Why is this in Free Republic?
The slave trade was outlawed by the constitution, destined to end in 1808.
Also, many of the slave owners had mortgages on their slaves and couldn’t just sell them as they were collateral on their loans.
I’ll take Jefferson over any of these clowns we have today. That slavery existed is historical fact and was largely an accepted practice in that era. I refuse to judge him by standards of today.
Bkmk
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How about he launched a navy and a war to bit@h slap moslem barbary pirates and their slave and ransom industry, and he treated Sally Hemmings and her family well.
Guaranteed Jefferson wasn’t out there with a cat o’ 9 tails.
In any case, his mind gave the world the Declaration of Independence, and he doubled the size of the USA and prevented a giant chunk west of the mississippi from being France. He contributed to science with the Lewis and Clark expedition.
His good far outweighs whether or not he had slaves towards the end of a two millenia era of western slavery.
I read a very old book, a long time ago, which contained testimony from people - including slaves - who were contemporaries of Jefferson, some of whom lived in the house.
According to the book, sometimes slaves would sneak away from Jefferson’s property and set up housekeeping somewhere nearby; Jefferson would investigate as to how well they were doing - and if they were doing well, he’d just ignore and let them go.
Even good-hearted people who hated slavery, but owned slaves, had to be concerned about the welfare of the people if they were simply ‘set free’, without the personal resources to make their way. (Look up what happened to James Hemmings, Jefferson’s personal chef, who appears to be one of the freed people who suicided.)
(By the way: I have never believed that Thomas was the father of Sally’s children. The genetic evidence has only indicated that a male Jefferson fathered Sally’s children, and I believe that it was Randolph. Look up the correspondence between the brothers, and decide for yourself.)
“He thought that white Americans and enslaved blacks constituted two “separate nations” who could not live together peacefully in the same country.”
Well...Blacks enslaved to the Democrat party DO have problems...as we are seeing
The big lie. Jefferson did not enslave anyone.
He inherited the slaves or they were already slaves.
He did not go on campaigns capturing free people and making them slaves.
I feel no guilt regarding that British-imposed institution.
Instead, I am proud that the US got rid of it, and the southern states rejoined the Union.
I also respect the confederate leaders and soldiers. They fought to defend their country.
Though the majority of slave owners in North America were white and the majority of slaves in North America were blacks owned by white owners, those two points were not universally true at any time. There were blacks who owned black slaves and there were whites held as slaves as well. Though the later two points represent a minority of the conditions, it points to how culture and attained status more than race determined many views on slavery.
Slavery was not in the 15th through 19th centuries a cultural phenomena exclusive to North American, nor exclusive to “western civilization”. It was found in many parts of the world at the time, and blacks were not in every case the objects of slavery. Forgotten in most western civilization discussions of slavery is the fact that most slaves brought out of Africa were sold as slaves by blacks in Africa.
All of that needs to be understood to see how Jefferson and others were like all persons, citizens of the times they lived in, even as their ideals held promise of much different and more egalitarian times.
Their history needs to be judged in the full and complete context of their times, not to excuse the errors we see today, but to admit their whole world had different attitudes about many different things than we do today.
People like Jefferson and Washington and others need to be honored for their good they gave us and we don’t need to see them as perfect to accept and honor their good either.
We could remind folks about Martin Luther Kings personal imperfections, which some social movements today would condemn. But I wouldn’t, as the good he did inspire is more important and what we will always honor him for - to see a nation where men would be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin.
Now, movements like BLM want to reverse that and intentionally judge persons again by the color of their skin not the content of their character.
Good for him. Wish he did more against Slavery, but he definitely deserves credit where credit is due.
Still won’t forgive him for cheerleading the Jacobins even during their worst excesses such as the Reign of Terror. As far as I’m concerned due to that, he’s no different from a Marxist.