I hope that Henry Wiencek did interpret my comments as alleging Washington
was a racist; quite the contrary, I think there is enormous evidence to the
contrary.  G.W.'s advocacy of enlisting black troops shows how he grew and
changed during the war, and how his notion of black competence and equality
change.  Washington stands in marked and strong contrast to Jefferson, and
thus an important example of how enlightened slaveowning Virginians could be
in this time.  It is a pity that Jefferson was not nearly as enlightened as
Washington, or Tucker, or Wythe, or even in the end his cousin John Randolph
who emancipated all his slaves at his death.  But, what I find bizarre is the
insistence of people, as reflected in Ned Heite's recent posting, that
Jefferson was just a man of his times, no worse than anyone else, and to
raise the question of Jefferson's positions on race and slavery is to try to
make him a 21st century man. Was Henry Wiencek shows, Jefferson was hardly
the revolutionary republican he might have been, and to paraphrase a great
Senator from Texas,
"Thomas Jefferson was no George Washington."

Henry Wiencek wrote:

> Paul Finkelman has commented on the difference between Jefferson's and
> Washington's attitudes toward African-Americans and their innate
> capabilities, and I would like to make one brief point.  Unlike
> Jefferson, Washington was not a racist, at least at the end of his
> life.  Washington came to believe that the apparent deficiencies in
> blacks were not innate but the result of their enslavement.  One very
> powerful indication of this is to be found in Washington's will, in
> which he freed his slaves and specified that the orphan children and the
> children of parents unwilling or incapable of providing for them should
> be bound out to masters and mistresses until age 25 for proper care and
> education in a trade.  Here is his language on this point:
>
> "The Negros thus bound, are (by their Masters or Mistresses) to be
> taught to read & write; and to be brought up to some useful occupation,
> agreeably to the Laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, providing for the
> support of Orphan and other poor Children. and I do hereby expressly
> forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any
> Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever."
>
> Clearly, Washington believed that blacks had a right to freedom; that
> formerly enslaved blacks were quite amenable to education and training;
> furthermore, he clearly believed that they had some just claim to
> education and decent work; finally, he seems to have believed that with
> education and training the freed children of slaves could immediately
> take a fruitful and productive place in Virginia society as free people
> because he emphatically specified that no one should be exiled.  His
> position was vastly different from Jefferson's.
>
> Henry Wiencek
> Charlottesville
>
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--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East Fourth Place
Tulsa, OK  74104

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Fax 918-631-2194

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