Rights and Slavery in Thomas Jefferson's Political Thought
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22439/asca.v53i2.6394Keywords:
Thomas Jefferson, American History, Human Rights, Political History, Slavery, The Founding EraAbstract
Thomas Jefferson is famous for his advocacy of equal rights of men, religious freedom, and democracy throughout the United States. He is equally (in)famous for his racist statements, for his little concern for women's rights, for his apparently unrealistic anti-slavery policies, and for his strongly anti-Federalist politics. This article will make clear that his political solution to the problem of slavery was not as far-fetched at the time as many scholars still tend to think it was. His fame as the high priest of minimal government also needs to be reconsidered given his hugely expensive, governmental solution to the problem of slavery. It is also important to grasp how very restricted a role Jefferson attributed to the federal government in putting his abolition plan into effect. The only aspect concerning the federal government in Jefferson's plan had to do with financing and sending slaves abroad after each state's individual decision of emancipation.
References
PRINTED SOURCE MATERIAL
Appleby, Joyce & Terence Ball, eds., Thomas Jefferson: Political Writings. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Ford, Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson, 12 vols. (Federal edition, New York, 1904-1905)
Freeman, Joanne B., ed., Alexander Hamilton Writings. New York: The Library of America, 2001.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd et al. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 20 vols., Philadelphia, 1950—.
Peterson, Merrill D., ed., Thomas Jefferson Writings. New York: Library of America, 1984.
Rakove, Jack N., ed., James Madison Writings. New York: Library of America, 1999.
Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America, Vol. I [De La Démocratie en Amérique, 1835], transl. Henry Reeve & Francis Bowen. New York: Vintage Books, 1945.
WEBSITE MATERIAL
Founders Online at https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-03-02-0378 (accessed June 24, 2020)
Miller, Andrea, Editorial "The contradictory life and legacy of Thomas Jefferson" in Texarkana Gazette, Dec. 21, 2012 at https://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/ opinion/editorials/story/2012/dec/21/contradictory-life-and-legacy-thomjeffers/264524/ (accessed May 28, 2020).
Monticello Organization (Thomas Jefferson Foundation) Website, "Thomas Jefferson: Liberty & Slavery at https://www.monticello.org/slavery-at-monticello/liberty-slavery (accessed May 27, 2020).
The Online Library of Liberty at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/757/87347 (accessed March 19, 2011)
Arthur Scherr, "Intellectual roots of Thomas Jefferson’s opinions on slavery: Montesquieu’s impact." Journal of Transatlantic Studies (2021) at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s42738-021-00068-z (accessed May 19, 2021).
Sowerby, E. Millicent, comp. Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson. Washington: Library of Congress, 1952-59 at: http://www.librarything.com/ catalog.php?view=ThomasJefferson&deepsearch=women (accessed, June 15, 2020).
LITERATURE
Appleby, Joyce, Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s. New York: New York University Press, 1984.
Egerton, Douglas R., Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Forbes, Robert Pierce, "'The Cause of This Blackness': The Early American Republic and the Construction of Race." American Nineteenth Century History, Vol. 13 (1, 2012), 65-94.
Gordon-Reed, Annette & Peter S. Onuf, "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs": Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination. New York: Liveright, W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.
Helo, Ari, History, Politics, and the American Past: Essays on Methodology. New York: Routledge, 2020.
Helo, Ari, Thomas Jefferson's Ethics and the Politics of Human Progress: The Morality of a Slaveholder. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Holowchak, M. Andrew, Rethinking Thomas Jefferson's Views on Race and Slavery. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020.
Lepore, Jill, These Truths: A History of the United States. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.
Levy, Leonard W. Levy, "Civil Liberties" in Peterson (ed.), Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography, 1986, 331-348.
Levy, Leonard, Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Matthews, Richard K., The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984.
McCoy, Drew R., The Last of the Fathers: James Madison & the Republican Legacy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
McCurdy, Charles W., Anti-Rent Era in New York Law and Politics, 1839-1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Onuf, Peter, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1994.
Peterson, Merrill D., ed., Thomas Jefferson: A Reference Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1986.
Riley, Padraig, Slavery and the Democratic Conscience: Political Life in Jeffersonian America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016.
Sheldon, Garrett Wald, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Shklar, Judith, Review of Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence by Garry Wills in The New Republic, Aug. 26, 1978, 32-34.
Shuffelton, Frank, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
White, Morton, The Philosophy of the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
