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JEFFERSONS_SLAVES
December 13, 2021
The show "Hamilton", as you may have
heard, is pretty brilliant-- like most
everyone else, I liked the song "The Room
Where It Happens", which is not such an But then it could be that my opinion
easy thing to write a song about... but was corrupted by the propaganda of
for me at least, the hero-worship of the free-market libertarians, for
Alexander Hamilton was a bit much. whom Jefferson was a proponent of
freedom and Hamilton leaned too far
A little cursory reading on the in the direction of centralized
subject reveals Lin-Manuel Miranda authority.
did indeed simplify some things,
e.g. he played up the fact that A more common take these days is
Jefferson was a slave-owner, but that decentralization aka "states
doesn't mention the fact that rights" has, where the US is
Washington was also: concerned, always meant keeping
the slave states safe for white
The story does not break down neatly supremacy.
along these lines into two factions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_and_slavery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_and_slavery
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/rd8zoe/no_one_in_their_right_mind_would_design_a/ho01jlp/
Some points in the direction
of a more even-handed view of I've covered some
Jefferson: of this already;
Jefferson became a slave-owner by MOVING_TARGET
being born in a slave-owning
family... myself I would give him
credit for being able to realize
there was something wrong with
slavery and to start looking for
ways to end the practice.
He advocated ideas like having the children of
slaves emancipated and raised as free citizens.
Now, the fact that a number of his children were
slaves no doubt encouraged him to think in this
direction, but nevertheless, this strikes me in
a somewhat positive light: he was groping for a
way to end the institution without something as
traumatic as a civil war--
I might give him credit for being clever
and creative, if not precisely moral by But then, I don't know how
present day standards. much of this Jefferson worked
out by himself--
In general I don't think much of the
attitude that every historical figure The AntiChr1st of
should be held to present-day standards... reddit makes the
point that this
Consider that someone trying gradualist approach
to fix modern day inequities is something like
using techniques like John what the British did.
Brown's would be accused of
being a crazy terrorist. Britain first ended
imports to and stopped
the creation of new
slaves, then did a
buy-out of the remaining
slaves after the numbers
were low enough.
"People tend to forget
that large scale
societal changes are
actually quite
difficult, especially
when it involves
massive changes to the
economy particularly in
the production of
goods. You typically
will want to do things
in steps if you can"
StThoughtWheelz of reddit added:
"Many believed in emancipation
through manumission not
abolition, and believed that
was going to be enough."
I got into an extended exhange with a
"chrisq823", who wanted none of my wimpy
attempts at balanced understanding:
chrisq823 of reddit:
"People at the time knew slavery was wrong and were
making the same exact cases for it being wrong as we
do today and someone as educated as jefferson would
be aware of that. Stop assuming they didn't know
better. They chose not to do anything about."
"Thomas Jefferson regularly raped his slaves and sold
the resulting children into slavery. Anyone who
perpetuated slavery in any way at any time I'd a
complete piece of shit."
Now chrisq823, was not alone, for example:
Saelune of reddit:
"I think everyone absolutely should be held
by modern morals. Hell, even modern morals
suck. Slavery was wrong, always. It is wrong
in 2021, it was wrong in 1859, it was wrong
in 1776, and it was wrong in 200BC."
I commented:
I would be happy if we could
manage to hold modern people
to modern morals.
chrisq823 wrote:
"People at the time knew slavery was wrong and
were making the same exact cases for it being
wrong as we do today"
Yes, Jefferson wasn't alone. But many people with
his background never even got as far as he did on
the issue (advocating a gradual end to the
practice).
"They chose not to do anything about."
As president, Jefferson banned the international
slave trade.
Concerning his personal life, I don't think he did
as much as he could have... e.g. he had some idea of
freeing his slaves on his death, but I gather his
financial management was too incompetent.
"Thomas Jefferson regularly raped his slaves"
The one we know about is Sally Hemings. You might
get in the habit of, you know, saying her name.
And you will be shocked to hear I have some
reservations about the word "rape". I can see why
you would call it rape (power imbalance, consent
not possible), but it seems to me that we don't
actually know how Sally Hemings felt about it,
because the central evil here is that her feelings
didn't matter.
And if you want to tell me her feelings continue
to not matter, I'm going to ask you to justify
that stance.
"and sold the resulting children into slavery."
According to Wikipedia: "Jefferson allowed two of
Sally Hemings's surviving four children to 'escape';
the other two he freed through his will."
"Anyone who perpetuated slavery in any way at any
time I'd a complete piece of shit."
And what have you done to counter racism in America
lately? If you're not a complete, balls-to-the-wall
revolutionary, I hope you don't expect history to
look kindly on you for just winning the wokester
olympics on the internet.
You might try reading something, anything, about
the subject.
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