I am afraid, Anita, here I do not agree with you. Thomas Jefferson
was an 18th century Virginian, and part of the gentry of his day and
place. What makes him interesting, to me at least, is that like
Mason, who mentored him, he slowly rose above the views of his class
and context. Never completely, nor with a whole heart that drove him
to action, but conceptually, philosophically. I grew up in
Gloucester, and still have painful memories of the disapprobation
that assaulted me when I returned from Birmingham, where I had gone
to stand up with the civil rights leaders there. People I had known
all my life snubbed me, or said rude things behind my back, that they
knew would get back to me. Right now I am writing a paper in another
discipline with a Russian Jewish mathematician, and the other night
he was telling me about what it was like to stand up for civil rights
in the Soviet Union. Going against one's generation's irrationality
that it clutches to its bloody bosom is never easy.
Our children's children are going to look at us when they study what
happened about climate change and ask, how could they...
Compassion is a necessary tool when analyzing history.
-- Stephan
On 4 May 2008, at 19:17, Anita Wills wrote:
> Anne,
> I agree with you on this one. It seems to aggravate some folks that
> Jefferson may have slept with his young slave. Take away Sally and
> what we are left with is Jefferson, the racist, slave holder. I
> believe that is what some of the historians here are arguing for,
> to leave his legacy of slave holding, Genocide against Native
> Culture, and racist views intact. Trying to paint him as a saint is
> not going to work, because there is too much opposing information
> out there. Even if he never touched Sally, the fact that he held
> slaves, and wrote literature that continues to be used to justify
> racist views, says a lot about his character.
>
> Anita
>
>
>
>
> -- Anne Pemberton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Steven,
>
> Perhaps because I am no spring chicken anymore, I am on a fence on
> how much
> we can or should demand that science establish "proofs" which in
> the past
> were left as unanswered questions.
>
> I have no problem whatsoever in analyzing all the available
> information and
> sticking to my belief that in all probability, Sally shared TJ's
> bed. He
> would not have needed to slip out to her cabin. They could have been
> comforably undisturbed in his bed. Since she was also his
> chambermaid, who
> would know? Such testimony as the overseer's statements reminds me
> of the
> "testimonies" offered by our current president to explain away his
> absences
> from National Guard duty.
>
> I would like to learn more about that census entry for Madison
> Hemings that
> he was the son of Thomas Jefferson. Why would the clerk of the
> court sign
> off on a document with such an assertion if it was not intended to be
> understood as knowledge and fact.
>
> Anne
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
>
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