Posted on 09/06/2011 6:16:23 AM PDT by tellw
“John Hancock invested and made money in the slave trade”. It was the largest money making endeavor of the Colonies. Slavery was more valuable than all other U.S. banking and commerce. Sad to say it, but it was the Wal-Mart of its day.
plmk.
Aside: For anyone to doubt or impugn Thomas Jefferson's decency and morality is the absolute height of ignorance. (Directed to others posting here, not yourself, raisincane)
“Speculation about the private lives of public figures has been a popular pastime in this country for as long as there have been newspapers, but it is a rare occurrence when a story which originated as an item of malicious gossip in the early 1800’s becomes the basis of a lawsuit nearly 200 years later.”
ROBERT F. KELLY, District Judge.
“which originated as an item of malicious gossip”
You continue this tradition.
cholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3970161732104646416&q=jefferson++hemmings&hl=en&as_sdt=2,5
Just sayin’
:-D
If you would read a little more widely on Jefferson, perhaps Joseph J. Ellis’ “American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,” you might get beyond the hagiography.
iowamark said: “If you would read a little more widely on Jefferson, perhaps Joseph J. Ellis’ “American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,” you might get beyond the hagiography.”
Joseph J. Ellis, FORD FOUNDATION Professor of History at Mt. Holyoke, LIBERAL academic, and liar extraordinaire. Ann Coulter exposes him here:
http://old.nationalreview.com/coulter/coulter062101.shtml
Perhaps libtards such as Ellis have an agenda and aren’t the best source for suggested reading.
I know that Ellis is a lefty, but American Sphinx does a pretty good job of looking at Jefferson from various viewpoints.
Nice to see Homowood getting called for the smear job on T. Jefferson.
For example, left wing, liberal, progressive, politically correct, anti-American, anti-Southern, marxist.....did I leave any out?
You, sherman logan and the rest ought to be ashamed of yourselves using left wing propoganda to smear Jefferson on FR or anywhere else for that fact.
Conservatives? Hardly.
no kidding...you can get banned here for repeatedly smearing Sarah Palin..whom I like
yet call Jefferson’s character into question..as though they have any right..and it’s just fine
They are lucky I’m not JR.
and guess what?
you know already...neither of these two are the worst of their lot here
Fresno just does not get Dixie..are there any Southern mods?
Nothing like enduring Reconstruction....
We've all read works by Leftys before, however, in this particular case you're barking up the wrong tree. FYI - Ellis' agenda is, "They're just old, dead White guys".
I had never in my life been witness to Southern hatred until I joined FR. I still don't quite know what to think of it!
Great post Idabilly!
“He dims greatly in comparison with most of the other Founders from a moral perspective.”
IMO
It never fails yankees always try to hit us with that moral superiority.
Hamilton's support for protective tariffs would have hurt British industry.
He was for Britain politically and militarily against France, but economically he was against Britain and promoted the US as a real competitor in home markets.
If the East India Company was only concerned with the bottom line, they might as well not have bothered. US merchants came to trade with China pretty heavily, but I'm not aware that they bothered much with trying to break the British grip on India.
I noticed Northern smugness when I lived in Manhattan..especially over race..which I found funny considering they were more segregated than we were.
Some of the south bashers here are angry black GOP..fair enough..I got it...but I don’t have to drink their koolaid...not many will admit it..I respect the few who do..and least they admit it...everyone here knows who I am
But years back there was a black GOP moderate group who had folks here sending inflammatory freepmails trying to smear southern thread folks and they were caught by a now banned freeper...the guy who brought down Klown Posse by himself..supposedly
I have found with out exception that south bashers here are not if you look hard enough...very conservative on social issues period. Being PC on the south and race is just part of their leans to liberal outlook of social views...regardless of their race.
Nonsensical, whiskey papa, and dozens others the same
And they are caught lying about who or what they are over and over..whereas that doesn’t happen with our side. Our side is more likely to take a hit for linking to a forbidden site like white deer or AmRen etc
If it were my site I would purge them..and the mods knoew for years how NonSensical and Whiskey Papa and Illbay and so forth were but they wouldn’t zot them till it just got unbearable....look at nonsensical..it took a homosexual bug zapper thread to bag him finally...though he looks zombied back up..kstater..something...sinkspur..another bigtime race baiter...pro amnesty....finally got caught pretending to be a priest...and there are others
I think the powers here simply do not understand defensive southerners other than that we are reliable on God, Guns and Guts..and babies but they like to keep a balance against us
and hence tolerate proven moderates or worse
You go on a Sarah Palin thread and use the same vitriol against her they routinely use on us and you are dead man walking..
Yet..here besmirching Thomas Jefferson is allowed, calling for my slave owning ancestors to be hanged..man woman and child is tolerated..and so forth.
It’s part of a larger picture though not just here...some rightist pundits do it too..I just turn them off
I’ve been following the WBTS threads for several years now and I still haven’t seen evidence of “southern hatred”. We don’t hate you - heck I adore much of southern culture. You mistake disgust at the Lost Cause revisionists for a more wide-spread antipathy.
What I have seen is the exact inverse - deep and abiding hatred for anything “yankee” by the Lost Causers. Many of y’all aren’t coy about it either. Mostly I figure that’s your cross to bear, but I am cognizant of the impression that it leaves on visitors to FreeRepublic.
I compared Jefferson most directly to Washington, who was also a southerner. In which comparison Jeff came up wanting. IMO.
If asked, I would have also compared Jefferson's moral character unfavorably to Madison, Monroe, Hamilton and Adams. So three of the five comparisons were to southerners.
How exactly is my comparing the moral status of one southerner unfavorably to that of another southerner denigrating to southerners as a group?
Au contraire. I never said any such thing.
I down-graded Jefferson's character, not because he owned slaves, but because he said slavery was a great evil, and publicly posed as its opponent, but in his own life, where he could actually do something about slavery, he did nothing. Meanwhile, Washington did not spend a great deal of time posing as an opponent of slavery, but instead spent that time working to be able to free his own slaves.
If I spend a lot of time publicly decrying the evil of prostitution, but in my private life constantly patronize prostitutes, you may feel free to call me a hypocrite.
you admire Lincoln who fundamentally transformed our great republic into the giant federal morass that we're all slowly becoming enslaved by.
This theory is based on the idiotic notion that the Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the ones primarily responsible for starting us on our present path, would have never come into existence if not for Lincoln, or that they admired Lincoln and viewed themselves as carrying on his mission.
And of course neither is true. In fact, the federal government after the War reverted back to something fairly similar to what it had been before the war. The massive continuous expansion we all know and love began only several decades after the War.
BTW, there are numerous other problems with Jefferson's moral character. Notably his attempts to stab Washington in the back, in a very sneaky and underhanded way.
Precisely. Unlike 0bama, who forced a 'healthcare' bill down the throats of American citizens that didn't want it, Jefferson was true to his republican roots.
This theory is based on the idiotic notion that the Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the ones primarily responsible for starting us on our present path, would have never come into existence if not for Lincoln, or that they admired Lincoln and viewed themselves as carrying on his mission.
Without lincoln there would have been no Appomattox. Without Appomattox there would have been no de facto repeal of the 10th Amendment. Get the picture?
BTW, there are numerous other problems with Jefferson's moral character.
Perhaps you should join with your PC buddies on the left and have Jefferson wiped clean from the history of our nation. After all, revisionism is a traditional tool of the left leaning yankee and we must not let this morally bankrupt Southern slave owning bottom dweller continue to be praised as one of the great Founders of our country. Right?
Would you care to explain why the BEIC would be interested in hiring as an agent an utterly unknown illegitimate and penniless 19-year old college student? Or why they would keep him on the payroll for 30 years thereafter, despite the fact that in its entire history the BEIC's sole connection with America was with regard to the events surrounding the Boston Tea Party, which was essentially the 18th century version of a government bailout, similar to our 21st century government "rescue" of GM and Chrysler?
The BEIC was rather busy during this period on the other side of the world, fighting for its life against various French-supported Indian coalitions. What possible reason would they have for pouring resources into North America, where they had exactly zero financial interests?
I am not alone in this belief but since it cannot be proven many will not publicly say it.
You know, when slander against an indisputably great man cannot be proven, because there is exactly zero evidence, it is generally a good idea not to pass it on. Perhaps you should give some thought to following their example.
Personally, I believe Ronald Reagan was a paid agent of the KGB from 1940 on. I am not alone in this belief but since it cannot be proven many will not publicly say it.
Need I add the sarcasm tag?
I also believe Barack Hussein Obama to be a Communist and although I cant prove that either the evidence is compelling if one looks closely enough!
You call Hamilton an “indisputable great man” I call him a self serving cad and rounder who was about the business of undermining this Republic and aggrandizing himself from the beginning.
We’ll just leave it right there for the moment!
From the time the ink dried on the declaration of independence, Hamilton was out trying to transform this new republic back into what we separated from.
This calumny is based primarily on three things, which I will address separately. 1. In the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton made a lengthy speech exploring the possible need for an elected monarch, ruling on "good behavior." 2. Hamilton's policies during Washington's administration were in direct conflict with those preferred by Jefferson, and they did indeed favor "the rich," especially merchants and (to the extent they existed at the time) financiers. 3. Hamilton considered the French revolutionists a greater threat to the infant Republic than the defeated British. Jefferson and Madison believed the opposite. This led to each side calling the other a tool of foreigners.
1. At the time of the Constitutional Convention, nobody had EVER set up a Republic from scratch. The CC was treading new ground. For this reason, the CC decided to make its deliberations secret, so that brainstorming and open discussion of even unpopular ideas could take place.
In this spirit, AH proposed the possible need for a much stronger executive than generally favored by the other delegates. Given the past history of Republics, this was by no means an unreasonable belief. The "crowned republic" of Poland was at this very time in the process of being dismembered by its monarchical neighbors, due very largely to the limited powers of its executive.
Hamilton truly believed that without a much stronger executive the infant Republic would be destroyed by competitors. As it turned out, this was incorrect, but his beliefs were not unreasonable or necessarily indicative of an attachment to the principle of monarchy. It is entirely possible that had the French Revolution and Napoleon not absorbed the full attention of other powers for the first 30 years of our republic, AH might have been proven correct. By 1812, after decades of rapid growth, the Union was strong enough to defend itself effectively, though not gloriously. In 1789 this might not have been the case.
Despite his disappointment with some of its provisions, it is indisputable that AH did more than any other man to get the Constitution ratified. He wrote about 2/3 of the Federalist Papers, many of which are still quoted as authoritative by people who denigrate the man who wrote them.
2. AH believed that the USA needed a solid financial foundation if it were to grow in strength and remain independent. His policies as Secretary of the Treasury indisputably accomplished this.
Jefferson, Madison and others argued his policies favored merchants and speculators, and quite possibly they did, but they worked, and we have absolutely no evidence that the measures proposed by his opponents would have worked as well or even at all.
If it interesting that the financial measures proposed by AH are similar in principle to those held today by American conservatives, while those proposed by Jefferson and Madison have a closer resemblance to those of today's liberals.
3. When the French Revolution got going good, with the Terror and all that, AH decided it was immensely dangerous and should be opposed, if necessary allying with Britain. Jefferson, Madison and their buddies remained supportive of the French for much longer. Each side accused the other of putting the interests of the foreign nation it supported above those of America.
With the eventual collapse of the French Revolution, this accusation washed away from Jefferson. It stuck to AH, at least partly because he was prevented from having the opportunity to defend himself by being murdered.
There is actually no evidence whatsoever that either side of this dispute proposed its policies in anything other than the best of faith.
It is interesting that George Washington supported and implemented Hamilton's policies throughout his administration, yet the blame for them (if any is appropriate) is placed squarely on AH's shoulders rather than on the man with the actual responsibility and authority, Washington.
FWIW, Washington, a shrewd judge of character, admired and supported Hamilton till the end of his life, while fairly obviously deciding Jefferson was a backstabbing duplicitous intriguer. Which he was, though you can if you like believe his intriguing to have been justified.
Then you must also consider George Washington to be an idiot, since GW admired and trusted him for decades.
Despite obvious opportunities to enrich himself as Secretary of the Treasury, there is exactly zero evidence AH ever attempted any such thing, and in fact that his financial situation declined greatly during his period in public service.
Some of his associates in the Treasury betrayed him, but there is zero evidence he was "dirty" himself.
AH also got involved in a very messy and public love affair. Rather than allow himself to be blackmailed, he published all the details himself, exposing his own culpability and weakness in this area. Extremely rare in any country's history, such forthrightness is IMO evidence of great personal, though flawed, character.
Hamilton was a statist. If that's your idea of a truly great man then you must admire 0bama immensely.
Some of Hamilton's political philosophy:
Strong central government.
State governors appointed by the president.
President and senators hold office for life (so that they would not be subject to the whims of a fickle electorate).
Congress would retain exclusive authority to make all the laws of the country.
The president and congressmen should come from the wealthy and aristocratic strata of society.
The government should be proactive in economic and military affairs, have the power the supersede lower governments (as at the state level), and be able to exercise authority directly on the people.
In other words, Hamilton was a statist. Obviously, you are too.
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