1948 or 2012?

[Drunken Irishman]

Quote:The people will again decide whether they want the forces of positive, progressive liberalism to continue in office, or whether, in these challenging times, they want to entrust their government to those forces of conservatism which believe in the benefit of the few at the expense of the many.

This is the choice that Americans have had to make since the earliest years of the Republic: a choice between a parcel labeled progressive liberalism and a parcel labeled reactionary conservatism. This being true, it is highly important to know what the American people have found in each of these parcels.

- Harry Truman's address to the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner on Feb. 19th, 1948

It's quite an address that shows the differences between Republicans & Democrats.

Remarkable how little has changed.

[Dimwitted Fool]

Curiously, both were slave owners and hated the thought of the government doing much of anything. (Except for Indian Relocation and possible genocide, in Jackson's case.)

Jefferson fought against a central bank, and Jackson closed the one we had by then. Both claimed to be for the little guy, but did damn little to help him out. Both claimed to hate wealthy Northeastern businesses, but did little to stop them from making more money. Small government was the thing, and they would have heart attacks over the very thought of Social Security.

Jackson was, moreover, closer in temperment to our good buddy Chris Christie and anyone arguing with him was quickly dispatched one way or another.

In the grand scheme of things, they were vital in forming the country and holding it together in its beginnings, but I suspect today they would be more accepted by the Tea party than by Modern Democrats. But, I suppose they fit right in in a speech in 1948. And Truman did have a clue about Republican obstructionism after watching it in person during Hoover's and Roosevelt's administrations.

[Drunken Irishman]

The problem with bringing historical figures into modern times is that so much has changed since their era that it's impossible to really understand where they would stand on certain issues. What I know about Thomas Jefferson is that he supported government-run healthcare, even all the way back at the beginning stages of our country. Even liberalism has shifted dramatically over the past two centuries. During its infancy as an ideology in America, it was certainly built around the idea of anti-federalists and more in tune with individual liberty.

Of course, back then, the U.S. was a dramatically different country with different needs. But at the time, the federalists were the conservatives and the liberals were more and more against a centralized government. Of course, you touched on this. Still, I think in the end, if Jefferson were to come back, he would be appalled by the tea-party. Why? Because they're a bunch of anti-intellectuals who rail against the government without really understanding it. Jefferson might not be a big government liberal in the same vein as FDR, but he would certainly not demagogue the issue into the ground.

[suzie]

Jefferson practically invented racism in America to justify his own unwillingness to let of go his slaves in a time when many others were freeing theirs. George Washington may have been a slaveholder, but he made arrangements to free his slaves at the end of his life, then changed that to his wife's life (She freed them before the end of her life). Jefferson mortgaged his slaves over and over to lead a lavish lifestyle and sold many of them during his lifetime. Others were sold at auction at Monticello to pay his debts.

Because Jefferson was Jefferson and so articulate, his ideas were repeated and became the foundation of the justifications for slavery in the 1840s and 1850s by the Southern slaveholders.

NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, Jefferson's justification of his own inability to let go of a slave owning lifestyle, is a horrendous document.

While Jefferson might have been uncomfortable with the anti-intellectualism of the Tea Party, he was responsible for many of their attitudes.

[Drunken Irishman]

I doubt it solely because most tea-party assholes couldn't tell you much about Jefferson or anything he wrote.

[suzie]

Paul Finkelman explains it better than I can. Basically, the Tea Partiers are the inheritors of Jefferson's dissertations on race in America.

"Was Thomas Jefferson a racist?
In some ways, Thomas Jefferson invented racism in America. I realize that's a strong statement. But Jefferson, I think, because he knew in his heart that slavery was wrong, and yet at the same time was so hooked into the system and could never give it up, felt the necessity of creating a scientific rationale for racism. And he does so in the Notes on the State of Virginia. He talks about the blood of blacks perhaps making them black. He suggests that blacks mate with orangutans. He suggests they prefer white women to their own. He also goes on and on about the inferiority of blacks, that they aren't as smart as whites, that they don't have the same skills, that they have no musical skills, no poetry. He says they're as brave as whites but that's only because they lack forethought. And he does all this very articulately because he's perhaps the most articulate man of his generation. So that Americans come to believe in racism by reading Jefferson. And in the 1840's and 50's, these Southern racists who are defending slavery are reading Jefferson and quoting him on these issues." http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/in...kelman.htm

[sandnsea]

(07-08-2012 05:09 PM)suzie Wrote:  Paul Finkelman explains it better than I can. Basically, the Tea Partiers are the inheritors of Jefferson's dissertations on race in America.

"Was Thomas Jefferson a racist?
In some ways, Thomas Jefferson invented racism in America. I realize that's a strong statement. But Jefferson, I think, because he knew in his heart that slavery was wrong, and yet at the same time was so hooked into the system and could never give it up, felt the necessity of creating a scientific rationale for racism. And he does so in the Notes on the State of Virginia. He talks about the blood of blacks perhaps making them black. He suggests that blacks mate with orangutans. He suggests they prefer white women to their own. He also goes on and on about the inferiority of blacks, that they aren't as smart as whites, that they don't have the same skills, that they have no musical skills, no poetry. He says they're as brave as whites but that's only because they lack forethought. And he does all this very articulately because he's perhaps the most articulate man of his generation. So that Americans come to believe in racism by reading Jefferson. And in the 1840's and 50's, these Southern racists who are defending slavery are reading Jefferson and quoting him on these issues." http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/in...kelman.htm

Yeah - that guy's opinion flies in the face of a couple hundred years of historical study. Scroll down to page 204 and see how his interpretation of Jefferson's writings are well, just a little squirrely.

http://www.studythepast.com/4333_spring1...kelman.pdf

[Drunken Irishman]

That question about Thomas Jefferson, unfortunately, could fit a great deal of the Founding Fathers. Unfortunately, when you're dealing with a period that didn't frown upon slavery and put that person in modern times, the whole thing doesn't really hold. We can't look at Jefferson, or Washington, for that matter, through the prism of today's understanding. It doesn't wash away what they did, or believed, but I'm not going to say Jefferson would be a member of the tea-party because his beliefs were more in line with a great deal of the people back then. It's really no different than with Wilson, who was probably one of the most racist presidents we've had of the modern era.

I think you're giving way too much credit to the tea-party for believing they understand Jefferson's ideals and true beliefs. They don't. They only prop Jefferson and other Founding Fathers up because it's easy and he's one of the more important figures in our nation's founding. Who can denigrate a Founding Father? It's the same shit they've been doing LONG before Obama came around. Jefferson's America is idealized not because of racism or slavery, but because it's an easy narrative to push through for the uneducated. The Founding Fathers were humans. They were mortal. They made a great deal of mistakes. But we also know their importance and they're used by both the left & the right to push an ideal America.

How many on the left quote Jefferson or Franklin, specifically Franklin's quote on trading freedom for security?

It's all really the same, if you think about.

Jefferson's failures are something tea-party people probably don't even know anything about. In fact, I'd wager they don't know anything about the Founding Fathers, their writings, or beliefs - right or wrong. It's why Michele Bachmann last summer talked about how the Founding Fathers tirelessly worked to end slavery and then used John Quincy Adams as an example of it. Except John Quincy Adams was not a Founding Father. He was the son of a Founding Father. They don't get it. They don't understand it. To them, the Founding Fathers is just an easy scapegoat to use to trash Obama or any Democrat. The Founding Fathers could never, ever want a nation like this! And since the American people buy into this pious image of sorts, it gets traction. Of course, it's not just Republicans or conservatives. Democrats do it too. Liberals do it too.

But when it comes to tea-party folk, they're too stupid to understand half of what Jefferson believed. They're not defending racism or slavery by quoting Jefferson's work because they haven't read Jefferson's work.

I think this shows that every politician and figure who helped establish America had some serious flaws. They were human, after all. Jefferson's flaws were damaging, and are damaging, but I refuse to believe they've emboldened the tea-partiers since that would require them to have some understanding of history. They don't. Bachmann, Palin, et al. are all proof of this.

[Dimwitted Fool]

since by the 18th Century its morality was already questioned and there were major abolition movements. Slaveholders like Franklin and Washington had seen the light and freed their slaves. States were abolishing it on their own and new territories were slave free.

But, it was still an institution with a powerful hold and the money to be made trading humans too often influenced those who might be tempted to set them free, and there were plenty who had no interest in change at all-- fully believing slaves were born to the task. James Madison, otherwise a hero of the Revolution and a brilliant theoretician and politician greater even than Jefferson and maybe Hamilton, executed 30 of his slaves for attempted revolt. Patrick Henry didn't think much of liberty for his slaves and gave them regular beatings. John Adams was, I think, the only signer of the Declaration who was not a slaveholder.

But, we're talking here too much of slavery and racism, and none of us really know how it was to live in those times. Bringing it up does little more than bring bad feelings to descendants of those victims. My point was more that both Jackson and Jefferson hated government and wanted to reduce it to where it would drown in a bathtub and both actually did their best to see it happen. (Except, of course, when government might be handy for something they wanted-- like the Louisiana Purchase or stacking supporters in government jobs through the spoils system)

In this way, they catered to what we now see as tea party views. I can see both of them refusing to allow any form of government health care, investments in science, retirement security, jobs program, rental assistance...

Hamilton and his buddies are the ones we should really look to for what we now think of as progressive values. I can't help wondering, though, if all of them would consider most of us arguing on the left and the right as a bunch of jerks.

[sandnsea]

And Jefferson's writings in 1814 on page 38. Clearly he opposed slavery, all of his life, and stated that he believed people of any colour who were brought up as slaves would be "rendered as incapable as children". Finkelman distorts Jefferson's remarks in the same way Margaret Sanger and others are distorted. His faults are clear, there isn't any reason to embellish them by distorting his words.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NlRgvqW...ry&f=false

[Treestar]

Interesting thread. I have been accustomed to think Jefferson ahead of his time and against slavery, but that appears to be perhaps overly facile. I tend to think he would be a liberal today, and would be glad to see the advances that have been made. But I may have been watching "1776" too many times (just did my annual 4th of July re-run).

Some of the PL with their allegations of alikeness of the parties need to see this Truman speech. He knew there was a difference. Truman and FDR would be Obama supporters IMHO and would have understood the Democratic party's problems today. The economy has problems, but it is nothing like the Great Depression. The Reagan era managed to move the country way to the right.

[suzie]

I'm not sure we should judge figures from the past by today's standards. But Jefferson fails by the standards of his own day.

His neighbor, Edward Coles, took his slaves to Indiana, freed them and gave them property. When he wrote to Jefferson that he was planning to do so, Jefferson advised him, "Don't do it...be a good master. Don't free your slaves." When Coles asked Jefferson to propose a gradual emancipation program in Virginia, Jefferson refused. When he was asked to join emancipation societies, Jefferson refused. Even in Virginia, lots of people freed their slaves after the Revolution. The numbers of freed slaves in Virginia went from 1800 in 1782 to 30,466 by 1810. Jefferson even had the money to do so--General Kosuizcko left an estate dedicated to purchasing slaves and giving them their freedom--Jefferson offered him a place to live at Monticello. Jefferson never executed the will.

Even at the end of his life, Jefferson wrote that the nation was committing treason against the hopes of the world by debating slavery during the Missouri compromise debates.

A French abolitionist and priest wrote a book with views completely opposing Jefferson's, talking about the intelligence of Africans. Jefferson wrote back that his views were unchanged.

I was also surprised, Treestar, to find out the information about Jefferson. I've been to Monticello and visited the UVA campus and been impressed with Jefferson's creativity. But after reading about Jefferson, I don't think we do well to honor someone who really was very much pro-slavery at a time when many others had moved away from that view. Jefferson justified this by articulating horrendous racism in print, at a time when others were saying something different.

[sandnsea]

(07-09-2012 08:58 AM)suzie Wrote:  I'm not sure we should judge figures from the past by today's standards. But Jefferson fails by the standards of his own day.

His neighbor, Edward Coles, took his slaves to Indiana, freed them and gave them property. When he wrote to Jefferson that he was planning to do so, Jefferson advised him, "Don't do it...be a good master. Don't free your slaves." When Coles asked Jefferson to propose a gradual emancipation program in Virginia, Jefferson refused. When he was asked to join emancipation societies, Jefferson refused. Even in Virginia, lots of people freed their slaves after the Revolution. The numbers of freed slaves in Virginia went from 1800 in 1782 to 30,466 by 1810. Jefferson even had the money to do so--General Kosuizcko left an estate dedicated to purchasing slaves and giving them their freedom--Jefferson offered him a place to live at Monticello. Jefferson never executed the will.

Even at the end of his life, Jefferson wrote that the nation was committing treason against the hopes of the world by debating slavery during the Missouri compromise debates.

A French abolitionist and priest wrote a book with views completely opposing Jefferson's, talking about the intelligence of Africans. Jefferson wrote back that his views were unchanged.

I was also surprised, Treestar, to find out the information about Jefferson. I've been to Monticello and visited the UVA campus and been impressed with Jefferson's creativity. But after reading about Jefferson, I don't think we do well to honor someone who really was very much pro-slavery at a time when many others had moved away from that view. J

efferson justified this by articulating horrendous racism in print, at a time when others were saying something different.

That's absolutely not true and I posted the rebuttals to all of this nonsense - right in Jefferson's own words. I'm not even going to get into the agenda of why people want to paint all Democrats as racist - i would think it would be evident.

[jaxx]

Jefferson also kept his children by Sally Hemings as slaves. I'd call that pro-slavery to the max.

[sandnsea]

(07-09-2012 09:14 AM)jaxx Wrote:  Jefferson also kept his children by Sally Hemings as slaves. I'd call that pro-slavery to the max.

Jefferson freed all of the Hemings children which was part of the evidence used to support the fact that they were his.

He was NOT pro-slavery and it makes me puke to see this board be manipulated this way.

[jaxx]

<..>

Quote:...all six of Sally Hemings's children listed in Monticello records--Harriet (born 1795; died in infancy); Beverly (born 1798); an unnamed daughter (born 1799; died in infancy); Harriet (born 1801); Madison (born 1805); and Eston (born 1808).

<..> Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings's children: Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were released in Jefferson's 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other nuclear slave family.

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantatio...ef-account

The children were held as slaves for years before they were freed.

[sandnsea]

(07-09-2012 12:46 PM)jaxx Wrote:  <..>

Quote:...all six of Sally Hemings's children listed in Monticello records--Harriet (born 1795; died in infancy); Beverly (born 1798); an unnamed daughter (born 1799; died in infancy); Harriet (born 1801); Madison (born 1805); and Eston (born 1808).

<..> Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings's children: Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were released in Jefferson's 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other nuclear slave family.

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantatio...ef-account

The children were held as slaves for years before they were freed.

Which coincides with Jefferson's views that it would have been worse to free them in a state where freeing slaves was illegal - and that he treated all of his "souls" the same anyway. That doesn't equate to being "pro slavery" OR to not having a plan for emancipation or any of the garbage put forth in this thread. It equates to being stuck with a system that he didn't approve of - that he point blank said he would have thought would have been dismantled by the very people that fought for equality and freedom.

I mean seriously - did anybody bother to click a thing I posted - or is it just easier to fall in line with the so-called "expert" on the subject, who is really no more than an antagonist making a name for himself.

[suzie]

(07-09-2012 12:46 PM)jaxx Wrote:  <..>

Quote:...all six of Sally Hemings's children listed in Monticello records--Harriet (born 1795; died in infancy); Beverly (born 1798); an unnamed daughter (born 1799; died in infancy); Harriet (born 1801); Madison (born 1805); and Eston (born 1808).

<..> Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings's children: Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were released in Jefferson's 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other nuclear slave family.

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantatio...ef-account

The children were held as slaves for years before they were freed.

Apparently Sally Hemmings, who was Jefferson's wife's half sister, was unofficially freed by his daughter, sometime after his death. There was something called "time served," an unofficial freedom that allowed one to live in Virginia.

This woman had probably been his mistress since age 14, bore him a bunch of sons, and Jefferson was never willing to give her even this? Even upon his death?

[sandnsea]

(07-10-2012 09:03 AM)suzie Wrote:  

(07-09-2012 12:46 PM)jaxx Wrote:  <..>

The children were held as slaves for years before they were freed.

Apparently Sally Hemmings, who was Jefferson's wife's half sister, was unofficially freed by his daughter, sometime after his death. There was something called "time served," an unofficial freedom that allowed one to live in Virginia.

This woman had probably been his mistress since age 14, bore him a bunch of sons, and Jefferson was never willing to give her even this? Even upon his death?

Two of her living adult children were freed before he died, the other two living adult children were freed on his death.

I mean honestly - apparently not one of you read a damn thing.

[jaxx]

(07-10-2012 11:19 AM)sandnsea Wrote:  

(07-10-2012 09:03 AM)suzie Wrote:  Apparently Sally Hemmings, who was Jefferson's wife's half sister, was unofficially freed by his daughter, sometime after his death. There was something called "time served," an unofficial freedom that allowed one to live in Virginia.

This woman had probably been his mistress since age 14, bore him a bunch of sons, and Jefferson was never willing to give her even this? Even upon his death?

Two of her living adult children were freed before he died, the other two living adult children were freed on his death.

I mean honestly - apparently not one of you read a damn thing.

Don't make it personal sandnsea. Obviously we read and posted. What I posted was fact.

[sandnsea]

(07-10-2012 11:22 AM)jaxx Wrote:  

(07-10-2012 11:19 AM)sandnsea Wrote:  Two of her living adult children were freed before he died, the other two living adult children were freed on his death.

I mean honestly - apparently not one of you read a damn thing.

Don't make it personal sandnsea. Obviously we read and posted. What I posted was fact.

Well - no it wasn't. So what now?

[suzie]

oops.

[DFW]

Interesting post on the Monticello site:

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantatio...nd-slavery

[jaxx]

(07-10-2012 09:39 AM)DFW Wrote:  Interesting post on the Monticello site:

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantatio...nd-slavery

That is a study in contradictions. In the end, he upheld slavery.

[sandnsea]

(07-10-2012 09:57 AM)jaxx Wrote:  

(07-10-2012 09:39 AM)DFW Wrote:  Interesting post on the Monticello site:

http://www.monticello.org/site/plantatio...nd-slavery

That is a study in contradictions. In the end, he upheld slavery.

Again - I posted what Jefferson actually *said*, his reasons for not freeing his own slaves. He may have been wrong in his thinking - but his reasons were not because he was pro-slavery. His reasons were more along the lines of the need for affirmative action after a slave culture, then being racist or pro-slavery.

[jaxx]

Well, yes it was.
You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

[sandnsea]

(07-10-2012 01:23 PM)jaxx Wrote:  Well, yes it was.
You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

Uh - no - this thread has referred to a historian's opinion - not the facts from Jefferson himself.

The fact is - he was not pro-slavery, as you stated.

The fact is - he freed all of the living Hemming children.

The fact is - he had a plan for emancipation.

The fact is - he supported emancipation in his day and was disappointed it hadn't happened - and said so.

Those are facts. Any cherry-picking and twisting of his comments are *opinions*.

[jaxx]

I will now cease and desist so that there won't be another food fight and locked thread.

[sandnsea]

(07-10-2012 01:42 PM)jaxx Wrote:  I will now cease and desist so that there won't be another food fight and locked thread.

Food fight? As far as I can see - we're sticking to the subject of Jefferson and his words and actions.

He also never said his only concern over slavery was how it affected the white population. That is the most outlandish statement that has been made.

The man tried to tell white people, in his day, that they were teaching their children the ugliness of hatred. The fact that hatred is learned is a pretty common theme in racial education. If you believe this historian's view, the only reason white people today teach against hate is because it makes white people look bad. Do you think that's what's going on when equality organizations teach that hatred is learned?

Jefferson was wrong in his belief that keeping his slaves was better than releasing them unprepared to deal with the laws and economy of the US society at that time. But that doesn't mean he was pro-slavery and wouldn't have preferred emancipation if it had been implemented.

[suzie]

(07-10-2012 01:42 PM)jaxx Wrote:  I will now cease and desist so that there won't be another food fight and locked thread.

I think that Ann Richard's warning about George W.'s compassionate conservatism might be appropriate for Jefferson, "Watch what he DOES, not what he SAYS."

Jefferson liked to talk about the yeoman farmer and Jefferson owned slaves. People have focused on the former and found excuses for the latter. But in his lifetime, Jefferson did little for the yeoman farmer, who could never compete with the large, slave-owning planters unless the farmer also found the money to purchase slaves.

This all led to a system of absentee landholding agriculture which was environmentally destructive as land was exploited and the soil ruined, then abandoned for other territories where slavery would then be spread.

In the North, small farms led to industrialization as a small farmer required tools to be more productive on small holdings. Also to investment in infrastructure like roads and railroads to get crops to market, and in diversification of planting, rather than the large-scale, soil destructive crops like tobacco and cotton favored in the South.

Interesting that Jefferson frequently stated how much he abhorred factories and industrialization, but ran a nail factory on his plantations using young slave boys as laborers.

I will confess that I'm pretty biased about Jefferson. My ancestors were the non-slaveholding small farmers of Virginia who eventually moved into the uplands of Tennessee and Kentucky, cultivating their small farms without ever acquiring slaves. In addition to Jefferson's lack of concerted action to stop the spread of slavery, his personal energies seem always to have been directed at benefiting his own planter class.