91AggieLawyer said:

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Rocky Rider said:

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"So when Jefferson sat down seven years later and wrote that the King had "suppressed every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain" the slave trade that wasn't just a political grievance.
That was personal."

I guess Jefferson forgot all about it when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were drafted.

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Jefferson was in France during the convention. Even if he had been here, he wouldn't have attended it because he wasn't a delegate.

If ever an ad hominem were appropriate on here, it would be appropriate after this because you clearly made a comment about something you don't know **** about.

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"What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place 'cause it was bogus; so if we don't get some cool rules ourselvesprontowe'll just be bogus too!"

There really should be more education, research and knowledge of the motives and realities of the anti-slavery movement; as most people don't realize it was not done from a place of generosity, grace and on moral grounds. Most of it was purely that those people and communities did not need the labor and absolutely 100% did NOT want africans in their community.

The origin and model of "Jim crow" laws is not from the south, but from the north (and northeast). The black exclusion laws were brutal, Oregon was whites only, etc., etc.

torrid said:

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Jefferson had one foot in slavery and one foot in abolition most of his life. Instead of him being an evil slaveowner, I view him as emblematic of the struggle the country was going through in regard to slavery.

Actually, he had more than a foot in slavery, but I digress.

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As I grow older, I am a little more sympathetic to many of the early Americans and settler of old. The ones that were not diabolical or abusive slaveowners, which I believe made up the overwhelming majority. I truly believe that they did not see these people as fully human, due to a combination of ignorance as well as the fact that they were so much more primitive and different. Much like the Spanish rolling up on the indigenous people of Central and South America. They most likely thought these people were a lower form of human, or human-adjacent or something. Pretty sure there have been indigenous African and Central/South American tribes who have thought white people were monsters or aliens upon introduction. Virtually everyone was illiterate back then and only knew what they had been exposed to in their tiny little segregated worlds.

People did not know what we know now. Yes, certain groups were way behind, and very primitive, and even barbaric, but we now know that they are every bit as human and deserving of dignity as anyone else.

Imagine being a Catholic conquistador and pullin up on a bunch of mostly-naked people with bare bones technology engaging in open human sacrifice and cannibalism. Can you blame them for the way they must have percieved these people at the time...even though their own ancestors may have been similarly barbaric a thousand years prior?

Burdizzo said:

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"What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place 'cause it was bogus; so if we don't get some cool rules ourselvesprontowe'll just be bogus too!"

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Aloha!

aggie93 said:

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I study a lot of history and have always thought Jefferson was the 2nd most impressive of the Founding Fathers after Washington. I had never heard this however.

Thomas Jefferson tried to end slavery in 1769.
He was barely in the Virginia colonial legislature before he put forward legislation to emancipate slaves under the British Crown.
The King vetoed it.
So when Jefferson sat down seven years later and wrote that the King had… pic.twitter.com/BZbDAPpin6

— American Journey Experience (@aje1776) July 10, 2026

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Practically that entire post is misleading or false. Amazing.

He tried to make it easier to free slaves, not to abolish it. And the king never even saw it.

That took five seconds to find out.

Jefferson ended the first attempt at a central bank that was fully supported by Hamilton.

He was the best president and the only one who understood the dangers of owing debts to foreign creditors.

aggie93 said:

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jeremy said:

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Was every slave owner a horrid person who abused their slaves, beat them, attacked them with dogs, and treated them like cattle?


Ive always wondered if anyone owned slaves because: they knew they couldn't stop the institution of slavery, they had the wealth, and they knew they could give the slave a better life than others, while also thinking "normal slavery" was evil?

Like someone said earlier. Nuanced?

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Certainly that happened. Slavery was a horrible and wrong practice but in essence slaves were like horses, valuable "livestock" that helped you both in your business and personal life. Did people beat and abuse their horses? Sure, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. The logical thing would be to treat them well and get the most production out of them and make them feel loyal to you. It doesn't make any sense for instance to spend what today would be a truck or a tractor and then abuse it. You would want your slaves to be happy and loyal. It made sense to feed them well, give them decent housing, and allow them to marry and have children. That's without even considering how many didn't agree with the idea of slavery but saw it as simply how the world worked.

Once again plenty of people abused slaves and the practice was horrible and wrong. Whenever you have someone with the ability to own another person and be able to do as you pleased with them some terrible things are going to happen, there are some really sick people out there. It's just also important to have a rational conversation on what slavery was and to look at things in the context of the time.

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Good luck trying to get people to understand this. In my experience they just can't. Then again, they're the same people that hit their computer when it freezes.

Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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Slave owners didn't want to whip their slaves or be cruel to them, they wanted them to be happy.

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Freeing them would have made them happy I'd imagine!

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Similar to how well prisoners adjust to life outside the walls?

TexasRebel said:

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aggie93 said:

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jeremy said:

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Was every slave owner a horrid person who abused their slaves, beat them, attacked them with dogs, and treated them like cattle?


Ive always wondered if anyone owned slaves because: they knew they couldn't stop the institution of slavery, they had the wealth, and they knew they could give the slave a better life than others, while also thinking "normal slavery" was evil?

Like someone said earlier. Nuanced?

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Certainly that happened. Slavery was a horrible and wrong practice but in essence slaves were like horses, valuable "livestock" that helped you both in your business and personal life. Did people beat and abuse their horses? Sure, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. The logical thing would be to treat them well and get the most production out of them and make them feel loyal to you. It doesn't make any sense for instance to spend what today would be a truck or a tractor and then abuse it. You would want your slaves to be happy and loyal. It made sense to feed them well, give them decent housing, and allow them to marry and have children. That's without even considering how many didn't agree with the idea of slavery but saw it as simply how the world worked.

Once again plenty of people abused slaves and the practice was horrible and wrong. Whenever you have someone with the ability to own another person and be able to do as you pleased with them some terrible things are going to happen, there are some really sick people out there. It's just also important to have a rational conversation on what slavery was and to look at things in the context of the time.

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Good luck trying to get people to understand this. In my experience they just can't. Then again, they're the same people that hit their computer when it freezes.

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Reminds me of a former coworker that figured oil changes in his personal vehicle were only really needed about once a year or so... Then wondered why the car started having major issues and ultimately left him stranded.

TexasRebel said:

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Im Gipper said:

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Quote:

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Slave owners didn't want to whip their slaves or be cruel to them, they wanted them to be happy.

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Freeing them would have made them happy I'd imagine!

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Similar to how well prisoners adjust to life outside the walls?

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This. In theory, freeing the slaves seemed incredibly noble.

In practice, the country suddenly had 4 million newly-freed black people with no home, no income, or education. And who were now surrounded by white people who were bitter about losing the war. A real recipe for social harmony.

TBF, the Yankees did establish the Freedmen's bureau to give ex-slaves education and financial support, but they gave up on it when it got politicially inconvenient. Mostly, they just wanted to use black people as pawns against white southerners, and still do today despite the two parties having switched geographical bases.

That's wonderful in theory, but in reality they would all prefer to be free

That people become institutionalized and do not well outside of prison does not mean they should stay in prison when their sentence is over.

"What they should do" and "what makes them happy" are not necessarily synonymous.

And it's still going on in Africa and the Middle East

TXAGBQ76 said:

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And it's still going on in Africa and the Middle East

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Well, then, I'm sure that African-Americans will appreciate having been brought to America so they don't have to live in Africa.

Heineken-Ashi said:

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Jefferson ended the first attempt at a central bank that was fully supported by Hamilton.

He was the best president and the only one who understood the dangers of owing debts to foreign creditors.

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Jefferson thought the USA would be mostly farmers and landowners, Hamilton had the forethought to create a central bank and credit because he saw manufacturing and capitalism as the bedrock of our nation.

Manufacturing was starting to become a thing in Europe and Hamilton wanted the USA to outpace them, which we did.

Jefferson could never undue the central back or stop the locomotion of hamiltons dream of the US. And thank god for that.

If all slaves are free, then there is an equal economic impact on all former slave holders. If Jefferson freed his slaves then the economic impact would be on him. It is the all or nothing argument.

BMX Bandit said:

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That's wonderful in theory, but in reality they would all prefer to be free

That people become institutionalized and do not well outside of prison does not mean they should stay in prison when their sentence is over.

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I read that post several times, and nowhere in it did I infer that he said we should have kept them slaves or that they didn't want to be free.

I think what he was trying to say was that the movement that freed them, while noble, did a pretty poor job of defining what freedom would mean to a class that had been enslaved for generation, setting up expectations when freedom was granted, and generally assimilating them into a new cultural and economic environment. We are still living with the effects of that bad approach today

If one wants to know Jefferson's thoughts on the matter, why not simply read what he wrote?

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/notes-on-the-state-of-virginia-3/

Quote:

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To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act. The bill reported by the revisers does not itself contain this proposition; but an amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered to the legislature whenever the bill should be taken up, and further directing, that they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expense, to tillage, arts, or sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, etc. to declare them a free and independent people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed.

It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying by importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.

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Maroon Dawn said:

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Bull Meachem said:

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Jefferson could have ended his participation in slavery and chose not to because it would be hard for him. That's it. He knew it was wrong but continued to own them until his death. Out of 600 slaves that he personally owned, he decided to free two while alive. That clearly shows that it was about his economic security above all things morally wrong.

Again, it's exactly like the dolts who scream stolen land but refuse to give their land to the last tribe to own the land. It's just virtue signaling. He had the opportunity to free his slaves or even a significant number of them and he chose to continue living his comfortable lifestyle. He had the opportunity to do it and he chose the easier path for him.

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Real question:

It's 1798

You are a newly freed slave in a slave state. You have no money, no food, no home, no property but the clothes on your back, no land, no education, no skills.

What happens to you?

Now multiply that by 600

Do you think the state of Virginia would just allow this?

I get "he should have just freed them" sounds really good but I bet he thought about that question a lot harder than modern folks ever do

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They didn't allow it. Freed slaves were required, by law, to leave the commonwealth within 6 months of being freed, and the former slave owner was responsible for covering the expense of their relocation.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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TXAGBQ76 said:

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And it's still going on in Africa and the Middle East

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Well, then, I'm sure that African-Americans will appreciate having been brought to America so they don't have to live in Africa.

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ELON!

Rocky Rider said:

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"So when Jefferson sat down seven years later and wrote that the King had "suppressed every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain" the slave trade that wasn't just a political grievance.
That was personal."

I guess Jefferson forgot all about it when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were drafted.

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Jefferson wasn't in the country when the Constitution was written.

Penned.

aggie93 said:

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I study a lot of history and have always thought Jefferson was the 2nd most impressive of the Founding Fathers after Washington. I had never heard this however.

Thomas Jefferson tried to end slavery in 1769.
He was barely in the Virginia colonial legislature before he put forward legislation to emancipate slaves under the British Crown.
The King vetoed it.
So when Jefferson sat down seven years later and wrote that the King had… pic.twitter.com/BZbDAPpin6

— American Journey Experience (@aje1776) July 10, 2026

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Jefferson's autobiography is a great read. In it, he anticipated a much quicker end to slavery, and it holds a lot of other interesting surprises, too. I highly recommend it.

Kenneth_2003 said:

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Rocky Rider said:

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"So when Jefferson sat down seven years later and wrote that the King had "suppressed every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain" the slave trade that wasn't just a political grievance.
That was personal."

I guess Jefferson forgot all about it when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were drafted.

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The repeal of slavery was originally a paragraph in the Declaration of Independence. It was struck to secure the signatures of South Carolina.

We hold these truths to be self evident, that ALL men are created equal...

That line survived. It's fairly evident that this was believed and held as form conviction. There was also the realization that economic constraints would hamper the full repeal and endanger the revolutionary momentum.

But failure of the revolution would set back individual liberty, freedom, and therefore the ultimate repeal of slavery. The establishment that "all men are created equal, endowed by their creator certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was without doubt the first step toward the abolition of the practice of slavery.

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That phrase has been misquoted and misinterpreted since it was penned. It had nothing to do with slavery.

It had everything to do with the 1) inequality of White men and 2) the inequality of British subjects on the mainland and those who lived in the colonies (who were often taxed more heavily but had no representation in parliament). Hence, the phrase "We have warned them from time to time of attempts by THEIR [not OUR] legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us."

Slaves were not considered as people at the time (unless it was convenient to classify and refer to them in this way). They "were" as they were defined by others. Interesting, they were … in Article 9, Section 1, Clause 1 … deemed as both (called people but subject to a tax when imported).

In most cases, of course, they were property. Chattel to be bought and sold. Clearly, the "all men are created equal" did not apply to them.