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Yes he was a slave owner, but he was also an Abolitionist. And don't forget that he was the first slave owner to let his slaves to make money from the nails they use to make and extra crops they grew at Monticello his home in Virginia. Go see it if you ever get a chance, its beautiful.
Oh, and when he died at Monticello (the same day his best friend John Adams did on 4 July), Thomas Jefferson was all but broke.
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Originally Posted by calipoppy
I find it really interesting that Jeffersonians like to esteem TJ as if he were a god who walked among us yet fail to acknowledge his MAJOR character and morality flaws.
He was a hypocrite.
1) A large slaveholder writing at length about the "freedoms of man" who (unlike many of his position and social standing at the time) did not free his slaves upon his death.
2) Kept a mistress who was his slave (his property) and fathered several children by her (DNA results have proven this to be fact)
3) Broke treaties with Native American nations whenever it suited American interests
I think your correct in your thinking that slavery was wrong, even for a man the held such a high office and the "Whit House" was built by slaves. But you should look at the simple way of thinking those folks back then lived by.
I would contribute most, if not all of the stength that the south has today to the slaves hard work of back then. Slave owner were just lazy people that didn't want to do the work themselve, or pay folks to do the job. Greedy lazy people.
I don't know why I have to keep posting this over and over again. If you want to quote Jefferson, get your quotes from authoritative sources, and don't just keep repasting conservative blogs. If you want us to believe that Jefferson ever said any of these things, go back and find the document in which he said or wrote them, and reference the source. You can't just quote Sean Hannity and then say it was Jefferson, not Hannity.
The following quotation is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson:
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
No evidence has been found that Jefferson ever wrote this. The concept of taxing income was not unknown to Jefferson, but his writings on the topic of taxation indicate that he viewed taxation generally as a source of revenue for the government.
I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of his quote... his slaves did a lot of the work - he didn't.
He forced others to work for him, yet decries those who don't work from taking from those who do...
Oh, so he didn't toil away on his fields right along with his slaves? He just sat back and drank brandy while watching them...right?
While people today shirk in horror at the thought of slavery it is a fact of human nature and still exists today. Many people during the Colonial period owned slaves...and many of the slaves accepted it. In fact, once freed most stayed on with the family they worked for...and a large portion of them were treated like a part of the family. It is only the revisionists of history that wish you to believe all slave owners were affluent white males that whipped their slaves into submission.
I'm sure I'm in the minority but I find him one of the most horrific people and president.
I'm of Native American ancestry, you might want to read what he did to my ancestors before you start spouting what a wonderful brilliant president he was.
While Thomas Jefferson did indeed own slaves, he didn't buy them, he inherited them from his father. Thomas Jefferson and George Mason (another Virginia slave owner) were the biggest abolitionists of their day, even before the word was coined. Virginia law at the time prohibited Jefferson from freeing his slaves. Even when he was broke, Jefferson never sold any of his slaves. He cared for them until his death.
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