Henry--
Paul Finkelman yesterday brought to my attention a fairly powerful argument (chapter six, "'Treason against the hopes of the World,' Jefferson and Slavery," in Finkelman, SLAVERY AND THE FOUNDERS: RACE AND LIBERTY IN THE AGE OF JEFFERSON, second edition, (M.E. Sharpe, 2001), pp. 129-162) that Jefferson's thought and action with regard to slavery amounts to a deep and shameful moral cowardice. "Because Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence and a leader of the American enlightenment, the test of his position on slavery is not whether he was better than the worst of his generation, but whether he was the leader of the best," Finkelman writes, "not whether he responded as a southerner and a planter, but whether he was able to transcend his economic interests and his sectional background in order to implement the ideals he articulated." As Finkelman powerfully argues, "Jefferson fails the test." (p 129) Finkelman suggests that Jefferson properly should be understood as "the intellectual godfather of the racist pseudoscience of the American school of Anthropology," and that "proponents of scientific racism, such as Josiah Nott, Samuel Cartwright, and Samuel G. Morrison, apparently learned their science from him." (p. 134)
It may well be that the dichotomy I have drawn in earlier posts to this thread (and that I draw in my teaching on the subject) is either too simplistic or else simply false, with regard to Jefferson at least. I earlier drew a distinction between the environmental argument that the experience of slavery itself malnourished the civic capacity of the slave, on the one hand, and the racist and essentialist argument that slaves, and persons of African ancestry more generally, were incompetent (especially in the civic sense) by nature. It is easy enough to find examples of persons drawing this distinction in later generations--for example, in the speeches and writings of Freedmen's Bureau officers working in the South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, or in the thought of Booker T. Washington.
I had thought I had good reason to suggest that Jefferson at least hinted at this distinction as well. This would make some a priori sense, in as much as Jefferson consistently argued that the work performed by a person across his life shaped his civic potential--that, in other words, the project of fashioning an enduring republic depended on the quality of its citizens, and that the kind of work citizens performed did much to shape their capacity to be good republican citizens. It is not much of a stretch, then, to connect the argument that certain kinds of work can shape civic dispositions in a positive fashion to an argument that other kinds of work can be destructive to civic character. Jefferson did in fact make this argument with regard to factory work. But I had also perceived, or thought I perceived, that he extended the thought to slavery, and argued that slavery was pernicious in part because the condition of being a slave rendered the slave incapable of being a citizen. Paul's argument, however, suggests that insofar as slavery is concerned, this is not the argument that Jefferson made, and that Jefferson is better understood as a precursor to the kind of awful "slavery is a positive good" argument made by John C. Calhoun or William Fitzhugh.
I confess at this point to being on the fence. Paul's essay has, at the very least, persuaded me that I need to revisit this issue. I much would welcome the thoughts and guidance of others here.
Well wishes,
Kevin
___________________________
Kevin R. Hardwick
Associate Professor
Department of History, MSC 8001
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
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From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Henry Wiencek [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 9:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Hemings-TJ, Charlottesville newspaper
Jurretta cited Jefferson's letter to Bancroft -- it's very frequently
quoted, but almost never quoted in full. It is interpreted as a
definitive statement of Jefferson's views on the impossibility of
emancipation, when the opposite is the case. Strange to say, the
derogatory passage Jurretta quoted is actually the preamble to an
emancipation plan:
"Notwithstanding the discouraging result of these [Quaker]
experiments, I am decided on my final return to America to try this
one. I shall endeavor to import as many Germans as I have grown
slaves. I will settle them and my slaves, on farms of 50. acres each,
intermingled, and place all on the footing of the Metayers
[sharecroppers] of Europe. Their children shall be brought up, as
others are, in habits of property and foresight, and I have no doubt
but that they will be good citizens." So -- Jefferson clearly states
that black slaves will become good American citizens. Which half of
the letter conveys Jefferson's actual views?
In fact the Quaker experiment did not fail but succeeded so well that
it led to the passage of Virginia's liberal 1782 manumission law. In
the letter Jefferson said he had very imperfect information about the
Quaker experiment: "I cannot be particular in the details, because I
never had very particular information." Still, he repeated derogatory
rumors circulated by slaveholders who wished to nip this movement in
the bud.
Henry Wiencek
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