0_equals_true wrote:
Jefferson was an interesting thinker for sure, however he was also a slave owner....
Jefferson and others were slaveowners at a time when large land owners had few other options in hiring employees and couldn't allow for the ground to go fallow. Talk about "jobs Americans won't do." Such a thing as wages paid to freed-men would have financially ruined Jefferson,
et al. A half-century later, the slave trade was beginning to self-destruct because of the costs associated with it, too; the slave economy of scale had begun to slip noticeably.
So, you would rather have had our nascent federation collapse in a cascade effect (depression following recession) simply because of some perceived idea of moral superiority? Jefferson DID free his slaves upon his death. He DID die bankrupt and indebted because he had treated his slaves better than most owners who simply turned them out only to be scooped up by other owners. How much should he have been punished for doing what was completely lawful at the time? He included anti-slavery clauses in the Declaration of Independence only to see them amended by the majority of other American colonies. Has any other U.S. president tried so much to improve racial politics?
Would today's ordinary Americans be willing to go bankrupt (and, thereby, risking national security) for the ideal of equality? Before we find an answer to that question, let us consider how far Jefferson went in his attempt to make his own small place in the world a little more equitable. Attacking a man from 200 years ago who did all he could and paid the price for it is hardly constructive or fair.
09 Oct 2016, 7:12 am
