Re: Mrs. Barger's comments below (which I have purposefully left in this posting)
I did my PhD under Stanley N. Katz and John Hope Franklin at the University of Chicago. I have never studied at Univ. of Virginia.
Peter Onuf is a good friend, but since we are roughly the same age it would have been very hard to study with him.
Since my scholarly credential and age (as well as Peter's) are readily available, I am truly shocked that Mr. Barger would be guilty of "setting aside questions of HISTORICAL ACCURACY" merely to make his own "PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION" for his view point [Barger's caps.].
I have never argued that we should do anything but be historically accurate in our scholarship. In my own work on Jefferson I point out, over and over again, that we must judge Jefferson by the standards of his age not ours. For example, many slave owners (Washington for example) refused to sell slaves because they considered it deeply wrong. Mr. Jefferson had no such scruples.
Since I have only spoken at Monticello once and at UVa once, it is hard to imagine why Mr. Barger would try to blame Monticello for what I write. I have (sadly) never had a grant from Monticello or been invited to work there or do research there. I once gave a paper at a conference there.
As for setting aside "historical accuracy" I would be enormously pleased if Mr. Barger would cite check all my quotations and footnotes in my book SLAVERY AND THE FOUNDERS: RACE AND LIBERTY IN THE AGE OF JEFFERSON (2nd ed 2001) to make sure they are accurate. I am planning a third edition and so if Mr. Barger can find any errors in my work, I would be extremely grateful as none of us wants to incorporate errors in our scholarship. On the other hand, if he does not find any substantial errors (I am sure there is as typo here and there) perhaps he would like to publicly apologize to suggesting that my historical scholarship lacks "accuracy."
Mr. Barger is wrong about where I studied, who I studied with, who has funded me, and what I have done in my career. But, then why should that surprise any of us? When one lives in a glass house as large as Mr. Barger, it would be useful to be accurate in the accusations one makes.
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Paul Finkelman
John Hope Franklin Visiting Professor of American Legal History
Duke University School of Law
210 Science Drive
Box 90360
Durham, NC 27708-0360
919-613-7038 (o)
518-605-0296 (c)
[log in to unmask]
www.paulfinkelman.com
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-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Herbert Barger
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2012 2:09 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
Finkelman is another of those "slavery experts" including Monticello, Peter Onuf (financed by Monticello),(Finkelman studied under him at UVA I believe). Onuf edited the Oct 92 edition of Jeffersonian Legacies of which Finkelman was a chapter author. The aim of this group (writers were Onuf, Finkelman Monticello President, Dan Jordan, Jan Lewis, Lucia Stanton, Monticello Chief Researcher, Gordon Wood, Scot French, Edward Ayers and
others) is according to a Prof. Richard Rorty on page 280, "setting aside questions of HISTORICAL ACCURACY AND PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTIFICATION (my caps), in order to sustain the present-day cause of international human rights."
Now do we understand why Monticello would remove "Memorial" from their title, associate with such people as Onuf and Paul Finkelman and continue to "instruct" other historians at the Smith Thomas Jefferson Research Center at Monticello on the slavery issue and the mishandling of the DNA Study that DID NOT prove that Thomas Jefferson fathered any slave child.
That NYT Prof. Paul Finkelman article is a disgrace to Mr Jefferson and Monticello.
Herb Barger
Founder, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society www.tjheritage.org www.jeffersondnastudy.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ron Roizen
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 12:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-HIST] "The Monster of Monticello"
In the great tradition of "Let's you and him fight," what did list members think of Paul Finkelman's NY Times opinion piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/opinion/the-real-thomas-jefferson.html?src
=recg&_r=0 ?
Ron Roizen
Wallace, Idaho
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