5 ms·

"All men are created equal..." is certainly not invalidated, but what was intended to be indisputably true is rendered debatable, since Jefferson obviously coun

"All men are created equal..." is certainly not invalidated, but what was intended to be indisputably true is rendered debatable, since Jefferson obviously countenanced exceptions.

WalterBright 9y ago
Whether he had slaves or not made no difference to American history. I've never read about anyone justifying holding slaves because Jefferson did. Don't conflate the man with the idea. The idea has changed world history for the better, a LOT better. For example, I believe that a healthy diet is desirable. But I often fail at eating a healthy diet. In no way does that invalidate the idea or my belief in it.
- mlinksva 9y ago
  I'd be very surprised if defenders of slavery didn't routinely use Jefferson, Washington, and company to justify slavery. I don't know offhand how to find primary sources, but a quick web search turns up an interview[0] with a slavery and Jefferson scholar who says: "So that Americans come to believe in racism by reading Jefferson. And in the 1840's and 50's, these Southern racists who are defending slavery are reading Jefferson and quoting him on these issues. ... This is very damaging, horrible ideas and they are used over and over again in the 1840's and 50's by the defenders of slavery to argue in favor of continuing slavery. Jefferson justifies slavery, in fact, by arguing that blacks are inferior to whites on almost all levels." [0] https://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/interviews/Finkelman.htm https://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/interviews/Finkelman....
  - lsc 9y ago
    The constitution of the CSA[1] would look pretty familiar to anyone who has read Jefferson's work; I suspect that if both were written by private entities under current copyright laws, the CSA would be found to have infringed on the document it was abridging. I mean, this is just snark, but it's certainly an example of the words of Thomas Jefferson being used to defend slavery. This is the biggest problem with an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, and one could argue that the fact that the constitution was so vague as to what, exactly, constitutes a man or a citizen was actually a progressive thing, because if we had frozen what a voting citizen was in 1787, we'd explicitly only have given the right to vote to property owning white males, something that (I hope) almost all of us would disagree with. Because so many important things were not strictly defined, we sort of have a built in bias towards loose constructionism. [1]http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/confed/trans.html http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/confed/trans.htm...
    - lsc 9y ago
      Quite some time after edits have closed, I noticed a rather glaring factual error. Jefferson didn't author the constitution. I mean, he was inarguably a big influence, but my snark above is about how similar the constitution of the CSA was to the constitution of the USA, and that Jefferson was one of the primary authors of the constitution of the USA, therefore his words were used to justify slavery. But I made a factual error, swapping Jefferson and Madison. Oops.
- tptacek 9y ago
  The fact that Jefferson owned slaves made an enormous difference to American history. Slavery is the original sin of our republic, and Jefferson was --- though not the worst of them --- among the cohort who helped ensure that sin was baked into our first Constitution.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    There wouldn't have been a Constitution without that compromise. The Constitution did, however, lay the groundwork for the eventual elimination of slavery (which is why the South seceded). With no Constitution, slavery might have persisted for much longer. It wasn't like everyone wanted to get rid of slavery, and ornery Jefferson blocked it. The fact that a terrible war had to be fought over it should be good evidence for that.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      No, Jefferson was just one of the ornery people who blocked it. It's odd to try to rationalize support for the institution of slavery as striking a blow for emancipation.
      - WalterBright 9y ago
        > It's odd to try to rationalize Some progress is better than no progress. It was called a "compromise", after all. The Constitution contained both the justification for emancipation, and the legal framework to enact it. The seeds were there, it was only a matter of time. The South saw that inevitability and seceded to try and avoid it. If you have a theory about how it could have happened otherwise, I'd be interested to hear it.
        tptacek 9y ago
        Going from no Constitution to a Constitution that enshrined the institution of slavery simply isn't progress.
        9y ago

"All men are created equal..." is certainly not invalidated, but what was intended to be indisputably true is rendered debatable, since Jefferson obviously countenanced exceptions.

WalterBright 9y ago

Whether he had slaves or not made no difference to American history. I've never read about anyone justifying holding slaves because Jefferson did. Don't conflate the man with the idea. The idea has changed world history for the better, a LOT better. For example, I believe that a healthy diet is desirable. But I often fail at eating a healthy diet. In no way does that invalidate the idea or my belief in it.

mlinksva 9y ago
I'd be very surprised if defenders of slavery didn't routinely use Jefferson, Washington, and company to justify slavery. I don't know offhand how to find primary sources, but a quick web search turns up an interview[0] with a slavery and Jefferson scholar who says: "So that Americans come to believe in racism by reading Jefferson. And in the 1840's and 50's, these Southern racists who are defending slavery are reading Jefferson and quoting him on these issues. ... This is very damaging, horrible ideas and they are used over and over again in the 1840's and 50's by the defenders of slavery to argue in favor of continuing slavery. Jefferson justifies slavery, in fact, by arguing that blacks are inferior to whites on almost all levels." [0] https://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/interviews/Finkelman.htm https://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/interviews/Finkelman....
- lsc 9y ago
  The constitution of the CSA[1] would look pretty familiar to anyone who has read Jefferson's work; I suspect that if both were written by private entities under current copyright laws, the CSA would be found to have infringed on the document it was abridging. I mean, this is just snark, but it's certainly an example of the words of Thomas Jefferson being used to defend slavery. This is the biggest problem with an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, and one could argue that the fact that the constitution was so vague as to what, exactly, constitutes a man or a citizen was actually a progressive thing, because if we had frozen what a voting citizen was in 1787, we'd explicitly only have given the right to vote to property owning white males, something that (I hope) almost all of us would disagree with. Because so many important things were not strictly defined, we sort of have a built in bias towards loose constructionism. [1]http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/confed/trans.html http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/confed/trans.htm...
  - lsc 9y ago
    Quite some time after edits have closed, I noticed a rather glaring factual error. Jefferson didn't author the constitution. I mean, he was inarguably a big influence, but my snark above is about how similar the constitution of the CSA was to the constitution of the USA, and that Jefferson was one of the primary authors of the constitution of the USA, therefore his words were used to justify slavery. But I made a factual error, swapping Jefferson and Madison. Oops.
tptacek 9y ago
The fact that Jefferson owned slaves made an enormous difference to American history. Slavery is the original sin of our republic, and Jefferson was --- though not the worst of them --- among the cohort who helped ensure that sin was baked into our first Constitution.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  There wouldn't have been a Constitution without that compromise. The Constitution did, however, lay the groundwork for the eventual elimination of slavery (which is why the South seceded). With no Constitution, slavery might have persisted for much longer. It wasn't like everyone wanted to get rid of slavery, and ornery Jefferson blocked it. The fact that a terrible war had to be fought over it should be good evidence for that.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    No, Jefferson was just one of the ornery people who blocked it. It's odd to try to rationalize support for the institution of slavery as striking a blow for emancipation.
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      > It's odd to try to rationalize Some progress is better than no progress. It was called a "compromise", after all. The Constitution contained both the justification for emancipation, and the legal framework to enact it. The seeds were there, it was only a matter of time. The South saw that inevitability and seceded to try and avoid it. If you have a theory about how it could have happened otherwise, I'd be interested to hear it.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        Going from no Constitution to a Constitution that enshrined the institution of slavery simply isn't progress.
        9y ago