Thomas Jefferson, Slavery, and Morality
The Winter 2004 Wilson Quarterly discusses the article “Jefferson, Morality, and the Problem of Slavery” by Ari Helo and Peter Onuf, in William and Mary Quarterly (July 2003)
Jefferson’s thinking was grounded in a complicated but coherent “historical conception of morality.” Slavery was as old as Western civilization, and even the great liberal philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) had argued that victors in a just war were morally justified in enslaving (rather than killing) their captives. No longer, Jefferson insisted. The “moral sense” had shown a further “remarkable instance of improvement.”
Jefferson’s “primary goal was not to free black people,” observe Helo and Onuf, “but to free white people from the moral evil of being slaveholders.” ... The challenge “was to find a practical solution to the slavery problem that would enable Virginians collectively to extricate themselves from the institution, reversing the process of historical development that had deprived Africans of their freedom, but doing so in a way that would not jeopardize the free institutions that were themselves the products of history.”
Jefferson thought that emancipation was needed and necessary, but that it would have to be achieved gradually. This isn’t far different from people today who favor the legalization of gay marriage, but want to see it occur gradually in order to allow others to get used to the idea and to allow democratic institutions to adjust in their own way, rather than having it imposed in a manner that creates resentment all around.
There’s certainly something to be said for such an approach. The creation of resentment and the perception of illegitimacy can only serve to harm democratic institutions in the long run. At the same time, though, it seems unreasonable to tell people suffering from injustice that they have to wait because others aren’t ready for them to be truly equal. Justice delayed is justice denied and there is something especially unpleasant about people who recognize an injustice actively promoting it continuation. It’s even arguable that they are worse than those who commit injustices without recognizing them as unjust.
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“It’s long been a conundrum for historians that Thomas Jefferson, author of the stirring words about liberty in the Declaration of Independence, could at the same time own other human beings as slaves.”
It’s only a conundrum for *us*, it wasn’t for them. Blacks weren’t condsidered “people” so much as animals. We enslave animals by the millions today, but someday (i hope) we will look back at this time and wonder “how could we have said that blacks shouldn’t be slaves but still be so cruel to animals?”. Similarly, the notions the women women were “real people”, or that the poor were more than chattle, are relatively new. At least in western culture.
Over time we make baby steps toward true equality for all. What is “right” today, would have been outrageous 100 years ago. What is outrageous today could have been just fine 100 years ago. The things we do today will seem incomprehensible to those who follow us, and vice versa. That’s not, right or wrong, just the nature of the passage of time and social evolution.
We cannot hold our ancestors or descendents to OUR standards. They just don’t apply. Each generation will draw the lines where it wants.
Solution: life is for the living. Only living memory matters. If no one was there to see/experience it, it might as well be fiction. It should be regard with as much value as fiction.
Todd,
As far as I understand it, slavery indeed was a conundrum. But even though slavery was accepted by so many, it was still wrong. Blacks were human beings regardless of what whites thought.
One issue not addressed is that Jefferson’s conundrum was also a matter of his status being economically tied to slavery, although rationally he knew it was immoral.
Thomas Jefferson said his goal was to only free white people and not to free black people. Isn’t that rasist?