I also blame Gore Vidal for these smears against Jefferson. In his fine book “Burr” he defames Jefferson with these charges. Actually, some of Jefferson’s male relatives were quite backwards. Two of his nephews chopped up a living slave to teach the other slaves “a lesson.”
Barbaric. Is this true?
You would have thought that while Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, he might have given some consideration to these people, but hypocrisy and dichotomy was the norm for that era.
They respected the Idea of freedom when it applied to them, but not when it applied to others.
Funny, we are still having that problem.