Thomas Jefferson...what a hypocrite. How can you say that you want to end slavery when you have slaves. Oh, and he wants the slaves to have their own land so that there's no interracial marriages. I say thats BS because he slept with one of his slaves. So, what else am I going to hear about him thats totally BS! The only president during that time that wanted to abolish slavery was Abraham Lincoln. Every since Lincoln wanted to do that he was a target, I bet that was the main reason he was assassinated.
Posted by CarlDesphy at March 2, 2005 8:24 PMI completely agree with you. I mean Jefferson was being a typical politician. He was saying one thing and doing something totally the opposite of what he said.
Posted by: Ashley Neil at March 2, 2005 9:29 PMI agree with you on that he was a really big hypocrit. He wants slavery to be abolished then move them to their own states but has a slave of his own. This is something new to me about him and it's kind of shocking.
Posted by: Matt Nelson at March 3, 2005 9:15 AMI think that we need to look at Historical circumstances, before we are too quick to judge them. Thomas Jefferson and many other certainly felt that slavery was a necessary evil. It was a force to large to stop, and they were very concerned about the direction that slavery was headed. In fact, when they drafted the Declaration of Indepedence, they inserted a clause that abolished slavery, but was soon taken out, because the document would not be approved. Jefferson certainly wanted to abolish slavery, he just didn't know how. After all, he did treat his slaves well. In fact, historical figures show that slaves had better diets than poor white farmers did, which is a sign of how much better they were being treated.
On another note, the irony of the entire situation is that Abraham Lincoln was really not all too concerned with ending slavery. In fact as the civil war continued, he was only concerned the expansion of slavery, not the institution. However, he being a Republic, followed ideological suit and certainly did emancipate slaves for only southern states. So border states like Maryland and Kentucky could still have slaves and did until a year later when Maryland emancipated their slaves as an act of the legislature.
Hope this helps give you a new view. Respond back, love to hear your thoughts.
Posted by: HistorianX at March 5, 2005 9:39 AMHello Carl,
Received your e-mail. Found the discussion interesting. Don't be completely fooled though, there are the ever so often benefits of slavery that Jefferson made opportunity of. For example, he summoned his slaves to build his magnificent Monticello homestead, but that was after he taught all of them architecture. Jefferson had his bad points, which were as you say BS, but he had his good points. It just takes a critical eye to realize both. The nature of people is both inherently bad and good if you will say. Realizing that people are mostly good, but are well capable of and do make mistakes.