![]() served as acting secretary of war in the Confederacy for eight months in 1862. Two of Jefferson’s grandsons, Thomas Jefferson Randolph and George Wythe Randolph, were ardent secessionists when the Civil War finally came. In many respects, Lincoln resurrected Jefferson’s reputation after a 20-year period during which he was embraced (rightly, I believe) by southern states as a slavery apologist who would rather break up the union than let the northern industrial states disturb the institution of slavery. The Lincoln memorial in Washington, DC (flickr/ nj dodge)įourscore years later, Abraham Lincoln argued that it no longer really mattered just what Jefferson meant, or the Founding Fathers either, because we could no longer go on as a nation, as a republic, unless we now read Jefferson’s words in the full universal sense. Or perhaps he meant the statement to apply only to “people who count,” i.e., white people only, and even then, primarily white males, which would deflate the great statement to the point of cynicism. would call a “ promissory note,” to be cashed sometime later in American history, which would seem to be self-serving since it enabled Jefferson to complete his 83-year life surrounded by people he regarded as property, forced at the end of a whip to do whatever he might instruct them to do. ![]() Thomas Jefferson, speaking for the Second Continental Congress, wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” He either meant this to be a universal proposition (self-evident) and therefore was a contemptible hypocrite since he owned as many as 600 slaves in the course of his life, or he meant the statement to serve as what Martin Luther King Jr. ![]() You can listen to the companion audio version of this and other essays using the player below or on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Audible.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |