Would the Founding Fathers support critical race theory?
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in his 1789 book Notes on the State of Virginia that Blacks were a distinct and inferior species when compared with Whites. One year later, Jefferson joined the other Founding Fathers in supporting the Naturalization Act of 1790, which made citizenship in the United States available only to free, white persons. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that If [he] had all the powers in the world, he would gladly send every Black person in America back to Africa because he did not  the two races could live together in the United States. In fact, Lincoln pursued repatriating Black Americans to Africa in his plans to bring the South back into the Union.