American Equality and slavery question...?

Question

Why didn't the leaders of the American Revolution extend their spirit of equality to the abolition of slavery and giving women the right to vote?

Answer 1

You have a good point about the slaves. Consider though that is was not a racial issue. They did have free blacks and indentured white people.
Were the woman ready? These were true stay at home people that had little exposure to anything outside of their village, they did not participate in the military, they were second class citizens in their churches and were mostly illiterate. How were they qualified to vote at that time?

Answer 2

As is true of most American politics, compromise is what makes any action possible.

While certainly there were Founding Fathers who would have supported the abolition of slavery and giving the vote to women, there would have been no Declaration of Independence nor Constitution if these issues had been pursued.

It took a bloody Civil War to eliminate slavery, and decades of determined effort by women and their male supporters in order to obtain equal rights for women (e.g., not only the right to vote, but also the rights to own property and the right to charge a spouse with physical abuse), and some would argue that we aren't totally there yet (e.g., combat eligibility in the military).

Obviously, in large parts of the world today there is de facto slavery and the denial of equal legal rights for women.

BTW, Jefferson opposed slavery vehemently even though he owned slaves his entire life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson#Jefferson_and_slavery

Self-interest and economics (as in Jefferson's case) certainly explain greatly why white males in America were reluctant to give up either slavery or their legal domination of women. Slaves constituted a large portion of the wealth of slaveowners, and women had not only an economic value to their fathers or husbands, but also an emotional and social value.

And slavery evolved into a racial issue over generations. Indentured servants had much greater rights than slaves, and the term of indenture was limited. If slavery weren't a racial issue, the North wouldn't have been so reluctant to use blacks in its armed forces during the Civil War.

Answer 3

Because there is no way the founders would have united under one government if the slavery was abolished. Even though some of the founders were very much anti-slavery (Hamilton, Franklin, Adams) others (Jefferson) defended it. To defeat the British the colonies had to be united and the slavery issue was a very divisive one. We would not have won the Revolution at that time if slavery was abolished, as horrible as that sounds.
As far as women, its simple, the founders believed politics were for men and women didn't really belong. Unlike slavery, there was pretty much a concensus on this issue among the founders.

Answer 4

Well, back then equality amongst men was quite a big step. Plus, if they had extended it to women and slavery at that time, they would not have gotten the needed support.