It’s a conundrum: They could
write and speak eloquently and
with insight about liberty and
equality, but they seemed blind
to the fact that their slaves
were just as freedom-loving
as they themselves.
They taught them Christianity,
so they understood that their
slaves had souls, but they never
treated them as fully human.
I don’t think I’ll
ever understand that.
In the late 18th century, you
see Jefferson himself
grappling with slavery.
Jefferson calls it
a moral depravity.
In one instance, late in life
around 1824, he writes that
slavery is like having a wolf
by the ears, where you see the
danger of either
holding or letting him go.
Jefferson may have fathered
up to six children with his
slave Sally Hemings.
Jefferson is so closely
associated with America and
American democracy and this
exceptionalist view that many of
us have of our country.
And that’s why people study
him because you can’t
figure him out.
He’s always a puzzle.
The consensus was A., slavery
was wrong, but B., it was going
to die out of its own weight.
So the best thing to do, because
they were not going to be able
to get the deep southern states
to go along with anything that
would threaten slavery, was to
kick the can down the road and
let slavery die out on its own.
But the Framers
can’t see down the road.
In just five years, an
invention will transform
the economics of slavery.
