Yet, despite their flaws, they established a form of government that is arguably the best the world has yet seen.

They also executed their public responsibilities with about as much virtue as has ever been seen (with the possible exception of Caesar Augustus). Washington could have been King — many people asked him to do so — yet he refused. He could have been President for life, but he declined a third term. He had unfettered military power throughout most of the Revolutionary war, but he conspicuously deferred to the civilian Continental Congress.

The Founders understood the paradox that slavery posed for country based on the statement that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” but they realized that solving this paradox was beyond their capabilities. Many believed that slavery would wither and die — as it might have done if cotton had not supplanted tobacco as the South’s primary cash crop. Even Lincoln didn’t free all the slaves, but only those who remained in the unconquered Confederacy, and thus out of the reach of his Emancipation.

The Founders were not perfect, but the nation they founded and the Constitution they crafted — flawed though they were — has provided the basis for civil rights we all deserve — and mostly enjoy — today.