I have written several blogs under the title of “Autobiographies.” These consist of “autobiographies” of several very special people. They have one thing in common. They are all dead. Some have a burial place and some were simply discarded like pieces of trash. Their stories are told by the deceased themselves. Their voices cry out from the fields, rivers and graveyards to speak. I have heard their cries. They want me to share their stories with you. They want you to know what their living and dying was for. I am simply a channel or conduit for the words that they speak themselves. Today, Thomas Jefferson will tell you his feelings about his life and death.
Jefferson the Founding Founder
My name is Thomas Jefferson. I am one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. I almost single handedly wrote the Declaration of Independence. I was the third President of the newly united colonies and I am not bragging when I say that I am one of the most influential and famous Americans who ever lived. Many people equated my skills and abilities with those of Leonardo Da Vinci. I was considered a Renaissance Man. My quotes and writings are ubiquitous throughout the world. My name is synonymous with the concepts of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Yet, here I am today looking down at my grave in sadness. I would never have thought that the day would come when I would be scorned and spit on and called a hypocrite. Of course, even in my lifetime, I had many critics and people who attacked my position. But it is different today. Now, they are not doing it for political gain or to thwart my plans for building a great nation. Today, I am being criticized because they honestly believe that I was a hypocrite and that I deserve to be denounced for it.
The sad part is that they are right. I was a hypocrite. I was also a coward.
The issue is around slavery which I claimed to abhor. Nevertheless, I did not free my slaves. I want to explain why I did not free them. I suppose I could make a few good excuses that would have to do with the economic realities in which I was faced. I can’t deny that I knew slavery was wrong. I often talked about how evil the entire enterprise was. Our “peculiar” thing was, as we called it down South, not simply peculiar, it was fundamentally cruel and malicious.
I was never a very good business man and I teetered between bankruptcy and solvency on a daily basis. There was no way I could have freed my slaves and still run an economically viable business and supported my family. I was caught between making a living and living my ethics. I choose to eat and continue my privileged life style. In the South, I was not condemned for this choice. I received no accolades either. This was the way we lived. We owned slaves and slaves were inferior beings born and bred to work for the White man. I lived in a strange world. I could not accept these beliefs but neither could I break free of them. I do not justify my acquiescence and I do not seek to be exculpated for my failures. If I were in a dock today, I would plead guilty. My soul could not rest without such an honest admission.
Now we come to Sally. I loved her like I never loved any other woman in my life. I started a clandestine affair with her when she was only 14. Was I taking advantage of her? Maybe so, I do not know. I never forced her or threatened her or coerced her. Perhaps it started out as an affair of passion when my wife was sick and I was not able to have sex with her. Soon though, it grew into much more than that. Sally was witty and smart and fun. She had none of the pretenses of the typical Virginian lady. In bed, there were no rules and anything went. If I could have imagined heaven, it would have been being in bed with Sally.
People started to suspect that something more than slave master and mistress was transpiring between us. I could not afford to let anyone think it was anything more than that. In 1790, in Virginia, it was permissible to sleep with a slave. It was not permissible to love a slave. My reputation, my entire life would have been destroyed if it had been shown that I was openly consorting with a Black woman. I had six children with Sally. Each of these children was kept secret from everyone around us. I took the secret of these children to my grave. One hundred and fifty years later, my family are still attempting to deny my lineage to these children. I am sorry that I had to deny them. I was worse than Peter with Jesus. They were my children but they were raised in my house as domestic servants.
I freed Sally and her surviving children when I died. I could not afford to free all my slaves as this would have left my heirs with a large debt. My lands, house and slaves merely paid off the mountain of bills that my creditors were clamoring to be paid for. I may have been a great leader but I was a very poor business man.
Did Sally love me? I don’t know. I would like to think that it was more than simply serving her master. But who can tell? In the warped and perverted system that we called our “peculiar” thing, how could a Black woman have a normal relationship with a White man or vice versa? Suspicion, fear, prejudice, uncertainty and opportunism were all pervasive in Black-White relationships. Sally may have seen me simply as a way to have her children freed. I might have indulged a younger beautiful woman simply to satisfy the narcissism of “old” age. Who knows? There is no sense wondering what I would do if I could do things over again. I am sure I would do the same thing that I did before. I would indulge in cowardice and hypocrisy because I could do no other.
I am looking at my grave stone now. It reads:
HERE WAS BURIED
THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
These were my most important accomplishments. Please remember me for them. Forgive me for my failings as a human being. I never claimed to be a god or to be better than my fellow man. I ask forgiveness from my children and my descendants. I hope someday my ancestors will acknowledge the patrimony and lineage between the Hemings and the Jeffersons. Ironic, that in some ways, this lineage is a more fitting tribute to the principle that “All men are created equal” than anything I have ever done with my life.
I never believed in a God of judgement or a God of human like characteristics. My belief was in some kind of a higher power that created the galaxies but was not necessarily sentient. I wander now through these galaxies looking for the God of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. If I should find him, I will ask him why? What was it all for? What did I accomplish? Would I have left a greater legacy if I had not been a hypocrite? How could I have done this? Would any God forgive me for my hypocrisy and cowardice? How do I get rid of the sadness and pain I feel?
Time for Questions:
Do you admire Thomas Jefferson? What did you find most admirable about his life? What would you have done if you were in Jefferson’s shoes? Why? What do you think he should have done with his slaves? Why? Do you think it was wrong for him to have a relationship with Sally Hemings? Why?
Life is just beginning.
Letter Written by Thomas Jefferson in 1789
“As far as I can judge from the experiments which have been made to give liberty to, or rather, to abandon persons whose habits have been formed in slavery is like abandoning children. Many quakers in Virginia seated their slaves on their lands as tenants. They were distant from me, and therefore I cannot be particular in the details, because I never had very particular information.
I cannot say whether they were to pay a rent in money, or a share of the produce: but I remember that the landlord was obliged to plan their crops for them, to direct all their operations during every season & according to the weather. But what is more afflicting, he was obliged to watch them daily & almost constantly to make them work, & even to whip them. A man’s moral sense must be unusually strong, if slavery does not make him a thief. He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force.
These slaves chose to steal from their neighbors rather than work; they became public nuisances and in most instances were reduced to slavery again. But I will beg of you to make no use of this imperfect information (unless in common conversation). I shall go to America in the Spring & return in the fall. During my stay in Virginia I shall be in the neighborhood where many of these trials were made. I will inform myself very particularly of them, & communicate the information to you. Besides these there is an instance since I came away of a young man (Mr. Mayo) who died and gave freedom to all his slaves, about 200. This is about 4 years ago. I shall know how they have turned out.
Notwithstanding the discouraging result of these experiments, I am decided on my final return to America to try this one. I shall endeavor to import as many Germans as I have grown slaves. I will settle them and my slaves, on farms of 50 acres each, intermingled, and place all on the footing of the Metayers (Medietani) of Europe. Their children shall be brought up, as others are, in habits of property and foresight, & I have no doubt but that they will be good citizens. Some of their fathers will be so: others I suppose will need government.” – Letter to Dr. Edward Bancroft, Paris, January 26, 1789; “The Works of Thomas Jefferson,” Federal Edition, Editor: Paul Leicester Ford, (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5) Volume 5
Donald Trump is not America. Donald Trump is a creation of a media empire that is out of control. A media that trends sensationalism, exploitation, fear and paranoia to feed a 24/7 system of so called news reports. A system of glitz, glamour, ads, sound bites, commercials, sex appeal and worthless trivia that has little or no educational or informational value. It is a system that neither informs nor educates. It is a system that thrives on the likes of Donald Trump. It is a system that thrives on the exotic, the unusual, the strange, the bizarre, the kinky, the outlandish and the far out. Donald Trump is all of these things but he is not America.
Donald Trump is not even a real Republican. The party he claims as his own is one he and his small band (less than 9 percent of the total registered voters in the USA)* has managed to co-opt. The Republicans that I have called friends over the years want nothing to do with him. They are as appalled as the Democrats are at Donald Trumps rise to popularity in the media polls. Americans however should not be surprised at this. It is not the first time that a fraud, demagogue and charlatan has captured the media stage. Looking back through US history, we can find similarities between Donald Trump and the likes of Aaron Burr, The Know Nothing Party, Huey Long, The Silver Shirts, and of course Joseph Mc McCarthy. None of my Republican friends would avow affiliation with any of these characters. They are not America and neither is Donald Trump.
Every country in the world has its right and left-wing extremists. It has been this way for hundreds of years. Fortunately, in the USA, our political system usually kicks out the extremists and the middle ground or centrists have always trumped the left and right-wing fanatics. Due to our political system, we have escaped such maniacs as General Franco, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. There are many drawbacks to our political system and chaos often seems to be a major characteristic of it. There are many people who would discard such a system in favor of stability and security. These people would buy such a political system at the cost of freedom and liberty. In many nations throughout the world, citizens select benevolent dictators rather than trying to deal with the vagaries and uncertainties that are often characteristic of a US style democracy.
Donald Trump says that he will create the largest wall that the world has ever seen, but it won’t keep out immigrants. It will only keep out ideas and innovation. Donald Trump supporters include the misguided and fearful who believe that if we only had less poor people, less immigrants, less refugees, less minorities, less disabled people and less women in power that “America Would Be Great Again.” This is a delusion held by those who dream of a bygone era when “Father knew best, Blacks knew their place and women stayed in the kitchen.” The myth of “The Good Old Days” is almost impossible to kill in a population fed on media mediocrity and where real history is either not taught or understood. Donald Trump will not bring back the “good old days” because the good old days where not really that good. Donald Trump will not “Make America White Again.”
What all of Trump’s bombastic speeches fail to note is that America is still great. Unfortunately, the things that make America great are hidden behind the media pronouncements of Donald Trump and his ill-advised followers. The ceaseless stream of bad news, crime, bizarre and weird news that titillates so many also deprives us of being a well-informed populace. In addition, our outlandish media system simply serves to hide the many great values that the USA stands for.
The message of hatred and intolerance that spews daily from Trump is something that one could pity Trump for if it were not so dangerous and belligerent. It is hard to feel sorry for the bully that is kicking other people when they are down. Somewhere though, we know that such bullies are really cowards. Their intolerance and lack of compassion towards others is driven by fear and insecurity. No matter how big and bad the bully seems, they are the biggest cowards in the playground. It is time to put Donald Trump and his followers in their places. There is no room in America for bigots, sexists and racists who are intolerant of and lack compassion for others. We need to keep America great by letting the world see the true values that guide our nations and not the distorted hate filled messages that the media loves to display.
Aging Capriciously 