Which then, of course, leads us to the hack-eyed observation that Jefferson freed only a tiny percentage of his own slaves.
Setting aside for one moment our 21st c. notion(s) on such a matter, Jefferson's actions - or lack thereof -- are a little more understandable if we make the clumsy analogy of a farmer preaching against our dependence on OPEC and yet not getting rid of every item on his farm that runs on petrol.
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-thus the memorialized excerpt from his Notes on the State of Virginia Query XVIII "and can th eLiberties of a naiton be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis,a conviciton in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?Indeed I tremble for my Country when I reflect that God is Just :that his justice cannot sleep forever... The spirit of the Master is abating,that of th eslave is rising.. . . "
To what was Jefferson referring? A possible slave rising in America, or in the Americas? Remember about this time there were bloody slave rebellions in places like what is now Haiti, and in British West Indies.
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... "property" is documented as it was defined respecting the slave trade.But it was a definition imported from the Brits.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
Property -as you have noted-- was defined at that time to
include the African slave. (as seen in both the US constitution--and latter in the Constitution of the Southern
States [which was based upon the US Constitution] But the slave trade itself was an importation from the British
Crown AND seems an affect of the complex relationship between the West and the contacts with the Islamic States.
The African slave trade was promoted as much by Islam-as
it was by any other group. And Islam remains the only group I am aware of that continues to practice such. IT was
in England and at about the same time in America that the
trade began to lose favor. (much to influence of Whitefield
in the Colonies and Wilburforce in England.)