Ned Heite writes:
"In retrospect, perhaps, the Notes on the State of Virginia probably
are racist. But you can't judge racism, or any other -ism, outside
the context of its time. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. But imagine
Jefferson sitting around a table with his peers. In that context,
would he be a racist, or merely reflecting one aspect of mainstream
culture? There were abolitionists who believed that blacks were
inferior, but they weren't racists."
This argument is the one always given about TJ; that we must judge him by his
times. I have two answers.
First, by the standards of his own times, TJ is incredibly racist. While others
remark on the skills of Benjamin Bannaker as proof of the ability of blacks to
learn as white, TJ privately denies this and claims Banneker had an "inferior
mind" and did not even do his own work; Benjamin Franklin gave money for schools
for blacks, while TJ denied blacks could ever be educated. Imagine TJ sitting with
say Edward Coles, who freed his own slaves and begged TJ to take a stand against
slavery and argue for the most gradual emancipation; (TJ refused); Imagine TJ with
George Wythe, George Washington both of whom freed their slaves in their wills, or
Robert "Councillor" Carter, who manumitted his more than five hundred slaves while
providing them with land and housing; or St. George Tucker who publicly argued for
gradual abolition and published a plan for it in Va. Now, I ask Mr Heite, what
would TJ say to these people about slavery and race?
Imagine TJ sitting with the leadings scientists of the day in England, France, or
the US, almost all of whom argue for racial equality and like Franklin, argue that
blacks appear to be inferior to whites because they are not educated. What does TJ
say: he says no, it is innate and biological.
Imagine TJ sitting with the hundreds of men from MD and Va who are in the state
abolition societies of the time, asking him "why haven't you taken a stand against
slavery?" What does TJ say?
Now the second point: if TJ is such an icon, such a hero, why compare him to the
average planter, the average Virginian of the time period. If I may quote from my
own book, Slavery and the Founders:
"An understanding of Jefferson's relationship to slavery requires analysis of his
statements and beliefs and an account of his actions as a public leader and a
private individual. Scrutinizing the contradictions between Jefferson's professed
ideals and his actions does not impose twenty-first century values on an
eighteenth-century man. Because Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of
Independence and a leader of the American enlightenment, the test of his position
on slavery is not whether he was better than the worst of his generation, but
whether he was the leader of the best; not, did he respond as a southerner and a
planter, but, was he able to transcend his economic interests and his sectional
background to implement the ideals he articulated. Jefferson fails the test.
When Jefferson wrote the Declaration he owned over 175 slaves. While many of
his contemporaries freed their slaves during and after the Revolution, Jefferson
did not. In the fifty years from 1776 until his death in 1826, a period of
extraordinary public service, he did little to end slavery or to dissociate himself
from his role as the master of Monticello. To the contrary, as he accumulated more
slaves he worked assiduously to increase the productivity and the property values
of his labor force. Nor did he encourage his countrymen to liberate their slaves,
even when they sought his blessing. Even at his death Jefferson failed to fulfill
the promise of his rhetoric. In his will he emancipated only five bondsmen,
condemning nearly 200 others to the auction block."
--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East Fourth Place
Tulsa, OK 74104
918-631-3706
Fax 918-631-2194
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Ned Heite wrote:
> At 2:59 PM -0500 4/13/01, Paul Finkelman wrote:
> >Quick response. First, Morrison was a professor at Harvard, in history, for
> >about 50 years. It Churchill that good a historian, or merely a good writer?
>
> I wasn't thinking of Morrison's academic career, but his pioneering
> work as a public historian in government. Sorry I didn't take the
> time to frame that much better.
>
> As for Churchill the historian: If you measure success in books sold,
> he certainly stands above most of us. If you measure success in a
> book's influence on the course of history, he's right up there with
> Gibbon and Beard and Turner. The English-Speaking Peoples was not
> only brilliant synthesis (my opinion) but it probably had major
> effect on public opinion in the British sphere of influence,
> including the U. S. and the pink bits scattered all over the world
> map, at a critical moment.
>
> >But, to the major point. Certain TJ as an architect may not be a
> >reflection of
> >his status as slaveowner, although his ability to build and rebuild
> >his home was
> >a function of that. But, for his public career, his actions, such
> >as his early
> >embargo against Haiti, he annexation of Lousiana despite his constitutional
> >doubts, his refusal to endorse manumisison programs, are all a function of his
> >status as a slaveowner. Indeed, in TJ's case more than many other
> >leaders, the
> >personal did dicatate the policies quite often.
>
> Of course, slave ownership was part of the man's makeup, and we all
> act based on the various component parts of our personalities. But
> there were lots and lots of other factors that led to his decisions.
>
> >His science, such as it was, at least as set out in NOTES ON THE STATE OF
> >VIRGINIA was racist and designed in fact to support slavery, thus his
> >"scientific" judgments about the abilities of blacks.
>
> In retrospect, perhaps, the Notes on the State of Virginia probably
> are racist. But you can't judge racism, or any other -ism, outside
> the context of its time. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. But imagine
> Jefferson sitting around a table with his peers. In that context,
> would he be a racist, or merely reflecting one aspect of mainstream
> culture? There were abolitionists who believed that blacks were
> inferior, but they weren't racists.
>
> >On religious freedom, he certainly did not seem willing to extend
> >that freedom to
> >slaves or even free blacks. One might argue, in fact, that his desire for
> >religious freedom was a function of his need to have a united front for all
> >whites, and eliminate all disharmony among whites, to protect against blacks.
>
> Again, the Civil Rights Act hadn't been passed when Jefferson was
> alive. Freedom comes incrementally in our society. There was a time
> when you had to be a forty-shilling male white freeholder over 21 (or
> the son of such a freeholder) in order to vote, and you had to cast
> your vote in the presence of the rest of the electorate.
>
> About a hundred years ago, some real radical liberals wanted to
> institute secret ballots. Imagine not knowing how a person voted!
> Why, it would undermine democracy and destroy our freedoms!
>
> Then there were the yankee radicals from the "free love and free
> school states of the north" who wanted just anybody's son in Virginia
> to be allowed to go to school. Just anybody going to school without
> paying a fee? The end of civilization.
>
> Remove the property requirement for voting? Let the rabble rule? This
> isn't the Paris streets, you know.
>
> Each generation's radicalism pushes back injustice a little tiny bit.
> The only way you can determine if Jefferson was a "racist" is to
> compare him to a sample of his contemporaries and social peers. The
> term "racism" wasn't in popular circulation in those circles.
>
> Jefferson never voted in an election that was open to all citizens,
> black and white, rich and poor, male and female. Yet he wrote many of
> the documents upon which we base so much of our ideas of liberty.
> It's preposterous to suggest condemning him merely for the "crime" of
> being born a couple of centuries too soon.
> --
>
> ****************************************
>
> About 1607, residents of the
> Atlantic seaboard discovered Europeans.
> The Europeans behaved like savages,
> and many of the local people moved away.
>
> [log in to unmask]***************************
>
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