Formal education was not easily obtained, but he attended school when and where he could. Much of Jackson’s education was self-taught. He once made a deal with one of his uncle’s slaves to provide him with pine knots in exchange for reading lessons; Thomas would stay up at night reading borrowed books by the light of those burning pine knots. Virginia law forbade teaching a slave, free black or mulatto to read or write, as enacted following Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion in Southampton County in 1831. Nevertheless, Jackson secretly taught the slave to write, as he had promised. Once literate, the young slave fled to Canada via the underground railroad.[10] In his later years at Jackson’s Mill, Thomas was a schoolteacher.
I wonder what the penalty would have been, had Jackson been caught teaching a black man to read, illegally?
Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856:
I was much pleased the with President’s message. His views of the systematic and progressive efforts of certain people at the North to interfere with and change the domestic institutions of the South are truthfully and faithfully expressed. The consequences of their plans and purposes are also clearly set forth. These people must be aware that their object is both unlawful and foreign to them and to their duty, and that this institution, for which they are irresponsible and non-accountable, can only be changed by them through the agency of a civil and servile war. There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Savior have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master; that, although he may not approve the mode by which Providence accomplishes its purpose, the results will be the same; and that the reason he gives for interference in matters he has no concern with, holds good for every kind of interference with our neighbor, -still, I fear he will persevere in his evil course. . . . Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?
Ah, yes. Lee’s “Slavery’s good for them and God will get around to freeing them someday and it’s no use any of us try to do anything about it” letter. That’s what passes for an enlightened attitude in the old south.
You do so love your Southron myths, don't you? You are aware that Jackson was a slave owner much of his adult life, and was a slave owner the day he died?
Robert E. Lee letter dated December 27, 1856..
Yes, let's look at that letter. "The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially." Much better that they live a life in bondage in the U.S. than as free men in their own country. "The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things." Bear in mind that at this point blacks had been slaves for over 230 years in the U.S. How much longer was their preparation necessary? Forever as far as Lee was concerned. Those who would work for an end to slavery were wrong, so far as Lee was concerned, it was entirely up to God. And God forbid that they should upset the slave owner - of which Lee was one. In fact, Lee was so 'opposed' to slavery that in January 1865 he was writing, "Considering the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country, I would deprecate any sudden disturbance of that relation unless it be necessary to avert a greater calamity to both. I should therefore prefer to rely upon our white population to preserve the ratio between our forces and those of the enemy, which experience has shown to be safe."
Lee's opposition to slavery was tepid at best and non-existent at worst. And his own words show it.