The Founders and Slavery

[Leslie Goldstein]

did he really state it that way, specifically (if silently) exempting from the
proposal children of white men and black women?.   If so, Interesting to think about
what  this might say about his views on women (as in white women slave owners who
might have sex with slaves, as TJ is alleged to have done).  BTW, to Paul or anyone
else who has looked closely at the stuff on dna and who visited Monticello when and
all that, what is the likelihood that TJ rather than one of his male relatives was the
sex partner of Sally Hemmings?
still curious,
Leslie

Paul Finkelman wrote:

> TJ's words are useful to all of us. The problem with Professor West's analysis, I
> think, is his unwillingness, refusal, inability, to separate the message from the
> messenger.  TJ's message is useful to us today, having been resurrected by
> Lincoln.  But we cannot credit Jefferson for what other people did with his words,
> nor can we impute to Jefferson ideas he opposed, merely  because we have mined his
> language and applied it to concepts -- like racial equality -- that he worked
> against all his life.  As chair of the committee to revise VA's laws (after he
> wrote the DofI) Jefferson proposed outlawing and expelling from the state children
> of white women and black men (free or slave).  This is hardly an icon we would
> want, anywhere outside of perhaps Bob Jones University.
>
> Paul Finkelman
> Chapman Distinguished Professor
> University of Tulsa College of Law
> 3120 East Fourth Place
> Tulsa, OK  74104
>
> 918-631-3706
> Fax 918-631-2194
>
> E-mail:  paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu
>
> Richard Dougherty wrote:
>
> > Just a suggestion that saying or writing something, even absent political
> > activism on it, may itself be an important action.  One might consider, in this
> > regard, the comments of Martin Luther King, Jr., in his "I Have a Dream" speech
> > in 1963, addressing the articulation of the principles he held dear, and that
> > clearly seemed to move him to action:
> > "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the
> > Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a
> > promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.  This note was a
> > promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life,
> > liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
> > King, like Frederick Douglass, knew the power of Jefferson's words, even if we
> > think Jefferson himself didn't live up to them.  Douglass came to accept the
> > view that "the Constitution, construed in the light of well established rules
> > of legal interpretation, might be made consistent in its details with the noble
> > purposes avowed in its preamble; and that hereafter we should insist upon the
> > application of such rules to that instrument, and demand that it be wielded in
> > behalf of emancipation" (Life and Writings).
> > King's point, of course, was that by 1963 America still hadn't lived up to the
> > founding principles, but that was not the fault of the Declaration or
> > Constitution.
> >
> > Richard Dougherty
> > University of Dallas
> >
> > Judith Baer wrote:
> >
> > > Tom West writes about
> > >
> > > the big things that Jefferson did to
> > > oppose slavery:
> > >
> > > but only #s 3, 4, and 6 on that list that "do" anything at all.  These
> > > others "say" or "write."  In fact, it's arguable that the proposals J. made
> > > really weren't action at all.  We all know TJ wrote eloquently against
> > > slavery--that doesn't establish that he did much to end it.
> > >
> > > Judy Baer
> > > Political Science
> > > Texas A&M
>
> --