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 :)
It IS a contradiction. They authored a Declaration of Independence - not a Declaration of Civil Equality. The white Europeans and their descendants in the colonies did not consider Mexicans to be their equal (Lincoln called them 'mongrels'). Nor did they consider Chinese/orientals to be their equals, ditto for Africans/blacks, and the same for native Americans.
As evidenced by the writings of Hoit and others, the African race was wrongly considered subhuman based on their practice of witchcraft, cannibalism, human sacrifice etc. Similarly many native Americans were considered less than human basically because they refused to hand over the continent to the 'enlightened' white men bent on robbing them blind. White men were the architects of 'civilization' as they knew it.
People of our generation - especially liberals - like to wrap themselves in the distorted view of the Declaration, as if it then mitigates or excuses the racial views of their ancestors. The framers did not extend American citizenship to blacks (a legal fact noted by Justice Roger B. Taney, and one distorted by revisionists), did not allows blacks to the same political and social rights enjoyed by whites. Every state joining the union signed off on that view. History is replete with evidence that the founding generation did NOT extend equality to other races.
The claim that Jefferson et al were addressing racial equality - despite their equality being true - was NOT what the founders meant. There was NO civil rights movement in 1776, millions of colonists were not marching for equality, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were not posting notices on Liberty Trees demanding equality. What was occurring was the demand for self-government, the ability of the colonists to represent and govern themselves, not some monarch/king of allegedly royal blood. John Adams, one of the most under appreciated men of the age wrote under pseudonym,
It stands not on the supposition, that kings are the favorites of heaven, that their power is more divine than the power of the people, and unlimited but by their own will and discretion. It is not built on the doctrine, that a few nobles or rich commons have a right to inherit the earth, and all the blessings and pleasures of it; and that the multitude, the million, the populace, the vulgar, the mob, the herd, and the rabble, as the great always delight to call them, have no rights at all, and were made only for their use, to be robbed and butchered at their pleasure. No, it stands upon this principle, that the meanest and lowest of the people are by the unalterable, indefeasible laws of God and nature, as well entitled to the benefit of the air to breathe, light to see, food to eat, and clothes to wear, as the nobles or the king.'
John Adams, The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams, 'The Earl of Clarendon to William Pym', Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund (2000), p. 54.