I too struggle with understanding the morality of the early Virginians. One
of my descendants was an early Virginian Baptist minister, who seems to have
been quite well loved by his perishiners. He was Valentine M. Mason
(1783-1843). Some of the reseach I have read about him is housed at the
Virgiania Baptistist Historical Society at the Uni. of Richmond. It suggests
that one evening he decided that his daily alcholic beverage with dinner was
an abomination and he told his servant (a slave) to take it away and no
longer serve it to him. From that day on he never drank another alcoholic
beverage. Yet I never read anything where he felt that owning another person
as property was an offensive to God. I find it very sad that someone would
think that drinking alcholic beverages would send one to hell and that
owning another person as a slave was not sinful.

Lonny Watro
----- Original Message -----
> However you slice the evidence, Jefferson was
> still a slave owner, with all that that implied.  If we agree
> that slavery is criminal and evil, Jefferson was as thoroughly
> implicated in it as it is possible to be.  No one suggests
> that he was a James Henry Hammond.  But he *was* a slave
> owner.  And from his own writings, we know that he recognized
> with some clarity why slavery was ethically wrong.
>
> Every time Jefferson sat down to an eight course dinner at
> Monticello, drinking his imported French wine, he was making a
> decision.  Every time he rebuilt a portion of the house, or
> bought books for its library, he made a decision.  "Live a
> life of luxury and refinement?  Or free myself of debt so I
> can free my slaves?"  We know the choice he made.
>
> Best,
> Kevin
> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
> Department of History
> James Madison University
>
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