Thomas Jefferson, a man who penned the words, "All men are created
equal," was a slave owner. To many, this is an inconceivable
contradictionâ€"a hypocritical blasphemy against truth. However, Jefferson
was ultimately a man of his times, mired in the social and political
climate of his dayâ€"a day, when slavery was a simple, if not repugnant, fact
of life. But how, exactly, did Jefferson feel about racial difference and
the justification of slavery' The answer can be clearly found in his work,
At the time of its writing, Jefferson's Notes was an important
diplomatic document. Jefferson knew that the country desperately needed to
have the support of various European nations if it was to successfully
break free from the grasp of Great Britain. However, he worried that the
image of the United States would be tarnished if the notion that its
Indians had been conquered and enslaved. For this reason, he wrote, "An
inhuman practice once prevailed in this country of making slaves of the
Indians. (This practice commenced with the Spaniards with the first
discovery of America)."(61) Thus, Jefferson was keenly resolute in denying
that the United States was responsible for enslaving American Indiansâ€"and
he not only vigorously denied this fact, but shifted the blame onto the
original Spanish explorers. However, this begs the questionâ€"what of the
black slavesâ€"the very ones he kept on his plantation' To Jefferson, the
answer was clear. Not only was the situation and position of black slaves
different, but it was far more dangerous to the survival of the country
Indeed, Jefferson not only justifies the continuation of the
institution of slavery in his writing, but he refers to a "doom" scenario,
where, were slaves to be freed, the cumulative injustices infl
...