Jefferson / Slavery: Split From What is Libertarianism?

[DrZoidberg]

Liking Thomas Jefferson is a definition, or distinct characteristic of libertarianism?

When I was a boy I respected Jefferson. Not so much anymore. He was a fucking slaver. His actions negate any principle he was trying to establish regarding human rights. He was a hypocrite. On the other hand Hamilton was just a cold calculating capitalist. Neither of these two men had anything about them that made them special human beings.

They were capable of making high sounding pronouncements against tyranny then practicing tyranny.

Back then it was questionable whether blacks were really people and had "natural rights". It wasn't until well into the 20'th century and science had progressed we could scientifically say that racial differences were superficial. And we needed science to prove it.

The most confusing bit about abolition is that the white abolitionists were most often very racist themselves. They were against slavery because a superior race wasn't barbaric. And they thought slavery was barbaric.

I think Jefferson can be given a free pass on this one

 

[AthenaAwakened]

When I was a boy I respected Jefferson. Not so much anymore. He was a fucking slaver. His actions negate any principle he was trying to establish regarding human rights. He was a hypocrite. On the other hand Hamilton was just a cold calculating capitalist. Neither of these two men had anything about them that made them special human beings.

They were capable of making high sounding pronouncements against tyranny then practicing tyranny.

Back then it was questionable whether blacks were really people and had "natural rights". It wasn't until well into the 20'th century and science had progressed we could scientifically say that racial differences were superficial. And we needed science to prove it.

The most confusing bit about abolition is that the white abolitionists were most often very racist themselves. They were against slavery because a superior race wasn't barbaric. And they thought slavery was barbaric.

I think Jefferson can be given a free pass on this one

Uh, no he can't.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Back then it was questionable whether blacks were really people and had "natural rights". It wasn't until well into the 20'th century and science had progressed we could scientifically say that racial differences were superficial. And we needed science to prove it.

The most confusing bit about abolition is that the white abolitionists were most often very racist themselves. They were against slavery because a superior race wasn't barbaric. And they thought slavery was barbaric.

I think Jefferson can be given a free pass on this one

Uh, no he can't.

That's like saying we should punish anybody who bought a CFC-fridge back in the day before we knew the damage it did to the environment. Or anybody spraying with DDT. There's loads of those still around. Why not throw them in jail... the murderers? I bought CFC hair-spray in the 80'ies. Should I just be left off the hook... just like that? It does follow your logic that I deserve blame and should be punished somehow.

 

[PyramidHead]

Uh, no he can't.

That's like saying we should punish anybody who bought a CFC-fridge back in the day before we knew the damage it did to the environment. Or anybody spraying with DDT. There's loads of those still around. Why not throw them in jail... the murderers? I bought CFC hair-spray in the 80'ies. Should I just be left off the hook... just like that? It does follow your logic that I deserve blame and should be punished somehow.

There is no fact about blacks, known today but unknown to Jefferson, that would have made slavery justifiable.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Uh, no he can't.

That's like saying we should punish anybody who bought a CFC-fridge back in the day before we knew the damage it did to the environment. Or anybody spraying with DDT. There's loads of those still around. Why not throw them in jail... the murderers? I bought CFC hair-spray in the 80'ies. Should I just be left off the hook... just like that? It does follow your logic that I deserve blame and should be punished somehow.

First, he's dead. So he can't be punished. Second, even in Jefferson's day, people got it. They knew slavery was wrong and there were people who knew black people were people. Jefferson chose not to listen to these people. He freed his own children, yet held their mother in servitude, choosing to not even free her after his death. I think he did that because the his ownership of her was the closest thing he could have to a marriage to her and I think he loved her. I think Jefferson was a complicated man, and a fallible one, and one who in this case, knew better and did worse.

 

[DrZoidberg]

That's like saying we should punish anybody who bought a CFC-fridge back in the day before we knew the damage it did to the environment. Or anybody spraying with DDT. There's loads of those still around. Why not throw them in jail... the murderers? I bought CFC hair-spray in the 80'ies. Should I just be left off the hook... just like that? It does follow your logic that I deserve blame and should be punished somehow.

First, he's dead. So he can't be punished. Second, even in Jefferson's day, people got it. They knew slavery was wrong and there were people who knew black people were people. Jefferson chose not to listen to these people. He freed his own children, yet held their mother in servitude, choosing to not even free her after his death. I think he did that because the his ownership of her was the closest thing he could have to a marriage to her and I think he loved her. I think Jefferson was a complicated man, and a fallible one, and one who in this case, knew better and did worse.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason isn't the mark of great morals. If he loved her I suspect he wondered wtf was wrong with him and why he wasn'the like the normal guys at the club. At the time even the most progressive people were wildly racist by today's standards. It was simply inconceivable not to be a racist.

It should be mentioned that, at the time of Jefferson people who hardly had contacts with other races rarely were racists. In the French Enlightenment the zeitgeist was for radical equality across race. But it didn't really mean much to the French in general. They didn't understand what it meant. So we got a black general and a few other examples. But for people who lived in the colonies? Probably all racist as fuck. The sort of scary nazi-type racism didn't catch on until well into the 19'the century. And a result of science. It's ironic that the birth of science is both the start and end of modern racism. But self-serving self-agrandising old-fashioned racism is old as hell and pretty standard back in the day.

Everybody is complicated.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

First, he's dead. So he can't be punished. Second, even in Jefferson's day, people got it. They knew slavery was wrong and there were people who knew black people were people. Jefferson chose not to listen to these people. He freed his own children, yet held their mother in servitude, choosing to not even free her after his death. I think he did that because the his ownership of her was the closest thing he could have to a marriage to her and I think he loved her. I think Jefferson was a complicated man, and a fallible one, and one who in this case, knew better and did worse.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason isn't the mark of great morals. If he loved her I suspect he wondered wtf was wrong with him and why he wasn'the like the normal guys at the club. At the time even the most progressive people were wildly racist by today's standards. It was simply inconceivable not to be a racist.

It should be mentioned that, at the time of Jefferson people who hardly had contacts with other races rarely were racists. In the French Enlightenment the zeitgeist was for radical equality across race. But it didn't really mean much to the French in general. They didn't understand what it meant. So we got a black general and a few other examples. But for people who lived in the colonies? Probably all racist as fuck. The sort of scary nazi-type racism didn't catch on until well into the 19'the century. And a result of science. It's ironic that the birth of science is both the start and end of modern racism. But self-serving self-agrandising old-fashioned racism is old as hell and pretty standard back in the day.

Everybody is complicated.

But even if attitudes were different back in his time, we can judge Jefferson by his own standards. He's the guy who said things like:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."

Those are completely antithetical to the entire concept of owning a slave.

Even if he had different attitudes than everyone else at the club, he's also the guy who said:

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."

So, if he wasn't then willing to stand up for the rights of his fellow human beings, we can rightly condemn him for his hypocricy.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

First, he's dead. So he can't be punished. Second, even in Jefferson's day, people got it. They knew slavery was wrong and there were people who knew black people were people. Jefferson chose not to listen to these people. He freed his own children, yet held their mother in servitude, choosing to not even free her after his death. I think he did that because the his ownership of her was the closest thing he could have to a marriage to her and I think he loved her. I think Jefferson was a complicated man, and a fallible one, and one who in this case, knew better and did worse.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason isn't the mark of great morals.

Did I say it was?

If he loved her I suspect he wondered wtf was wrong with him and why he wasn'the like the normal guys at the club.

And you would suspect wrong. It was quite a common and accepted occurrence on plantations for the white men there to take their pleasures where they would. This is why African Americans whose families have been in the country since before the Civil War come in so many shades and colors. It was even believed to be the godly thing to do, to take a mistress from among your slaves as it would give the mistress of the house rest from the sinful lusts of her husband, leaving her to the purities of motherhood and homemaking.

At the time even the most progressive people were wildly racist by today's standards. It was simply inconceivable not to be a racist.

Did anyone claim that people were not racist?

It should be mentioned that, at the time of Jefferson people who hardly had contacts with other races rarely were racists. In the French Enlightenment the zeitgeist was for radical equality across race. But it didn't really mean much to the French in general. They didn't understand what it meant. So we got a black general and a few other examples. But for people who lived in the colonies? Probably all racist as fuck. The sort of scary nazi-type racism didn't catch on until well into the 19'the century. And a result of science. It's ironic that the birth of science is both the start and end of modern racism. But self-serving self-agrandising old-fashioned racism is old as hell and pretty standard back in the day.

And that has what to do with Jefferson choosing to act in ways unbecoming a man who professes to believe in liberty for all? And don't tell me about how he didn't think his slaves were people?

You might want to read these

 Thomas Jefferson and slavery
And as for the equality loving French

So, in case this ever happens to you, be prepared. Here's a primer. Really, the essential numbers can be summed up like this:

Slaver voyages: France, 4,200; British North America/United States, 1,500.
Slaves transported: France 1,250,000, British North America/United States, 300,000.
Slaves delivered to: French West Indies: 1,600,000, British North America/United States, 500,000.*
In the history of the Atlantic slave trade, the French turned four times as many Africans into slaves as the Americans did, they used them far more brutally, and French slavers not only got a head-start on Americans, they continued the slave trade -- legally -- until 1830, long after the rest of Europe had given it up. And they kept at it clandestinely until after the U.S. Civil War. France officially abolished slavery in its colonies only 14 years before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and then only under pressure from slave uprisings.
The French New World settlers outstripped the Americans in their greed for slave labor. When the U.S. acquired Louisiana from France, the first governor sent out from Washington reported back that, "No subject seems to be so interesting to the minds of the inhabitants of all parts of the country which I have visited as that of the importation of brute negroes from Africa. This permission would go further with them, and better reconcile them to the government of the United States, than any other privilege that could be extended to this country. ... White labourers, they say, cannot be had in this unhealthy climate."

Everybody is complicated.

Actually if the internet has taught me anything it is that quite a few people are incredibly simple.

 

[arkirk]

Jefferson was an intelligent, very guilty man. What does it take to recognize that you are enslaving another person?

 

[untermensche]

These people knew that slavery had no moral justification. They knew it involved continual cruelty and torture.

But they made their living off slaves.

They were not children lost in some time where morality wasn't clear.

They were greedy and didn't care.

 

[DrZoidberg]

But even if attitudes were different back in his time, we can judge Jefferson by his own standards. He's the guy who said things like:

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."

Those are completely antithetical to the entire concept of owning a slave.

Even if he had different attitudes than everyone else at the club, he's also the guy who said:

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."

So, if he wasn't then willing to stand up for the rights of his fellow human beings, we can rightly condemn him for his hypocricy.

You're assuming Jefferson thought blacks were people. All the evidence suggests otherwise. There are lots of people who are against tyranny and are fine with us owning, eating and treating animals like slaves. I'd say all the evidence is that Jeffersson equated blacks with animals. Which wouldn't make him a hypocrite at all. Just a racist.

 

[DrZoidberg]

And you would suspect wrong. It was quite a common and accepted occurrence on plantations for the white men there to take their pleasures where they would. This is why African Americans whose families have been in the country since before the Civil War come in so many shades and colors. It was even believed to be the godly thing to do, to take a mistress from among your slaves as it would give the mistress of the house rest from the sinful lusts of her husband, leaving her to the purities of motherhood and homemaking.

That's not how norms work. Norms can condemn something that everybody does... but in secret. I don't see how the above in anyway in in conflict with the slave owners seeing blacks as animals. The mind is wonderfully adept at self-delusion and justification... of anything really... no matter how horrid or monstrous.

Also... peer pressure is a thing. If all your peers around you does something and re-enforces the justifications you are much more likely to do it to... no matter how much you might consider yourself a free thinking skeptic.

You might want to read these

 Thomas Jefferson and slavery
And as for the equality loving French

So, in case this ever happens to you, be prepared. Here's a primer. Really, the essential numbers can be summed up like this:

Slaver voyages: France, 4,200; British North America/United States, 1,500.
Slaves transported: France 1,250,000, British North America/United States, 300,000.
Slaves delivered to: French West Indies: 1,600,000, British North America/United States, 500,000.*
In the history of the Atlantic slave trade, the French turned four times as many Africans into slaves as the Americans did, they used them far more brutally, and French slavers not only got a head-start on Americans, they continued the slave trade -- legally -- until 1830, long after the rest of Europe had given it up. And they kept at it clandestinely until after the U.S. Civil War. France officially abolished slavery in its colonies only 14 years before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and then only under pressure from slave uprisings.
The French New World settlers outstripped the Americans in their greed for slave labor. When the U.S. acquired Louisiana from France, the first governor sent out from Washington reported back that, "No subject seems to be so interesting to the minds of the inhabitants of all parts of the country which I have visited as that of the importation of brute negroes from Africa. This permission would go further with them, and better reconcile them to the government of the United States, than any other privilege that could be extended to this country. ... White labourers, they say, cannot be had in this unhealthy climate."

Thanks, but I'm familiar with all of this. I think I'm well read when it comes to the slave trade. Was there a point to your links? Some sort of point you wanted to make? Perhaps an argument for or against something?

 

[untermensche]

You're assuming Jefferson thought blacks were people. All the evidence suggests otherwise. There are lots of people who are against tyranny and are fine with us owning, eating and treating animals like slaves. I'd say all the evidence is that Jeffersson equated blacks with animals. Which wouldn't make him a hypocrite at all. Just a racist.

Jefferson had sex with probably several of these blacks.

Did he think he was having sex with an animal of another species?

He was into bestiality?

 

[Horatio Parker]

You're assuming Jefferson thought blacks were people. All the evidence suggests otherwise. There are lots of people who are against tyranny and are fine with us owning, eating and treating animals like slaves. I'd say all the evidence is that Jeffersson equated blacks with animals. Which wouldn't make him a hypocrite at all. Just a racist.

Jefferson had sex with probably several of these blacks.

Did he think he was having sex with an animal of another species?

He was into bestiality?

Sally Hemmings went to France with TJ. She was fourteen. IIRC, biographers think that that was when TJ became intimate with her.

TJ was conflicted about slavery. He knew it was wrong, but had problems with equality. Additionally, when he freed slaves, they left him. I wonder if one reason he was reluctant to free more slaves was that he didn't want them to abandon him.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason isn't the mark of great morals.

Did I say it was?

If he loved her I suspect he wondered wtf was wrong with him and why he wasn't he like the normal guys at the club.

And you would suspect wrong. It was quite a common and accepted occurrence on plantations for the white men there to take their pleasures where they would. This is why African Americans whose families have been in the country since before the Civil War come in so many shades and colors. It was even believed to be the godly thing to do, to take a mistress from among your slaves as it would give the mistress of the house rest from the sinful lusts of her husband, leaving her to the purities of motherhood and homemaking.

That's not how norms work. Norms can condemn something that everybody does... but in secret. I don't see how the above in anyway in in conflict with the slave owners seeing blacks as animals.

Except that Ole Massa wasn't laying down with Elsie the cow and then granting manumission papers to Little Half Calf Elmo. Slaveowners knew, and many recognized in ways subtle and not so subtle, that the children born of these unions were their sons and daughters, not animals.

The mind is wonderfully adept at self-delusion and justification... of anything really... no matter how horrid or monstrous.

And that declaration will not get you off the hook for doing things monstrous and horrid.

Also... peer pressure is a thing. If all your peers around you does something and re-enforces the justifications you are much more likely to do it to... no matter how much you might consider yourself a free thinking skeptic.

Still not off the hook.

You might want to read these

 Thomas Jefferson and slavery
And as for the equality loving French

So, in case this ever happens to you, be prepared. Here's a primer. Really, the essential numbers can be summed up like this:

Slaver voyages: France, 4,200; British North America/United States, 1,500.
Slaves transported: France 1,250,000, British North America/United States, 300,000.
Slaves delivered to: French West Indies: 1,600,000, British North America/United States, 500,000.*
In the history of the Atlantic slave trade, the French turned four times as many Africans into slaves as the Americans did, they used them far more brutally, and French slavers not only got a head-start on Americans, they continued the slave trade -- legally -- until 1830, long after the rest of Europe had given it up. And they kept at it clandestinely until after the U.S. Civil War. France officially abolished slavery in its colonies only 14 years before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and then only under pressure from slave uprisings.
The French New World settlers outstripped the Americans in their greed for slave labor. When the U.S. acquired Louisiana from France, the first governor sent out from Washington reported back that, "No subject seems to be so interesting to the minds of the inhabitants of all parts of the country which I have visited as that of the importation of brute negroes from Africa. This permission would go further with them, and better reconcile them to the government of the United States, than any other privilege that could be extended to this country. ... White labourers, they say, cannot be had in this unhealthy climate."

Thanks, but I'm familiar with all of this. I think I'm well read when it comes to the slave trade. Was there a point to your links? Some sort of point you wanted to make? Perhaps an argument for or against something?

Do you often forget what you type?

In the French Enlightenment the zeitgeist was for radical equality across race. But it didn't really mean much to the French in general. They didn't understand what it meant. So we got a black general and a few other examples. But for people who lived in the colonies? Probably all racist as fuck. The sort of scary nazi-type racism didn't catch on until well into the 19th century. And a result of science. It's ironic that the birth of science is both the start and end of modern racism. But self-serving self-agrandising old-fashioned racism is old as hell and pretty standard back in the day.

You seem to be saying all kinds of things all over the place. But the gist that I got was that the french enlightenment saw all for racial equality but at the same time the french didn't understand it and that nazi style racism didn't catch on until about 150 years ago but racism (non-Nazi style?) is old and par the course.

What a puzzlement!

- - - Updated - - -

Jefferson had sex with probably several of these blacks.

Did he think he was having sex with an animal of another species?

He was into bestiality?

Sally Hemmings went to France with TJ. She was fourteen. IIRC, biographers think that that was when TJ became intimate with her.

TJ was conflicted about slavery. He knew it was wrong, but had problems with equality. Additionally, when he freed slaves, they left him. I wonder if one reason he was reluctant to free more slaves was that he didn't want them to abandon him.

He didn't free slaves because he could not afford to, he was too much in debt.

 

[Horatio Parker]

He didn't free slaves because he could not afford to, he was too much in debt.

Is that speculative, or do you have a source? I know he was not good with money.

My comment was speculative, it was an impression I got from his biography.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

He didn't free slaves because he could not afford to, he was too much in debt.

Is that speculative, or do you have a source? I know he was not good with money.

My comment was speculative, it was an impression I got from his biography.

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/debt

 

[Horatio Parker]

Is that speculative, or do you have a source? I know he was not good with money.

My comment was speculative, it was an impression I got from his biography.

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/debt

Doesn't answer the question. His indebtedness was not the point.

 

[untermensche]

Slavery is OK if you need the money.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/debt

Doesn't answer the question. His indebtedness was not the point.

well then what is the point? The slaves he freed, or in the case of two of his sons let run away and then did not pursue them, were either his children or old or skilled craftsmen he felt had more than earned him enough to afford their freedom. In no writing I have read either by or about TJ has fear of melancholy and abandonment been a barrier to his freeing slaves. He needed the money the slaves provided him be it from their labor or as collateral for loans.