Well said!
  Edmund Morgan in the last paragraphs of American Slavery, American Freedom:
The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia, eloquently argues for the relevance
of the experience of Virginians in the colonial era to our present
dilemma.  As we consider the complexities of Thomas Jefferson
and the other Founders, I can't think of a better aid than a rereading
of Morgan.

Harold S. Forsythe
History & Black Studies
Fairfield University

Date sent:              Mon, 16 Apr 2001 11:29:36 -0400
From:                   Douglas Deal <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Jefferson, slavery, and freedom
To:                     [log in to unmask]
Send reply to:          Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
        <[log in to unmask]>

> Whatever our views on Jefferson the slaveholder and race theorist, he is
> but one example--an especially riveting and poignant example, to be
> sure--of a more general contradiction (or tragedy) that has fundamentally
> shaped our country's history. How do we understand, or even describe, a
> nation that launched the first successful experiment in self-government (a
> nation of citizens, not subjects) in the modern era, yet also sanctioned
> slavery and was led by slaveholding presidents for most of its early
> history? In some ways, of course, this contradiction was "resolved" by the
> Civil War, but we deal with its legacies every day. The promise (explicit
> or implicit) of liberty and equality for all that is such an inspiring
> part of our heritage remains unfulfilled--a failure that is all the more
> painful *because* of the high expectations generated by the promise.
>
> Jefferson's life and legacy incorporate both the promise and the failure
> to live up to it. It's interesting to speculate about the impact a
> genuinely abolitionist Jefferson might have had on the course of our
> history, but we are stuck with the history the real Jefferson (and the
> rest of our ancestors on this land) helped to shape, and *that* history is
> difficult to appraise, I submit, precisely because it is so riddled with
> Jefferson-like contradictions.
>
> Douglas Deal
> Professor of History and Director of General Education
> State University of New York at Oswego
> Oswego, NY 13126
> [log in to unmask]
> (315)-312-5631 (voice mail)
> (315)-312-3577 (FAX)
>
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