If you have read in the news as of
late, two founders are being chastised for being slave owners –
George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson. This article will
deal with the unfair recent outbreak of destroying the memory of
Jefferson one of our prominent founders who drafted the Declaration
of Independence and spent his life serving the republic that he
helped create; but other founders are the target of Marxists who have
infiltrated our educational system for at least three decades.
The College Board that publishes SAT
and AP tests have decided to remove mention of Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George
Washington (and others) except for a one sentence mention of our
first president.
Indeed, they have installed justices in
the US Supreme Court, like Ginsburg who publicly denounced the
Constitution she had sworn in an oath to protect and preserve on
Egyptian
TV interview. She still remains as a justice when that very act
called for impeachment and recently announced she has no
intention of retiring despite her age.
Yes, Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, but
he consistently opposed slavery. To understand this one should read
the letters and papers of Mr. Jefferson who was the most prolific
writer of all the founders. The most comprehensive website about
Thomas Jefferson is The
Jefferson Monticello. It addresses specifically the
subject of slavery and Mr. Jefferson. There you will find:
...From the mid-1770s until his death, he advocated the same plan of gradual emancipation. First, the transatlantic slave trade would be abolished.10 Second, slaveowners would “improve” slavery’s most violent features, by bettering (Jefferson used the term “ameliorating”) living conditions and moderating physical punishment.11 Third, all born into slavery after a certain date would be declared free, followed by total abolition.12 Like others of his day, he supported the removal of newly freed slaves from the United States.13
Jefferson wrote that maintaining slavery was like holding “a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”17 [Christa Dierksheide, 2008]
There are more sources one can use to investigate the matter of slavery concerning Thomas Jefferson. The gist of it is that Mr. Jefferson wanted slavery to end, incited the legislation that forbade any importation of slaves from Africa (or anywhere else). He was a man of logic however and knew that once the slaves were emancipated, they would live in misery because of nonacceptance by society, so formulated a plan for them to be repatriated back to Africa. Abraham Lincoln had the same idea but was assassinated before he could orchestrate such an endeavor - the alternate idea of securing Cuba and emigrating them there to have their own nation as a US territory.
The most ironic thing about this uprising against our Founders and segments of our history is that the democratic socialists behind this movement has a long, dark history for the perpetuation and increase of slavery, persecution of freed slaves, to when FDR signed an executive order that put Japanese Americans in camps without legal cause, charges or a trial. The Democrat Party has no business pointing fingers at America's historical personage when it has a history of hate and corruption up to and including the present day. If the Democrats want to erase/denounce people and entities in our bad moments of history, they should include erasing the Democratic Party.
All nations have histories, some longer than others, and all have moments in those histories that are something not to be proud of. However, erasing it and pretending it didn't happen relegated to be forgotten only increases the chance of history repeating itself. Indeed, presently the Antifa movement sponsored by American communist organizations is mimicking much of what began the Nazi movement in the 1930s and that is a history no one in their right mind would want that repeated.
In this case, it is a plot to denounce our Founders and teach youth that they are not worth studying or remembering, which like Obamacare is a prelude to government control over healthcare, will lead to the dissolution of our Constitution and our republic.
FURTHER SOURCES
- Bear, James A., Jr. Jefferson at Monticello. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967.
- Betts, Edwin M. Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book: With Commentary and Relevant Extracts from Other Writings. Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1999. Jefferson's original manuscript and a transcription are available online courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
- Finkelman, Paul. "Jefferson and Slavery: Treason Against the Hopes of the World." In Jeffersonian Legacies, ed. Peter S. Onuf, 181-221. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
- French, Scot A. and Edward L. Ayers. "The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory, 1943-1993." In Jeffersonian Legacies, ed. Peter S. Onuf, 418-56. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993.
- Gordon-Reed, Annette. The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
- Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia. Edited by William Peden. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955. Chapters "Laws" and "Manners."
- Jordan, Winthrop D. White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968, 461-81.
- Miller, John Chester. The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991.
- Onuf, Peter S. "Every Generation Is an Independent Nation: Colonization, Miscegenation, and the Fate of Jefferson's Children." In The Mind of Thomas Jefferson, 213-35. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007.
- Stanton, Lucia. Slavery at Monticello. Charlottesville: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1996.
- Stanton, Lucia. "Those Who Labor for My Happiness": Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012.
- See selected sources on Jefferson's views on slavery in the Jefferson Portal.
- See selected sources on Jefferson as slave owner in the Jefferson Portal.
- Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, an online exhibition.
- View information about individuals and life within the
enslaved community in the Plantation
Database.
- 1. Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, September 10, 1814, in PTJ:RS, 7:652. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 2. Jefferson to William Short, September 8, 1823, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Earl Gregg Swem Library, College of William and Mary. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 3. Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 4. Notes, ed. Peden, 163. The 1832 edition is available online. See Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Boston: Lilly and Wait, 1832), 170.
- 5. Virginia Constitution, Second Draft by Jefferson [before June 13, 1776], in PTJ, 1:353. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 6. Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, January 6-July 29, 1821, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Transcription available at Founders Online. See also 51. A Bill concerning Slaves, June 18, 1779, in PTJ, 2:470-73. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 7. Report of the Committee, March 1, 1784, in PTJ, 6:604. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 8. Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 9. See, e.g., Jefferson to Benjamin Vaughan, June 27, 1790, in PTJ, 16:579. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 10. See Draft of Instructions to the Virginia Delegates in the Continental Congress (MS Text of A Summary View, &c.), [July 1774], in PTJ, 1:130. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 11. See Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, February 18, 1793, in PTJ, 25:230. Transcription available at Founders Online. See also Jefferson to John Strode, June 5, 1805, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 12. See Jefferson’s Draft of a Constitution for Virginia, [May–June 1783], in PTJ, 6:298. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 13. Notes, ed. Peden, 138. The 1832 edition is available online. See Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Boston: Lilly and Wait, 1832), 144.
- 15. Jefferson to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814, in PTJ:RS, 7:604. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 16. Jefferson to Jared Sparks, February 4, 1824, Catalog–Christie’s, American and European Manuscripts and Printed Books. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- 17.
Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, The
Thomas Jefferson Papers, Special Collections, University of
Virginia Library. Transcription
available at Founders Online.
No comments:
Post a Comment