Like Washington and Jefferson, he championed liberty. Unlike the founders, he freed his slaves

[Retrograde]

8. IMHO, Jefferson believed himself a sort of "philosopher-king"

Last edited Mon Sep 6, 2021, 10:25 PM - Edit history (1)

above the messiness of ordinary life. He seems to have viewed himself as an intellectual whose money and education put him above the common people, literally in the case of Montecello.

Historian Annette Gordon-Reed wrote two good books on the subject, "The Hemingses of Montecello", about the interactions among the Hemings, Jefferson, and Wayles families (complicated doesn't begin to describe them) and "Most Blessed of Patriarchs" which focuses on Jefferson and his intellectual life and how he set up his idea of a life where everyone around him - Black and White - lived to serve his ideals. Reality got in the way, though, and his expenses far outstripped his income and he died pretty much broke.

OTOH, I give Washington credit for eventually realizing that slavery as practiced in the US at the time was bad both economically and for the people involved and trying to arrange for the eventual freedom of the people enslaved on his lands. Then Eli Whitney came along around the time of Washington's death and made cotton production more economically feasible and that led to an increased demand for slave labor.