Former president of the United States Barack Obama has criticized America’s Founding Fathers for a “deep flaw” in their legacy. He made the remarks ahead of America’s 250th birthday celebrations this weekend.
Barack Obama’s full remarks on the Founding Fathers
Speaking in an interview with MSNOW on Sunday, Barack Obama framed the Founding Fathers’ legacy as inseparable from their contradictions, not despite them. “I think sometimes we get confused in thinking that these two stories are separate. They’re intertwined, right? Which is why it’s possible for me to be a great admirer of George Washington, and also acknowledge he was a slaveholder.”
Obama drew a line between accountability and erasure. “That does not negate [Washington’s] greatness; it simply acknowledges that there’s a profound, deep flaw in these Founding Fathers who were also geniuses and gave us these tools,” he said. “It’s that we’re this mixed bag, we’ve got contradictions. And embody the country’s contradictions.”
In a separate speech touching on the same theme, the former president questioned whether the American project was ever guaranteed to work. “The success of this experiment was never a given,” he said.
Barack Obama then laid out the gap between what the Founding Fathers promised and what they delivered. “In forming our union, the founders fell terribly short of the Declaration’s promise, leaving slavery intact, allowing states to restrict the franchise to white men who owned property,” Obama said.
Still, he credited their design for leaving room to improve. “But in drafting a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, they did have the foresight, the genius, to provide us with a framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect (via Fox News).”
This comes as fireworks displays and flag-waving crowds fill the weekend’s headlines. Barack Obama’s remarks add a more contested note to America’s 250th birthday.
