Kevin Gutzman's argument is cogent and sound, and I do not disagree with it.

That said, my comment was somewhat elliptical and terse, and Kevin has misconstrued it slightly.  So allow me to clarify.

Locke wrote the Second Treatise in part to criticize the patriarchalism on which Filmer, and other defenders of the Stuart absolutism, based their arguments.  In chapter six of the Second Treatise, Locke examines the nature of paternal power, and concludes that children cease to owe absolute obedience to their parents at the point at which they are able to exercise mature adult rationality on their own.  Thus, he demonstrates that the patriarchal metaphor for the nature of absolute monarchical power is flawed, because in due time children grow up.

Jefferson, in NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, extends this argument to the slaves.  His argument there is not as fully developed as that of subsequent pro slavery proponents, but it is clearly tending in that direction.  Slaves can not be part of the social compact, because they can not exercise full adult rationality and hence can not be self governing.  Note that this does not deny the humanity of the slave, but does insist that slaves are perpetually child-like.  This is the argument to which I alluded, when I stated that Jefferson pointed the way to reconciling Lockean liberalism and slavery.  For the fully developed argument, see the writings of Thornton Stringfellow or George Fitzhugh (you can find both in anthologies by, respectively, Drew Faust and Paul Finkelman), or the chapter on the pro-slavery arguement in Melvin Ely's ISRAEL ON THE APPOMATOX.

Now pretty clearly, the "captive nation" line of argument to which Kevin alludes, and which he is absolutely correct in emphasizing, dovetails powerfully with this other argument that Jefferson advances in NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA.  Slaves *must* be a captive nation, and can hold no other status, because they are inherently incapable of self-government.  

Kevin's book is superb, by the way.  I would urge anyone concerned with the development of political thought in Virginia to consult it.  

All best,
Kevin

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:23:36 -0400
>From: Kevin Gutzman <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Re: DNA In Jefferson-Hemings controversy  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>In response to Kevin Hardwick, I note that it was not Jefferson who
>discovered a way to reconcile slavery with Lockean liberalism, but the May
>Convention of 1776 -- that interim ruling body of revolutionary Virginia.
>It was that body that decided, in debating George Mason's draft Declaration
>of Rights, not to come out and flatly claim that all men were born free and
>equal and that government was to protect their rights, but instead
>interlineated Edmund Pendleton's phrase "when they enter into a state of
>society" (or some such).  As a result, Virginia from its birth was a
>society in which the blacks had not been parties to the social compact;
>they had not "entered into a state of society," but had been kept as a
>captive nation.  *Before* republican Virginia was established, its leaders
>made this decision to have *both* a Lockean social compact *and* slavery.
>
>I detail this development in chapter one of _Virginia's American
>Revolution:  From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840_ (Lexington Books, 2007).
>
>For Jefferson, the commitment to Lockean rights could only be squared with
>the decision to keep blacks outside Virginia's social compact through
>colonization.  I examine this issue in "Lincoln as Jeffersonian:  The
>Colonization Chimera," in _Lincoln Emancipated:  The President and the
>Politics of Race_, ed. Brian Dirck (Northern Illinois University Press,
>2007).
>
>Kevin Gutzman
>
>Kevin R. C. Gutzman, J.D., Ph.D.
>Associate Professor of History
>Western Connecticut State University
>______________________________________
>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.
Department of History
James Madison University

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