Curtis Dahlgren
The real Tom Jefferson
By
Curtis Dahlgren
October 3, 2023
Much of the "modern" Jefferson image was formed over 200 years ago by his political enemies. For example, the offspring-by-Sally Hemings rumor was started for the 1800 election campaign. Guides at Monticello still spread that old gossip. DNA never actually nailed an individual – only someone from the Jefferson family, such his brother or a nephew who had access to the slave quarters.
Regarding sex-with-slaves, TJ was adamantly opposed to the mixing of the races and said so.
He spent part of his career working toward regulations on the treatment of slaves and for finding a feasible plan for the ending of slavery.
In the first place, he didn't import any slaves; he inherited land and the slaves came with the circumstances. He "married into" more slaves. It was against law in Virginia to "FREE" slaves!
His teachers at William and Mary were anti-slavery. He tested the waters of anti-slavery in the House of Burgesses.
In the Continental Congress he seconded a bill that would have banned slavery in future states in all of the western Territories – both north and south – and it failed by just one vote in 1784 (Washington banned the spread of slavery to the Northwest Territories)!
(To be continued.)
© Curtis Dahlgren
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
Curtis Dahlgren
Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton...
(more)Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in southern Wisconsin, and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton. In the intro to The Fenton Bible, Fenton said:
"I was in '53 a young student in a course of education for an entirely literary career, but with a wider basis of study than is usual. . . . In commerce my life has been passed. . . . Indeed, I hold my commercial experience to have been my most important field of education, divinely prepared to fit me to be a competent translator of the Bible, for it taught me what men are and upon what motives they act, and by what influences they are controlled. Had I, on the other hand, lived the life of a Collegiate Professor, shut up in the narrow walls of a library, I consider that I should have had my knowledge of mankind so confined to glancing through a 'peep-hole' as to make me totally unfit for [my life's work]."
In 1971-72 Curtis did some writing for the Badger Herald and he is listed as a University of Wisconsin-Madison "alumnus" (loosely speaking, along with a few other drop-outs including John Muir, Charles Lindbergh, Frank Lloyd Wright and Dick Cheney). [He writes humor, too.]
Subscribe
Receive future articles by Curtis Dahlgren:
Click hereMore by this author
November 29, 2023
God's 'practical joke' on Jew haters
November 22, 2023
Whom the gods wish to con, they first make illiterate
November 12, 2023
10 typical Americans compared to the proverbial 10 virgins
October 30, 2023
'The most brilliant thoughts of all time,' Part V
October 20, 2023
Short and sweet: Looking ahead to better times
October 11, 2023
The year the lions lay down with the Lamb
October 3, 2023
The real Tom Jefferson
September 20, 2023
'Inside American Education;' beware professional liars
September 11, 2023
School daze: beware professional liars, part 3
August 31, 2023
School daze again. Beware professional liars!
More articles
