Well, my intention really was to comment on the larger issue of Thomas
Jefferson and slavery, which I think risks being obscured by what I find as
the (relatively speaking) uninteresting question of whether or not
Jefferson had sex with one of his slaves.  The sensationalism of the
allegations distracts from the larger issue, which was that Jefferson lived
his entire life as a master of slaves, a position which he eloquently and
accurately characterized as inducing "the most unremitting despotism" in
the "manners" of the slave owner.  Jefferson, the man who condemned slavery
because it made tyrants out of slave owners, and hence corrupted the public
life of the American republic, made no serious effort to live by his own
principles.  He did not even have the honesty to acknowledge, as did
Patrick Henry, that "however culpable my conduct, I will so far pray my
devoir to virtue, as to own the excellence and rectitude of her precepts,
and lament my want of conformity to them."

Jefferson's record as a slaveowner, as Lucia Stanton, Jack Rakove, Jan
Lewis, Rhys Isaac, and numerous others have documented, was fairly typical
of his generation.  It most definitely did include the use of coercive
force to keep his "people" at their work.  Jefferson built and rebuilt his
mansion, lived a life of eight course dinners and fine wine, all the while
sinking deeper and deeper in debt.  He knew full well (and if he did not
know, it was only by the most heraculean efforts of self deception) that
when he died his slaves would have to be sold, and the plantation "family"
he paternalistically conceived as being under his care and protection would
be separated, in order to cover his extravagent debts.  Contrast
Jefferson's irresponsibility with Washington's frugality, and consequent
ability to free his slaves, and tell me who you think was the more humane
and principled man.  Jefferson was by far the greater writer and
rhetoritician, and left a larger, in the best possible sense, ideological
legacy.  But as a man, Washington was the more admirable of the two.

Roger Wilkens has written a truly fine meditition on the meaning of the
founding and its compromise with slavery in his book JEFFERSON'S PILLOW,
which I think gets at the larger issues in a more meaningful and useful
fashion than the narrow literature regarding Jefferson and Hemings.  I
would hope that no one here would want to go so far today as William Lloyd
Garrison did a century and a half ago, and suggest that the values of the
founding are irrevocably corrupted by the fact that a good many of the
founders owned slaves.  For Wilkens, it is precisely the values of the
Virginia founders which provide the intellectual armature for the public
principles to which he has devoted his life work.  While some here might
(possibly) disagree with Wilken's means, I rather doubt that many will
quarrel with his quite Jeffersonian goals.  And yet, as a 69 year old black
man, Wilkens has lived through a period of American history in which some
Americans, including a good many Virginians, denied his capacity to act as
a responsible citizen because of the color of his skin.

I am really at a loss to know how to respond to anyone who dismisses these
issues as "foolery."  They strike me as going right to the heart of
Virginia's contribution to the ideals which define public life in our
country today.  They strike me as important and worthy of discussion,
precisely because, as Edmund Morgan noted almost thirty years ago, the
development of "liberty and equality in America had been accompanied by the
rise of slavery."  As Morgan wrote, "the paradox is American, and it
behooves Americans to understand it if they would understand themselves."
I don't think we have seen the end of that discussion, by any means.  But I
do think Wilkens takes us a step in the right direction, and I do hope we
will continue to discuss these issues, as historians, as Virginians, and as
Americans.

Best,
Kevin

--On Thursday, March 28, 2002 5:05 PM -0500 Ray Bonis <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Enough of this foolery!  Please no more of Sally and Thomas.  We've heard
> enough.
> ~~~
> Ray Bonis
> Special Collections and Archives
> James Branch Cabell Library
> 901 Park Ave. VCU Box 842033
> Richmond, VA 23284-2033
>
> Phone: (804) 828-1108
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Web:   www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/speccoll.html
> ~~~~
>
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
> at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html



--
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of History, MSC 2001
James Madison University
Harrisonburg VA 22807
Phone:  540/568-6306
Email:  [log in to unmask]

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