As we celebrate the birth of our nation, can we have an honest discussion about Thomas Jefferson?
1) Thomas Jefferson was in part a product of his society. Thomas Jefferson lived in Virginia which was part of the Middle 13 Colonies. And like its sister colonies Delaware and Maryland, Virginia was divided on the issue of slavery. The majority of the people strongly supported slavery, but a vocal minority advocated for civil rights. These three states had institutionalized racism, but not as severe as the southern colonies of the Carolinas and Georgia. In this environment, Thomas Jefferson grew up being daily challenged from the disparate points of view of slavery and abolition. Over the course of his life he leaned heavily towards the side of abolition, but differed from the northern abolitionists in a final solution. Northern abolitionists favored immediate freedom and integration within the colonies. Middle Colony abolitionists favored gradual emancipation and a plan to send the freed slaves back to Africa believing that they would face a better future far away from pro-slavery politicians and plantation owners. It is with this mindset that Jefferson approached his duty towards the slaves he inherited.
2) Thomas Jefferson was a benevolent slaveholder. It seems inconsistent and inconsiderate to put the words “benevolent” and “slave holder” in the same sentence to describe the same person, but it is equally difficult to describe someone who was so opposed to slavery and yet owned slaves. I am not an apologist for Jefferson’s actions because hindsight tells me that he could have done more, but neither am I going to judge him for his sins of omission. Unlike other slave owners, Jefferson paid his slaves for the vegetables they raised and the meat they obtained while hunting and fishing. He also developed a profit-sharing plan for the products that the enslaved artisans produced in their shops. It was Jefferson’s goal to free his slaves upon his death-bed, which was a common practice among many Virginia slave owners In fact, George Washington was able to free his slaves on his deathbed (although he delayed it until his wife Martha died) because of a law that Virginia passed in 1782. Unfortunately, Virginia changed that law in 1806 so that a slave holder who wanted to free their slaves had to also support those slaves who were young, old, weak and infirm for an indefinite period of time. Additionally, the law mandated that freed slaves leave the state of Virginia in order to remain free. One of the reasons Jefferson couldn’t free (at least some of his slaves) on his deathbed in 1826 was that he died in debt and didn’t have the money required by law to support any slave he had hoped to free. It is unclear if any of the healthy slaves he could have freed would have been willing to leave their family members and friends at Monticello while they left the state.
3) Thomas Jefferson was what Virginia needed. In 1790 there were nearly 300,000 slaves in Virginia- nearly 3 times the amount in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Maryland combined, which were the next most populous slave states. By comparison, there were only 29,000 slaves in Georgia and about 9,000 in Delaware. Thomas Jefferson clearly had the deck stacked against him when, as a lawyer in 1770 and again in 1772, he unsuccessfully argued on behalf of a slave’s freedom. The deck was also stacked against him as a legislator when he sponsored bills for either full emancipation or limits on slavery in the state of Virginia. His bills failed in the Virginia legislature in 1769, 1776, 1778 and finally when he served as a governor in 1779. As a delegate to the Continental Congress he proposed a bill in 1784 which would have ended slavery in the United States in 1800. The bill received the support of 6 states, one vote short of passage. As a consolation, the federal Congress took Jefferson’s 1784 antislavery proposal and included it in the Northwest Ordinance, allowing Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to enter the United States as anti-slavery states. It is interesting that Abraham Lincoln was the product of Illinois and a beneficiary of its anti-slavery stance. As the chief writer of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote the phrase “All Men are Create Equal” and he meant ALL MEN. Furthermore, he included a long grievance against King George denouncing him for encouraging slavery. In that grievance he was sure to use all caps for the word “MEN,” clearly identifying slaves as Men who were deserving of the same rights as their white countrymen. It is interesting to note that the only other words in the document in all caps were “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” Two states, Georgia and South Carolina objected to the clause being included in the Declaration. Through all of the difficulty and backlash, Jefferson continued to challenge Virginians to step up to the plate and recognize equality for all. Over the next 70 years (1790–1860) while Virginia’s slave holdings increased, they increased at a much slower rate than the other Southern slave states.
4) Thomas Jefferson was NOT the father of Sallie Hemming’s children. Most of the “evidence” to support this alleged affair comes from the notorious journalist James Callender. In the 1800 election, Thomas Jefferson employed James Callender to develop opposition “research” on incumbent president John Adams. It should be noted that the election of 1800 between Jefferson and Adams was one of the dirtiest smear campaigns of all time. Both candidates invented lies and half-truths about one another that might even make present-day politicians blush. It is probable that Callendar’s articles were successful in helping Jefferson win the presidency. As a result, Callendar wanted payment in kind and expected to be appointed to the position of postmaster. Jefferson denied Callendar the position and as a result Callender began writing slanderous articles detailing an affair the president was allegedly having with one of his slaves at Monticello. Taking James Callendar’s articles as gospel truth about Jefferson would be the equivalent of trusting Rachel Maddow to write the authoritative autobiography of Donald Trump or Sean Hannity to do the same for Barack Obama. It seems odd why historians are so eager to believe such a questionable source as Callendar. Callendar’s bias aside, DNA evidence supports the fact that Hemming’s children were fathered by a Jefferson closely related to Thomas, but there are 25 known male heirs whose DNA would be consistent with the DNA of Hemming’s children. Even though the evidence in inconclusive as to who the biological father is, revisionist historians exploit “the facts” as pointing to Thomas Jefferson as they seek to magnify Callendar’s libelous claims.
5) Thomas Jefferson moved the ball forward, but could have moved it further. Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy in this day and age to prove that Thomas Jefferson wasn’t perfect (or at least as good as we would have liked him to be); but judging Jefferson in hindsight is a fruitless exercise. For 40+ years he was one of the most vocal proponents of abolition and worked all the way up to the conclusion of his presidency (1808) for the cause. If he had been born into a northern state, we would today herald him for all the great work that he did to abolish slavery. But because he was born in a slave state and fought the good fight as best he could against the odds that were stacked against him, we fault him for not being Superman. If everything would have gone according to plan, slavery would have been abolished shortly after the slave traded was ended in 1808. However, southerners created breeding plantations to offset the cessation of ships bringing slaves from Africa. Additionally, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 breathed new life into the issue of slavery and in many ways acted as a catalyst propelling us towards the Civil War. If Jefferson would have been more involved in domestic politics after his presidency, there is a good possibility that the Missouri Compromise and Civil War would have never happened as they did. But at the same time, when Jefferson left office, he was passing the baton to a new generation of politicians expecting them to take up the mantle and lift where they could.
Conclusion — Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but also a man. He was limited by his circumstances, but did what he could to further the cause of abolition. We need to regard his greatness as greatness and his flaws as flaws. We need to remove the mote from our own eyes before we see the speck in his. We are not worthy to cast the first stone and need to do more to end slavery in our time.
