Thomas Jefferson: Forgiven, or still a sleazeball?

[Lilith Velkor]

I guess it depends on what one thinks of his impact...

[Mojambo]

1. Why forgive the dead?

Overall, his impact was undeniably positive.

[Joe the Liberal]

2. What was wrong with Jefferson?

:shrug:

[ashling]

4. one interpretation is that he

either tacitly by his inaction or pro actively through his actions contributed to the spread and continuation of slavery.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

26. I think

the OP is saying that Jefferson cheated on his wife multiple times - it is a fact. He had sexual relations (rape?) with his slaves. Who knows who else he was dirty dancing with.

[skygazer]

29. Martha Jefferson died in 1782, ten years into her marriage

While it is accepted knowledge that Jefferson had a long relationship with Sally Hemmings, that relationship is believed to have begun when Jefferson was in Paris, two years after the death of his wife. It's also difficult at this point to determine what sort of relationship it may have been - certainly his position gives rise to the idea that it could have been coercive but it's impossible to say for sure.

And whether or not he cheated on Martha prior to that time is not known - they had a reputation as a devoted couple.

[Lilith Velkor]

30. Sally Hemings could have remained a free woman in France

Instead, she went back to Virginia with him, and bore him five children. Nobody knows what her perspective was.

Her half-sister, Martha Jefferson, was already dead by then.

[LostinVA]

39. Actually, his wife was already dead, and Sally Hemmings was his wife's half sister

By all accounts, she looked VERY much like his wife. The only slaves he freed were Hemmingses. He also allowed some of Sally's (and his" children to escape. Sally and her family didn't live in the salve quarters. I've seen where they lived at Monticello. Jefferson wasn't one to sleep with his slaves, although he turned a blind eye to his nephews doing it. Women had no right to say no then, whether they were slaves or white women. By all accounts, Jefferson had an actual relationship with Sally. (And, they were his kids: DNA matches Jefferson DNA, and EVERY TIME Sally conceived, he was the only Jefferson male of procreating age at Monticello. His journals are ripe with daily details.)

Having said that: Jefferson called slavery akin to holding a tiger by its tail. He could have freed all slaves at his death, but he didn't. As stated above, he only freed Hemminges. He could have greatly influenced discussion and repulsion for slavery, but he didn't. He enjoyed the fruits of his chattel's labor so he could live a life of intellectual pursuits.

[Lilith Velkor]

54. He died heavily in debt

The slaves were sold in an attempt to pay it off.

At one point, he wrote that the black slaves should all be freed, then immediately shipped to Africa. I don't recall when that was, though.

[spoony]

62. A great summary. n/t

[LostinVA]

64. Thanks, Spoony!

I lived in Charlottesville for quite a few years, and one of my majors was history. What can I say? You learn about TJ.

A coworker was one one of the Hemmings who gave DNA to prove Sally's children were TJ's.

[ashling]

3. ... or whether you go with heads or tails

:shrug:

[Lilith Velkor]

34. LOL

:thumbsup:

[melody]

5. John Adams forgave him

There wasn't a more devoted abolitionist than Adams. If he forgave him, I think it gives the rest of us license to do so.

[Lilith Velkor]

32. He got elected President after it came out in the press

Apparently, it wasn't that much to forgive at the time.

[melody]

35. John Adams was one of his best friends -- he knew everything about him

Ben Franklin (another abolitionist) was also a friend of Jefferson's.

[Lilith Velkor]

38. When John Adams was President, not so much.

Abigail never forgave Jefferson for running what is (arguably) still the dirtiest campaign in our history.

John and Thomas worked it out, eventually.

[melody]

46. They were only out of sorts for nine years

Even then, they were in touch. Adams actually advised Jefferson several times during his own Presidency. Overtime their friendship, as you pointed out, mended itself nicely ... which is a good thing since their later-in-life letters are some of our best ammo against the far right.

You can't really blame Abigail. Jefferson could be a nasty politician when he wanted to be -- and it wasn't only what he did to his old friend but how he did it.

[LostinVA]

50. No, she did forgive him -- she -- not her husband or Jefferson -- made the first move

Via writing a condolence letter to Jefferson.

[Lilith Velkor]

52. I thought they had an epic flamewar after that

Maybe I've got the timeline confused a bit. But yeah, you're right, she did write him after poor Polly died.

[cali]

6. lol. comparing Jefferson to Edwards?

now that's funny.

[Jennicut]

13. What has Edwards done in comparison to Jefferson. Laughable.

[LittleClarkie]

7. Did his wife have cancer too?

?

[WI_DEM]

25. I think for many people that is what they find so galling.

[Lilith Velkor]

31. She may very well have, but the doctors at the time didn't know what was wrong with her.

She just got sicker and sicker after each miscarriage.

[LostinVA]

42. Probably severe diabetes

[deadlyaj]

8. Lousiana Purchase from Napoleon

Probably the biggest / best thing any president has ever done for our country. So he kinda kicks ass in my book

[GarbagemanLB]

9. How, exactly, is Edwards comparable to Jefferson?

Talk about a stretch...

[Occam Bandage]

22. Well, both had sex with people who were not their wives, so obviously

Edwards, like Jefferson, is a great man deserving of our admiration! There are absolutely no differences between the two. None. Not one.

[bitchkitty]

43. They both have crotches to sniff? n/t

[4lbs]

10. Jefferson's initial draft of the Declaration included a passage admonishing slavery.

However, he finally agreed to remove it because the other founding fathers feared that keeping it in would cause them to lose the support of the southern colonies and make them much weaker to stand up to England.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/AMERICA/DECLAR.HTM

Here's the passage that was originally in there:

<snip>
He has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property.

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people for whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.

<snip>

[SIMPLYB1980]

11. Forgiven, a sleazeball, and a great american.

Many great Americans are, and were sleazy to a certain extent. It's when the sleaze turns to madness that I have a problem with them.

[Lilith Velkor]

27. That's pretty much what I think, as well.

The reaction of the sense of humor impaired to my query has been fairly amusing.

A long term perspective is useful when one is contemplating the present and the future, is it not?

[countingbluecars]

12. Bill Clinton seems to have been forgiven. n/t

[NYCGirl]

14. So John Edwards is being compared to Jefferson now? LOL!!

Can you give me an example of something Edwards has done that was NOT self-aggrandizing?

[Renew Deal]

15. The difference bet. Jefferson and Edwards is that Edwards has never actually accomplished anything

Now, if Edwards actually accomplishes something other than running for office based on his looks and cheating on his sick wife, we'll talk.

[dionysus]

16. Thomas Jefferson= Founding Father / John Edwards = sleazy two bit philandering phoney

:eyes:

[Ozma]

21. I think you just about summed it up there! I am just wondering

why this thread was started, and others about Edwards recently!

Why this effort to revive Edwards' reputation?

I simply can't figure out why we need Edwards or Edwards needs our support.

[JeffR]

17. Thomas is OK. His brother William, however, well

we shall see.

[Mad_Dem_X]

18. Thomas J. rocks

A brilliant man - not perfect, of course, but he made an incredible impact on our country.

[AspenRose]

19. Apples and oranges

[Occam Bandage]

20. Jefferson: One of the greatest minds in American political history.

Edwards: A two-bit huckster who managed to briefly fool a pack of Democrats into thinking that he cared about them, all while doing nothing material for anyone but himself.

[skooooo]

23. Don't have much patience..

...for people who try to apply today's laws and standards to people that lived hundreds of years ago.

[Lilith Velkor]

37. It was a joke

...but yeah, I know a few leftists who are like that. Eesh! :banghead:

[skooooo]

48. yeppers..

I've often seen it, and understand to an extent. But in the end, it's really not fair. Who knows how people living 300 years in the future will consider us alive today?? We're barbarians!

[Lilith Velkor]

58. Bloodthirsty maniacs with a penchant for locking people up

Just another cruel empire in a long line of 'em, most likely.

[Raineyb]

51. Actually, that's not really a good excuse

There were people who were anti-slavery at the time. "The times" isn't really a good excuse for continuing to perpetuate slavery or doing nothing about it.

Regards

[Occam Bandage]

56. Consider, as a parallel, carnivorism.

There are many people who are anti-carnivorism today. Carnivorism (and, more specifically, factory farming) perpetuates pain and suffering. Obama eats meat. Future generations may well find carnivorism as practiced in the early 21st century to be an abhorrent moral crime.

If a person from that future were to say "Obama was a sleazeball," that would be dumb.

[Lilith Velkor]

67. !

:spray: :rofl:

[spoony]

57. The standards were the same then.

People knew owning and sexually using other humans was wrong. Don't patronise us by saying otherwise.

[Occam Bandage]

59. Er...no. No, they were not.

If you do not believe me, go outside with a shotgun and attempt to enslave somebody. Hell, fly to Africa, grab someone, and bring them back as a slave. See how long that lasts.

[spoony]

61. Was Jefferson an idiot? Was he illiterate?

If not, he had no excuse for not knowing about the stirrings of the abolition movement during his life. Maybe he'd never heard of the Quakers or Thomas Paine? And that's all assuming he couldn't figure out for himself that it was wrong. It was just as wrong then as now, that hasn't changed.

[Occam Bandage]

65. There are many social movements around the world today.

Do you fault middle-class people who use their small amount of extra income to buy electronics made in China, instead of sending that money to Oxfam to help impoverished people? Do you fault American farmers driving Mexican farmers into bankruptcy through their superior mechanized efficiency? Do you fault working mothers who buy their children Happy Meals, despite the fact that the chicken in the nuggets was raised inhumanely, and that the beef in the burgers was grown on rainforest land that had been burned to the ground?

All are petty cruelties that everyone has the knowledge to be able to avoid. Yet all are petty cruelties that few avoid, since only the independently wealthy have the time to carefully catalog and address all that's wrong with the world that they are contributing to, and that they might fix. (And yet, ironically, the wealth that provides them that freedom has itself been cruelly hoarded instead of donated generously to those more needy.)

Looking at the evil that men have allowed to exist is fruitless, for all but a select few are complicit with each evil--and those few, no matter the evil, are complicit in others. Rather, the only useful way to judge men and women who have come before is to look at the evils those men and women fought, and to grade them based on what they have done, as opposed to what causes they abandoned for future generations to pick up.

[spoony]

66. Evils are in degrees, and it'd be a mighty huge stretch

to equate owning slaves to buying a McNugget. The proper analogy to the time would be people using the cotton or other crops slaves harvested, but yes we do hold society at large faulty for these things, and individuals who actually *run* such things moreso at fault. Jefferson is not just someone who profited from crops, but in your modern analogies would be the inhumane farmer or the sweatshop owner.

[WI_DEM]

24. Yes, John Edwards is another Thomas Jefferson.

but I actually don't care less what Edwards does. It's not up to me to forgive him. It's up to his wife and family. I still think we don't know all about his affair, but again it's not really our business.

[sampsonblk]

28. John Edwards is no Thomas Jefferson (nt)

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[AtomTan]

36. Thomas Jefferson if he were alive today would be considered a terrorist.

[LostinVA]

41. Errr -- wtf???

Rich, well-educated white guy from a good family? Hardly.

[AtomTan]

44. He was an arugula-chomping bookworm elitist. He palled around with terrorists

like the guillotine-happy French Revolutionaries (not to mention the Sons of Liberty). He was an unapologetic and unrepentant advocate of revolutionary violence.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -T.J.

[LostinVA]

49. No, he wasn't -- he was a member of teh elite/establishment

[AtomTan]

55. No he wasn't what? Which part of what I said are you disagreeing with?

[PresidentObama]

40. This thread looks familiar n/t

[Lilith Velkor]

53. Gee, I wonder why?

;)

[PresidentObama]

63. Tehe, you little devil n/t

[SwampG8r]

45. you do realize he wrote the declaration of independence and worked on

the original constitution?
what has john edwards ever done to equal either of these?
im sorry he got caught out with shit on his heels but he aint no tommy jefferson!

[AtomTan]

47. I like Obama OK and I adore Kucinich ...

But there is not one career politician alive who is fit to walk in Jefferson's shoes.

[Quixote1818]

60. A very great man! Here read this article!

http://www.thoughtsonobjectivism.com/certainty_site/12%20Thomas%20Jeffersons%20Dilemma.htm

[Teaser]

68. Who am I to forgive him?

He didn't do shit to me.