Given that Jefferson struggled with emancipating his own children, and kept numerous relatives in slavery (all related to his wife through her father), and never bothered to free his half-sister-in-law (Sally Hemings) it is hard to imagine what he possible thought "universal emancipation meant."
It would also be interesting to know where Ewell claimed to have read this statement from Jefferson.
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On Wednesday, October 14, 2020, 12:00:21 PM EDT, Meyers, Terry L <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thanks (and to several off-list replies too). I too am very skeptical—but the quotation marks and direct attribution made me wonder…..
In any case, I had the happy thought yesterday of poking around in some early newspapers. Never found the exact phrasing, but “universal emancipation” turned up a number of times. Never linked to Jefferson directly, but I’m guessing now it was a kind of shorthand pointing to “all men are created equal .. endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Ewell then would just be affirming a direct link to TJ to boost the prestige of the College.
On Oct 13, 2020, at 2:35 PM, William B. Whitley <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Terry,
A cursory search of the phrases in the Rotunda edition of the Jefferson Papers and in Founders Online did not reveal that Jefferson ever used either phrase, and certainly it seems highly doubtful that he would ever have combined the words universal and emancipation. In Founders Online, however, there is a John Adams document that incorporates both phrases, though not exactly in the way that Ewell deployed them:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-3986
This is a peculiar document and is a part of FO's early access section, meaning it has received limited editorial attention. It's currently titled John Adams to John Adams. Perhaps someone at the Adams Papers project in Boston could help you.
Cheers,
Bland Whitley
Jefferson Papers
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Meyers, Terry L
Sent: Friday, October 9, 2020 2:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-HIST] a phrase by Jefferson?
In working recently on Benjamin Ewell, President of W&M 1854-1888, I’ve been reading his requests to Congress for reparations for the burning of the College in 1862. Ewell is seemingly a careful scholar in crafting his case.
Yet in referring to Jefferson’s having been educated at the College he seems to quote a phrase that I can’t discover Jefferson ever used.
in his 1872 testimony, Ewell says of Jefferson that he “was the first to proclaim that the aim of free America should ever be ‘universal emancipation and universal education.'”
In a Washington newspaper account of his 1874 testimony he comes at this from a slightly different angle, that Jefferson was the one “who first proclaimed, as a fitting motto for free America, ‘Universal emancipation and universal education’” (“National Republican,” April 6, 1874, p. 2a).
Google suggests that Ewell is the only one ever to have used these five words in this order.
Is there any chance Ewell might have had access to some Jefferson document long since lost?
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Terry L.. Meyers, Chancellor Professor of English, Emeritus, The College of William and Mary, in Virginia, Williamsburg 23187
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Have we got a college? Have we got a football team?....Well, we can't afford both. Tomorrow we start tearing down the college. --Groucho Marx, in "Horse Feathers."
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