Have You Seen Thomas Jefferson's HOUSE!

[jberryhill]

The guy that said "All Men Are Created Equal" lived in THIS HOUSE:



Waddya think THIS HAIRCUT costs in 2007 dollars:

[ComerPerro]

1. lmao

[Lilith Velkor]

2. !1

:rofl:

[aquart]

3. Didn't he have a slave to cut his hair?

[Virginia Dare]

10. Slaves built the house too...n/t

[slackmaster]

54. And lived there

Pretty decent digs, but the pay was lousy.

[Exultant Democracy]

78. Don't forget the rape.

TJ is one of my least favorite FF, I am a Ben Franklin guy.

[slackmaster]

81. I'm more of a Samuel Adams fan myself

Brewer and patriot.

[Exultant Democracy]

87. Very nice choice, and tasty too.

[Mike Daniels]

93. Actually, Adams was pretty crappy brewmaster

and ran his brewery into the ground.

Hancock was the real deal as a rum runner.

[JVS]

124. he also raped them

[brentspeak]

18. Jefferson did try to abolish slavery many times

[jobycom]

31. Not very hard. He never freed his slaves

(except five), and he mortgaged them like property, allowing them to be sold after his death. He even committed the worst sin for a slave-owner, allowing families to be sold apart to different bidders.

[Blue_Tires]

59. not to mention sexual exploitation

whenever the ladies of the house were not in the 'giving it up'-mood...

[brentspeak]

77. There's no evidence that Thomas Jefferson had any sexual contact with his slaves

No one knows which Jefferson male fathered Sally Hemmings' child. It could have any of 25 males descended from Thomas Jefferson's paternal grandfather: one of Jefferson's many brothers, or one of Jefferson's nephews, etc.

How did you come to the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson had sexual relations with his slaves?

[jobycom]

151. There's plenty of evidence, it's just not incontrovertible

"The current consensus among American historians appears to have undergone a sea-change. Once, most scholars dismissed the idea that Jefferson fathered Hemings's children without examining the evidence closely. Now most historians agree that the story is more likely than not, again without necessarily having read the full record."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Hemmings#The_historians.27_debate

You can read the full litany of circumstantial evidence at that link, too (for others--you sound like you already know it). Really brief summary: DNA proves Hemings's youngest son was descended from a male Jefferson descended from Thomas's grandfather. That narrows the field to 25 possibilities at the time. Most were nowhere near Hemings when she conceived her youngest son, while in Paris. Thomas Jefferson was. Documentary records prove that Hemmings and Jefferson were together for the conception of each of her children. Given Jefferson's frequent travel, the odds aren't in favor of that if the father was another resident of Monticello. There is also much evidence that Thomas treated Hemings and her children preferentially, although there are any number of possible reasons for that.

It's not conclusive, by any means, but there is evidence.

[brentspeak]

174. You're quoting that Wikipedia article as your evidence?

Did you read the whole article, Joby? Here's the second sentence of that article, as written by an anonymous editor:

"It has been documented since 1802 that Jefferson was the father of several of her children."

The reference provided to back up this editor's claim is the following, from another anyone-can-edit site:

http://www.whosyomama.com/gabroaddrick3/26806.htm

"Sally married Thomas JEFFERSON, son of Peter JEFFERSON and Jane Isham RANDOLPH. (Thomas JEFFERSON was born on 2 Apr 1743 in Shadwell, Goochland County, Virginia and died on 4 Jul 1826 in Monticello, Abermarle County, Virginia.)"

So Sally married Thomas Jefferson, too? :spray: :spray:

[jobycom]

193. So you disagree with the DNA evidence? I don't understand your point.

I linked to the Wikipedia article for the information it had on several studies on the matter, because I didn't feel like linking a dozen web pages. If you disagree with the points I made, address them, don't go off on a tangent following a link I didn't reference. Are you claiming that anything I said is wrong? Or are you trying a Karl Rove, to skirt having to address anything I said by attacking something I didn't say?

[brentspeak]

75. He couldn't free all his slaves because of his debts

His slaves were obtained through mortgages, but he could never pay the mortgages off fully, preventing him from legally freeing all his slaves.

[jobycom]

148. Which is what I said. He may have opposed slavery in theory, but not in practice

Freeing his slaves would have required a great financial sacrifice. Which is exactly the argument many slave-holders in the Confederacy used.

[tammywammy]

90. And the 5 he did free

were all related to him by blood.

[jobycom]

150. Debated, but in essence you're right.

The youngest son of Sally Hemings was related to him by blood, though there is debate as to whether it was Thomas's blood or one of his male relatives. Maybe Jefferson fathered Hemings's children. Or maybe one of his relatives did, and Jefferson bore the burden of caring for them, perhaps to make up for the sins of his relatives. Who knows?

In any case, Jefferson freed only the slaves he felt some familial bond towards, and sold the others. He's a mixed bag when it comes to slavery.

[tammywammy]

176. Right.

What's interesting is that he didn't free Sally, but did free all of her children. His daughter freed her soon after his death.

I agree that he's a mixed bag. On one hand he's preaching life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but on the other he's still a slave owner that whips and sells other humans.

[Virginia Dare]

180. Sally originally belonged to his wife...

they were half-sisters. Perhaps that had something to do with it? :shrug:

[jobycom]

194. IIRC, if he had freed Sally, she would have been required to leave the state

in which she was freed. There's speculation that neither of them wanted her to leave Montecello, for whatever reason.

Jefferson at one point claimed he wanted to abolish slavery, but he felt that Africans were not equal to whites, and he wanted to send the freed slaves back to Africa, using force if necessary to make them leave. He also made a comment once that he was against slaveholders sleeping with slaves because it, paraphrasing, weakened the nation by mixing races. Later he wrote to a friend that he had changed his views, that he had been made aware that Africans were not at all inferior to whites intellectually. Still later, he made a comment that even though he believed that slavery was wrong, he was too weak to free his slaves and give up the comfort they provided.

He's hard to understand, partly because he was inconsistent, partly because he was a politician who was constantly having to play word games, like all politicians, to fend off attacks on his more radical beliefs, so that it's hard to know which comments reflected political expediency more than his own views. Also, we should remember when he lived. He was a pivotal mind in a pivotal time. America and Europe changed from a feudal mindset to a democratic mindset in a generation. Jefferson was on the forefront of political thinking on freedom, equality, and representative government, but his roots were still in the past, still in the feudal world he was helping to destroy. Thoughts that are easy for us now were revolutionary and frightening at the time.

He was bold and brilliant. He wasn't always perfect, though.

[Taverner]

4. Well back then "men" meant white, male and owning property

I'm not sure if he supported it or not, but the original draft of the constitution based voting power on the amount of land you had. If you had no land, you either got one or no votes.

[corkhead]

5. That $400 haircut is the gift that keeps on giving

[ThomWV]

6. Look into its history and you'll be much amazed

Its very suprising it exists at all.

[Lisa]

7. ask any British barrister -- white powdered wigs are pricey!

Way more than $400 ... I've heard that sometimes they are handed down through families.

[Tom Joad]

8. he was a racist piece of crap, too.

[Alexander]

67. So was Abe Lincoln. Sign of the times.

I'm sure advanced humans will look upon some of our cultural norms with disdain.

[HardRocker05]

199. no. it was not a sign of the times. there were many people who knew it was wrong. unfortunately,

most of our 'founding fathers' were not among them.

[Bucky]

79. He was a product of his times. He was not a piece of crap.

You were born with about 200 years more experience in racial sensitivity than Jefferson. I won't defend his ideas--they aren't defendable in today's world. But in his time Jefferson pushed the envelope in bringing more and more people into the sphere of political suffrage. Attacking Jefferson for having what today we'd call racist ideas makes about as much sense as attacking Alfred the Great for not speaking modern English or making fun of the Wright brothers for flying a piece of crap airplane.

My advice, Tom Joad, is learn to think before you type. Learn to see the world as it is, not as you want it to be.
.

[Virginia Dare]

85. Correct, don't judge 18th century men by 21st century standards..n/t

[HardRocker05]

200. see #199 above. many, many people knew that the ignorances of the day were wrong. nt

[Virginia Dare]

208. Of course they did...

what part of keeping a human in bondage would feel right? Knowing something is wrong and accepting it are two different things. We know that spewing pollutants into the air and destroying our planet are wrong, but we still accept it as part of our every day life.

[Maru Kitteh]

127. Well, I was brought up in a racist family, in a racist town, in a racist county, in

a racist state, in a racist decade. I am not a racist, and I have never been.

I find no cause to excuse anyone for it.

[bobbolink]

131. my, my my.....

:eyes:

[annabanana]

141. so. .

I take it you've traveled extensively?

[Scout1071]

94. How so?

Care to back that up?

[spoony]

169. He owned other humans

Does it get clearer than that?

I would also point you to this rarely quoted paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

[Scout1071]

178. Terrific.

Ever think about how you'll be judged in 2000 years?

Some poor sap sitting around looking at your history saying, "can you believe he drove a GAS powered car?"

[Virginia Dare]

181. ....

...:toast:

[spoony]

213. There are degrees

and I'm fairly certain that CHOOSING TO OWN SLAVES is a bit worse than driving.

And what is this 2000 years stuff? It's 200, and besides that they knew better at the time. Again, look at the abolitionists.

[Virginia Dare]

217. Many of the abolitionists at the time were also pushing for..

a theocracy, would you rather have had that, because what we ended up with was neither, at least for the time being. I would put polluting and destroying our planet on par with owning slaves in terms of heinous activities, but again, degrees of perception and acceptability. We promote and support slavery and human rights abuse every single day with every product that we buy from China. Why do we allow companies like Wal-Mart even to exist?

Persons in future generations may judge us differently, in fact they probably will.

[devilgrrl]

206. Most people in the 1790's were - not that that is an excuse but I'm just saying...

I'm sure native americans have a few bones to pick with him as well.

[Virginia Dare]

9. Yes, I've even been there...

it's not as big as your standard Mcmansion these days..;)

[Mike Daniels]

32. In terms of floor space/square feet the living quarters are pretty small

compared to a lot of homes today.

The biggest spaces were taken up mostly by the outside or underground cooking and maintanence areas.

[Virginia Dare]

36. Considering most people during this time were living..

in one room shacks, it was a relative splendor. It's amazing how our living space "requirements" have grown over the generations.

[Lorien]

58. Yep. Was there a few years ago

I have friends with larger homes.

[Horse with no Name]

11. Obviously not everyone can live in such splendor

But a life committed to bettering the lives of others is certainly notable.

[Raksha]

173. True, especially when you compare Thomas Jefferson

with all the elitists (then and now) who live/lived in comparable splendor and yet did nothing for the common good, compared with all that Jefferson did. Many were/are parasites, and their lives were a net negative for their culture. Probably the best many of them ever did for society was after they died, when their palatial estates were turned into parks and museums because their heirs could no longer afford to maintain them (the Huntington gardens in my area come to mind).

[DFW]

12. The same wig for 20 years

Besides, Jefferson was always broke.

He gave most of his personal library to the Library of Congress
at one point just to have grocery money.

[liam_laddie]

13. IIRC, he died deeply in debt.

Even then, owning lots of land and the income therefrom, he lived beyond his means. Sound familiar?
Still, his private issues are far, far outweighed by what he meant to the US's formative years.
Been to Monticello a couple times, worth a visit.

[malaise]

14. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaah

I'm lovin it. :D

[Jack Rabbit]

15. Yes I have seen it

It was the most interesting thing I saw when my wife and I went to Washington DC three years back.

I hghly recommend visiting Montecello to anyone close enough to take a day to drive down and see it.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

17. If you saw Monticello when you were in Washington, D.C. . . .

. . . that IS interesting. Because Monticello is located outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, some 100 miles away.

[supernova]

19. It's doable

People from DC to go Charlottesville and Western Va quite often. It's just a day drive. I went there when I lived in NOVA.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

55. You think 100 miles is a long way?

You've obviously never lived in Texas.

The NEAREST big city to where I live, from the one I live in, is Austin, and that's 180 miles away. Not eighty, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY.

San Antonio is 200, Dallas is 250. I don't even know how far Brownsville & Laredo are. I know it's 700 miles to El Paso.

[Cha]

66. Especially if you came all the

way from Californ-i-a.

[Virginia Dare]

83. It's a very pretty drive, too..n/t

[WillyT]

119. And Some Of Us Can Manage 100 Miles In An Hour And A Half Or So...

And if ya fly all the way from the west coast to the east coast, scooting down the road a 100 miles or so doesn't seem like such a grand chore after flying several thousand.

But hey... thanks ever so much for the snark pal.

:wtf:

[supernova]

16. It looks grand

but Montecello (the main building) is not honking huge or ostentatious, when you consider what he could have afforded to build.

Nice work, on the comparison though! :thumbsup: :D

edit: In fact, it's such a simple design, I wager most of us would be comfortable there today.

[noamnety]

20. hmmmm

If the intent of the thread was to try to prove that people who live in giant houses are just regular people like everyone else, the decision to go with an elitest racist slaveowner to try to prove that point makes this potentially one of the worst failures of a thread in DU history.

[MissB]

22. I believe the point made was that someone who is rich

and yes, elitist by the definition of his wealth, is able to add a thought to our collective consciousness - i.e. all men are created equal. It is one of the founding beliefs of our country - one that we accept at face value despite the facts of the life of the man who helped originate it.

[noamnety]

24. That's not a founding belief of our country.

The founding belief was that all white male landowners were created equal.

Maybe you are thinking of some other country?

[MissB]

25. I'm well aware of what the Declaration of Independence says.

And it says nothing about white men.

[noamnety]

27. It didn't need to.

It was so "obvious" to folks like Jefferson that blacks weren't fully human that it didn't need to be stated, in the same way that they didn't need to state that horses weren't included in the line "all men are created equal."

We're still recovering from the same racist bullshit our country was founded upon, up to and including Katrina and the Iraq War.

[Odin2005]

103. In the DoI "Men" is ment in the sense of "Mankind", not "men" in the sense of the gender.

And there were plenty of northerners back then that weren't racists, IIRC.

[noamnety]

134. It referred to "Men" as in "Men" had rights that women didn't get.

It's quite obvious the intent wasn't that women should have equal rights. We STILL don't have an equal rights amendment passed in this country.

[noamnety]

160. Oh, here we go - his own words on gender:

American women would be "too wise to wrinkle their foreheads with politics."

Female education should concentrate on "ornaments ... and the amusements of life ... These for a female, are dancing, drawing, and music."

(thanks to Zinn)

[HardRocker05]

201. no it didn't, but he hoped people would think that, thus making him appear good and fair. there

was a lot of stuff that was put into the constitution knowing that it 'sounded good,' but would never truly be put into practice. that is exactly the way most of the founders wanted it - all the credit, none of the blame or sacrifice.

[Raksha]

68. It did mean that in the context of the times, no question about that.

>>The founding belief was that all white male landowners were created equal.<<

The beauty of an idea like "all men are created equal" is that once it exists, once it has been given form in those words, the concept can be made more inclusive by later generations. And inevitably, it will be applied to women as well as men.

I give Jefferson full credit for planting the seed of equality, even if he didn't see clearly at the time what it would eventually grow into. But lifelong avid gardener that he was, he would not have been all that surprised.

[iverglas]

139. so Thomas Jefferson invented equality. Hmm.

Really, was there no human history before that revolution thingie?

Right off the top of my head, I thought of that Jesus fellow, or whoever ghostwrote for him. Google found me a rather eloquent rundown of what I had in mind:

http://www.spiritualitytoday.org/spir2day/863841schneiders.html

... The secular notion of equality is rooted in a basic acceptance of the superior/ inferior paradigm for human relations. In a secular democracy, equality consists in all members having equal access to and opportunity to compete for the superior positions and roles in a social structure in which someone will always be at the top and someone at the bottom. The task of government is to keep the competition fair. But such a system necessarily involves all participants in never-ending competition for the places at the top. There is probably no more terrifying illustration of the impossibility of genuine solidarity in a society of competitors than the arms race between the two superpowers. Neither can feel secure until it is superior to the other; neither will ever accept the superiority of the other; so the race goes on.

Jesus message is radically different because he rejected superiority/inferiority as the paradigm for human relations. In some of the most bafflingly original passages of the Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples two things: first, they must not only not seek to be superior to others but must actively seek the lowest place; second, they must not recognize the claims to superiority of those who attempt to keep the power structures in place and the competition going. Jesus himself set the example in both areas with a consistency that leaves no doubt about the centrality of this new kind of equality to the Gospel message.

Jesus repeatedly rebuked his disciples for their striving for superiority over one another (cf. Mk. 9:33-37; 10:35-38), over those who did not accept Jesus (cf. Lk. 10:49-56), over the sick and disabled (cf. Lk. 18:39), over women (Jn. 12:5-8), and over children (Mt. 14:13-15). ...

The notion of the intrinsic worth of the individual is rather central to Christianity. Not necessarily as it is practised by anyone in particular, but as it came from the mouth of its founder, or his inventor.

Now I'm no Christian other fairytale believer, but I have to say that being reared in the social gospel many years ago certainly hardwired my brain for the whole equality thing. Never heard of Thomas Jefferson at the time.

Honestly, the way some people take on, one would think that half the population of the US believes that the world was created not 6000 years ago, but 231 years ago.

[jberryhill]

33. No, the point is that ideals transcend personal circumstances

Yes, he was an "elitist racist slaveowner". And he was the author of an enduring document of freedom.

He's long dead. Our system of government is not. And our society is much improved.

[noamnety]

35. It was an "enduring document of freedom" for the privileged few (nt)

[spoony]

170. But it is ONLY an enduring document of freedom because of

men and women who lived after him. His words did not secure freedom, though they may have inspired it.

[JVS]

123. I agree

[Clark2008]

21. But, he didn't vote for the Iraqi War, the Patriot Act, helping banks

get into predatory lending, the ruination of Yucca Mountain, No Child Left Behind and the 2001 bankrupcy bill.

Quite a bit of difference to those of us who don't CARE about houses and haircuts, but about policy and decision-making abilities.

[Dawgs]

26. Thank you.

[jberryhill]

28. Look up "Alien & Sedition Act"

And you tell me the difference between that and the Patriot Act.

[dflprincess]

30. I thought Adams was the one who signed that

or was there a second one?

[DFW]

44. You are correct

Adams was the one behind the Alien and Sedition Act, and Jefferson was
violently opposed to it. That Act was partially responsible for Jefferson's
election over Adams as President in 1800. One of Jefferson's first actions as
president was to pardon people convicted under the Alien and Sedition Act while
Adams was president.

Needless to say, some serious house-cleaning will be in order of the same or
greater magnitude, come January 21, 2009.

[DFW]

23. Read the Declaration of Independence

No one who wrote a document like that, especially knowing that he
would be executed if the British caught him, was an elitist. He was
a product of his time--a very extraordinary one, too. Just check out
the separation of church and state writings--the whole thing was his idea.

[mnhtnbb]

29. Good post!

[bleedingheart]

34. a fine colonial wig might cost a year's salary for a laborer

I learned that at Williamsburg...

so only the very wealthy had nice ones...

[DFW]

45. Jefferson's looked pretty grungy, compared to Washington's

Even though he got the USA one of the best bargains in recorded history (the Louisiana Purchase),
he never managed to keep his personal finances in order, and was always broke: ironic for one
so wealthy in words and ideas.

[Odin2005]

107. It is thought that he might of had an Austism Spectrum disorder, probably Asperger's.

A lot of people that fall into the "genius that can't take care of himself" catagory seem to be Aspies.

[Virginia Dare]

138. I'd never heard that...

I'd love a link if you have one! :hi:

[Odin2005]

140. It was in a book I read called "Diagnosing Jefferson."

n/t

[Virginia Dare]

159. Cool, I'll look for it..

I know there had been several on Lincoln, hadn't heard about that one, he definitely wasn't your average person.

[Buck Turgidson]

37. Jefferson had another house.

Poplar Forest was his "get-away" home to escape the crowds at Monticello.
http://www.poplarforest.org

[eppur_se_muova]

38. Thanks for the link, I was just reading about Poplar Forest recently.

I was under the impression it was just barely completed within his lifetime, which is why he never permanently moved there.

For some reason, Jefferson was just obsessed with octagons -- both PF and Monticello have squares/octagons/circles nested within each other.

[Buck Turgidson]

41. He never really intended to move to Poplar Forest permanently.

According to this timeline, he had more about 12 years to enjoy it.

http://www.poplarforest.org/History/restorationtimeline.html

[Sequoia]

39. Hair cut? Gracious me!

That front porch isn't big enough for me. Can't put my ladderback rocker on it.

[zbdent]

40. Didn't he father a black child?

Heard rumors ...

;)

[noamnety]

47. yes, a rapist also.

rapist, slave owner, racist, and dishonest fuckhead (see Louisiana Purchase).

But, you know, he was a fine architect.

Kind of like Columbus, OMG WHAT A GREAT NAVIGATOR (and ps. he did a little bit of genocide).

[Kelly Rupert]

49. Wait, you think the LP was a bad idea?

Where is this from?

[noamnety]

51. If I paid the guy across the street for your land

that you owned, and then insisted it was now mine, how would you feel about that?

[Kelly Rupert]

53. The French owned the land.

Whether they deserved to is another matter entirely.

[noamnety]

56. No, what they sold was their CLAIM to the land, which is different.

The land belonged to the Native Americans. That's why there were more than fifty Indian wars in that area from 1819 to 1890, and why the US was still making restitution to them for it throughout the 19th century. ("Lies My Teacher Told Me" - James Loewen, p. 123).

[Bake]

64. I didn't think they believed ANYBODY "owned" the land.

How can one "own" land?

Bake

[Kelly Rupert]

70. If one possesses a title to it.

Pretty simple.

[Bake]

71. No, I'm talking about in Native American thought.

I don't believe they had any idea of "title" in the European sense of owning land.

Bake

[Kelly Rupert]

73. Fat lot of good that political theory did them.

I thought you were referring to the French thought, not the Indian thought. My mistake.

[Virginia Dare]

84. That was an alien thought to the native americans...

but they did recognize territorial boundaries, and sometimes even took those from each other, they weren't perfect either in that regard.

[Warren DeMontague]

118. And you live... where?

Certainly not on this blood-soaked continent stolen by white male capitalist oppressors.

[Kelly Rupert]

165. Don't be silly.

All right-thinking liberals have donated their properties to the local tribes and moved to England, Germany, or some other country of origin.

[Bake]

61. Do you know FOR A FACT he was a rapist?

Really? A RAPIST? I'd love to see some evidence of that.

Bake

[Exultant Democracy]

80. Any sex between slave and master is rape.

[Bake]

86. Thanks for clearing that up.

That is all.

Bake

[brentspeak]

101. Where's the evidence that Thomas Jefferson had sex with one of his slaves?

[zbdent]

132. Ask Sally Hemmings' descendants ...

who proved it with DNA ...

[brentspeak]

147. Proved 'what' with DNA?

[zbdent]

155. that some of her kids were fathered by Jefferson

or did they have artificial insemination then?

[brentspeak]

161. I don't think you read your own link

The article you linked to says DNA evidence shows that the father of Sally Hemmings' baby can only be narrowed down to a pool of 25 Jefferson male candidates. The DNA evidence never said that the father conclusively was Thomas Jefferson.

[zbdent]

191. Do you even have any inkling as to what I really was referring to

in my original post?

Ya see ... back in 1999/2000, Bush found that John McCain was a bit of a problem ... he beat out Bush in the early primary ... so he sicced his attack dog on McCain, and all of a sudden ... there was the question of whether or not McCain fathered a black child (he adopted one) ... but the damage was done to McCain on his "Southern" support ...

Now, the original post on this whole thing was likely (if not specifically) a poke at the attacks on Edwards (and also Gore) for having a big, expensive house ...

So, I remembered that Jefferson (ok, for your sake, "allegedly") fathered one or more of Sally Hemmings' children, and decided to follow in the same vein as the OP ...

But now, it's a real donneybrook (sp?) ... where it was intended to be a lighthearted poke ... and I bit ...

[Kelly Rupert]

111. Legally? Sure. In fact? Probably not.

There's no evidence he forced the matter. I think it's perfectly reasonable to propose that it was an affair born of mutual desire.

[Exultant Democracy]

113. Wrong, legally it was fine slaves were property with no rights, but logically it is rape

a person who have been deprived of all of their human rights and sold into forced bondage has no ability to give consent.

[Kelly Rupert]

121. I mean, legally nowadays.

Obviously. Someone who is a slave cannot give legal consent, and so it is legally rape.

However, there is no reason to believe that Mr. Jefferson forced the matter. The relationship may well have been an honest and mutual one.

[noamnety]

128. Sex with a captive isn't a mutually consenting relationship. (nt)

[Kelly Rupert]

164. Unless, of course, it is.

You are saying it is absolutely impossible for Sally Hemings to have wanted to have sex with Thomas Jefferson?

[brentspeak]

89. You have evidence that Thomas Jefferson had sex with his slaves?

That would be amazing, considering that, for over 200 years, historians haven't been able to establish that at all.

[Raksha]

98. He had a long-term affair with one of them.

Her name was Sally Hemings and you can read all about it in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_Slavery#The_Sally_Hemings_controversy

There was also a documentary about their relationship several years ago I think it was on the History Channel.

I've NEVER heard Jefferson accused of being a rapist until I read this thread, though.

[brentspeak]

99. If you bothered to read that article you linked to...

you'd discover that there's no conclusive evidence Thomas Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemmings. Sheesh. He was only one of 25 other Jefferson males who could've been the one. One of Thomas Jefferson's younger brothers, Randolph Jefferson, or one of their nephews, would be the most likely culprits, as they were known to socialize with the Monticello slaves.

[kwassa]

156. You apparently didn't read the article yourself

"In 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello, appointed a multi-disciplinary, 9-member in-house research committee of Ph.D.s and an M.D. to study the matter of the paternity of Hemings's children. The committee concluded "it is very unlikely that any Jefferson other than Thomas Jefferson was the father of children."<52> In 2001, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society<53> commissioned a study by an independent 13-member Scholars Commission. The commission concluded that the Jefferson paternity thesis was not persuasive. The National Genealogical Society Quarterly then published articles reviewing the evidence from a genealogical perspective and concluded that the link between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings was valid.<54>"

That's two out of three, in this article alone.

I read the original articles way back when, and they were pretty convinving. Aside from DNA, the timing of the pregnancies fit the times when Jefferson was in residence at Monticello, and not travelling.

[Scout1071]

95. Care to show me the evidence he was a rapist?

Pretty strong words.

He did own slaves and he did father a child, but calling him a rapist is really over the top if you don't have any evidence.

[brentspeak]

100. We don't even know if TJ fathered a child with a slave

[Scout1071]

102. I was thinking they ran some tests that showed otherwise?

Or were they inconclusive?

[brentspeak]

104. DNA testing has shown that a male descended from Jefferson's paternal grandfather's side

was the father of Sally Hemmings' baby. Which means that one of 25 different Jefferson males (living during the time) could have been the baby's father.

[noamnety]

136. Your defense of him is that he let his relatives rape his slaves?

That's a hell of a defense.

[brentspeak]

146. Too bad I didn't make that defense

Can you point out exactly to where I said that Thomas Jefferson "let his relatives rape his slaves"?

[noamnety]

152. It's one or the other.

He raped his slave, or his relative did. I haven't seen any historical records where he held a family member accountable for the rape, have you?

It's not like he would have been unaware of it, it's hard to hide a pregnancy.

It's very generous and trusting of you, anyhow, to assume he personally had nothing to do with the rape of a slave who lived above him, whose room was connected to his by a private staircase. You'd make a fine character witness.

[brentspeak]

168. Discovering that one of his relatives had an affair with one of his slaves

isn't the same thing as "letting his relatives rape his slaves", which was your earlier claim.

[Virginia Dare]

183. Not an uncommon occurrence during those times...

and probably somewhat accepted. Interracial marriages and common-law relationships were quite common in colonial Virginia. Sally Hemings herself was a product of a master/slave sexual union or "rape" as we now view it.

It's impossible to say 250 years later what either of them thought about it. We can only judge by our own morals and standards.

One interesting piece of the puzzle in my view is why didn't she leave him in France, which she clearly could have? Some sort of sense of loyalty? I read a story about a slave who was sent from Virginia to Ohio by his master to deliver and/or retrieve something for him, and the man actually CAME BACK about a year later because he felt it was the right thing to do.

Like I said, we simply can't sit back 250 years later and try and figure out what people were thinking and or feeling. We just know now that the whole thing was abhorrent.

[noamnety]

196. rape is common during these times, too.

A lack of free choice is not free choice.

Why be an apologist for someone who owned other people like property? Why be an apologist for a man who has sex with someone he "owns" who is not free to leave?

[Virginia Dare]

204. I'm not apologizing for anybody...

but why judge one man, when it was endemic in society, in every culture in America, including the native americans. Powhatan himself probably had upwards of 100 wives, some of them slaves.

Better to judge him in the context of his times. Did he improve our society overall?

[noamnety]

205. In the context of their times

slavery was still wrong, driving people off their land was still wrong, rape was still wrong, treating women like incompetent fools rather than giving them equal rights was still wrong.

He was not unaware of any of that. There are letters from people telling him he was being racist. His contemporaries called him a hypocrite regarding his policies toward Native Americans. Women at the time were fighting for respect. Some of his colleagues called the Louisiana Purchase unconstitutional.

[Virginia Dare]

207. Of course it was wrong...

I will not argue with you that it wasn't. However, at the time, society as a whole accepted it, particularly in Virginia. In today's society, of course it is intolerable, unacceptable and indeed unthinkable. Not so during his time. Jefferson helped to radically change the course of this country, most probably for the betterment of all of us, but he was human and therefore not perfect, and a white man of his times. The same argument could be made about Washington and Madison as well.

I would also argue with you that while what happened to the native peoples was nothing short of a holocaust, the practices of stealing land, war, torture, slavery, oppression and despotism were not alien to them before the europeans arrived.

[kwassa]

157. Bullshit

PBS's Frontline
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/true/

In 1998, the scientific journal Nature published the results of DNA tests designed to shed new light on questions first asked some two hundred years earlier: Did Thomas Jefferson have a relationship with a woman who was his slave? Did that relationship produce children?
Now, the new scientific evidence has been correlated with the existing documentary record, and a consensus of historians and other experts who have examined the issue agree that the question has largely been answered: Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings's children, and quite probably all six. The language of "proof" does not translate perfectly from science and the law to the historian's craft, however. And the DNA findings in this case are only one piece of a complicated puzzle that many in previous generations worked hard to make sure we might never solve.

In November of 1998, following the release of DNA tests which, combined with the historical record, strongly point to Thomas Jefferson as the father of at least one of Sally Hemings's children, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation formed a Research Committee to verify the findings, gather all relevant evidence, and make a full assessment of the matter. This web version of the final report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is organized into six sections, evaluating the DNA science and the documentary evidence; listing the "uncontested facts"; and investigating the possible paternity of other Jeffersons, including the Carr brothers, who were long reputed to have fathered Sally Hemings's children. The final section of the report contains the committee's conclusion: that there is a high probability that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings and probably all six of Sally Hemings's children.

[brentspeak]

166. Look further down in that same web page

In March of 2000, White MacKenzie Wallenborn MD, one of the members of the Research Committee that prepared the official Monticello report on Jefferson-Hemings, issued this "Minority Report" to voice his reservations about the committee's conclusions. Dr. Wallenborn does not believe that the combined historical and DNA evidence sufficiently proves Jefferson's paternity. He writes: "The findings enhance the possibility that Thomas Jefferson was the father of one of Sally Hemings children, Eston Hemings, but the findings do not prove that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston"

http://www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/minority_report.html

Also, a separate, later, study reached a contrary conclusion to the TJ Memorial Foundation's study that your PBS link refers to.

http://www.tjheritage.org/documents/AmericanHeritage_2.pdf

(Incidentally, in order for you to have reached your own independent opinion on the matter, you couldn't have read the actual text of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation's study from the PBS link you provided: it's a dead link. Here's a working link: http://www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/hemings_report.html)

[iverglas]

179. and of course you'll want to read the

Reply to the Response to the Minority Report:

http://www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/wallenborn_response.html

The author of the Minority Report of the DNA Study Committee would like to conclude with a statement: If the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and the DNA Study Committee majority had been seeking the truth and had used accurate legal and historical information rather than politically correct motivation, their statement should have been something like this: "After almost two hundred years of study including recent DNA information, it is still impossible to prove with absolute certainty whether Thomas Jefferson did or did not father any of Sally Hemings five children." This statement is accurate and honest and it would have helped discourage the campaign by leading universities (including Thomas Jefferson's own University of Virginia), magazines, university publications, national commercial and public TV networks, and newspapers to denigrate and destroy the legacy of one of the greatest of our founding fathers and one of the greatest of all of our citizens.
White McKenzie Wallenborn, M.D.
Second Revision: June 29, 2000

I'm puzzled about this one. The notorious fact that Jefferson owned and trafficked in human beings is a foible to be overlooked, it seems. It's hardly deniable, so that may seem like the wisest approach.

But the asserting, after reviewing the evidence, that he had a long-term relationship with one of those human beings that resulted in offspring -- that is an effort "to denigrate and destroy the legacy of one of the greatest of our founding fathers and one of the greatest of all of our citizens"??

Cheesies. If the notorious fact of his human trafficking activities didn't do that, I'd think it must be kinda bullet-proof.

What I don't get is: how would establishing that relationship denigrate and destroy his legacy?

I would have thought that even his biggest fans would be kinda pleased to know that he had descendants among them today.

I think I must be missing something. Hmm.


Anyhow, the juxtaposition:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/hemingssally/a/sally_hemings_w.htm

The whole controversy illustrates some basic principles of the study of history, and particularly a few issues which are often seen when one looks at history through the perspective called "women's history."

... A "women's history" perspective on Sally Hemings' relationship to Thomas Jefferson would have us look at questions relating to the different roles men and women were expected to occupy. In this particular situation, where Sally Hemings was a slave of mixed racial heritage, a more complete picture of the "truth" of the situation also requires looking at the ways in which race and slavery were part of the context of their relationship.

... Women generally didn't write, and many of the time didn't know how to. Many states forbid teaching slaves to read or write. Fortunately, we have a few letters and journals from women, and even a few from slaves. Because women didn't generally write "important" documents, and because slaves rarely wrote at all, learning about the ordinary lives of women in slavery, from their own perspective, is difficult.

The story, and history, are Sally Hemings's too. Even for those interested only in Jefferson's component of it, it's too bad that Sally was a woman and a slave. It means that she left no records.

From the time that James Thomson Callendar made the scandal public in 1802, many people who disliked or mistrusted Jefferson were willing to believe "the worst" of Jefferson. In the context of the sexual and racial attitudes of the time, "the worst" was that he'd had intimate relations with a black slave woman.

Other historians who judged Jefferson to be an honorable and good man, and who believed that a relationship between a white man and a black slave was wrong, found ways to explain the paternity of the Hemings children which absolves Jefferson.

Today, one might want to "absolve" him of an exploitive relationship with a woman who had been trafficked into his possession. I don't think that's what the contemporary and later commentators have in mind here, or what some commentators here have in mind either.


I learned of the study through a newsletter from a genealogy service I subscribe to. In the last couple of years, I've become a genealogy nut, finding more mysteries in my own families, even in the early to mid 1800s, than I had ever imagined might exist and will likely ever solve. None involving princes, but a fair number of paupers, and more than one obviously exploited domestic servant having children outside marriage.

Family relationships are neutral. They are what they are, and they exist before we do, and the things to be learned about one's self and the world from investigating them are the height of fascinating. Why anyone would be personally/emotionally invested in proving or disproving any particular such relationship, let alone one that is not one's own, is kinda beyond me. Well, or not.

From a review of the book
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-Sally-Hemings-Controversy/dp/0813918332/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-1992357-2737546
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy
by Annette Gordon-Reed

Gordon-Reed is not concerned with Jefferson and Hemings as much as she is with how Jefferson's defenders have dealt with the evidence about the case. Her book takes aim at such noteworthy biographers as Dumas Malone, who has been quick to accept evidence against a liaison and quick to reject evidence for one.

I still don't get it, eh? His slave-owning is just shrugged off, but suggestions that he was the father of children born into slavery are a matter calling for loud outrage and "defence" ...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

162. He fathered a child with his slave.

Ergo, he was a rapist.

[Bake]

42. Racist! Elitist! Deist! etc.ist!

So of course, anything that came out of his brain was sick and perverse. Let's just trash the Declaration of Independence! F*** the Constitution! It's all crap anyway!

:sarcasm:

Bake

[noamnety]

46. It didn't "come out of his brain"

so much as the concepts for democracy and equality were taken from the Native Americans. I guess the part that "came out of his brain" was the part where the Native Americans were excluded from the ideas of democracy that they initiated (along with women).

Yet another example of a rewriting of history to portray the great white man as intellectually superior to the "savages" of the day.

*genuflecting at the altar of whitemalecapitalism*

Articles of Confederation --> modeled after the Albany Plan of Union --> modeled after the Iroquois system of government.

Apologies if I don't bow down low enough in respect for a document which gave me absolutely zero rights - and less rights than the system it was modeled upon. If it gave you advantages in life, I can understand why you think it was the cat's meow. As far as I am concerned, the authors would be welcome to go f*** themselves, if they were still alive.

[Odin2005]

108. LOL,, there's a crank theory I never head before!

Ah yes, our notions of democracy and equality came from Native Americans; English Parliamentarianism, The Enlightenment, and Classical Athens had nothing to do with it... :eyes:

[noamnety]

129. PLEASE read some history before popping off about things

In 1988, the 100th U.S. Congress passed a concurrent resolution acknowledging the contribution of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy to the development of the U.S. government. This same spirit of acknowledging the influence of the ancient Iroquois on the new United States was captured poetically by Oren Lyons, chief of the Onondaga Nation, in an interview with Bill Moyers. Declaring Franklin a visionary who brought Indian ideas of democracy, freedom, and peace to America, Lyons said of the founding fathers:

In North America at that time, they took an ember, they took a light from our fire, and they carried that over and they lighted their own fire and they made their own nation. They lighted this great fire, and that was a great light at that time of peace.

http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0107/gaz09.html

The Iroquois Confederacy existed centuries before the U.S. Constitution was written. Historians, anthropologists and traditional chiefs addressed the proposal the U.S. Constitution was based on the Iroquois Great Law of Peace rather than on Greek democracy, as is commonly believed and taught.

Conference speaker Bruce Barton, Chair of English at Castleton College, has written a novel on the founding of the Iroquois Confederacy. Barton summed up the evidence to support that proposal: "Modern democracy was first established here, and is not the evolutionary result of European political theories. The modern age of democracy had its origin in the vast recesses of this continent, and from here it spread throughout the world. American democracy owes its distinctive character of debate and compromise to the principles and structure of American Indian civil government."

http://www.championtrees.org/yarrow/greatlaw.htm

True to form, though, Americans act like ideas don't even exist until they exist in the minds of white men. Thus we have the mass belief that the founding fathers were great visionaries who came up with this all on their own - oooh, with some influence by other white men - and the folks who had already implemented those ideas and had been using them for centuries - and who had to COERCE the founding fathers into adopting their system - are scrubbed from our collective memories. This is how white supremacy is taught to us in subtle ways, and passed down from generation to generation.

[Virginia Dare]

184. Of course, native americans kept slaves as well...n/t

[Lilith Velkor]

48. How DARE he not predict and conform to 21st century sensibilities!

*fume*

[noamnety]

52. Spare me.

Ideas of equality and democracy were already in place in this country before he moved in. There's a reason white folks had to have guards to keep white folks from running away to live among the Native Americans, and the tribes didn't have a consistent problem with Native Americans wanting to live as Europeans.

Whiteman's ideas of "equality" were a step BACKWARD from the current ideas of the times - except for among the current ideas of whitemen at the time.

[Lilith Velkor]

69. A pig learns to sing, and someone whines, "He's not as good as Pavarotti!"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Odin2005]

110. The "Noble Savage" is a myth of european romantics.

[spoony]

171. It's a myth ingrained in the Declaration of Independence.

[Lilith Velkor]

210. And they get away with it because they think we're all dead.

Try not to let them know. :hide:

[iverglas]

163. there's one criterion that people like to apply today

-- when deciding how to judge someone else -- and it's really just as relevant in hindsight.

Did the person claiming justification or excuse for his/her actions have a vested interest in the outcome?

Jefferson had a huuuge vested interest in the outcome of the slavery/no slavery controversy -- i.e. in the outcome being "slavery". Why would that interest not prima facie taint anything he said to justify not fighting as hard as he could for the other outcome, including by renouncing his own interest in it?

Good grief. How many people, if they live to be 200, will be much interested in Nike's whining about how it just couldn't pay child workers a living wage, or preferably hire their parents, because the CEO would have had to go live in a rented condo? They tried real hard to change the system, doncha know, and they treated their child workers real good ..

Obviously we all suffer the same taint in relation to many issues. We don't give up our cars and walk, on the off chance there might be habitable places to walk in, 50 years from now, if we do that.

But really, we're not quite at the same level as Thomas Jefferson. We don't own human beings personally. And we aren't in a position to make it all, or even any significant element of it, stop.

The tragedy thing was an interesting take. Funny, though, how the tragic flaw of people like Lear actually led to their downfall, not to their lionization as paragons of the very thing they were not. Sympathy we might have for them; monuments we don't usually build to them. Lear got his eyes pecked out or whatever it was, and lost his family; Jefferson profited enormously from his "tragic flaw" and became the inventor of human liberty, oh, and acquired a spare family. There's a bit of a difference.

[spoony]

175. You're forgetting the abolitionists

Or were they time-travelers from the 21st century?

People are acting like this was akin to burping at the table, some lack of social grace or minor flaw. He OWNED PEOPLE.

[Lilith Velkor]

209. He didn't support women's suffrage either, but nobody ever complains about that

If you want to ignore historical context in favor of treating it as a movie with good guys and bad guys, more power to ya, but I think that's childish and ignorant.

[WI_DEM]

43. I think he designed that house too, he was a excellent architect and inventor, too.

[Kelly Rupert]

50. Totally out-of-touch with the people.

What do you suppose the carbon emissions of all that horse-driven travel were?

[Peace Patriot]

57. The trouble with DU politicos is they don't understand TRAGEDY.

Maybe they've never read "Hamlet" or "King Lear" or "Oedipus." Tragedy--in the classical sense--requires a noble hero, someone with high ideals who tries to do good, but is done in by his TRAGIC FLAW. His inability to SEE SOMETHING. His BLIND SPOT. Tragedy is not ordinary pain, misfortune or grief. It is the conflict between a good individual's ideals and brutal reality, which the tragic hero cannot face because of his TRAGIC FLAW.

The brilliance of the tragic insight is to recognize that the BEST human beings are COMPLICATED. Jefferson was a COMPLICATED man--one with the highest of ideals, the one who laid the ground work for our most precious rights, a man who SAW the evil of slavery, who wrote about it, but could not extract himself from his age, and from WHO HE WAS--a Virginian, born as a landowner and slaveowner--to end that evil. Here is an analogy: The antiwar activists of the 1960s. We saw the bloody hell of the "military-industrial complex." We brought down ONE OF their wars--Vietnam. But we FAILED to do what was REALLY necessary for FUTURE peace: dismantle the increasingly out-of-control war machine that has now MANUFACTURED a second unjust, unnecessary, heinous war to feed the beast.

We were all idealists--peaceniks, "Make love not war," --but did we really challenge the war machine? Did we give up everything to bring it down? No! We went on with our lives. And look what that failure has resulted in!

For godssakes, recognize TRAGEDY when you see it. Stop thinking like Freepers.

And when you condemn Jefferson, look to thyself. Do you buy goods made in Chinese, or Cambodian, or SAIPAN (USA territory) sweatshops? Do you eat tacos or hamburgers made with slave labor right here in the United States? Do you or anyone in your family have a salary or pension from the war industry? Do you have stock investments in the war industry? And what of the "kill the planet" industry?

You have ideals, right? You oppose war. You oppose fascism. Maybe you write passionately about it, and actively support candidates or law-making to curtail rotten fascist warmongering government. But would you give your house, your job, your pension and everything you have to those causes? In truth, Jefferson DID give all his wealth to the causes he spent his life advocating for: freedom of religion, free speech, a free press, public education, no king, a "balance of powers" in government, and the Revolution. And you think he should have ended slavery, too? Yeah, well, he should have. At least in his own life. And that would have meant? Either, 1) abandoning his lands, his only wealth, and living in exile in another state, with zilch, or 2) exiling his own slaves--including mistress and children--to another state, because he could not free them in Virginia (it was illegal). He compromised. This was a man who detested the mentality of the slaveholder. He understood its evil psychology--for both slaveholder and slave. But he could do nothing to move the issue politically among his southern white brethren--although he tried to. His original Declaration of Independence included an anti-slavery plank. They took it out. EVERYONE compromised on it--including the liberal idealists of the North--for the sake of the unity of the states in breaking free of England. And perhaps after all the fights that he fought, he was tired. (In fact, he says so, in one letter he wrote.) He could not single-handedly end slavery.

You can look at history with a jaundiced eye--and say that the USA was created by white landowners, some of them slaveholders, for the benefit of privileged white males and the wealthy. Or you can look at it as a series of births of enlightened and progressive ideals, never perfect, never in clean circumstances, that fire peoples' hearts with love of liberty and the determination to improve upon the past. Without "all men are created equal," would women have conceived the notion that THEY should have the right to vote? Without "certain inalienable rights," would slaves and former slaves have struggled for a hundred years to achieve full AMERICAN citizenship? Is it not the Creator-endowed rights that Jefferson spoke of, that moved them? Without "no establishment of religion," would our country have not become a Calvinist theocracy, in which Catholics had to conduct Mass in their basements in secret, and Jews would not be permitted to run for office?

Blame the noblemen who fought King John, and extracted his signature on the Magna Carta, for holding serfs. They created the notion of the "balance of power." Blame the Italian city states and their bourgeois businessmen for being greedy. Modern democracy was born there, created by those bean-counting traders. The Founding Fathers may have wanted liberty only for themselves and their kind, but there were one or two among them who thought much higher thoughts than that. Jefferson, Madison, Tom Paine. Their words ring out. Their ideals became law. And thus they created the legal basis for every struggle for human rights that has since been fought, and that is being fought now.

Jefferson is a tragic figure. He is someone who deserves the sympathy that all tragic heroes earn, when their highest ideals clash with the reality of their own tragic flaws and the circumstances they were born to.

It is very Calvinist--and Freeperish--not to see this. Consign Jefferson to Hell, if you wish. But ask yourself this: Whom would you rather have as President today--Thomas Jefferson or George Bush? (--or, for that matter, Thomas Jefferson or Hillary Clinton?).

One other thing. FDR was wealthy. JFK was wealthy. RFK was wealthy. Wealth does not deprive a person of compassion, or altruism, or of the desire to seek the common good. And the attacks on John Edwards--for his haircut or his house--are simply examples of the ugly, fascist lies and deceit that are every day promulgated by our war profiteering corporate news monopolies, which dirty players like Hillary Clinton have no scruples about using. It is bullshit. It is deliberately distracting. And it is evil. They did it to Dean with the doctored "shout" tape. They did it to Obama on the Islamic school. And they're doing it to Edwards. I don't know what the defense against it should be--except smashing your TVs and canceling your newspaper subscriptions. Ignore it. Stick to the issues. Dean, Edwards and Obama are orders of magnitude better on the issues than Hillary Clinton.

My final bit of advice--channeling Jefferson's ghost here--is: Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor,' forthwith--if you want your democracy back. Cuz you ain't gonna have a choice. Diebold and ES&S have already (s)elected her, and the Corporate Rulers want Hillary, with "unitary executive" powers, in order to consolidate their enormous gains under Bush.

[earthlover]

60. Wow! Great post!

I am a history teacher and was going to write a post. But you said it all, and much more eloquently than I ever could have.

Bravo!

[glitch]

109. That's Peace Patriot for you, eloquently keeping it real. nt

[Jacobin]

63. Thank you for straightening out a crooked thread

TJ's contributions to this country are simply incalculable. Declaration of Independence, the constitution and his out right insistence, in the face of a lot of flak, to make certain that religion and state were kept separate.

100 years from now, all DUers who ever bought anything made in a foreign sweatshop will be demonized for doing so and called every name in the book.

[Kelly Rupert]

72. I do hope you're not referring to the OP.

It was a riff on the common conservative complaints regarding Al Gore's house and John Edwards' haircut. I hope you are referring to the people that took it seriously and started bashing Jefferson honestly, and not those who joined in the jollity.

[joshcryer]

74. This deserves a thread of its own. :)

[Raksha]

76. Excellent post, Peace Patriot. Excellent analogy too:

>>Here is an analogy: The antiwar activists of the 1960s. We saw the bloody hell of the "military-industrial complex." We brought down ONE OF their wars--Vietnam. But we FAILED to do what was REALLY necessary for FUTURE peace: dismantle the increasingly out-of-control war machine that has now MANUFACTURED a second unjust, unnecessary, heinous war to feed the beast.

We were all idealists--peaceniks, "Make love not war," --but did we really challenge the war machine? Did we give up everything to bring it down? No! We went on with our lives. And look what that failure has resulted in!<<

That is SOOOO true! YES, we were against the Vietnam War and eventually brought it to an end. And YES, we failed to bring down the war machine, and that was our great tragedy.

But I think I understand why we failed to bring it down: it's because directly or indirectly we were OURSELVES the beneficiaries of the Cold War economy fueled by the war machine. The Sixties when the counterculture began and flourished (and the antiwar movement with it) were also the most prosperous years in the history of our country, when even most "poor people" (like my family) were really not that badly off as compared to poor folks in other countries, or the way they are now in this age of the disappearing middle class.

Lately I've been thinking a lot (with a good deal of shame and embarrassment) of my own teen years, growing up in Redondo Beach, California. I felt plenty sorry for myself in those days because I lived on "the wrong side of the tracks" in South Redondo, near Aviation Boulevard, which was called that for a very good reason. It was where all the huge aircraft companies were located, Hughes Aircraft and all the rest. I could walk to Aviation Boulevard from my house if I wanted to--it was kind of a long walk but still very do-able. I walked a lot in those days.

And yet the fact that the military-industrial complex was literally within walking distance NEVER EVEN OCCURRED TO ME. I took it so much for granted that I never even saw it, never thought about it. And it's this culturally-induced blindness that is the source of my embarrassment and shame when I think about it now. And I do...I think about it a lot these days.

Sure, I was young and not so good at connecting the dots as I am now, and to that extent I forgive myself. Also, no one in my family actually worked at the aircraft companies so I was not a direct beneficiary. But indirectly I was a beneficiary, as we all were. My town, all the neighboring towns...hell, the entire Los Angeles basin derived its prosperity from the war machine! It fueled the infrastructure, the phenomenal growth (which I often regretted and still do) and all the amenities I took so much for granted they were invisible to me...just like the war machine itself.

CHALLENGE the war machine??? Hell, I DIDN'T EVEN SEE IT!

[Frank Cannon]

82. This is the BEST post I've ever read on this board

I'm stunned. Thank you for this. NOBODY's perfect, but there are imperfect people who dedicate themselves to the IDEAL of perfection, and who have the ways and means--and the WILL--to get our society closer to that. It does happen.

[slackmaster]

88. This reply deserves a round of applause

:toast:

[noamnety]

91. from reading your post

one would get the impression that our white founding fathers invented the concept of democracy all on their own, invented the concept of equality, and that all human rights struggles had their roots in American ideals born of white European thoughts.

"They created the legal basis for every struggle for human rights that has since been fought, and that is being fought now."

How very ... grandiose.

And curious.

[Warren DeMontague]

117. No more curious than having a knee-jerk hatred of every pale biped in history with testicles. nt

[noamnety]

135. I love white men. I hate white male supremacy.

I would hope the people at DU are intelligent enough to understand the difference.

[annabanana]

142. (hatred corrodes the vessel). . . . n/t

[noamnety]

144. (so does blind acceptance of racism, sexism and lies). . . . nt

[Warren DeMontague]

149. I don't consider anyone who runs around yelling "f*** Thomas Jefferson" to be particularly well

placed to deliver lectures about intelligence.

Face it, peace patriot utterly demolished every single argument you're trying to advance in this thread... did so eloquently and effectively---

and the best you can do is cluck about him/her being "grandiose". Sheesh. The worst examples of grandiosity I see on this board are among the folks inclined to stomp around issuing edicts at everyone else about the "correct" way to think.

[noamnety]

153. your post borders on a personal attack which is against forum rules.

Peace Patriot did not refute my concerns about Jefferson.

They seemed to be making the point that humans are not GOOD or EVIL, but a mixture of both. And that's fine, I agree with that. What I am objecting to is the hero-worship of a racist slave owner and rapist, and the inaccurate historical portrayal of our founding fathers as the inventors of democracy and equality, because that PORTRAYAL of them as the inventors is a white supremacist notion. No idea has merit til white men give it legitimacy.

If, however, Peace Patriot posted that as a way of saying it's impolite to point out that the man was a racist and rapist, well, then I would strongly DISagree with that. It's the problem with history in general, that we disnify our historical figures and when somebody says wait a minute, they weren't really the great visionary moral leaders and original thinkers that we claim, they did some seriously fucked up things, too, everyone looks away as though someone farted at the dinner table.

You can see that in this thread, with the people wanting to put this thread on ignore, or being OUTRAGED!!!11! that someone dare question Jefferson's position on his ivory pedestal. People get all kinds of pissed off if you do something other than act like our founding fathers were saintly beings whose hearts were filled with nothing but the desire to help those with less privilege than they had.

[Warren DeMontague]

154. Funny, I thought upthread you said "f*** Thomas Jefferson".

That's not the same thing as saying he was a "mixture" of good and evil, or even that he "did some fucked up things". I think everyone acknowledges that, viewed through a 21st century lens, he did some fucked up things.

But AFAIC, the bottom line is, he did codify some VERY important concepts to this country. Concepts I feel many of us would do well to remember in this day and age. Whether or not you believe those concepts originally came from Ancient Greece, or the Iroquois Confederacy for that matter, is beside the point. I believe we could use more modern-day Thomas Jeffersons; that's not "putting him on a saintly pedastal", that's recognizing that for who he was and where he came from, he was a VERY astute individual.

Beyond that, if you think my previous post broke the rules, I suggest you hit the alert button.

[noamnety]

158. We have different "bottom lines"

and very different ideas of America's role in human rights protection vs. human rights abuses throughout history.

Aside from his own personal "tragic" situation where the poor man couldn't avoid owning slaves, his treatment of the Native Americans during his presidency was also racist and oppressive. And NOT a tragic flaw between his own ideals and his personal circumstances he was born into. It was a deliberate decision to eradicate them from the land by coercing them into trading with the white folks, incurring debts, and then having to sell their land to pay off those debts. (A People's History of the United States, chapter 7).

American racist imperialism is also part of his legacy, and we are living it still. Like I said, excuse me for not bowing down at the altar of someone who specifically excluded me from the rights he thought he himself deserved. I imagine if someone spoke quite eloquently about the equality of all people - and specifically EXcluded you from that group and gave you no rights, you wouldn't be inclined to participate in the heroworship. In fact, you might also be inclined to refer to them as a fuckhead, no?

[Warren DeMontague]

167. I understand that you have strong feelings about the injustices that went into European settlement

of this continent. And clearly, many of those facts are indisputable.

What I don't understand is -given your unflinching refusal to paper over the outrages which accompanied the formation of this country- why you're still here, presuming you're likewise descended from those same Europeans. I mean, if the bedrock of this nation is corruption, land theft and exploitation, and the founders were all "fuckhead" White Male Imperialist Oppressors of the Capitalist Phallocracy, why stay?

Seems to me the most non-hypocritical act one could take would be to give one's house or apartment to a Native American and move back to Europe.

Here's what else the "People's History of the United States" (hardly the definitive unbiased source of all facts Historical, but... whatever) has to say about Jefferson. Again, Chapter 7:

http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinnasl7.html

His Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, said in 1791 that where Indians lived within state boundaries they should not be interfered with, and that the government should remove white settlers who tried to encroach on them.

...Yes, as you say, later on Jefferson encouraged Native Americans to trade with settlers and "incur debts". And that's the worst Howard Zinn can come up with on the guy? That he encouraged Native Americans to do something that might not be in their best interest? Notice it doesn't say "forced". Seems to me that compared to the treatment the Native Americans had at the hands of other presidents, his encouragement of trade and mutual respect was downright enlightened. And if the Native Americans were so culturally advanced that they invented the concepts of Democracy and Equality Jefferson stole, weren't they smart enough to resist his "encouragement"? (Much less ignore any outstanding debts existing under such an obviously biased, artificial, patriarchal, oppresive, imperialist system)

[noamnety]

177. Ah, the infamous "love it or leave it" line.

Yes, I am familiar with that train of thought, thanks.

Anyone living in the US is not allowed to critique its government or leaders, past or present.

[Warren DeMontague]

189. No, that's not it at all.

There is a big difference between, on one hand, saying someone who criticizes the current government- as it shits not only on the constitution but also on the principles the founders stood for- should leave, and asking why someone with such an obvious disdain for the principles upon which and circumstances within which the country was founded, would choose to remain, particularly in light of the fact that you're presumably living on land you yourself consider stolen.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm happy to suggest that folks who exhibit a love for Theocracy, a hate for the First Amendment, or a fetish for censorship- no matter where they lie on the political spectrum- are out of tune with what I believe this country stands for. That's a patriotic opinion, to my mind. I'd rather have the Theocracy-minded move somewhere else than turn this country over to the Christian Taliban, for instance.

But remember, one of your prime criticisms with Jefferson upthread is the Louisiana purchase- I have no idea how close you are to that considerable chunk of real estate, but it's entirely conceivable that you yourself are living, working, or spending at least some of your time on land that was part of it.

So what gives? You're going to attack TJ for... what? ...buying the LP from The French-- instead of whatever he was supposed to do, presumably NOT buy it from the French and allow THEM to steal it from the Native Americans.. yet you don't have a problem, it would seem, with being connected with and even enjoying the results of that deal some couple centuries later.

So it's a question. You know questions, right?

[noamnety]

195. Jefferson's own words are ugly.

When they withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, they will perceive how useless to them are their extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to time in exchange for necessaries for their farms and families. To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good and the influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands. . . . In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. . . . As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing of the whole country of the tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation. . . .

That's something Bush could have written, albeit with less syllables. "Motives of pure humanity" don't normally refer to plotting to drive people into poverty in order to then drive them off their land. It's actually not unlike the post-Katrina exterminism policies in Louisiana right now. Some things haven't changed much in all this time. I guess we switched from Native Americans to blacks, eh?

As for the patriotism rant, I openly don't consider myself "patriotic" in the sense that you describe it - I actually think that's a bunch of rot when it refers to something that's closer to flag waving nationalism. Patriotism in the sense of serving one's country is well and fine, patriotism in the "how dare you criticise - or even acknowledge - the imperialism and racism and exploitation that our country was built on" sense doesn't interest me at all. This country was built on genocide and slavery and racism. We should ALL acknowledge that and have disdain for it. What purpose does it serve to sweep that under the carpet or minimalize it?

If we want to make things better, we need to acknowledge where we came from, and openly discuss what was wrong with it and why, so we can try to fix it. THAT is the better part of patriotism, imho.

[Warren DeMontague]

197. I would agree with the vast majority of what you say there.

I consider myself patriotic in the sense that I ferverently believe in principles like Liberty, freedom of speech, press, and religion, concepts like personal freedom. I believe the Constitution of the United States, even written as it was by flawed individuals, embodies the spirit of those principles and -with the help of the better examples of our leadership- has made a damn fine go of it at enshrining, actualizing and expanding those principles for the past 200 years. I certainly believe in what this country could be, and I would concur that no small measure of that is facing up to the wrongs we have committed in the past... as well as the ones we are committing now.

I'm not "patriotic" in the sense that my team is better than your team. My team is the Earth, the Solar System, or maybe the Galaxy... (but screw those other galaxies.)

Nevertheless, I still think Jefferson was more brilliant visionary than "fuckhead". Just MHO.

[noamnety]

202. Can you name anyone of the Native Americans whose ideas he took?

or those whose ideas the entire lot of the founding fathers took?

The issue isn't really whether or not you personally can name them. The point is that most people here can't. I know I can't.

But THEY were the visionaries, no? Their ancestors were for forming the system; they were for seeing it would resolve conflicts among the white folks. So that's a major problem I have with the way "American" history is taught in this country. We take the first white person that does something others have been doing for centuries, and drape the white guy with the hero label and call them a visionary.

When was America "discovered"? When was it "settled"? One's answer to that says a lot about a person's view of the world, and of white men's place in it.

It's beyond insulting, and it's part of what makes me uncooperative with our nice little stories of how things happened in this country.

The other part is the glossing over of massive and global human rights abuses, as if we are a shining star on the planet for issues of equality and freedom, and our perpetual state of warfare against those with less privilege (but resources that we want) is a mere footnote. That isn't any better than glossing over a rapist's crimes to say "well, if you put that aside, he was a good man - very noble." Our history is one of imperialism, oppression, and racism, and that doesn't need to be sugarcoated, and it doesn't need to be footnoted. It's the MAJORITY of how our country became a superpower, how it came to consume a far greater share of the planet's resources than it produces, how it came to gobble up massive amounts of wealth while destroying the ability of other countries to support themselves, and how it came to pollute the air, water, and land for generations to come. We're behind other countries in social programs, we're behind other countries in human rights issues ranging from endless unprovoked invasions (count them!) of other countries to executions, including executions of children. If you look at our history of warfare, there has barely been a year in our history that we haven't been out there killing people (mostly people of color) in some other country.

[noamnety]

203. Maybe he was a visionary, in the same way that Saddam Hussein was.

;)

I know the policies are not quite the same. But there are some parallels.

Saddam did a lot of good things for Iraq. He pulled the country together and gave it some stability. He was a visionary in terms of literacy programs and education. The public health and social programs he implemented were TRULY visionary, and better than what we have. He got awards from the UN for that. He raised the standard of living through the country, and distributed land to the peasants.

However. (We all know what the howevers are.)

So, was Saddam more billiant visionary or fuckhead? The ways in which we decide what to footnote, and what to emphasize are pretty interesting to me. If Saddam had lived 200 years ago, here, and was one of the founding fathers, would we forgive the repressive tactics he used on his own people as part of the tragedy of who he was as a man, and focus on the "greater good"?

And what of people in Iraq who benefited from Saddam's social programs - the peasants who have land because of him? Are they hypocrites who should leave the country if they speak of him with disdain instead of holding him up as a hero? How about the people who are in Iraq 200 years from now? If their government is based on his policies, do they have an obligation to either leave the country, or not call him derogatory names?

[Warren DeMontague]

212. It's not JUST about "policies", it's about the ideas in the U.S. Constitution.

And if you really believe there's ANY kind of a legitimate parallel that can be drawn between Saddam Hussein and TJ... well, before I go off on a tangent about overly insular echo chambers, dorm rooms and Che Posters, lets just say I think you maybe should try to get out more.

All the more reason why I think it's a legitimate question; (note, that there is no "obligation" under a question) if the founders of this country were all psychopathic, mass murdering, totalitarian white oppressors of the phallocracy, and the principles this country was ostensibly founded on were not only brazenly ripped off from others but are just a cheap, bastardized cover for capitalism, imperialism, and more exploitation of "The People", and most importantly, if the development of large chunks of this country itself- (including the Louisiana Purchase- and you still haven't told me what you think Thomas Jefferson should have done with that one) was fundamentally, at its core, illegitimate.. then why would you WANT to stay?

That's not saying "love it or leave it", that's asking why you would be interested in living on stolen land under a bogus, white male capitalist-enabling sham of a document like the U.S. Constitution. Really.

[noamnety]

214. You'll find I try pretty hard not to engage when personally attacked.

In a discussion about a PUBLIC figure, which is within DU RULES, the discussion should focus on the PUBLIC figure.

Not interested in personal attacks here in an attempt to derail a legitimate question about Jefferson's racism, sexism, elitism, and hypocrisy, or how history is taught in a way that systemically reinforces white male supremacy.

[Warren DeMontague]

215. I think if you honestly believe that Thomas Jefferson = Saddam Hussein

there's probably not a whole lot left to discuss.

Beyond that, you haven't answered my questions, either.

[noamnety]

216. If you honestly believe that's what I wrote

you're right, not a whole lot left to discuss. :)

[iverglas]

182. ignore debts??

(Much less ignore any outstanding debts existing under such an obviously biased, artificial, patriarchal, oppresive, imperialist system)

So, that whole sentence was typed with tongue firmly in cheek, right?

Do you know anything about the nature of debts and debt enforcement in past centuries in Britain and North America? Unpaid debts were not something one ignored. Unpaid debts were something one ended up indefinitely imprisoned for.

Here's some interesting background -- the rules under British rule, before that revolution. From A Seventeenth Century Chronology Drawn from Colonial Records with Contemporary Native Perspectives
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/jame1/moretti-langholtz/chap7.htm

For instance:

March 1660 — Acts of Assembly —

* Because the Indians are unaccustomed to English law and imprisonment, and out of fear of inciting a war with the Indians, any English trading with the Indians who allows an Indian to build up a debt, does so at his own risk. The Assembly will not permit English laws of debt recovery be applied to the Indians.
* The King of Weanoak incurs debt with the English beyond his ability to pay back. He is put in prison. In prison, he petitions the government to grant him protection from arrest until the first of the following March.

In the War of 1812, the First Nations sided overwhelmingly with the British on what is now the Canadian side of the border. Why? Because the honour of the Crown was still being upheld, up here; the Crown was not reneging on treaties, much less committing genocide.

So the US expanded its imperial dominion west by attempting to exterminate the First Nations, and then was unable to do it northwards because it had attempted to exterminate the First Nations ...

[Warren DeMontague]

190. Sounds to me like it was a major challenge for them to collect on those debts.

And my point stands- so he encouraged the Indians to trade with the settlers and even "run up debts".

That hardly qualifies the guy, in my mind, to lodging in the highest pantheon of white capitalist phallic oppressordom.

[blue neen]

92. I salute you.

That was a beautiful post.

[BlooInBloo]

97. Um, a tragedy (in the theatrical sense) is just a reversal of fortune.

[spoony]

172. Precisely

It isn't about hypocrisy.

And the parallel to being anti-war yet not, what, throwing ourselves in front of tanks? Nonsense. A proper analogy would be if we were anti-war but had stock in Haliburton.

[enigmatic]

106. Fantastic post

I've been here 4 years and that might be the best post I've seen on DU; I salute you...

[jberryhill]

112. Wow... wonderful

Have you SEEN FDR's HOUSE?

[annabanana]

143. THANK YOU! I was about to put this whole silly thread on ignore. . .n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

187. Probably One Of The Best All Around Posts I've Seen Here Period.

I got to the end and immediately went to look for the recommend button, only to realize that this was not an OP but a reply post. Shame though. It deserves recommends from all imho.

[live love laugh]

192. Whoaaaa. You stopped me in my tracks with this one. Well said.

Too bad it's buried here. I wanted to recommend it. Guess a bookmark will have to do.

Again, VERY NICE and thoughtful post.

[smalll]

62. I don't see any "recreation barn" though -

and I don't remember reading that any of the Jeffersons criticized their poorer neighbors for their "slummy" properties, or alleged that they kept their properties in such slummy condition "just to spite us." :shrug:

[jillan]

65. You're not trying to compare Jefferson to Edwards - are you?

That would be funnier than Quayle comparing himself to Kennedy.

[Vadem]

96. YES! I've been there and it is incredible!! All Americans must..

go to Monticello! It is an experience you will never forget!!!!

I live in Virginia, so I am very prejudiced as to the beauty of Monticello!

A must see!

[Scout1071]

105. I agree. I thought it was a spectacular place.

And I think that Jefferson was a true genius in the classic sense of the word. He was a man of very many talents and I really don't care for all the accusations - without any evidence whatsoever - that he was anything other than the gentleman who created Monticello.....and America.

[Warren DeMontague]

114. Not only that, he clearly didn't understand how to woo the Evangelical Right.

All this talk about separation of church and state. He really ought to tone that stuff down.

[RedCappedBandit]

115. are you implying

that the founding fathers might have been simply acting out of greed?

[JVS]

125. A budding merchant class/ bourgeoisie attempting to take the reigns of government from the....

aristocracy? I could never imagine that happening. Impossible!

[MadAnne]

116. Tom and Sally

http://tommyheartsally.com/

[Czolgosz]

120. hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

[JVS]

122. Umm, the slaves. And YES it is hypocrisy, both the house and the slaves

[Maru Kitteh]

126. "Men" meant first of all MEN, second of all WHITE and then to top it off

you know, rich.

Kind of what we have now. Yawn.

[bklyncowgirl]

130. I've been there--it's no McMansion. I love it.

Monticello was designed by Jefferson for Jefferson. It is totally unique, all tied up with Jefferson's ideas about the American Yeoman farmer, his experimentation with technology and agriculture and his own personal preferences some of which were rather odd.

I particularly loved the way he put his bed in an alcove between his bedroom and library. Roll one side and he could get dressed, roll the other way and he could get a book. (I remember reading that Sally Heming's room was located conveniently above his own with a private staircase. They didn't want to talk about that when I took the tour quite a few years ago.)

The house cost a bundle--mainly because he kept altering it when he came up with new ideas--which was all the time--but in person, it's really rather small from the outside--certainly smaller than a modern "starter castle" It's deceptive in the way the rooms are designed to maximize space. Whatever else, TJ was a really good & inventive architect.

On the dark side, Monticello was designed to obscure the inconvenient truth that the house and the plantation which supported it, were built and run by slaves. Even the dumbwaiters in the dining room were installed to minimize the numbers of wait staff that would have to be in attendance at dinner function. Thomas Jefferson clearly believed that slavery was evil but he was unable--or in the end unwilling--to do what was necessary to free himself and the people in his possession, from this evil.

I love the place because it truly expresses the mind of it's owner both for the good, outward modesty, creativity and experimentation and the bad, his ambivalence toward slavery.

[donheld]

133. Well he lost my vote that's for damn sure!!!1!!! I'm series

This is Hugh!

[GeorgeGist]

137. Thanks for the reminder ...

that history does not write the future for the benefit of hypocrites.

[Buzz Clik]

145. unelectable.

[Virginia Dare]

185. Not even for dog catcher in Virginia these days...n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

186. Yeah But He Totally Supported Gay Marriage.

...course, gay meant something completely different then; but still. :)

[illinoisprogressive]

188. It's a wig. Wigs were worn by the upper class back then.

[HardRocker05]

198. hey, i'm okay with the slave-owning, so it's ok if he had a mansion too. nt

[Zomby Woof]

211. The Sage of Monticello

From 1980 through 2001, I visited Monticello four times. I never failed to gain new insights and appreciation each time. The true Renaissance genius of the Sage shines through in every facet.

Jefferson is doubtlessly one of the most complex of the framers (I loathe the term 'Founding Father' - it's much too quasi-religious and paternalistic) and probably inspires more intense feelings both positive and negative than any of them, as this thread bears out. He had the same effect in his lifetime, as evidenced by his bitter rivalry with Alexander Hamilton and mutual distrust of Aaron Burr. He is often the projection of our greatest hopes and fears about how we see America, and how we want to see America, for good or ill.

Much is rightfully made of his abilities as a statesman and interpretive philosopher. He distilled Montesquieu and Locke for the masses. His skills at architecture and invention put him among the elite of his time. He could very well be contradictory, and even hypocritical. He was a visionary, and he was a schemer. He was a politician. He was... human. With all the flaws and virtues of us and then some. Then projected at large by us, because after all, he penned the document that made us these United States. Naturally, he will always have history's sharpest scrutiny placed upon him.

Read his "Notes on Virginia" and witness him grapple with his ambivalence towards slavery, predicting its inevitable demise. His musings on the characteristics of slaves can make one wince, but there is no malice, just the sore limitations of his own time, even as he struggled to transcend it. Being a firm student of the scientific method, he left the door open to be wrong about his conclusions, and that were he alive today, he would see that science had indeed proven him wrong about African Americans and many other subjects of interest. His faith in reason to combat error was one of his redeeming virtues, even as his flaws were naked and many.

The "Statute on Religious Freedom in Virginia" is one of the essential founding documents of our nation. Its principles are under assualt today by the very people he warned about in these writings. We owe his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association for his immortal term "wall of separation between church and state". This inspired his friend James Madison to include this concept (no matter how it was worded differently, to you theocrats out there) in Article 1 of the Bill of Rights years later.

As governor of Virginia, Jefferson enacted laws which broke up large tracts of land held by aristocrats upon their deaths (who saw him as a traitor to his class, much like their descendants did with FDR), prohibiting their heirs from completely taking them over. This was in accordance with his philosophy, romantic as it was, that the small independent yeoman farmer is the future of the land. Jefferson's romanticism was perhaps his greatest virtue and flaw all at once.

Analyzing Jefferson and reaching sharp and strongly held conclusions about his character is an exercise one must approach with a healthy sense of perspective and self-confidence in the face of his formidable achievements. Be careful of what you may find, for you see much of yourself. He is not so much the American Sphinx as he is the American Mirror.