What an awesome reply - and you make some very valid points. I think the slavery question and the emergent race-based slavery are quite different and the history of Haiti throws up what an absolute clusterfuck the entire system had become by the time of the Industrial Revolution rolled around. It was a sociological mess and difficulties were bound to emerge.

The US system is as you've suggested the product of the 'Founding Fathers' and that was continued and carried out by the various branches, however they did also provide the mechanisms by which amendments could be made (and subsequently were), I think they intended to future proof and in all honesty I think they kicked the can down the road after the French Revolution, tied into the founding of the USA by figures like Lafayette and Paine. This was an age of idealism in a nascent country with a strong need for pragmatism. As Britain was built on the back of its working class, so the US was built on the back of slavery - and Britain benefited hugely from the fallout from that. There's some real interesting stuff someone wrote about how Manchester and Liverpool in the UK handled the conceptualisation of slavery differently, I'll see if I can find it - because it's fascinating reading and I think you'd enjoy it.

Pragmatism or not, the British did abolish slavery and did (to some extent) police it, but the moral reasoning was flawed when you consider things like the scramble for Africa, everything that happened in India across the 1800s and the entire British foreign policy across Victorian England. Most Brits don't know about this, we're told the sun never set on the British Empire and we were a great civilising force in the world.... that limited education system is part of that rationalising untruths you mention.

Always good to see you pop up. I know I'm not getting an easy time of it :o)