Listed below are two opinion editorial news articles (op-eds). Write an op-ed to respond to the ideas expressed in the articles by Williams or Matthews. Present a persuasive argument in which you agree or disagree with the author. Your op-ed can be written in the first person and include anecdotal evidence. While the opinion may be your own, construct a persuasive argument using the assigned course reading materials, including the Declaration of Independence, to support your position. Define and anchor your thoughts within the context of equality of opportunity.

• Walter E. Williams: America's founders and the slavery debate, Omaha World Herald, 2019
• The case against equality of opportunity, Dylan Matthews, Vox, 2015

Answer:

As historian Kenneth Stampp noted in his book "Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South," these extremely stupid individuals, both in and out of academia, want us to believe that slavery is an exceptional institution. Slavery is prevalent in all periods and kinds, thus it is not special, weird, uncommon, or unique to the United States. These are not yet resolved since the nature of the problem changes. The industrialised and globalised world sees an imbalance and unfairness among individuals who work for businesses and firms but only earn a fraction of the billions immediately deposited into their bank accounts. So, where is the ostensibly equal treatment? We are only covered with juicy and sweetened words from worldwide investors, who want to cooperate with us. In the current world, we are simply a new generation of slaves. "The fact remained that it was at the commencement of the 19th century an approximated three of all people living were bound in bondage against their own will, either in some form of slavery or serfdom," stated David P. Forsythe, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Slavery was widespread throughout ancient peoples, including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Persians, Armenians, and many others. These cannot be refuted since they are facts that have been recorded and taught in schools all across the world, yet some would like to call them quirks. "There is hardly a man living who desires more honestly than I do, to see a scheme approved for the abolition of slavery," George Washington said in a letter to Pennsylvania delegate Robert Morris. "We have seen the simple division of hue created in the most enlightened age of mankind, a foundation of the most tyrannical control ever exercised by man over man," James Madison remarked in a speech to the Constitutional Convention. "Thought it improper to include in the Constitution the concept that there might be property in mankind," James Madison wrote in the Convention's records. And to what aspect of men is it alluding? Where people are still battling to flourish and survive, despite the fact that so-called equality is still a long way off. Northern delegates to the Convention, as well as those opposed to slavery, intended to decide representation in the House of Representatives including the Electoral College by counting solely free citizens in each state. Here's my theory on those who use slavery to denigrate the founding fathers: They despise the freedoms guaranteed by our constitution.