on. So
the United States of.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
America would begin its life as this United States of America.
So the defenders of slavery prevailed and won concessions to
protect slavery. The importation of slaves was extended for another
(13:49):
twenty years and then there could be a vote on
the banning of further importation, which did occur, and under
the administration of President Thomas Jefferson, on the issue of representation,
there was the three fifths compromise, which I think has
been misunderstood. It doesn't mean that slaves were to be
(14:11):
counted as three fifths of a human being. The three
fifths compromise came about because there were states that wanted
for slaves to be counted at one hundred percent for
taxation purposes. That is part of the general population, but
zero percent for representation purposes. So the three fifths compromise
(14:34):
was a way of trying to balance the representation of
slaves for both purposes. There's a clause in the Constitution
requiring that fugitive slaves slaves that run away from their masters,
that requires those who find the slaves to return them
to their masters. This is a protection for slavery, there's
(14:58):
no doubt about it. But one of the things that
Madison did that I think is very important. He saw
to it that the language of the Constitution never mentions
the word slavery. There's no protection for the institution itself.
The way he put it was that there would be
(15:18):
no property in man underwritten by the Constitution, no property
in man. He did not want anything to slip in
that would seem to provide a constitutional basis for the
existence of slavery as constitutionally guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
So he was leaving the door open for the.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Constitution to become an entirely anti slavery document. And as
I've said, in eighteen o eight, when the Grace period
ran out, the legal importation of slaves ended.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
But slavery not only continued, but it grew.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
So what do we.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Conclude about this today?
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, I think we conclude that the Constitution was an
imperfect document created by imperfect men to deal in the
most prudential way possible, the most prudent way possible with
a difficult situation. Many political problems cannot be solved in
one swoop. They can be managed in the short term
(16:33):
and steered towards a good long term goal. Political necessity
dictated the internal contradictions of a constitution that allowed slavery
in some areas while permitting it to be forbidden in others. Remember,
the Northwest Ordinance explicitly abandoned slavery from the Northwest territories
(16:55):
in the states that would be made up from it.
So the state of slavery, tedy of slavery, the moral
outrage of slavery, would not be eliminated in one swoop,
even when Lincoln. This time, Lincoln was not an advocate
of immediate abolition. He felt that the most important thing
(17:16):
as the Civil War began was to preserve the Union.
So there was an understanding from very early on that
if you didn't have a cohesive, coherent, effective constitution, the
liberty that would result from abolition would not matter for
(17:37):
much if the nation itself couldn't hold together. So it's
wrong to say, and I say this emphatically, it's wrong
to say that the nation, the American nation, was founded
on slavery.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
It's wrong to say that there are some things that
are right about it.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
It is true the nation was founded with a toleration
of the existence of slavery in places where it was
already established, was.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Already completely legal. It's easy in.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Retrospect to wish that they had, but I think to
think historically about it, you have to come to terms
with the fact that there might not have been an
American nation at all without the Constitution, without the compromises
that made the Constitution possible. And the way that Madison
(18:28):
ended up drafting and crafting the text of the Constitution
made it clear to no less of an observer than
the great Black abolitionist Frederick Douglas that the Constitution was
a glorious liberty document, a glorious liberty document, a glorious
(18:48):
freedom document that did not have a pro slavery taint
to it. It permitted slavery, it tolerated slavery, but it
indoors slavery. That's I think the right way to see.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monte Montgomery himself a Hillsdale College graduate.
And a special thanks to Hillsdale College professor doctor Bill McLay,
author of the fantastic book Land of Hope and the
Young Reader's Edition. By the way, our own Greg Hengler
reads the Young Readers Edition to his seven daughters every night.
(19:34):
I own the book. You too should go to Amazon
or the usual suspects pick up Land of Hope and
the Young Reader's Edition. And a special thanks of course
to Hillsdale College. And they sponsor all of our history stories.
It's a terrific place to go and learn about your country.
Their online courses are free. They teach all the things
(19:55):
that are good and beautiful in life. Go to Hillsdale
dot edu and listen to they're terrific and free online courses.
The Story of America series with Professor Bill McLay here
on our American stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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