LETTER-WRITER Michael Coard says that "for nearly 40 years," Robert Morris "was a major slave merchant," but he can't prove that because the statement is false.
Mr. Coard, on the board of overseers for the President's House project, has said, "The Revolution was won with blood money – our blood." This is an insult to America and my ancestor Robert Morris (the Financier of the Revolution).
Here are some other responses to Mr. Coard's Oct. 21 letter:
The Constitutional Convention was held in 1787 not 1775. The Stamp Act was a tax on documents, not slaves. The first president to "politically prosper" from slavery was Jefferson, who never lived in the President's House.
And let's not forget that Robert Morris championed the Non-Importation Agreements, which stopped the slave trade into Philadelphia.