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To: TexConfederate1861
"...but you are assuming that Jefferson was referring to the all races, when he said that "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence. He wasn't. He was a slaveowner in every sense of the word, refusing to free even his own children!

Jeffersonian historians would vehemently disagree with you and argue that Jefferson and the great majority of the Founders did in fact mean that "all," including Blacks, were created equal under the law. (Don't confound the Founders views on social equality with what they thought about legal equality) That they could not at that point deal with the incongruity of slavery with their principles was a talked about by many and as Stephens said in 1861, all expected (or hoped) that slavery would pass on it's own in a generation or so. None anticipated or even could have anticipated, King Cotton and how it changed views on slavery to the point where Stephens and the Confederacy considered it to be the very cornerstone of their "republic."

819 posted on 07/21/2005 8:07:50 AM PDT by Ditto ( No trees were killed in sending this message, but billions of electrons were inconvenienced.)
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To: Ditto; lentulusgracchus

This viewpoint is certainly of consideration, and if it is indeed true, that Jefferson felt that negroes were "equaL" under the law, then his life is certainly a contradiction.
I have pinged LG, to comment on this, as he is certainly a more learned scholar than myself :)


820 posted on 07/21/2005 8:16:53 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861 (General Robert E. Lee , an AMERICAN example of honor & courage!)
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To: Ditto
Jeffersonian historians would vehemently disagree with you

Jeffersonian contemporaries would not:

"But, Sir, how pitiable it is to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind ... that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression." - Banneker

826 posted on 07/21/2005 9:35:26 AM PDT by Gianni
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