At 9:03 PM -0400 4/14/01, Janet Hunter wrote:
>
>I live in Alexandria VA, and have been to Mt Vernon many times, and to
>Monticello at least three times, but most recently in August  There is just
>no comparison between the two.


Mount Vernon and Monticello indeed are different places, but I am
puzzled at the supposed bearing of these differences on the facts of
Jefferson's motives.  Slavery is indeed a complex subject, witness
the recent two-volume Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, in
the creation of which I was privileged to participate. If you skim
randomly through the hundreds of articles, you will notice that even
today there are many angles to the subject, many differing takes on
the same "facts."

But my particular concern arises from the fact that some list members
want to make judgments of historical facts and personalities from the
modern perspective, as if it were possible to judge the eighteenth
century in twenty-first century terms.

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