Last night, while chatting with some friends, the topic of the ethics of Thomas Jefferson owning slaves came up. It really had never crossed my mind before, but I believe I came up with an argument on why it was essential, if not ethical (at the time) for Jefferson to have owned slaves. I thought I’d bring it up in GD to be kicked around (but please don’t kick too hard).
Please realize that, before I begin, I by no means find slavery to be at all a moral or ethical thing. I am simply putting it in the context of the time in which Jefferson lived. Without further adieu, here is my argument:
During Jefferson’s life, a man was not considered at all worthy unless he owned property. The more property a man owned, the more worth he had. This can be corroborated with plenty of documentation at the time in the form of letters and legal precedents set about property ownership and power. Thus, a hirearchy had been established wherein the rich were the only ones who could wield any power.
Now, Jefferson had a major goal: the independence of the American colonies from the British. To achieve that goal, he needed a lot of influence and a lot of power. Without being shown as a man with great property and wealth, he would have been unlikely to influence anyone without slaves, the ultimate expression of wealth at the time.
Jefferson has been documented to have treated his slaves extremely well. IIRC, he not only gave them very nice housing, but also paid them a wage. He did not free them until after his death. Why? Three reasons:
The aforementioned need to show wealth in order to have power and influence.
The act of freeing slaves would certainly have been a black mark against him in many circles whose influence he needed to achieve his goal.
In order to ensure the safety and well-being of the slaves he freed, which he presumably would have wanted to ensure, he would had to have given them some property of their own, otherwise they might have been caught, their papers of freedom destroyed and they would have been re-sold. To not only free slaves but to give them property would have very likely shown Jefferson to be a very suspicious character indeed at the time and may very well have destroyed his career utterly.
So, Jefferson’s reasons for keeping slaves may be summed up as follows:
He felt that his goal of freeing the colonists was of a higher moral imperative than that of freeing slaves.
He could not ensure their safety and well-being without endangering his own.
I would love to hear thoughts and comments on my hypothesis.
Interesting theory Arken I hadn’t heard that he actually paid a wage to his slaves, though I had heard they were well treated. Still I had alwys assumed that power flowed from being a landowner irregardless of slaves. I’d like to see some of the corroborating evidence you mention. But I see nothing to dismiss it out of hand.
Based on my own family’s history I’m inclined to agree with point three. The only ancestor my family has traced to slavery was in fact a freeman from Haiti/West Indies (it gets a little cloudy), “captured” as a runaway and then sold to an abolitionist.
The reason Jefferson didn’t free his slaves on his death was that he was bankrupt, and the slaves had to be sold to pay his creditors. He may have wanted to free his slaves, but he couldn’t. At the time of the revolutionary war it wouldn’t have been considered wrong to free one’s slaves…it was seen as a noble and generous gesture, as going above and beyond what most people would do. Washington and many other founders freed their slaves upon death. Most of the slaveowning founders were actually anti-slavery, strange as it may seem.
They disliked the institution of slavery, but felt (or maybe hoped) that it would wither away within a few generations. They didn’t want to take the chance of breaking apart the colonies over the issue. But rather than fading the plantation system intensified. The compromise of delaying the question of slavery for future generations proved disasterous as slavery and racism became more entrenched.
And never underestimate the fact that freeing one’s slaves would typically leave one destitute. A large portion of the plantation owner’s wealth was in slaves. Without slaves to work the land you’d have to pay wages, making your plantation uncompetitive. While an enlightenment plantation owner may have agreed that slavery was wrong, he also understood that it was the foundation of his wealth. It would take an unusually ethical person to throw that away for the sake of a few principles.
In fact, one might call it horribly unethical to free one’s slaves upon one’s death. Oh, certainly, it’s great for the slaves. But you’ve also given a huge chunk of land to your children that you’ve guaranteed is non-profitable unless they’re willing to sell it off in small chunks to small farmers, or put down the money necessary to buy new slaves. In essence, you’ve done a moral thing by passing the cost on to someone who has no say in the decision, which strikes me as pretty immoral.
As for Jefferson and Washington- yes, it was a necessity in the South to own slaves in order to be a landed gentleman and therefore gain power. This necessity does not, in my mind, absolve Jefferson and Washington of hypocrisy, for they could certainly have freed their slaves and sold their farms and moved up north where slavery was not necessary.
They were hypocrites. Big deal- they were human. Trying to demand perfection of one’s heroes is a guarantee to having no heroes.
There’s a difference between a reason and an excuse. The explanation in the OP makes sense to me. It shows us the reason why Jefferson held slaves; it does not excuse his owning them.
Jefferson and Washington deserve any criticism they get for having owned slaves. We should recognize the hypocrisy of owning slaves while fighting for freedom, certainly. This does not in any way lessen the greatness of their accomplishments in helping to found the United States.
A man has absolutely NO DEBT owed to his heirs. In fact it is his prerogative to disinherit them entirely and there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, so there is nothing at all Amoral about freeing slaves, the people getting the land are lucky that they got that much whether they feel lucky or not.
As for whether or not it was ethical for Jefferson to own slaves, I have not read it, but I have heard that Jefferson wrote many times about how hypocritical his ownership of slaves actually was.
I did not say it was okay that Jefferson owned slaves because he needed them to get power. I said that, in the context of the time period, I think that Jefferson’s owning slaves in order to get the power to achieve his goal of American independence from Britain was ethical.
I do not think it was ethical for him to continue to keep slaves after his career was over… except for the safety reasons I described earlier if those were, in fact, his motives.
Please understand again that I do not think slavery is moral or ethical. I am trying to explain it within the context of the time period.
No. I agree that a man has no debt owed to his heirs. However, that means no debt. And by freeing one’s slaves but leaving the land to one’s heirs, you leave them a debt, not a gain. Most of the landed gentry of Virginia were what was called “land poor”- they had a great deal of wealth tied up in assets such as slaves, land, and equipment, but very little real money. And most of the money that came in went right back into maintaining the land, slaves, and equipment so that you didn’t go out of business.
By freeing one’s slaves, you kept the land and the equipment, but ensured that no profit could be made upon the land and the equipment without substantial investements (i.e., at that point in the agricultural state of things, buying more slaves). What one would give to one’s children, then, was not a gift, but a leech- draining time and money and giving little until either a great deal of money was poured in or until it was decided to abandon the land. Freeing one’s slaves was an ethical statement that carried a direct monetary cost. Doing so in one’s will was making the same statement, but passing the cost on to those who had no say in the statement itself. That, to me, is unethical.
While I have always loved the ideas Jefferson had, and the brilliant role he played in the formation of our country I have always had the impression that he was a mess in his personal life.
He could was not capable of living up to the ideas he espoused. Owning slaves was just one example of how his personal life was vastly different than what he stood for on paper. There is no ethical (although there were practical) reasons to own slaves. Jefferson knew this.
In fact, if you do any reading of the founding fathers you come to the impression that most were a little goofy and many had dysfunctional personalities. But I guess to be a revolutionary you have to be a little quirky.
No offense, furnishesq, but I find that most people are a little goofy with dysfunctional personalities, be they revolutionaries or not. It’s just that they’re goofy and dysfunctional in different ways.