Kenneth C. Davis

In the long list of charges that Jefferson made against the King of England, the author of the Declaration had included the idea that George III was responsible for the slave trade and was preventing America from ending slavery.

That was not only untrue, but Congress wanted no mention of slavery in the nation's founding document.

The reference was cut out before the Declaration was approved and sent to the printer.

But it leaves open the hard question.

How could the men, who were about to sign a document celebrating liberty and equality, accept a system in which some people owned others?

It is a question that would eventually bring the nation to civil war, and one we can still ask today.