Posted on 07/16/2022 10:23:58 AM PDT by DFG
“It’s been inspirational … I guess,” shrugged John
What a mealy mouthed response...
Jaysus! Get MAD, people! This is OUR history they are destroying. Tell ‘em right there!
It won’t do much good but at least they will know you are on to them...I did that at Gettysburg where the South and southern symbols were pretty much erased from the story...
Yeah, all I got was an unconcerned shrug but still...
Think more recent and local - Armand Hammer (1898-1990) of Occidental Petroleum; Lenin's favorite capitalist! Benefits from our USofA laws, makes nice with the Soviets!
I would challenge that Jefferson acquired the debt of his parents and in-laws is why some of his slaves were sold after he died.
Jefferson was born into a family that owned slaves and he died owning slaves. Slaves were considered property in 1826.
Any property that Jefferson inherited from his parents and in-laws would only be after debts of their estates were satisfied. I don’t know if he “borrowed money” or sold other property in order to pay off their debts in order to keep their slaves, real estate, etc. I doubt that Jefferson was legally obligated to carry their debts for his lifetime. Else, he could have relinquished in toto his inheritance.
Also, Jefferson was known to borrow money to build/expand/improve his properties at Monticello and Poplar Forest. When he died, he had creditors. Slaves were sold to satisfy his debts.
Bump
Hammer was a fellow traveler. Like Trotsky, Radek, Zinoviev, etc., who were dangerous Communists, he too was Jewish and one of thousands of red diaper babies that infected the 20th Century.
These lefties are so clueless they do not understand that Madison founded the freedoms they enjoy - including to bash Madison himself.
It’s almost surreal - but then history is not being taught correctly in the schools, kids are told the U.S. is an irredeemably racist, sexist and bigoted nation that “needs to change.”
They won’t be happy until the U.S. is a carbon copy of the totalitarian Soviet State.
This won’t end well.
Information about Jefferson’s inherited debt can be found on the Monticello website:
https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/debt/
Thanks for the link. I still challenge the statement therein that an heir (Jefferson) inherited the debt of the decedent (his father-in-law). In fact no heir is compelled to take any property or money that she would inherit.
Last summer I visited his summer home (Poplar Forest) on a very slow day for tourists. We had “extended” disussions including how he came into the property as well as what the disposition of the summer home per his will. Jefferson, (considered one of the founders of the demonkrap party) was a known borrower of other people’s money with big plans throughout his entire life (not surprising in a way, no?). Never asserted he inherited the debt of his father-in-law. If it was, I would have challenged it. Next time I go, I’ll challenge it if it remains on the website.
Decades ago, I challenged the tour guide, party sycophant at LBJ’s home on blatant factual misstatement - from that moment to the end of the tour the (demonkrap) tour guide was very careful - she was about 60 and I was a mere 23.
You can challenge everything, Susquehanna Patriot, but in order to persuade, you need documentation and fact. I would gently suggest you do more research on the subject rather than just argue by negation.
See: PRINCIPLE AND INTEREST: THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE PROBLEM OF DEBT by Herbert E. Sloan
Foundation for Economic Education
https://fee.org/articles/principle-interest-thomas-jefferson-and-the-problem-of-debt/
The subject of this study is how Jefferson’s own indebtedness lead to his conservative economic principles while President.
Dear Madam - Thank you for the additional article.
I believe neither you nor your citation refutes any of my basic prior points. In fact the article could be said to confirm them, including:
(1) Wayles estate could be sold in whole or in part to satisfy an estate’s debts even in the 1700s. (From this it is well known in decedent/estate law that anything left over would go to the heirs - sorry no citation);
(2) Wayles family wanted property - no one in the Wayles family was forced by creditors to take property under a will;
(3) if the estate’s debts exceeded the assets, a creditor of the estate could not legally compel the heirs into debt to satisfy the decedent’s debt ... heirs could have paid cash, swapped property if they had it and creditors wanted it. But if they wanted the property which a creditor had a legal interest in, if heirs did not have enough cash/assets to buy, then they might borrow to gain their inheritance.
(4) heirs sometimes “buy their inheritance” (usually for emotional or business reasons)(sorry, no citation - school of experience).
“Wayles’ heirs decided to divide up the estate’s land and slaves among themselves, and sell off some property to reduce the debt. [T]heir decision, Sloan writes, which seemed appropriate given the circumstances in 1773 and 1774, was to have significant consequences for Jefferson. . . . Had the Wayles estate been kept together, only the estate’s assets could be looked to for repayment.”
IOW, dividing the estate among the Wayles heirs gave the creditors a better opportunity to collect their entire debt due where the assets of the estate do not cover the total debt.
It is reasonable to conclude from the article alone that Wayles’ heirs wanted some of the decedent’s property/assets. They disposed of those assets they did not want, used the proceeds to reduce the debt. By partially reducing the estate’s debts, they reduced the amount they would have to pay out of their pocket or borrow to “inherit” assets from the decendent’s estate that appears to have been underwater.
Young Jefferson was no dummy (no citation given). He went into debt to acquire his wife’s inheritance and intended to use the cash flow from farming operations to pay back the debt. He and/or his wife wanted the land, southwest of Lynchburg VA, the slaves and a working tobacco farm. The record shows that is what they got. If my memory from last summer is correct (too lazy now after working all day), Jefferson’s wife received ~5000 acres plus slaves at Poplar Forest tract that was producing tobacco. But in order to take possession, “yes” it is conceivable that without cash or British sterling, he would have to “take a mortgage” to “buy his wife’s inheritance”. One of his wife’s other options was walk away from her inheritance - and come away with “nothing”. Jefferson literally mortgaged part of his future on the inheritance. He also spent/borrowed other money to improve the property. Who would walk away from that opportunity, especially after visiting his homes.
I gently suggest you read the articles you cite and point specifically to the parts that refutes anything I have written. Jefferson chose to acquire his father in law’s property via rights his wife was entitled to under a will. He chose to go into debt in order to acquire said property. While that financial decision plus other subsequent, borrowing he did kept him in a “debtor’s prison” of sorts (always beholden to creditors), sorry, he was not a victim of his father-in-law’s will.
I had a few minutes before running into the office to pull this information. You might find this background interesting. I heard most of what is in the article on my tour last summer.
https://www.poplarforest.org/visit/the-retreat/history/
It is noteworthy that his wife’s inheritance brought Jefferson significant income via farming with slave labor. Also, that 33 years after inheriting the property he began to build a mini-Monticello house at Poplar Forest. One would think that after owning the income-producing property for 33 years - whatever debt he incurred to acquire his wife’s inheritance would have been paid off by the time he started building the new house.
I am not convinced that his own (chosen) indebtedness made him a fiscal conservative with regards to the federal givernment, but I’ll keep an open mind about it. Isn’t ironic that we have people go to DC for the past 8 decades or so, become rich and careful managing their new wealth accumulation (”fiscal conservatives”) but vote for excessive borrowing and spending by the federal givernment?
Highly recommend a trip to Poplar Forest and to his estate at Monticello if you have not been there already. Have a great day.
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