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Jefferson Memorial, Confederate statues enter national race debate

I honestly don't know... but I've heard justifications of slavery back then.... much like how we treat children. Children are essentially slaves to their parents. Beating used to be a common thing for discipline, not just of slaves, but for children and criminals as well. I would think he would think it was cruel to unjustly beat a slave just because you felt like it.

You have to literally have to think like you're in the 1700s
Sure and in the 1700s, there were plenty of white people who thought that slavery was cruel. Jefferson himself called it cruel. There were certainly plenty of black people who thought it was cruel.
 
Guess you don't know.

Does it really matter who decided? Do you even bother to spend even a second thinking about your questions?

Nevertheless it was an issue that could not be overcome during the founding of the US, but eventually was as we all know. My guess is that Jefferson knew it was wrong from an intellectual perspective, but his debt, lifestyle and I think some people thought that the slaves couldn't survive on their own kept him from acting. It was definitely a crossroads, but he wasn't unusual for a southerner of the time. Nevertheless his ideals were the foundation upon which slaves were eventually freed. His influence on creating a self governing country cannot be overlooked. Should his memorial be torn down....hell no. Anyone who would go as far as tearing down those monuments is just radical.
 
Sure and in the 1700s, there were plenty of white people who thought that slavery was cruel. Jefferson himself called it cruel. There were certainly plenty of black people who thought it was cruel.

There were even black slaveowners.
 
Does it really matter who decided? Do you even bother to spend even a second thinking about your questions?

Nevertheless it was an issue that could not be overcome during the founding of the US, but eventually was as we all know. My guess is that Jefferson knew it was wrong from an intellectual perspective, but his debt, lifestyle and I think some people thought that the slaves couldn't survive on their own kept him from acting. It was definitely a crossroads, but he wasn't unusual for a southerner of the time. Nevertheless his ideals were the foundation upon which slaves were eventually freed. His influence on creating a self governing country cannot be overlooked. Should his memorial be torn down....hell no. Anyone who would go as far as tearing down those monuments is just radical.

Yes, he knew slavery was an evil institution sustained by greed. I don't think that anybody's calling for the removal of his monument though. In this regard, the founders were/are a huge contradiction. But I don't think you need be concerned.
 
There were even black slaveowners.
Most of whom used slavery to buy and protect their loved ones. Of those who did not, I suspect they knew that slavery was cruel just like white slave owners.
 
Now we know slavery was legitimate.

We know that it was even practiced by a few blacks during the Colonial Era. So it was considered legitimate.
 
Most of whom used slavery to buy and protect their loved ones. Of those who did not, I suspect they knew that slavery was cruel just like white slave owners.
I've never read that, but no doubt that was used as a clever loophole.
 
We know that it was even practiced by a few blacks during the Colonial Era. So it was considered legitimate.

What does that even mean? Nazism was "legitimate", genocide of native Americans was "legitimate". Too many people seem willing to dismiss evil because it was the accepted mindset at the time, everybody was doing it, etc.
 
What does that even mean? Nazism was "legitimate", genocide of native Americans was "legitimate". Too many people seem willing to dismiss evil because it was the accepted mindset at the time, everybody was doing it, etc.

Who's dismissing it? I think you're making **** up. You realize we're talking about history don't you?
 
What are we going to be judged on 200 to 300 years from now? The use of fossil fuels? Internal Combustion Engines? 40 hour work week? What normal, everyday action will be considered completely foul and totally rejected by our great great grandchildren? It is silly to weigh the actions of those who lived in the 1700 - 1800 against the mindsets of the 21st century.
 
I've never read that, but no doubt that was used as a clever loophole.
Yeah, it was clever.

From The Root:
As Woodson put it in 1924's Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, "The census records show that the majority of the Negro owners of slaves were such from the point of view of philanthropy. In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators."

Moreover, Woodson explains, "Benevolent Negroes often purchased slaves to make their lot easier by granting them their freedom for a nominal sum, or by permitting them to work it out on liberal terms." In other words, these black slave-owners, the clear majority, cleverly used the system of slavery to protect their loved ones. That's the good news.

Black Slave Owners: Did They Exist? - The Root

The article also talks about Black slave owners who owned slaves for other, less benevolent, reasons.
 
Who's dismissing it? I think you're making **** up. You realize we're talking about history don't you?

Your commentary is consistently trivializing it, and yes, pointing out that he needed slavery because of his lavish lifestyle and debt isn't making the grade!
 
Yeah, it was clever.

From The Root:


The article also talks about Black slave owners who owned slaves for other, less benevolent, reasons.

Oh No. Now they can't excuse slavery because black people owned slaves too.
 
What are we going to be judged on 200 to 300 years from now? The use of fossil fuels? Internal Combustion Engines? 40 hour work week? What normal, everyday action will be considered completely foul and totally rejected by our great great grandchildren? It is silly to weigh the actions of those who lived in the 1700 - 1800 against the mindsets of the 21st century.

Yeah, that's it.
 
Your commentary is consistently trivializing it, and yes, pointing out that he needed slavery because of his lavish lifestyle and debt isn't making the grade!
If you want to understand his reason maybe you should read up on it then. I'm just trying to be factual.
 
No, she's actually kind of annoying with her pseudo-intellectual glasses, weight issues and deplorable fashion sense.

Among other very annoying things about her. I'd rather chew my left eyeball out than watch her.
 
If you want to understand his reason maybe you should read up on it then. I'm just trying to be factual.

Yes, the author of the DOI NEEDED slavery to service his opulent debt. Got it the first time.
 
What are we going to be judged on 200 to 300 years from now? The use of fossil fuels? Internal Combustion Engines? 40 hour work week? What normal, everyday action will be considered completely foul and totally rejected by our great great grandchildren? It is silly to weigh the actions of those who lived in the 1700 - 1800 against the mindsets of the 21st century.

That's actually a really interesting question. I don't want to derail American's thread but hundreds of years from now we aren't going to be judged based on a few generations having slaves any more than any other society is. There are many stains on our history but there are also many positives, much more than the negatives. Slavery was part of our history, just like it was in Egypt a few thousand years ago. When people think of the Egyptians, does enslaving of Hebrews pop into your mind first?
 
Yeah, it was clever.

From The Root:


The article also talks about Black slave owners who owned slaves for other, less benevolent, reasons.

Not intending to overlook the morality, but I think at that time much of it was a business decision. Slavery was considered okay by a great part of society even though the moral outrage of it had begun. I don't think the abolitionists were pure of heart either, some probably didn't like the benefit of free labor that the slaveowners enjoyed; basically an unfair business practice.
 
My statements allow all those exceptions to happen... The fact is, slavery was much more morally ambiguous than it is today, GREATLY so.... and I don't think you have the right to act all high and mighty because you were not born in that time... you have it easy, it's easier for you to realize and make the moral choices.

No it wasn't. There was little ambiguity about it at the time the Constitution was drafted. The framers didn't address it in the Constitution for political reasons not for any moral ambiguity. The southern states would never have signed on if slavery were abolished.
 
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