Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America

According to the conventional wisdom of our time, our nation's Founders were guilty of racism, sexism, and elitism. They were hypocrites who failed to live up to their own enlightened principles. The fact that Washington and Jefferson held slaves is taken as definitive proof that they never really believed "all men are created equal." It is also widely asserted that women, even after the American Revolution, enjoyed virtually no rights, and that the poor and property-less were denied the ba...