I’m reading the Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson. I thought it would have more personal anecdotes about his upbringing, but it is mainly a history of the process of independence and how the new nation was established. One of the fascinating things I’m learning is how the nation’s founders determined to raise money for the new federal government.

Some states were larger and some smaller, some richer and more populated and some the opposite. How could they agree on a fair assessment of taxes that each state would approve? One of the difficulties was that farmers in the northern states, who had few slaves, invested in cattle, while plantation owners in the southern states invested in slaves.

The compromise that drew all the states into agreement was to tax cattle and chattel (slaves) as property equally. Thus, the northern states were as guilty as the southern states in establishing the custom of slavery in the new United States of America. The abolition of slavery came 109 years later during the Civil War.

The lesson: sometimes compromise locks us into something that cannot survive. Let’s make wise decisions.

Tags: freedom, Independence Day, slavery, tax