Former President Barack Obama, in an interview with MSNBC ahead of the United States' 250th anniversary, shared his assessment of the Founding Fathers. While describing figures like George Washington as geniuses he greatly admires, he said their slave ownership constitutes a profound flaw.
"Sometimes we fall into the mistake of thinking these two stories are separate. They are intertwined," Obama said, emphasizing that this contradiction is part of the country's character. "It doesn't erase (Washington's) greatness, it just acknowledges a profound flaw in the Founding Fathers who gave us these tools."
Obama's remarks align with his speech at the opening ceremony of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago this month. In his speech, the former president said the founders "fell far short of the Declaration's promise, left slavery in place, and limited the right to vote to white male property owners."
On the other hand, Obama also emphasized that the founders possessed "the foresight and genius to provide a framework that would allow each generation to make a more perfect union" when drafting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Research conducted early in Obama's political career revealed that some of his white ancestors were slave owners in the U.S. This situation has occasionally been a subject of political debate, including comments by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in 2019. Obama's spokesman Bill Burton confirmed in 2007 that "a relative owned slaves while another fought for the Union in the Civil War."
