But this book does not address its principal concern, power, until Jefferson has accrued some. When it comes to the force that he wielded as a slaveholder, Mr. Meacham finds ways to suggest that thoughts of abolition would have been premature; that it was not uncommon for white heads of households to be waited on by slaves who bore family resemblances to their masters; and that since Jefferson treated slavery as a blind spot, the book can too.
The very existence of slavery in the era of the American Revolution presents a paradox, and we have largely been content to leave it at that, since a paradox can offer a comforting state of moral suspended animation. Jefferson animates the paradox. And by looking closely at Monticello, we can see the process by which he rationalized an abomination to the point where an absolute moral reversal was reached and he made slavery fit into America’s national enterprise.In Salon, Meacham claims "I’m not letting Thomas Jefferson off the hook"
And if someone as monumental in our memories as Jefferson can be seen as someone trying to work out real problems in real time, making compromises, settling for half a loaf when you might want a full loaf, then I think that should give us a kind of confidence and a kind of hope that we can overcome the seemingly insuperable obstacles that lead us to think of politics as contentious and frustrating.And in Slate, Anette Gordon-Reed replies to Wiencek: Thomas Jefferson Was Not a Monster: Debunking a major new biography of our third president.
The book's tone and presentation betray a journalistic obsession with “the scoop.” Getting the scoop can be the life’s blood of journalism. It does not work so well for writing history, which is not always (or almost ever, really) about discovering things previously unknown. This sensibility leads Weincek astray in a number of ways. To begin with, it compels him to write as if he had discovered, and was writing about, things that had not been discovered and written about before. In truth, all of the important stories in this book have been told by others.Wiencek responds in Smithsonian: The author of a new book about Thomas Jefferson makes his case and defends his scholarship
I am not surprised that Gordon-Reed disliked my book so much, given that it systematically demolishes her portrayal of Jefferson as a kindly master of black slaves. In The Hemingses of Monticello, she described with approval Jefferson's "plans for his version of a kinder, gentler slavery at Monticello with his experiments with the nail factory." Gordon-Reed cannot like the now established truth that the locus of Jefferson's "kinder, gentler slavery" was the very place where children were beaten to get them to work. At first I assumed that she simply did not know about the beatings, but when I double-checked her book's references to the nailery I discovered that she must have known: A few hundred pages away from her paean to the nail factory, she cited the very letter in which "the small ones" are described as being lashed there.On 30 NOV, Paul Finkleman in a New York Times Op-Ed countered with :The Monster Of Monticello
Neither Mr. Meacham, who mostly ignores Jefferson’s slave ownership, nor Mr. Wiencek, who sees him as a sort of fallen angel who comes to slavery only after discovering how profitable it could be, seem willing to confront the ugly truth: the third president was a creepy, brutal hypocrite.David Post at Volokh Conspiracy writes: Why Don’t People Get It About Jefferson and Slavery?
This is truly outrageous and pernicious and a-historical nonsense. The truth is that few people in human history did more, over the course of a lifetime, to “place the road on the road to liberty for all” — and indeed, to eliminate human slavery from the civilized world — than Jefferson.Corey Robin at Crooked Timber asks: Thomas Jefferson: American Fasicst? and examines his letters to conclude:
Jefferson was not a liberal hypocrite, a symptom of his time. He was the avant garde of a group of American theorists who were struggling to reconcile the ideals of the Declaration with the reality of chattel slavery. His resolution of that struggle took the form of one of the most vicious doctrines of racial supremacy the world had yet seen. That is his legacy, or at least part of his legacy. He was by no means the only one to take this route, but he was one of the earliest and easily the most famous. He is the tributary of what would become an American tradition.Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic responds to Post: Slavery Is A Love Song
This is a letter that I often turn to. It was written to Laura Spicer by her husband, who was sold away, much as Jefferson sold people away. After emancipation she repeatedly tried to rekindle their love, despite the fact that the husband had now remarried and formed another family. In this letter the husband tells us what it means to be among the refuse of history:Coates reacts to a "predictable" defense of Jefferson
In TK, Jefferson's protege Edward Coles--knowing of Jefferson's brilliant anti-slavery writings--wrote to enlist him in the cause of ridding Virginia of slavery. Coles thought to begin this effort by manumitting his own slaves. Jefferson not only declined to help Coles, but told him he was wrong to try to free his ownHenry Wiencek writes about the 'rumpus' on his blog, while Jon Meacham was interviewed on The Daily Show on 14 NOV: aired segment and full interview.
Edward Coles (1796-1868) was special secretary to President James Madison, an envoy to Russia, governor of Illinois from 1822 to 1826, and a staunch abolitionist. He held vast tracts of land in several Midwest states, including Illinois and Missouri.While Madison's private secretary,
He was born in Albemarle County, Virginia. The Coles family had been farmers in Virginia since the colonial period. He attended college at both Hampton Sidney College and the College of William and Mary. Soon after graduation, Coles became secretary to President James Madison. He worked as special envoy to Russia in 1816 and land register in Illinois from 1819 until 1827.
An abolitionist since college, Coles moved to Illinois in 1819 in order to free his slaves, since slaves freed in Virginia were not allowed to stay in the state. Once in Illinois, however, Coles found himself in the middle of pro-slavery agitation in the state. Many settlers in Illinois were from slave states and wanted to bring their human property with them when they settled. Thrust into the fray, Coles announced that he would run for governor in 1821 as an anti-slavery candidate. He won the election, but only because 67 percent of the popular vote was split between three pro-slavery candidates.
the idealistic Coles wrote to Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and one of Coles's idols. "My object is to entreat & beseech you to exert your knowledge & influence in devising & getting into operation some plan for the gradual emancipation of slavery," he wrote in 1814. Coles believed the task was so difficult that only a revered Founding Father possessed the moral grandeur to change public opinion in an antislavery direction. He urged Jefferson to think of his future reputation. Even if a Jefferson-endorsed emancipation plan was rejected in 1814, a statement by Jefferson might awaken later generations to slavery's moral opprobrium. Coles also announced his intention to leave Virginia with his slaves as the only course for emancipation open to him.While Governor of Illinois, he was faced with intense pressure from pro-slavery politicans and a campaign to change the state's constitution:
In his reply, Jefferson complimented Coles on his idealism and endorsed gradual emancipation as a worthy if challenging endeavor. He urged Coles to remain in Virginia as a humane master to his slaves, thereby setting a good example while advocating the end of slavery as an institution. But Jefferson begged off leadership of such a crusade, or indeed any role at all beyond interested observer.
Coles quickly organized an antislavery society with the aid of Morris Birkbeck, and issued an address to the people that exposed the intentions of the convention backers. It closed by saying that if they triumphed "we should write the epitaph of free government." The document, which stressed the immoral aspects of slavery, was signed by fifteen legislators but undoubtedly was written by the governor. The constitutional amendment campaign continued for nearly a year and a half, and the public became intensely involved, perhaps as much as in any election since then. Coles and the antislavery convention cause triumphed 6,640 to 4,972.The Illinois Human Rights Commission sponsors an Governor Edward Coles Fellowship.
"You mean like this constitution?"That's a great example, but not one that can be attributed directly to Jefferson. It was a compromise between the states (you know, it did sorta mention that in the link). To be fair, Jefferson was the representative from Virginia at the time, along with George Washington, John Blair, and James Madison, Jr., some pretty heavy political hitters at the time.
In the 1790s, as Jefferson was mortgaging his slaves to build Monticello, George Washington was trying to scrape together financing for an emancipation at Mount Vernon, which he finally ordered in his will. He proved that emancipation was not only possible, but practical, and he overturned all the Jeffersonian rationalizations. Jefferson insisted that a multiracial society with free black people was impossible, but Washington did not think so. Never did Washington suggest that blacks were inferior or that they should be exiled.posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:15 AM on December 4, 2012 [1 favorite]
Jefferson’s haunting obsession, in other words, is black freedom, not black slavery — and indeed he spent quite a bit of time drawing up legislative codes in Virginia that would have imposed major liabilities and restrictions upon the movement and freedom of free blacks.Ta Nehisi Coates: Thomas Jefferson Was More Than A Man Of His Times
Picking up on this notion that one of our great Founding Fathers was merely like every other white Virginian, I think people who make this defense really undercut themselves. Part of what makes Jefferson fascinating (and great) is that--perhaps more than anyone of his generation--he articulated in writing the moral and practical problems of slavery.posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:09 AM on December 6, 2012 [1 favorite]
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