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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (61596)	10/8/2002 1:19:06 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Perhaps I overstated, but: "PROTECT THEM FROM ILL USAGE" "Nothing would induce me to put my negroes out of my own protection," Jefferson wrote in 1820. Like many of his contemporaries in Virginia, he held paternalistic views of his human property, feeling responsible for their welfare while doubting their ability to succeed in a free white world. He even advanced the "suspicion," in his Notes on the State of Virginia, that blacks were inferior to whites. Jefferson had strong scruples against selling slaves, while freeing "persons whose habits have been formed in slavery," he said, "is like abandoning children." Yet, economic difficulties forced him to sell almost one hundred slaves during his lifetime, and his death left the remainder unprotected. He freed or bequeathed freedom to only seven slaves, all skilled artisans who could be expected to prosper as free men. Because Jefferson died deeply in debt, most of the other members of the Monticello African-American community were sold at auction and dispersed among different owners in Albemarle and surrounding counties. monticello.org Washington faced this issue head on in his final statement on slavery in his remarkable last will and testament that he wrote completely by himself during the summer before his death. Very significantly, in what was essentially his last act, he freed all of his personal slaves in his will (by law, he could not free those belonging to his wife and the Custis estate). Additionally, he provided for their education as well as declaring those old slaves and children without parents "be comfortably cloathed and fed by my heirs." [The estate made the last payment in the early 1830's for a coffin]. Pushing education for his former slaves when it was frowned upon sent a strong statement to his countrymen, present and future. To stress the importance he placed on his decision, which he put near the beginning of his long will, immediately after making provisions for his beloved wife, the President particularly enjoined his executors "to see that this clause respecting Slaves, and every part thereof be religiously fulfilled." chnm.gmu.edu