Well, you have two more weeks to visit the onsite exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History (it is a powerful exhibit), but you can also tour the online exhibit here.
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Crossroads 
Looks like an earth-shaking exhibit. Also, here’s the link to the Smithsonian Magazine article:
*******************
“One cannot question the genuineness of Jefferson’s liberal dreams,” writes historian David Brion Davis. “He was one of the first statesmen in any part of the world to advocate concrete measures for restricting and eradicating Negro slavery.”
But in the 1790s, Davis continues, “the most remarkable thing about Jefferson’s stand on slavery is his immense silence.” And later, Davis finds, Jefferson’s emancipation efforts “virtually ceased.”
Somewhere in a short span of years during the 1780s and into the early 1790s, a transformation came over Jefferson.
The very existence of slavery in the era of the American Revolution presents a paradox, and we have largely been content to leave it at that, since a paradox can offer a comforting state of moral suspended animation. Jefferson animates the paradox. And by looking closely at Monticello, we can see the process by which he rationalized an abomination to the point where an absolute moral reversal was reached and he made slavery fit into America’s national enterprise.
We can be forgiven if we interrogate Jefferson posthumously about slavery. It is not judging him by today’s standards to do so. Many people of his own time, taking Jefferson at his word and seeing him as the embodiment of the country’s highest ideals, appealed to him. When he evaded and rationalized, his admirers were frustrated and mystified; it felt like praying to a stone. The Virginia abolitionist Moncure Conway, noting Jefferson’s enduring reputation as a would-be emancipator, remarked scornfully, “Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do.”
Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Little-Known-Dark-Side-of-Thomas-Jefferson-169780996.html#ixzz283sLsG7c
I wonder how they think they can get away with this part? —
*********************************
A Solution? Jefferson Proposes Abolition of the Slave Trade
At the end of the 18th century, Jefferson and many other Americans believed that stopping the import of enslaved people from Africa and the Caribbean would hasten the end of slavery.
In 1807, three weeks before Britain abolished the Atlantic slave trade, President Jefferson signed a law prohibiting “the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States.”
********************************
In the 21st century, it seems like most educated people should see right through this disingenuous argument.
If the U.S. government were to ban the import of all cars from Europe and Japan, the purpose would not be to stop Americans from driving cars: the purpose would be so that people could purchase only cars made in the USA — thus increasing the price paid to US car manufacturers.
Similarly, the reason that states like Virginia wanted to abolish the Atlantic slave trade was not out of compassion for the imported Africans — but rather to increase the price that slave dealers could get for selling “home-bred” slaves.
******************************
I also have to wonder if the Smithsonian piece, which seems much more nitty gritty and less apologetic, is somehow in response to the Monticello exhibit. I wonder what the relative timing was on these two things?
The Smithsonian piece is an excerpt from a book by Henry Wiencek to be published this month: “Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves.” Henry has been at work on it for many years — long before the Monticello exhibit was conceived or created. The timing of the article, in other words, at least where the tenor of the argument is concerned, has nothing to do with the exhibit and everything to do with the book’s release. And that book, I expect, will provoke much interesting discussion.
Thanks, Brendan. It seems like a remarkable piece of work, carefully researched — at least from the glimpse that the article provides. I would be interested to hear what others think.
I too flatly reject, and profoundly resent, the dishonest intellectual legerdemain which suggests that Jefferson and his colonial contemporaries were anything but cruel, abusive, and sadistic slaveowners. In point of fact, the entire moral and logical foundation of the American Revolution is exposed as nothing more than a cynical and hypocritical farce, worthy only of a sneering contempt, and an odious disdain. For nothing can be more certain than the fact that any society which permits and practices chattel slavery, is itself utterly unworthy and undeserving of political independence.
For nothing can be more certain than the fact that any society which permits and practices chattel slavery, is itself utterly unworthy and undeserving of political independence.
That’s quite a damnation of the Confederacy.
“That’s quite a damnation of the Confederacy”
Only if it is also a damnation of the American Revolution.
You’re free to damn what you want.
I thought it was pretty silly, although I appreciate the attempt to give Jefferson’s Slaves some recognition. Jefferson grew up in a slave society and inherited slaves. The amazing thing, isn’t that he continued to own slaves, but that he spoke out against the slave trade and – in the late 18th Century at least – the expansion of slavery. Both he and Madison spoke in favor of emancipation and colonization.
In any case, judging people who died in 1824(?) with the standards of 2012 is absurd. Yeah, why should I care about John Adams? He couldn’t drive a car and was a male chauvinist pig – So, I’m better than him.
Again, the Monticello exhibit seems to soft-pedal Jefferson’s connections with slavery, but Henry Wiencek’s article in the Smithsonian magazine draws quite a different picture. Here was a man who owned 600 slaves during the course of his life, and who chillingly calculated in his correspondence exactly what percentage he would gain for each baby that a slave girl or woman could bear for him.
Here was a man who encouraged the beating of little children who did not make nails fast enough to suit him. Here was a man who rejected a bequest that would have paid him a very substantial amount to free all his slaves.
***********
From what I see in Wiencek’s article it won’t do to simply dismiss his sweeping and horrific actions as being appropriate to his times — they were emphatically criticized by certain people at the time.
But, on the other hand, it also won’t due to simply throw out all his contributions to the American ideals of freedom and justice.
Somewhat as is the case with Benjamin Butler or Lyndon Johnson, it seems like Jefferson has to be acknowledged as a man with very noble and progressive ideas, but who also was guilty of condemnable acts.
*************
Hope you won’t miss out on the chance to read Wiencek’s article carefully:
**********************
We can be forgiven if we interrogate Jefferson posthumously about slavery. It is not judging him by today’s standards to do so. Many people of his own time, taking Jefferson at his word and seeing him as the embodiment of the country’s highest ideals, appealed to him. When he evaded and rationalized, his admirers were frustrated and mystified; it felt like praying to a stone. The Virginia abolitionist Moncure Conway, noting Jefferson’s enduring reputation as a would-be emancipator, remarked scornfully, “Never did a man achieve more fame for what he did not do.”
Read more:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Little-Known-Dark-Side-of-Thomas-Jefferson-169780996.html#ixzz283sLsG7c
Oh, and I think slavery was really, really, really, a bad thing. If I’d be born back then, I would have given those Slaveholders a piece my mind. You betcha.
Same here. In fact, I would have even gone so far as to write a very strongly worded letter.Yesiree…