Plenty of people at the time thought slavery was evil. Franklin was even one of them, calling it "cancer." He said this while still owning slaves, which is rather peculiar, but people are complicated.

Slavery was immoral during Franklin's time too, Walter. Many, many people of the time understood this. Even Franklin himself, hypocrite though he was, came around to it.

Yeah no, Norway and a few others are the free-est country in history, just because someone declares US is "free" doesn't make it true, we disappear citizens all the time, police can seize your property without cause, government can seize your land for datacenters and women lose more and more rights every year

Again, Franklin knew slavery was wrong, literally campaigned to end it for that reason, yet did it himself for decades in the meanwhile, not a difficult horror to grasp in any time