No.  I am suggesting that in 1773-74 (the date may be off by a year or two)
TJ was acting in the role of skilled attorney, assembling arguments that he
believed might benefit his client.  And in 1777-79, acting in the role of a
responsible legislator,  he was balancing the constraints of political
reality against the claims of ideology, and proposed changing what he and
others thought most needed changing and could be safely changed without
imperiling the new state's fledgling civil community.  Divorce,
unsurprisingly, was not a significant priority for change in the latter
period, and in both cases TJ's personal beliefs, whatever they may have
been, were necessarily subordinate to other considerations.

It is therefore difficult to ascertain his personal beliefs, but it may be
noted that when in old age he expressed genuine anguish over the plight of a
granddaughter bound to a physically abusive alcoholic husband, TJ is not on
record as lamenting the strict Virginia divorce laws that would have
prevented her from divorcing her husband even had she been willing to do so
-- which, however, the evidence suggests she would not have wanted to do in
any case.

-- Jurretta Heckscher



On Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:55:45 EDT, Basil Forest <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>So you are suggesting that Jefferson believed one thing in his role as a
>legislator, but when paid money would do whatever his client wanted?  Seems  to
>me this is the definition of a wh__e.
>

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