Washington was wrong?

Once again, we are reading a book against slavery. Thankfully, this time, the speaker makes his stance quite clear. I found Adam’s visit to Washington’s Mount Vernon very interesting. Many times, people acknowledge that, yes, the founders of our country owned slaves, but they also retort that even valiant men aren’t perfect. However, Adams seems outrage at such an act stating, “Slavery was wicked, and slavery was the cause of the road’s badness which amounted to social crime- and yet, at the end of the road and product of the crime stood Mount Vernon and George Washington” pg 33. Adams does not excuse Washington from his “sentence” simply because he was a founder of our country. Rather, he is angry at Washington, because he believes that the founders are suppose to be the example of equality, not the exception.
I also found it interesting how Adam’s referrers to his teachers at formal schools as masters. This almost references the relationship between a slave and “master”. However, what is ironic is that as Adams compares formal education to slavery, Fredrick Douglass saw education was the key to freedom. Its also kind of funny how Adams states that Harvard college, which is considered to be this fantastic, ivy league, best-school-in-the-country type school, was a waste of time, partially due to its social life.