Re: On Jefferson's Flaws


"NoName" <NoName@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:qopt53l5rujtc0gabup4u2750vcq52o957@xxxxxxxxxx
Should anyone think I am deifying Thomas Jefferson, he does remain a
puzzle. He combined much enlightened thinking with turning a deaf ear
to one of the most horrendous injustices of his day, slavery. He was
hardly alone in this, but it does point up the fact that many
brilliant people have "feet of clay."

Our Founding Fathers as a whole failed to recognize how cruel and
unjust the practice of slavery was to their great ideals. Blacks
and Indians excluded. Sadly, Jefferson was no exception.

As the following illustrates:

Thomas Jefferson's genius is everywhere apparent in his thirst for and
his comprehension of the best enlightened philosophy, history,
science, political theory, agriculture and religion of his age.
Tragically, he failed utterly to engage, in any substantively
practical way whatsoever, the massive realities of American racial
oppression and injustice. Jefferson's writings display deep
reservations as well as moral anguish concerning Negro slavery; yet he
never freed his own slaves. Much attention, in Jefferson's time and in
ours, has focused on his alleged sexual relations with his mixed-race
slave, Sally Hemings, the light skinned half-sister of his wife. There
is now compelling DNA evidence that Jefferson was the father of at
least one of Hemings' children. He did free two of Hemings' children
in his will and Hemings was given her freedom shortly thereafter. But
millions of African Americans have had to suffer many more decades of
cruel economic slavery, even after legal slavery was ended in the
1860s, because of the common, absurd notion, which Thomas Jefferson
shared and only mildly questioned, that the "dark" races were inferior
to the "white." Moreover, Jefferson's presidential removal policies
proved horribly destructive to Native Americans. They set the pattern
for the Bill for Indian Removal, signed by President Jackson in 1830,
whose cruel enforcement resulted in the Trail of Tears of 1838-39 and
other atrocities. Jefferson's prophetic advancement of human liberty
is deeply tainted by his shameful legacy in matters of race.



When judging any historical figure, it would seem to me that the common attitudes of the time, need to be in place for proper context. For his time, I would think he was quite a renaissance man.

What astonishes me is that racial hatred either black or white, should exist at our present time. But it does.
--
Best Regards,

Evelyn

.

Relevant Pages

  • On Jeffersons Flaws
    ... He combined much enlightened thinking with turning a deaf ear ... to one of the most horrendous injustices of his day, slavery. ... slave, Sally Hemings, the light skinned half-sister of his wife. ... 1860s, because of the common, absurd notion, which Thomas Jefferson ...
    (soc.senior.issues)
  • Re: On Jeffersons Flaws
    ... to one of the most horrendous injustices of his day, slavery. ... slave, Sally Hemings, the light skinned half-sister of his wife. ...
    (soc.senior.issues)
  • Re: On Jeffersons Flaws
    ... > to one of the most horrendous injustices of his day, slavery. ... > slave, Sally Hemings, the light skinned half-sister of his wife. ... > 1860s, because of the common, absurd notion, which Thomas Jefferson ...
    (soc.senior.issues)
  • Re: On Jeffersons Flaws
    ... to one of the most horrendous injustices of his day, slavery. ... slave, Sally Hemings, the light skinned half-sister of his wife. ...
    (soc.senior.issues)