----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard E. Dixon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2002 4:43 PM
Subject: Re: Why the study of Jefferson and Slavery Matters


> In a message dated 3/29/2002 2:55:52 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> >  Freedom achieved its paramount
> >  position as a core western value out of the experience of people "in
their
> >  roles as masters, slaves, and nonslaves."
>
> Professor Hardwick:
> While slavery and its aftermath threads through the societal and political
> history of the United States, my comment intended that you (and several
other
> posts) justify the claim summarized by your reference to the above quote.
> Historical analysis does not support an assertion that to the values of
18th
> century colonial America, based on the evolution of English law and
thought
> and the philosophes of the Enlightenment, we can also add the social
dynamics
> of slavery. But more to the point of my challenge is the fact that
Jefferson
> owned slaves does not add support to the claim that one of his slaves was
his
> concubine. It is not a permissible assumption that whatever is discovered
> about the Virginia master/female slave relationship implicates Jefferson.
We
> hear a great deal today, and mostly from the academic community, about the
> fallacy of stereotypes (profiling?),  yet that same community applies it
> without a blush to Jefferson.
> ____________________________________________________________________
> Richard E. Dixon
> Attorney at Law
> 4122 Leonard Drive
> Fairfax, VA 22030
> 703-691-0770 fax 703-691-0978
> ____________________________________________________________________

Dear Mr. Dixon,

    It is not a mere surmise that "to the values of 18th century colonial
America, based on the evolution of English law and thought and the
philosophes of the Enlightenment, we can also add the social dynamics
of slavery."  On the contrary, Edmund Randolph, in his _History of
Virginia_, asserted that their ownership of slaves and experience with the
true meaning of slavery made elite Virginians more assertive when it came to
protecting their own rights.  Not for nothing were they always saying that
the British Ministry's puny efforts to collect some small amount (one might
almost say some nominal amount) of taxes in North America were intended to
"enslave" them!  Why should we, 200 years after Governor Randolph's day,
dispute these matters with him?
    Besides that, the form of Article I of the Virginia Declaration of
Rights certainly did owe quite a lot to the fact that the men who wrote it
owned slaves.  The record of that Article's composition manifestly bears out
that assertion.  Caution in drawing inferences regarding Jefferson should
not make us blind to the obvious.
    Respectfully,
Prof. K.R. Constantine Gutzman
Department of History
Western Connecticut State University

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