[TangledUpInBlue]

An interesting read.

[rightwingcrazy]

How is this a Scientific American article?

[SaraJohnson]

What I read was that as slavery was dying, releasing slaves out on their own promised certain death for many. Choices of release or stay were given by some slave owners who opposed slavery but who were loyal to their own slaves’ lives. It was a messy time and situation.

No American should have owned slaves in the first place. When they were released, they should have been sent back to their homelands with payment for their work, IMO. Leaving them in the US only caused more misery for them. Up to this day, many are miserable living in the US.

[gr8eman]

Yes, interesting in the unbounded arrogance of the writer.

[JT Hatter]

Scientific American drank the liberal PC cool-aid decades ago. Cancelled my subscription when they went from science to leftist political science.

The writer, John Horgan, is a liar.

The article is just secular humanist, atheist, leftist propaganda. Ignore it.

[GraceG]

Jefferson was forbade by Virginia Law to release his slaves...

Also these nit-wits in SI don’t realize that America was ONE OF THE FIRST countries to star outlawing slavery.

Slavery still exists today in the MOOSELIMB WORLD....

[Glad2bnuts]

blah blah blah, Yet another attack on the Founders and the greatest evil ever set upon Mommie Ert..America.

[Right Brother]

The last paragraph in the article:

The United States has come a long way since Jefferson’s era. Our moral progress is exemplified by the fact that a black man is President. But this country still falls far short of its professed ideals of peace, equality, justice and liberty for all. Perhaps if Jefferson had set a better ethical example, we would have come further by now.

I skipped down to it and I realized that I didn't have to read the rest of it.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Epic Rap Battles of History just did a contest between Thomas Jefferson and Frederick Douglass, and by far and away the most stinging line was when Douglass said to Jefferson “You let freedom ring, but never answered the call” in reference to Jefferson writing against slavery, but still owning slaves.

I think if the American Revolution had been just ten years delayed, slavery may have been outlawed, or at least severely restricted, at the creation of the Constitution. Most of the Founding Fathers were very much against slavery and even those who participated in it, like Jefferson and Franklin, would not have objected to the abolition of the slave trade.

It is a “hideous blot” on our history (the words of Jefferson) and we must acknowledge it. But that doesn’t mean that anyone alive today should be held accountable for the situation a quarter of a millennium ago.

[BenLurkin]

Jefferson’s most egregious act was not owning slaves but was his slicing pieces (literally) out of a Bible trying to remove all references to Christ’s divinity.

Unforgivable.

[econjack]

Try reading Time on the Cross by Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman. Fogel is a Nobel laureate in economics and their conclusion is that, in economic terms, most slaves were better off as slaves than as freemen. Their work was published during the height of the Civil Rights movement and caused quite a stir back then.

[plain talk]

How about the hypocrisy of the author embellishing 240 year old stories about slavery while ignoring current day slavery?

[Arm_Bears]

Hindsight is always 20/20; and it’s far too easy to judge the past applying contemporary morality.

The enslavement of one group by another characterizes a large segment of human history. Colonial whites were not the only group to engage in the practice.

Not to mention that there were plenty of non-black slaves—typically referred to as “indentured servants”—running around.

Oh, and let’s not overlook the role of the Religion of Peace in enslaving their fellow Africans.

[rlmorel]

Total idiot.

There are a number of things I strongly dislike about Jefferson, but his ownership of slaves wasn’t key among them. There were many slave owners who felt their hands were tied in a number of ways by the prevailing laws and such.

The biggest issue I had against Jefferson was his underhanded whispering campaign against George Washington during his second term which he carried out by anonymous proxy. He spread the word that Washington was tired, mentally feeble, and out of touch, being “manipulated” by Alexander Hamilton. To say Hamilton and Jefferson were enemies, if not bitter enemies, isn’t putting too fine of a point on it.

Washington found out via an unimpeachable source that Jefferson was the one behind it, and let coldly let Jefferson know that he knew, as only Washington could.

After that, the only interaction Washington and Jefferson had was at social functions, and Washington was always icily polite to him. I don’t believe they ever corresponded after that.

[equaviator]

What’s the real motive for all of the heavy scrutinizing of our founding fathers? The scrutinizers ought to be focused on the Clintons and the Obamas because they would have the ability, however involuntary, to answer to some well-deserved scrutiny.

[Ohioan]

But an insulting piece by a confused writer. Jefferson's recital of self-evident truths in the Declaration was never intended as a call for Egalitarianism. What the writer quotes was intended to justify the compact theory of Government, and the purpose in forming a Government. Jefferson was, among other foundational concerns, refuting the concept of the "Divine Right of Kings."

For a more detailed response, see Declaration Of Independence--With Study Guide.

The writer is endeavoring to tear down Jefferson, and others of the Founding Fathers, because he like Jefferson, Madison and many of the others, is critical of the labor system at that time in America, and thoughout much of history world-wide. Recognizing flaws in a system, does not translate into determining how to correct those flaws.

The current obsession with slavery in America reflects a deliberate effort to disparage our heritage. That it is seldom put in context; virtually never put in the perspective of being similar to what existed and was accepted in Biblical times, and from Biblical times onward; never, discussed in the context of how much more humanely the system was administered in America, as compared to other places in the world at the same time or over the millennia, etc., all tell us that it is not genuine analysis, but a deliberate effort to disparage the greatest generation of Americans.

[Fiddlstix]

Scientific American used to be a decent publication years ago. These days it’s just one more liberal propaganda rag.

[NonValueAdded]

The RevWar/Colonial History/General Washington ping list.

Please FreepMail me if you want to be added or removed from this low volume ping list. Ping requests gladly accepted.

Recessional of the Sons of the American Revolution:
“Until we meet again, let us remember our obligations to our
forefathers who gave us our Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
an independent Supreme Court and a nation of free men.”

As an aside, I just happen to be reading Ketchum's "Victory at Yorktown" and TJ did a lousy job as Virginia Governor preparing his state's militia for the battles swirling around it.

[bert]

Revisionist Yankee bandwagon drivel

[Da Bilge Troll]

This author is ignorant of the details involved at the time.

Slaves could not be paid or taught to read or educated in any way, so they were in fact, completely helpless.

These were not random, faceless black people to him. Jefferson grew up with them, played with them as a child and knew every one personally and felt his responsibility fully.

He did what he could. He knew the Constitution virtually guaranteed the civil eventually and that change would come.

This kind of gratuitous attack burns my butt.

[Carry me back]

The modern day man and his touchy feelings. Very sissy.