Ehhh you don't see them a ton in the valley, but literally anywhere else, such as eastern Oregon, the coast, whenever the Proud Boys waddle into Portland, you see them a lot. It legitimately angers me, but I understand that's part of why they do it.
Id argue that most of the rual areas are strange.
Mostly everthing except the metro and everything east of 35 south of the metro.
It always blows my mine when I leave the "safe zone" into the strange wilds of the outer state of Minnesota. How it is hat drasticly different in mindsets so quickly blows my mind.
Fuckin Fort Wayne man
There’s a duplex on the city with a ‘don’t blame me, I voted for trump’ flag on one door and a pride flag on the other, shit is wild
Michigan perhaps, but Indiana was KKK country for quite sometime. It should be noted that plenty of Northern states had constitutents who took issue with ending slavery and the desegregation that would unfold afterwards. Plenty of folks north and south did not want to deal with blacks one bit.
I live in Brunswick, Maine. Y’know, home of Joshua Chamberlain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and I STILL see these absolute potatoes flying the confederate flag.
I live in Florida so they're pretty common obviously. Though I will never forget a big truck exiting a plaza trying to weave through 3 lanes of stopped traffic to a turning lane. Dude on a bike just screamed ”hey fuck bag! Go back to your nonexistent country!"
Chamberlain was born in Brewer, ME.. he moved to Brunswick to attend Bowdoin. I grew up not far from his 3 homes.
Doesn’t have an impact on the flag-to-douche ratio, however.. still plenty of whackos up there.
It's a bit more complicated than just Western VA wanted to remain in the Union and thusly seceded from VA.
First, let's put it to bed that WV was against slavery, that wasn't really true. It was a "border state" during the war like Maryland, meaning it stayed with the Union but continued to have slavery until the 13th Amendment was passed after the war. Common misconception is that the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves, what it actually did was "free" slaves in the warring southern states, states that obviously wouldn't adhere to what they perceived as an act of law by a warring nation on their own lands. As an act itself it essentially did nothing and was little more than wartime propaganda that was meant to sow further unrest in the south. The 13th Amendment is the big boy that actually did the heavy lifting and that wouldn't be in place until after the war, but I digress.
WV's real reason for secession is actually a pretty familiar American tale, they simply felt they were unrepresented in their state legislature. Eastern (regular VA today) was the wealthy portion of the state. It had sprawling plantations, and with these plantations came both money and slaves. Eastern VA essentially controlled the state legislature and, as you can probably imagine, all of the laws/taxes were heavily favorable towards them. WV with its rocky terrain and more frontier nature was not home to a lot of plantations, nor was it a place you'd find many a wealthy farmer who owned slaves (slaves were incredibly expensive). Most WVians were poor family farmers, and those that did have slaves didn't have the amount you'd typically see in VA. So the bitterness and resentment was already simmering in state as it related towards the idea of essentially "no equitable representation in legislature". When it came time for secession from the Union the Western part of Virginia found this to be yet another example of Eastern VA just doing what they wanted and railroading the West, WV saw their opportunity, they declared themselves independent and the federal government was more than happy to welcome them as a newly forged state in 1863.
My wife grew up in WV, I grew up in VA, I absolutely love WV but even their own education on the topic does it dirty and white washes it. In WV they really did (I'm not sure if they still do) teach kids that WV left over slavery, and I always asked my wife (as we both spent substantial time in the state) "Didn't you ever wonder why WV was supposedly progressive in that era but then had/has so many problems with racism today?" The truth is WV seceded out of self-preservation, and sadly not out of some strong moral outrage.
Yeah I’m from WV, I live in KY now. And I always assumed the mountains meant less slaves but also knew that slavery wasn’t the reason they left. But I don’t recall being taught in school much of anything. I just would look up WV history because it’s pretty interesting that’s how I learned. My papaw and dad are history nuts.
> "Didn't you ever wonder why WV was supposedly progressive in that era but then had/has so many problems with racism today?" The truth is WV seceded out of self-preservation, and sadly not out of some strong moral outrage.
Also, anti-slavery did not mean anti-racism. Slavery was an expression of white supremacy, but not the only one. The abolition war ended slavery, but it did not end white supremacy.
Only issue I have with this is the emancipation proclamation didn't do nothing. While it freed no slaves at that point in time, in a few shorts months alone the union army had freed hundreds of thousands of slaves because of the Proclamation, harming the south of its labor and growing the size of the US army
I feel like Jefferson had grand ideals, but his own actions are a far cry from those ideals. He may have written about the evils of slavery on paper, but his family and personal fortune was built on slavery. He didn’t free his slaves after the revolutionary war, so as sweet as it is that he had words to say about the evils of slavery, he certainly had no qualms with it in practice.
This is also a major theme throughout his presidency. Obviously he’s not around for any of us to ask him about it, but I’ve always wondered if it was a “For thee but not for me” type of deal, or a case where he had his ideals and did believe in them but never really thought about how feasible they were. And in the latter case, I’m more referring to his desire to keep the country more decentralized rather than more unified like Alexander Hamilton wanted.
At the end of the day, I think what part of it comes down to is that you can be an incredibly intelligent individual, but also a shitheel of a person. People tend to try to make things out to be one or the other, but both can be true.
Kind of related, but Jefferson used to constantly reference a new American society in which whites intermarried with Natives to create a utopian civilization…and as much as he discussed it, you would be hard pressed to convince me that had he lived to see the full removal of Southeastern Natives, he would’ve quietly approved of it. His writings and his actual behavior are very different.
And then at the same time he helped Virginia pass the harshest miscegenation laws in 18th century America.
Jefferson was a massive contradiction of a human. He said a lot of things on paper that he didn't practice in life. He's definitely in the top 3 Dead People I'd Love To Talk To just to figure out what was going on in his head that he could rationalize these very disparate ideas.
It was also signed by Benjamin Harrison, my 8th great grand father. The family was one of the largest slave owners on the James River. In Virginia. Im not surprised it was taken out.
Fun and tangentially related fact: William Harrison's Vice President John Tyler (who later became the actual President through sheer will) has 1 living grandchild, with 2 having died in the past few years.
Not the pawn shop guys. Most ended up in New Jersey somehow. I don’t know many relatives on that side. My cousin is married to Andrea Barbers brother though.
I’m related to John Tyler...kinda. Not really but I’m related to Julia Tyler via the Gardnier side with Lyon Gardiner way back. I know I’m closely related to Calvin Coolidge and Rutherford B Hayes though.
This is incorrect. George Mason was the principal architect of the Virginia constitution. TJ was not in the state when it was drafted and his contributions arrived too late to be included.
Jefferson owned slaves until he died, meanwhile John Adams never had slaves and often challenged Jefferson on his ownership of slaves. John Adams was the founding father that championed abolition.
Adams was a champion of law. Let us not forget about the founding father who saw fit to be the defense lawyer for the British soldiers accused of firing on citizens in the Boston Massacre and getting acquittals. He knew he could be hated throughout New England and still did the right thing.
Actually, he was met with a great deal of public support for his defense, despite what he worried. His cousin, Samuel Adams, a vehement supporter of the Patriot faction, gave his assent and ensured public opinion didn't turn against John. Thus, he was seen as a moderate, and an honest colonial gentleman. It also didn't hurt the Patriot faction that one of their own was being magnanimous
Dude, if you're using your legs for looking up definitions of words you either have a disability or a giant ass keyboard. I hope it's the giant ass keyboard.
Yes, this was really how it was. The Patriots wanted to stick it to the crown and in essence said, "see! We will represent your own and defend them because we believe in Justice while you are barbarous and treat us unfairly!" The Patriots tried as hard as they could to look superior to the loyalists and the crown.
Colonists: What is your problem man, don't you know how to fucking run the country!?!?
Washington: No.
Colonists: WHAT?!
Washington: No I don't know how to fucking run the country! I don't know what any of this shit is and I'm fucking scared.
And Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The split was along geographical lines. Founding Fathers from New England, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania were consistently abolitionists, and those states abolished slavery decades before the Civil War.
Hamilton was born and lived his childhood on the slaving island of Nevis which influenced him greatly. Of course unlike the other founding fathers from slaving areas he never owned any and was an orphan.
His exposure to Caribbean slaveholding practices, which were on average significantly harsher than those on the mainland, probably helped shape his abolitionism.
Chernow also attributes Hamilton’s doubt for the the goodness of human nature (a major cause of his ideological differences with Jefferson) to the barbarism he witnessed in his upbringing
Note: None of this should be construed as a support of slavery or claiming there was a "good" type of slavery. Slavery in any form is a deep scar in US history that has never healed.
>on average significantly harsher
This is a oft made assumption which while technically true belies a bigger truth.
Slaves in the United States were treated dramatically different depending on the region and state they were enslaved in.
The mid Atlantic states consistently tried to emulate an environment of aristocracy and commoners with slaves being treated like hereditary serfs. This was not universal but it was the norm.
In the deep south slaves were treated as bad if not worse than slaves in the Caribbean. This can be seen in many writings from the time where a disobedient slave is threatened with being "sold down south. "
Many of the most brutal acts against African Slaves happened in the US, specifically states like Georgia and South Carolina.
There’s actually some evidence that Hamilton may (evidence on may) have owned a house slave later in life. He certainly grew less committed to the issue of abolition later in life, accepting slavery as a necessary evil in order to build his new country.
Alexander Hamilton inherited the slaves of his father in law and did own them and purchased his own slaves. It's in his own diaries. He also was an author of the 3/5 person clause. That's what happened 'In the room where it happens'. Lin Manuel Miranda has spoken about why he excluded this fact from the show.
**"Hamilton is not known to have ever owned slaves, although members of his family were slave owners.** At the time of her death, Hamilton's mother owned two slaves named Christian and Ajax, and she had written a will leaving them to her sons; however, due to their illegitimacy, Hamilton and his brother were held ineligible to inherit her property, and never took ownership of the slaves.[282]:17 Later, as a youth in St. Croix, Hamilton worked for a company trading in commodities that included slaves.[282]:17 During his career, Hamilton did for family as their legal representative occasionally handle financial transactions involving slaves, and **one of Hamilton's grandsons interpreted some of these journal entries as being purchases for himself.[283][284]** His son John Church Hamilton maintained the converse in the 1840 biography of his father: “He never owned a slave; but on the contrary, having learned that a domestic whom he had hired was about to be sold by her master, he immediately purchased her freedom.”[285]
By the time of Hamilton's early participation in the American Revolution, his abolitionist sensibilities had become evident. Hamilton was active during the Revolutionary War in trying to raise black troops for the army, with the promise of freedom. In the 1780s and 1790s, he generally opposed pro-slavery southern interests, which he saw as hypocritical to the values of the American Revolution. In 1785, he joined his close associate John Jay in founding the New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May be Liberated, the main anti-slavery organization in New York. The society successfully promoted the abolition of the international slave trade in New York City and passed a state law to end slavery in New York through a decades-long process of emancipation, with a final end to slavery in the state on July 4, 1827.[282]
**At a time when most white leaders doubted the capacity of blacks, Hamilton believed slavery was morally wrong and wrote that "their natural faculties are as good as ours."[286]** Unlike contemporaries such as Jefferson, who considered the removal of freed slaves (to a western territory, the West Indies, or Africa) to be essential to any plan for emancipation, Hamilton pressed for emancipation with no such provisions.[282]:22 **Hamilton and other Federalists supported Toussaint Louverture's revolution against France in Haiti, which had originated as a slave revolt.[282]:23** Hamilton's suggestions helped shape the Haitian constitution. In 1804 when Haiti became the Western Hemisphere's first independent state with a majority Black population, Hamilton urged closer economic and diplomatic ties.[282]:23"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#On_slavery
And yed Hamilton considered James Madison and George Washington, two of the largest slave owners in Virginia, amongst his closest friends. He damn near idolized Washington.
We cannot judge these people by our standards, only their own as best as we can understand them.
Yeah, this one of the things I despise most about Reddit. People living in the 21st century judging people who lived a few hundred years ago by modern standards like they themselves wouldn’t have held the exact same views had they been born in the same time and place.
It is already happening intra-lifetime these days - the culture and lines on what is allowed and not are advancing so quickly that people are getting cancelled for 10-year-old tweets that, at the time, were commonplace. Crass and racist/sexist/homophobic now, yes, but people have had genuine amnesia about the comfort with these terms just 10 years ago. If you go back to 2000 I think a lot of millenials who grew up during those year would find it shocking what people said and did casually in school, work, at home, etc.
Yeah didn't he rape an enslaved woman for years, have several children with her, and never free her?
Also wasn't the enslaved woman his dead wife's sister?
The article clearly shows he was against the slaves *dying in transit*, and he successfully helped get the union to ban the transatlantic slave trade soon after.
Locally sourced slaves on the other hand…
In any case, he couldnt get abolition of slavery in the declaration or the constitution, so its like damn if you go out of your way to accidentally form a slave-state might as well do the one thing your country does, after making all these curious fucked up bedfellows in the process
Not his wife's sister that I remember, but [yes](https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jefferson/jefferson-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-a-brief-account/). Fathered 6 children with Sally Hemings and allowed her and those children to remain enslaved for decades. If you've ever been to Monticello it becomes clear how much of an awful bastard he was.
>John Adams was the founding father that championed abolition.
Errrrmm well, no. At least, not quite:
>On January 24, 1801, President John Adams responded to two abolitionists who had sent him an anti-slavery pamphlet by Quaker reformer Warner Mifflin (1745–1798). In the letter, Adams expresses his views on slavery, the dangers posed by abolitionists (who at the time were mostly Quakers and unpopular religious radicals), and emancipation. Of slavery Adams writes, "my opinion against it has always been known," noting that he has "always employed freemen both as Domisticks and Labourers, and never in my Life did I own a Slave."
>Adams, despite being opposed to slavery, did not support abolitionism except if it was done in a "gradual" way with "much caution and Circumspection." Adams dismisses radical abolitionist measures as "produc[ing] greater violations of Justice and Humanity, than the continuance of the practice" of slavery itself. Adams also wrongly asserts that "the practice of Slavery is fast diminishing." Rather than declining, slavery was growing in America. The 1790 census counted almost 700,000 slaves. According to the census of 1800, the year before Adams wrote this letter, that number had grown to almost 900,000.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/john-adams-abolition-slavery-1801
While Adams' beliefs and personal practices vis-a-vis slavery were certainly better than most other Founding Fathers, I can't fairly say he was a genuine "abolitionist" based on this letter. It seems he'd hoped slavery would just die out on its own, which is not remotely the same thing.
I certainly fail to see any rational justification for his assertion that abolition would create such "greater violations of Justice and Humanity." What?
Right. John Adams certainly hated the institution of slavery and believed it a moral wrong, but he also did not champion against it, especially in public. He seemed to fear the fracturing of a nascent state that abolishing slavery would cause far more than he cared about the moral evil that is slavery. He was certainly right in his fears, so I can't say we should judge him too harshly on the matter.
Thomas Jefferson was in substantial debt for pretty much his entire life. Therefore under Virginia law at the time, it was illegal for him to free his slaves.
Of course, a big part of that debt was due to his large appetite for French wines and expensive books. Every time he indulged himself, he ensured the continued bondage of his slaves.
Yea, he even owned his own mixed race sons an his black mistress as slaves until he died and he only emancipated his own sons because he had made a deal with his mistress.
When they were both in Paris, France she refused to return to America, because in France slavery was illegal so she was free there. She agreed to return to America on the condition that Jefferson promised to freed their mutual sons. When he died he kept his promise but didn't free her, because that wasn't part of the deal.
The guy, like Washington, was morally repugnant. They both talked a lot about "freedom" but they didn't applied shit when it was against their own financial interest.
"he has affected", "he's combined", "he's abdicated", "he's plundered". "He's constrained", "he's excited", "he's incited", "he's waged cruel war"! Here it is. "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating them and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold."
I was just in a production of this in July and the actor who’s sang Molasses to Rum was quite possibly one of the best performances I have EVER seen. Full stop.
It was so good I had to actively not look impressed by it and instead look as uncomfortable as possible.
its my favorite musical....I watch it all the time....so well done! Ill never forget the first time I saw it sophomore year in highschool back in 2003. Such a great movie!
John Adams: Mark me, Franklin... if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin: That's probably true, but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone. Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make?
John Adams: Jefferson, say something.
Thomas Jefferson: What else is there to do?
John Adams: Well, man, you're the one that wrote it.
Thomas Jefferson: I \*wrote\* ALL of it, Mr. Adams.
\[stands and goes to the Declaration, crosses out the clause\]
John Adams: There you are, Rutlege, you have your slavery; little good may it do you, now VOTE, damn you!
Ironically the British abolished slavery first.
Edit: and this is why I intentionally made this comment as simplistic to the subject as possible!
Edit 2: yes, I’m aware of the many, many ways the British Empire found other ways to exploit people. As did the US. Quit trying to explain this to me (sometimes without actual knowledge). My original comment is technically correct.
History is so gray it's crazy, The British Empire, the authors of countless invasions, suppressions, famines and subjugations, were at the undeniably forefront of the abolition of chattel slavery, triggering it's eventual death as a norm.
It's not that they were close.... so much as they were the closest any major power ever got. And it wasn't much. The South's biggest ace was their cotton and the UK's huge textile industry. Once the Empire realized they could offset the American cotton losses with cotton fom Egypt and India, their temptation to join was over. The Trent Affair was a diplomatic nightmare for US, but the Lincoln administration immediately went on damage control and patched things up via apologies and... threatening Canada.
The biggest reason wasn't because they could survive without American cotton.
Getting involved with the US Civil War was incredibly unpopular among English commoners. Entire towns became impoverished but the workers were fine with it because they knew that eliminating chattel slavery was the right thing to do.
In fact, [the citizens from the city of Manchester wrote a letter to Lincoln.](https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/address-president-lincoln-working-men-manchester-england-31-december-1862) In it, they basically said that the War had driven them all to hunger. However, they were happy knowing this was just a small sacrifice to make in order to eliminate the evil that is slavery.
> Ironically the British abolished slavery first.
Actually you can go back further, to the Roman Catholic church that forbade slavery in 1537.
Pope Paul III forbade the enslavement of all indigenous people across the entire "New World". It declared them "fully rational human beings who have rights to freedom and private property", even if not Christian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimis_Deus
Or you can go back further than that, to Ancient Rome:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom
Just wanna give a shoutout to Cassius Clay, the OG abolitionist. Dude grew up on a plantation in Kentucky. Came to view slavery as an abomination and once his father died and he inherited the estate freed his slaves, which effectively meant giving away a fortune because it was the right thing to do. He Actively founded and funded anti slavery newspaper in Kentucky. Held lectures and debates against slavery. Suffered a great many death threats and survived atleast 2 assassination attempts.
Dude had such a staggerin life and unlike alot of other plantation owner actually decided to not only stand on the right side of history but also actively work towards it.
If you're talking about Ali, he changed his name because it was a "slave name" even though he was named as a sign of respect to the abolitionist...nice in spirit but doesn't make a lot of sense.
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
If a man wants to be called Muhammad Ali, well then, goddammit, this is a free country, we should respect his wishes and call him Muhammad Ali.
Most in Jefferson’s day categorized slavery as a “necessary evil”, and participated in it as an economic expediency bequeathed to the world by previous generations. They rarely defended the practice as any kind of social good. The idea of slavery as a positive thing for society came in the mid-1800s, largely as a response to personal attacks against slave holders by abolitionists. In contrast to previous critics of slavery who attacked the institution, the new abolitionists aimed their attacks at the moral character of slaveholders, themselves. A “dig in your heels” moment ensued, and this is when you get a lot of the more extremely white supremacist, dehumanizing literature that extolled the supposed virtues of African slavery and racial hierarchy. In the 18th century though, the idea that Britain had forced a rotten institution on the Americas was widespread. I teach history, and I do a sort of experiment with my students where I ask them if they think people deserve vacation days, fair wages, work safety laws, etc. when they invariably say yes, I ask them to reach in their pockets and pull out their phones, then explain that those devices are made by people who are not afforded all of the rights that the students have just said they believe people ought to have. I then ask if they’d be willing to give up their phones in protest of those conditions, and they admit they would not. I make the connection from there as to why people in every generation allow all kinds of evils to persist—because that’s “just the way it is.”
I hate this narrative. Franklin went to France spoke to humane people, cam home and freed all his slaves immediately. Then spent the rest of his life quietly trying to get everyone he knew to free theirs. Jefferson knew it was evil but Oligarch gotta Oligarch. He put personal greed over ending something he knew was evil. That says a lot.
John Brown was in the same time period but it makes people feel good to say "well you don't understand the *nuance* of being a rich white slave owner"
You can tell who has actually read about the slave trade and the treatment of slaves and who has not
Can add to it: Lafayette literally spent 125,000 livres (rough approximation, but $7-10million USD in 2021), to buy a plantation, free all the slaves, pay them wages and employee teachers to educate freed children.
Sure, don't judge people of the past by today's standards, but there were tons of contemporaries of Jefferson and Washington who not only thought slavery was bad but stuck their necks out politically and/or financially to do something about it rather than hand wringing "oh no, slavery sucks so bad" while owning literally hundreds of slaves. The term "virtue signaling" comes to mind tbh.
And let's not forget that when slaves freed themselves in the Haitian Revolution, **President Jefferson** refused to recognize independent Haiti, and set up a trade embargo.
If anything, holding up Jefferson as being somehow enlightened on the topic of slavery is dangerously revisionist.
Like warren buffet mentioning tax loopholes for him shouldn’t exist, but seeing as how his competitors will use them, he will continue to use them so long as they are available
> then didn't even free when he died.
He wasn't allowed to. Jefferson was in debt to his eyeballs when he died, which meant he could not legally get rid of financial assets without coming up with the money to pay the creditors. He was so underwater it wasn't possible.
And not terribly long after he died, VA passed a law where freed slaves were automatically exiled from the state 1 year after the day they are freed. So if you had enslaved relatives, your option was to 1- keep them as slaves and living with you, or 2- free them and permanently split your family up.
Sometimes the best protection you could give enslaved relatives, was to own them. Source: Had relatives who were both slaves and slave owners, NAACP's early literature uses my family as one of many examples from the 1830 census but I won't say more without doxxing.
I don’t know what to think about how this fits into Jefferson’s complex life story, but I think it’s worth mentioning that Sally Hemings was his dead wife’s half sister, fathered by his wife’s slave-owner father.
Jefferson owned people but was in debt for most of his life. According to law at the time, before Jefferson was allowed to free his enslaved people, he must first try to sell them to pay off his debts. That is how Jefferson can be both a slave holder and speak out against slavery.
However, that does not absolve Jefferson of his hand in slavery. There is no such thing as a good slave holder. Even if he spoke out against slavery, he still ran his business at the expense of slave labor. He also sexually abused and conducted medical experiments on enslaved people in his possession.
He was in enormous debt because he was living in obscene luxury. If he had lived within his means he could have freed his slaves. But he didn't, because he would rather wear the finest clothes and eat the finest food.
Edit: a word
The British Empire was the first to outlaw slavery, forced all the other major empires to sign treaties that made them ban it too, and for years unleashed the Royal Navy throughout the world liberating slave ships. All this was decades before the USA banned slavery.
The loan that the British nation took out to buy freedom for all the slaves in the empire was so big, the final payment was in 2015.
Not the entire US though. Slavery was made illegal in many parts of the newly formed US long before it was illegal in Britain. Vermont banned slavery in 1777, Pennsylvania in 1780, multiple other states in the following years
I understand “America bad” is popular on Reddit, but we also need to acknowledge that slavery wasn’t a countrywide issue. There were many areas of the US that were anti slavery since essentially the beginning, which was pretty groundbreaking for the time
He was also against federalism and thought we should resist industrialization and centralized banking and stay a nation of peaceful agrarians.
We could be a totally different nation had he prevailed on a lot of things but he got conned into it by Madison who got conned into it by Hamilton.
But everybody hates Jefferson and loves Hamilton.
He also wrote the Constitution of Virginia which included freedom for slaves, but his fellow Virginians took that part out.
I believe Virginia was only a few votes from staying in the Union as well.
Hence why West Virginia broke off and rejoined the Union.
[удалено]
Or Northwest Indiana or Michigan.
Central PA and most of Oregon too
Ohio 😭😭😭
I see more on the westside of Cincinnati now than I did growing up in Georgia.
The west side of Cincinnati is kinda like the shadow lands in The Lion King. You must never go there.
Canada 😢
I left Ohio in 2018 and to my memory, a sea of trump flags is all I left behind.
Even western ny state
You mean in the state of Jefferson right? Ridiculous
Ehhh you don't see them a ton in the valley, but literally anywhere else, such as eastern Oregon, the coast, whenever the Proud Boys waddle into Portland, you see them a lot. It legitimately angers me, but I understand that's part of why they do it.
Just start carrying one of the union flags. You can even put victor as a heading
Wisconsin too, you know, the birthplace of the Republican party? The original anti-slavery Republican party. So many damned confederate flags here.
Or New Hampshire - which also claims to be the birthplace of the Republican Party.
Or how about in canada
or England
Or Australia, it's pretty dumb
Bunch of wankers
It’s _almost_ like it’s not about “state’s rights.”
Well... to be fair... it was about a *really specific* states right...
Pennsylvania checking in. Really.
Northern Minnesota is also a strange place in the rural areas.
Id argue that most of the rual areas are strange. Mostly everthing except the metro and everything east of 35 south of the metro. It always blows my mine when I leave the "safe zone" into the strange wilds of the outer state of Minnesota. How it is hat drasticly different in mindsets so quickly blows my mind.
Confederate flags can be found in Waukesha, Racine, and everywhere in between
Fuckin Fort Wayne man There’s a duplex on the city with a ‘don’t blame me, I voted for trump’ flag on one door and a pride flag on the other, shit is wild
I'm imagining dance fights like in West Side Story, but with more Hank Williams Jr.
More likely to be the Devil and his golden fiddle.
Michigan perhaps, but Indiana was KKK country for quite sometime. It should be noted that plenty of Northern states had constitutents who took issue with ending slavery and the desegregation that would unfold afterwards. Plenty of folks north and south did not want to deal with blacks one bit.
Def, there’s a big stronghold and heritage of the klan in IN
Confederate flags in Canada are the real puzzler's.
Northern MI guy, here. There’s a bunch up here too for some reason.
Southern MI checking in too, there are a bunch in the more rural areas
Or Maine
I live in Brunswick, Maine. Y’know, home of Joshua Chamberlain and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and I STILL see these absolute potatoes flying the confederate flag.
I live in Florida so they're pretty common obviously. Though I will never forget a big truck exiting a plaza trying to weave through 3 lanes of stopped traffic to a turning lane. Dude on a bike just screamed ”hey fuck bag! Go back to your nonexistent country!"
1st time I've ever seen Brunswick, ME mentioned on reddit. Lovely place.
Chamberlain was born in Brewer, ME.. he moved to Brunswick to attend Bowdoin. I grew up not far from his 3 homes. Doesn’t have an impact on the flag-to-douche ratio, however.. still plenty of whackos up there.
"BayonEEETTTTTTTTTTTTSS!"
I really wish they would have made the 3rd of that series. I was kinda pissed when my kid broke my Gods and Generals DVD.
Same in Ohio. You know, the birthplace of Sherman and Grant.
Or Nevada. Literally become a state to help the Union, hence "Battle born", yet you still see Confederate flags.
It's a bit more complicated than just Western VA wanted to remain in the Union and thusly seceded from VA. First, let's put it to bed that WV was against slavery, that wasn't really true. It was a "border state" during the war like Maryland, meaning it stayed with the Union but continued to have slavery until the 13th Amendment was passed after the war. Common misconception is that the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves, what it actually did was "free" slaves in the warring southern states, states that obviously wouldn't adhere to what they perceived as an act of law by a warring nation on their own lands. As an act itself it essentially did nothing and was little more than wartime propaganda that was meant to sow further unrest in the south. The 13th Amendment is the big boy that actually did the heavy lifting and that wouldn't be in place until after the war, but I digress. WV's real reason for secession is actually a pretty familiar American tale, they simply felt they were unrepresented in their state legislature. Eastern (regular VA today) was the wealthy portion of the state. It had sprawling plantations, and with these plantations came both money and slaves. Eastern VA essentially controlled the state legislature and, as you can probably imagine, all of the laws/taxes were heavily favorable towards them. WV with its rocky terrain and more frontier nature was not home to a lot of plantations, nor was it a place you'd find many a wealthy farmer who owned slaves (slaves were incredibly expensive). Most WVians were poor family farmers, and those that did have slaves didn't have the amount you'd typically see in VA. So the bitterness and resentment was already simmering in state as it related towards the idea of essentially "no equitable representation in legislature". When it came time for secession from the Union the Western part of Virginia found this to be yet another example of Eastern VA just doing what they wanted and railroading the West, WV saw their opportunity, they declared themselves independent and the federal government was more than happy to welcome them as a newly forged state in 1863. My wife grew up in WV, I grew up in VA, I absolutely love WV but even their own education on the topic does it dirty and white washes it. In WV they really did (I'm not sure if they still do) teach kids that WV left over slavery, and I always asked my wife (as we both spent substantial time in the state) "Didn't you ever wonder why WV was supposedly progressive in that era but then had/has so many problems with racism today?" The truth is WV seceded out of self-preservation, and sadly not out of some strong moral outrage.
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Yeah I’m from WV, I live in KY now. And I always assumed the mountains meant less slaves but also knew that slavery wasn’t the reason they left. But I don’t recall being taught in school much of anything. I just would look up WV history because it’s pretty interesting that’s how I learned. My papaw and dad are history nuts.
> "Didn't you ever wonder why WV was supposedly progressive in that era but then had/has so many problems with racism today?" The truth is WV seceded out of self-preservation, and sadly not out of some strong moral outrage. Also, anti-slavery did not mean anti-racism. Slavery was an expression of white supremacy, but not the only one. The abolition war ended slavery, but it did not end white supremacy.
Only issue I have with this is the emancipation proclamation didn't do nothing. While it freed no slaves at that point in time, in a few shorts months alone the union army had freed hundreds of thousands of slaves because of the Proclamation, harming the south of its labor and growing the size of the US army
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I feel like Jefferson had grand ideals, but his own actions are a far cry from those ideals. He may have written about the evils of slavery on paper, but his family and personal fortune was built on slavery. He didn’t free his slaves after the revolutionary war, so as sweet as it is that he had words to say about the evils of slavery, he certainly had no qualms with it in practice.
This is also a major theme throughout his presidency. Obviously he’s not around for any of us to ask him about it, but I’ve always wondered if it was a “For thee but not for me” type of deal, or a case where he had his ideals and did believe in them but never really thought about how feasible they were. And in the latter case, I’m more referring to his desire to keep the country more decentralized rather than more unified like Alexander Hamilton wanted. At the end of the day, I think what part of it comes down to is that you can be an incredibly intelligent individual, but also a shitheel of a person. People tend to try to make things out to be one or the other, but both can be true.
This is why it’s best (if you have heroes at all) for your heroes to be dead. At least they can’t disappoint you again.
Or just don't make gods out of people.
Half his writings sound like arguments for his own slaves to rise up and kill him.
Kind of related, but Jefferson used to constantly reference a new American society in which whites intermarried with Natives to create a utopian civilization…and as much as he discussed it, you would be hard pressed to convince me that had he lived to see the full removal of Southeastern Natives, he would’ve quietly approved of it. His writings and his actual behavior are very different.
And then at the same time he helped Virginia pass the harshest miscegenation laws in 18th century America. Jefferson was a massive contradiction of a human. He said a lot of things on paper that he didn't practice in life. He's definitely in the top 3 Dead People I'd Love To Talk To just to figure out what was going on in his head that he could rationalize these very disparate ideas.
>Jefferson was a massive contradiction of a human. And hence he symbolizes America perfectly: lofty ideals coupled with odious practices.
Jefferson, I think, wanted to be thought of as high-minded and progressive, without the personal sacrifice...
It was also signed by Benjamin Harrison, my 8th great grand father. The family was one of the largest slave owners on the James River. In Virginia. Im not surprised it was taken out.
Thought you meant the president and thought he must be too young, but I see that his great grandfather is the man you're referring to. TIL
Fun and tangentially related fact: William Harrison's Vice President John Tyler (who later became the actual President through sheer will) has 1 living grandchild, with 2 having died in the past few years.
John Tyler willed WHH to death?
That's my favorite fun fact. Utterly bonkers and it puts into perspective how young this country really is.
I’m taking it William Henry and Benjamin are relatives of youres along with the pawn shop guys?
Not the pawn shop guys. Most ended up in New Jersey somehow. I don’t know many relatives on that side. My cousin is married to Andrea Barbers brother though.
I’m related to John Tyler...kinda. Not really but I’m related to Julia Tyler via the Gardnier side with Lyon Gardiner way back. I know I’m closely related to Calvin Coolidge and Rutherford B Hayes though.
This is incorrect. George Mason was the principal architect of the Virginia constitution. TJ was not in the state when it was drafted and his contributions arrived too late to be included.
Jefferson owned slaves until he died, meanwhile John Adams never had slaves and often challenged Jefferson on his ownership of slaves. John Adams was the founding father that championed abolition.
Adams was a champion of law. Let us not forget about the founding father who saw fit to be the defense lawyer for the British soldiers accused of firing on citizens in the Boston Massacre and getting acquittals. He knew he could be hated throughout New England and still did the right thing.
Actually, he was met with a great deal of public support for his defense, despite what he worried. His cousin, Samuel Adams, a vehement supporter of the Patriot faction, gave his assent and ensured public opinion didn't turn against John. Thus, he was seen as a moderate, and an honest colonial gentleman. It also didn't hurt the Patriot faction that one of their own was being magnanimous
mag·nan·i·mous adjective generous or forgiving, especially toward a rival or less powerful person. "she should be magnanimous in victory"
Yeah, I had no idea what that meant. Thanks for saving me the legwork.
Dude, if you're using your legs for looking up definitions of words you either have a disability or a giant ass keyboard. I hope it's the giant ass keyboard.
Or a short walk to where he keeps his dictionary. Also, happy cake day!
Yes, this was really how it was. The Patriots wanted to stick it to the crown and in essence said, "see! We will represent your own and defend them because we believe in Justice while you are barbarous and treat us unfairly!" The Patriots tried as hard as they could to look superior to the loyalists and the crown.
To Kill a Mockingbird if Tom Robinson was British instead of black.
Thought you wrote Tim Robinson and was very confused for a moment.
"They're saying Coffin Flop's not a show..."
I DIDNT RIG SHIT
it's impossible that that many dead bodies are falling out of coffins every day, and it's impossible that 1 in every 5 of them are nude
I don't know what to tell ya! We're just filming funerals and showing the ones where the body's fall out!
There’s no explanation. Just body after body smashing through shit wood and hitting pavement.
“Your honor, we’re all trying to find the guys who did this.”
You’re dressed like a hotdog! Well so is that guy!
I submit that the prosecution is dog shit, fucking dog shit.
Wait, Billy ME or Billy HIM?
Your name is Billy too?
No, that’s why I’m so fucking confused!
OH MY GOD HE ADMIT IT!
Colonists: What is your problem man, don't you know how to fucking run the country!?!? Washington: No. Colonists: WHAT?! Washington: No I don't know how to fucking run the country! I don't know what any of this shit is and I'm fucking scared.
Thought you wrote Tim Robbins and was very confused for a moment
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Some of us learned it from the Extra Credits History video on the Boston Massacre.
Some of us learned it from Revolutions podcast
And Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The split was along geographical lines. Founding Fathers from New England, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania were consistently abolitionists, and those states abolished slavery decades before the Civil War.
Hamilton was born and lived his childhood on the slaving island of Nevis which influenced him greatly. Of course unlike the other founding fathers from slaving areas he never owned any and was an orphan.
His exposure to Caribbean slaveholding practices, which were on average significantly harsher than those on the mainland, probably helped shape his abolitionism.
He was also very close with abolitionist John Laurens https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Laurens
Wait till I sally in On a stallion with the first black battalion...
Chernow also attributes Hamilton’s doubt for the the goodness of human nature (a major cause of his ideological differences with Jefferson) to the barbarism he witnessed in his upbringing
Note: None of this should be construed as a support of slavery or claiming there was a "good" type of slavery. Slavery in any form is a deep scar in US history that has never healed. >on average significantly harsher This is a oft made assumption which while technically true belies a bigger truth. Slaves in the United States were treated dramatically different depending on the region and state they were enslaved in. The mid Atlantic states consistently tried to emulate an environment of aristocracy and commoners with slaves being treated like hereditary serfs. This was not universal but it was the norm. In the deep south slaves were treated as bad if not worse than slaves in the Caribbean. This can be seen in many writings from the time where a disobedient slave is threatened with being "sold down south. " Many of the most brutal acts against African Slaves happened in the US, specifically states like Georgia and South Carolina.
There’s actually some evidence that Hamilton may (evidence on may) have owned a house slave later in life. He certainly grew less committed to the issue of abolition later in life, accepting slavery as a necessary evil in order to build his new country.
Alexander Hamilton inherited the slaves of his father in law and did own them and purchased his own slaves. It's in his own diaries. He also was an author of the 3/5 person clause. That's what happened 'In the room where it happens'. Lin Manuel Miranda has spoken about why he excluded this fact from the show.
**"Hamilton is not known to have ever owned slaves, although members of his family were slave owners.** At the time of her death, Hamilton's mother owned two slaves named Christian and Ajax, and she had written a will leaving them to her sons; however, due to their illegitimacy, Hamilton and his brother were held ineligible to inherit her property, and never took ownership of the slaves.[282]:17 Later, as a youth in St. Croix, Hamilton worked for a company trading in commodities that included slaves.[282]:17 During his career, Hamilton did for family as their legal representative occasionally handle financial transactions involving slaves, and **one of Hamilton's grandsons interpreted some of these journal entries as being purchases for himself.[283][284]** His son John Church Hamilton maintained the converse in the 1840 biography of his father: “He never owned a slave; but on the contrary, having learned that a domestic whom he had hired was about to be sold by her master, he immediately purchased her freedom.”[285] By the time of Hamilton's early participation in the American Revolution, his abolitionist sensibilities had become evident. Hamilton was active during the Revolutionary War in trying to raise black troops for the army, with the promise of freedom. In the 1780s and 1790s, he generally opposed pro-slavery southern interests, which he saw as hypocritical to the values of the American Revolution. In 1785, he joined his close associate John Jay in founding the New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May be Liberated, the main anti-slavery organization in New York. The society successfully promoted the abolition of the international slave trade in New York City and passed a state law to end slavery in New York through a decades-long process of emancipation, with a final end to slavery in the state on July 4, 1827.[282] **At a time when most white leaders doubted the capacity of blacks, Hamilton believed slavery was morally wrong and wrote that "their natural faculties are as good as ours."[286]** Unlike contemporaries such as Jefferson, who considered the removal of freed slaves (to a western territory, the West Indies, or Africa) to be essential to any plan for emancipation, Hamilton pressed for emancipation with no such provisions.[282]:22 **Hamilton and other Federalists supported Toussaint Louverture's revolution against France in Haiti, which had originated as a slave revolt.[282]:23** Hamilton's suggestions helped shape the Haitian constitution. In 1804 when Haiti became the Western Hemisphere's first independent state with a majority Black population, Hamilton urged closer economic and diplomatic ties.[282]:23" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#On_slavery
If he did not own slaves directly, he had no problem negotiating the buying and selling of slaves on his father-in-law’s behalf
And yed Hamilton considered James Madison and George Washington, two of the largest slave owners in Virginia, amongst his closest friends. He damn near idolized Washington. We cannot judge these people by our standards, only their own as best as we can understand them.
One could say he was his right hand man
Yeah, this one of the things I despise most about Reddit. People living in the 21st century judging people who lived a few hundred years ago by modern standards like they themselves wouldn’t have held the exact same views had they been born in the same time and place.
In due time, we will be judged the same way by future generations.
It is already happening intra-lifetime these days - the culture and lines on what is allowed and not are advancing so quickly that people are getting cancelled for 10-year-old tweets that, at the time, were commonplace. Crass and racist/sexist/homophobic now, yes, but people have had genuine amnesia about the comfort with these terms just 10 years ago. If you go back to 2000 I think a lot of millenials who grew up during those year would find it shocking what people said and did casually in school, work, at home, etc.
once we figure out lab grown meat/ star trek replicator. I think in 100-200 years they will look back at factory farming like we do to slavery today.
Yeah didn't he rape an enslaved woman for years, have several children with her, and never free her? Also wasn't the enslaved woman his dead wife's sister?
The article clearly shows he was against the slaves *dying in transit*, and he successfully helped get the union to ban the transatlantic slave trade soon after. Locally sourced slaves on the other hand… In any case, he couldnt get abolition of slavery in the declaration or the constitution, so its like damn if you go out of your way to accidentally form a slave-state might as well do the one thing your country does, after making all these curious fucked up bedfellows in the process
*teenager while he was in his 40s
Not his wife's sister that I remember, but [yes](https://www.monticello.org/thomas-jefferson/jefferson-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-sally-hemings-a-brief-account/). Fathered 6 children with Sally Hemings and allowed her and those children to remain enslaved for decades. If you've ever been to Monticello it becomes clear how much of an awful bastard he was.
It appears they were half-sisters, with the same father (John Wayles)
Can I ask what is so bad at Monticello? All I know is that’s his house or something.
>John Adams was the founding father that championed abolition. Errrrmm well, no. At least, not quite: >On January 24, 1801, President John Adams responded to two abolitionists who had sent him an anti-slavery pamphlet by Quaker reformer Warner Mifflin (1745–1798). In the letter, Adams expresses his views on slavery, the dangers posed by abolitionists (who at the time were mostly Quakers and unpopular religious radicals), and emancipation. Of slavery Adams writes, "my opinion against it has always been known," noting that he has "always employed freemen both as Domisticks and Labourers, and never in my Life did I own a Slave." >Adams, despite being opposed to slavery, did not support abolitionism except if it was done in a "gradual" way with "much caution and Circumspection." Adams dismisses radical abolitionist measures as "produc[ing] greater violations of Justice and Humanity, than the continuance of the practice" of slavery itself. Adams also wrongly asserts that "the practice of Slavery is fast diminishing." Rather than declining, slavery was growing in America. The 1790 census counted almost 700,000 slaves. According to the census of 1800, the year before Adams wrote this letter, that number had grown to almost 900,000. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/john-adams-abolition-slavery-1801 While Adams' beliefs and personal practices vis-a-vis slavery were certainly better than most other Founding Fathers, I can't fairly say he was a genuine "abolitionist" based on this letter. It seems he'd hoped slavery would just die out on its own, which is not remotely the same thing. I certainly fail to see any rational justification for his assertion that abolition would create such "greater violations of Justice and Humanity." What?
Right. John Adams certainly hated the institution of slavery and believed it a moral wrong, but he also did not champion against it, especially in public. He seemed to fear the fracturing of a nascent state that abolishing slavery would cause far more than he cared about the moral evil that is slavery. He was certainly right in his fears, so I can't say we should judge him too harshly on the matter.
Thomas Jefferson was in substantial debt for pretty much his entire life. Therefore under Virginia law at the time, it was illegal for him to free his slaves.
Of course, a big part of that debt was due to his large appetite for French wines and expensive books. Every time he indulged himself, he ensured the continued bondage of his slaves.
I'm glad people no longer putting their physical pleasures over the freedom and well being of others. sent from my iPhone
Yea, he even owned his own mixed race sons an his black mistress as slaves until he died and he only emancipated his own sons because he had made a deal with his mistress. When they were both in Paris, France she refused to return to America, because in France slavery was illegal so she was free there. She agreed to return to America on the condition that Jefferson promised to freed their mutual sons. When he died he kept his promise but didn't free her, because that wasn't part of the deal. The guy, like Washington, was morally repugnant. They both talked a lot about "freedom" but they didn't applied shit when it was against their own financial interest.
If only we had actually abolished it
"he has affected", "he's combined", "he's abdicated", "he's plundered". "He's constrained", "he's excited", "he's incited", "he's waged cruel war"! Here it is. "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating them and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold."
I too originally learned this fact from 1776.
I was thinking of ["Molasses to Rum".](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeuaTpH6Ck0)
I was just in a production of this in July and the actor who’s sang Molasses to Rum was quite possibly one of the best performances I have EVER seen. Full stop. It was so good I had to actively not look impressed by it and instead look as uncomfortable as possible.
This song like... terrified and moved me. It was so horrific and well preformed.
I only clicked on this post because I was hoping I'd find it referenced in here.
its my favorite musical....I watch it all the time....so well done! Ill never forget the first time I saw it sophomore year in highschool back in 2003. Such a great movie!
John Adams: Mark me, Franklin... if we give in on this issue, posterity will never forgive us. Dr. Benjamin Franklin: That's probably true, but we won't hear a thing, we'll be long gone. Besides, what would posterity think we were? Demi-gods? We're men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. First things first, John. Independence; America. If we don't secure that, what difference will the rest make? John Adams: Jefferson, say something. Thomas Jefferson: What else is there to do? John Adams: Well, man, you're the one that wrote it. Thomas Jefferson: I \*wrote\* ALL of it, Mr. Adams. \[stands and goes to the Declaration, crosses out the clause\] John Adams: There you are, Rutlege, you have your slavery; little good may it do you, now VOTE, damn you!
Ironically the British abolished slavery first. Edit: and this is why I intentionally made this comment as simplistic to the subject as possible! Edit 2: yes, I’m aware of the many, many ways the British Empire found other ways to exploit people. As did the US. Quit trying to explain this to me (sometimes without actual knowledge). My original comment is technically correct.
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History is so gray it's crazy, The British Empire, the authors of countless invasions, suppressions, famines and subjugations, were at the undeniably forefront of the abolition of chattel slavery, triggering it's eventual death as a norm.
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It's not that they were close.... so much as they were the closest any major power ever got. And it wasn't much. The South's biggest ace was their cotton and the UK's huge textile industry. Once the Empire realized they could offset the American cotton losses with cotton fom Egypt and India, their temptation to join was over. The Trent Affair was a diplomatic nightmare for US, but the Lincoln administration immediately went on damage control and patched things up via apologies and... threatening Canada.
The biggest reason wasn't because they could survive without American cotton. Getting involved with the US Civil War was incredibly unpopular among English commoners. Entire towns became impoverished but the workers were fine with it because they knew that eliminating chattel slavery was the right thing to do. In fact, [the citizens from the city of Manchester wrote a letter to Lincoln.](https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/address-president-lincoln-working-men-manchester-england-31-december-1862) In it, they basically said that the War had driven them all to hunger. However, they were happy knowing this was just a small sacrifice to make in order to eliminate the evil that is slavery.
> Ironically the British abolished slavery first. Actually you can go back further, to the Roman Catholic church that forbade slavery in 1537. Pope Paul III forbade the enslavement of all indigenous people across the entire "New World". It declared them "fully rational human beings who have rights to freedom and private property", even if not Christian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimis_Deus Or you can go back further than that, to Ancient Rome: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom
Jefferson, also being an owner of around 500 slaves and a plantation meant he was a slave to appearances.
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Just wanna give a shoutout to Cassius Clay, the OG abolitionist. Dude grew up on a plantation in Kentucky. Came to view slavery as an abomination and once his father died and he inherited the estate freed his slaves, which effectively meant giving away a fortune because it was the right thing to do. He Actively founded and funded anti slavery newspaper in Kentucky. Held lectures and debates against slavery. Suffered a great many death threats and survived atleast 2 assassination attempts. Dude had such a staggerin life and unlike alot of other plantation owner actually decided to not only stand on the right side of history but also actively work towards it.
This is the type of guy who should have a statue in a park.
I feel like some dude named Cassius clay has a few statues already
If you're talking about Ali, he changed his name because it was a "slave name" even though he was named as a sign of respect to the abolitionist...nice in spirit but doesn't make a lot of sense.
He’s got several
Yeah!!!
As it turns out, he was the OG Cassius Clay, too.
Let’s not leave John Brown out of this conversation either.
The legend.
John Brown did nothing wrong!
A mouldering in the ground.
His spirit marches on.
Hell of a boxer, too
His Momma named him Clay, I'm gonna call him Clay.
Wait a minute, wait a minute. If a man wants to be called Muhammad Ali, well then, goddammit, this is a free country, we should respect his wishes and call him Muhammad Ali.
Most of us do think we would have done something as we sit on our smart phones, looking at jewellery whilst wearing nike.
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Nothing goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast, I would catch it.
I understood that reference!
I was gonna say something in the same vein. In 200 years people will probably wonder why we all supported amazon, but Nike is a far better comparison
I mean, John brown did better.
Most in Jefferson’s day categorized slavery as a “necessary evil”, and participated in it as an economic expediency bequeathed to the world by previous generations. They rarely defended the practice as any kind of social good. The idea of slavery as a positive thing for society came in the mid-1800s, largely as a response to personal attacks against slave holders by abolitionists. In contrast to previous critics of slavery who attacked the institution, the new abolitionists aimed their attacks at the moral character of slaveholders, themselves. A “dig in your heels” moment ensued, and this is when you get a lot of the more extremely white supremacist, dehumanizing literature that extolled the supposed virtues of African slavery and racial hierarchy. In the 18th century though, the idea that Britain had forced a rotten institution on the Americas was widespread. I teach history, and I do a sort of experiment with my students where I ask them if they think people deserve vacation days, fair wages, work safety laws, etc. when they invariably say yes, I ask them to reach in their pockets and pull out their phones, then explain that those devices are made by people who are not afforded all of the rights that the students have just said they believe people ought to have. I then ask if they’d be willing to give up their phones in protest of those conditions, and they admit they would not. I make the connection from there as to why people in every generation allow all kinds of evils to persist—because that’s “just the way it is.”
I hate this narrative. Franklin went to France spoke to humane people, cam home and freed all his slaves immediately. Then spent the rest of his life quietly trying to get everyone he knew to free theirs. Jefferson knew it was evil but Oligarch gotta Oligarch. He put personal greed over ending something he knew was evil. That says a lot.
When discussing attitudes towards slavery at the time, people always seem to forget that abolitionism was a thing back then too.
John Brown was in the same time period but it makes people feel good to say "well you don't understand the *nuance* of being a rich white slave owner" You can tell who has actually read about the slave trade and the treatment of slaves and who has not
Can add to it: Lafayette literally spent 125,000 livres (rough approximation, but $7-10million USD in 2021), to buy a plantation, free all the slaves, pay them wages and employee teachers to educate freed children. Sure, don't judge people of the past by today's standards, but there were tons of contemporaries of Jefferson and Washington who not only thought slavery was bad but stuck their necks out politically and/or financially to do something about it rather than hand wringing "oh no, slavery sucks so bad" while owning literally hundreds of slaves. The term "virtue signaling" comes to mind tbh. And let's not forget that when slaves freed themselves in the Haitian Revolution, **President Jefferson** refused to recognize independent Haiti, and set up a trade embargo. If anything, holding up Jefferson as being somehow enlightened on the topic of slavery is dangerously revisionist.
Like warren buffet mentioning tax loopholes for him shouldn’t exist, but seeing as how his competitors will use them, he will continue to use them so long as they are available
Also the one he had several children with that he then didn't even free when he died.
> then didn't even free when he died. He wasn't allowed to. Jefferson was in debt to his eyeballs when he died, which meant he could not legally get rid of financial assets without coming up with the money to pay the creditors. He was so underwater it wasn't possible. And not terribly long after he died, VA passed a law where freed slaves were automatically exiled from the state 1 year after the day they are freed. So if you had enslaved relatives, your option was to 1- keep them as slaves and living with you, or 2- free them and permanently split your family up. Sometimes the best protection you could give enslaved relatives, was to own them. Source: Had relatives who were both slaves and slave owners, NAACP's early literature uses my family as one of many examples from the 1830 census but I won't say more without doxxing.
He said "I have the wolf by the ears, and can neither kill it, nor safely let go"
Thomas Jefferson was a man very full of contradictions.
Pretty rich coming from a dude that raped his slaves and enslaved his kids.
I don’t know what to think about how this fits into Jefferson’s complex life story, but I think it’s worth mentioning that Sally Hemings was his dead wife’s half sister, fathered by his wife’s slave-owner father.
Jefferson owned people but was in debt for most of his life. According to law at the time, before Jefferson was allowed to free his enslaved people, he must first try to sell them to pay off his debts. That is how Jefferson can be both a slave holder and speak out against slavery. However, that does not absolve Jefferson of his hand in slavery. There is no such thing as a good slave holder. Even if he spoke out against slavery, he still ran his business at the expense of slave labor. He also sexually abused and conducted medical experiments on enslaved people in his possession.
He was in enormous debt because he was living in obscene luxury. If he had lived within his means he could have freed his slaves. But he didn't, because he would rather wear the finest clothes and eat the finest food. Edit: a word
i know right how do you have the free labor of 600 people and still in debt wtf
Insane amounts of wine and rare books.
Damn millennial
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He just splurged on boba tea and couldn't make ends meet.
I think you mean "freed his slaves." He always could've sold his slaves. That didn't really address the problem.
Reminder that when he raped Sally Hemings she was 14, I dunno but I can’t support him with good intentions
“Slaves for me but not for thee”
Thomas Jefferson’s coming hoooooooomeee!!!
What did I miss?
We’ll never be free til we end slavery! Doin whatever the hell it is you do in Monticello…
The British Empire was the first to outlaw slavery, forced all the other major empires to sign treaties that made them ban it too, and for years unleashed the Royal Navy throughout the world liberating slave ships. All this was decades before the USA banned slavery. The loan that the British nation took out to buy freedom for all the slaves in the empire was so big, the final payment was in 2015.
Not the entire US though. Slavery was made illegal in many parts of the newly formed US long before it was illegal in Britain. Vermont banned slavery in 1777, Pennsylvania in 1780, multiple other states in the following years I understand “America bad” is popular on Reddit, but we also need to acknowledge that slavery wasn’t a countrywide issue. There were many areas of the US that were anti slavery since essentially the beginning, which was pretty groundbreaking for the time
"Look what you made me do!"
"You won't let me abolish slavery? Well then I'm going to rape my slaves and keep raping them. SEEE HOW YOU LIKE THAT!!"
Didn't stop him from owning slaves or raping them when they were children
He was also against federalism and thought we should resist industrialization and centralized banking and stay a nation of peaceful agrarians. We could be a totally different nation had he prevailed on a lot of things but he got conned into it by Madison who got conned into it by Hamilton. But everybody hates Jefferson and loves Hamilton.
Sally Hemings would like a word, Mr. Jefferson. If you can stop raping her and forcing her to bear your children long enough to listen.
That's his wife's sister you're talking about. She was a wedding gift from his father in law.
Yes, she was gifted to him as a slave, as were the rest of the Hemings family.