Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was a thoughtful, brilliant,  and talented man who in many ways  exemplified and advanced the liberal and rational principles of the enlightenment.  He did great things for the country from writing the Declaration of Independence to fighting for religious freedom and toleration  to insisting the Constitution contain a bill of rights to making the Louisiana Purchase.   He also owned slaves and (unlike Washington) did not free them, despite unquestionably knowing that slavery was wrong.

 His hypocrisy and despicable behavior are undeniable, and they are not minor flaws. However neither are they the whole story.  He worked to ban the slave trade both at the time of the Declaration of Independence and later. He proposed legislation to end slavery peacefully but was unsuccessful in getting it passed. He believed  slavery must end and wanted it to end but was unable to solve the problem of how to end it. (The actual solution required the bloodiest war in American history with a toll of one dead soldier  for each six freed slaves.  Ending slavery by force in Jefferson’s time might have been impossible. The north of his day had neither as large an advantage in population  nor the railroads and industrial capacity that it did in the 1860s, and the task was hard enough then. ) These things do not excuse him, but they are relevant.

It is fashionable among leftists to ignore his accomplishments, harp on his private failure to follow his principles on slavery, and cast him as a villain in a morality play interpretation of history.  That is not surprising. They have strong reasons having nothing to do with slavery for wanting to discredit him.  Many of his ideas and actions favored and  furthered the  liberal ideas of liberty and individual rights that the leftists oppose and often despise.   Those  ideas are as much a threat to today’s leftists as they were to Lord North and George III.  They should be an inspiration to the rest of us, irrespective of his failure to live up to them consistently.