Posted on 05/28/2012 3:36:36 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Don’t concede.
Please continue your insulting posts until you become motivated to do a bit of research that will benefit this string.
Thank you for posting more of the context which clearly shows no evidence of Jefferson personally calling for an end to the slave trade.
We all know that you relish employing every shady debate tactic and logical fallacy you can in your posts, and your last one was up to par.... having used six outright misrepresentations, four direct insults, three red herrings, two pejorative accusations, and two false admonitions......Your usual fare, which will likely send a chill up the leg of rlmorel..
Are you serious about using some undocumented source (?) to accuse Jefferson of failing to “speak up”, “defend”, or engage in ongoing support of his own ideas?
All of that is pure nonsense….I am amused that you seem to think that you can get by with that type of accusation. Well, let's do a bit of research on that red herring.
First, Founding Father Jefferson was engaged in countless efforts to express his concepts of Liberty for his entire life.....not failing to “speak up”, and this manifested itself while he was serving as a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Virginia Convention, Continental Congress, Confederation Congress, and as Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State, Vice President and President of the United States. (His speeches are preserved, if you care to take a look).
He was constantly corresponding with the most influential men, organizations, and publication entities of his time. He was not bashful in presenting ideas that ran counter to those in power. You can find evidence of that in "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" and the original draft of the DOI. There is no mistaking his willingness to break from the status quo.
“Jefferson drafted more reports, resolutions, legislation, and related official documents than any other Founding Father. Above all, Jefferson wrote letters, probably more than his illustrious contemporaries, and a larger number of these letters survive—some 18,000. He corresponded with many leading lights of liberty, including Thomas Paine, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Marquis de Lafayette, James Madison, George Mason, Jean-Baptiste Say, Madame de Stael, and George Washington.” (James Powell, 1995).
So, his positions were constantly being reiterated, reinforced, and revisited for the public and legislative venues in which he visited.
He was nothing like the perverse picture you attempt to present. You ought to be ashamed of that type of intentional misrepresentation.
I will say again that it should be pointed out that just after Jefferson's first term in the House of Burgesses, Thomas Jefferson proposed legislation to emancipate slaves in Virginia. This was done in late 1769. In the 1770s and 1780s, Jefferson also presented initiatives in the Virginia legislature and the federal government to seriously address the issue of slavery. And as I have pointed out to you already, in 1784, Jefferson supported legislation prohibiting slavery in the western territories. Enacted or not, his position was clear.
Here is one of your polite points: “I can't believe how deceptive you are! I put your quote in bold type, appropriate given the boldfaced liar we've always known you to be. Jefferson helped draft legislation that would allow slave owners to free their slaves in their wills. It didn't pass. It would have left slavery in place. I suppose Jefferson's bill was a step in the right direction, but let's be honest: it wouldn't actually have directly emancipated any slaves if it had become law.”
**Note to rlmorel....see above paragraph and respond accordingly.
So you do admit that Jefferson wrote a manumission bill. The definition of the term manumission is the freeing of a slave. I correctly pointed out that he offered that concept in the attempt to create legislation. Whether or not it was successful, as you tend to want to emphasize in the effort to discredit the effort, has nothing to do with the validity or relevance of the issue. You can try every rhetorical trick you can devise, but my statement remains true.
Thomas Jefferson was one of, if not the strongest of early leaders in pushing for the abolition of slavery. In his letters, legislative drafts, and in his book Notes On The State of Virginia he denounced slavery while devising plans of gradual manumission that featured an end to the slave trade, slavery prohibition, and the establishment of a method for newly born children of slaves to be freed.
He started out by accusing John Adams and Robert Livingston of killing Jefferson's anti-slave trade passage in the Declaration. He never actually provided any evidence at all for that assertion. But here he is getting on his high horse about sourcing, like that's his right.
I gave my source many posts back as R.B. Bernstein. That's his biography, Thomas Jefferson. Page 34: "Jefferson took each cut and change as a personal affront. While Adams fought to keep the draft intact, Jefferson suffered in silence." Just how Bernstein found that out, I don't know, but there it is in black and white on the printed page.
Looking for more information, I dug up Carl Binger's Thomas Jefferson, a Well-Tempered Mind. Here's a quote from John Adams on pages 61-2: "Mr. Jefferson had been now about a year a member of Congress, but had attended to his duty in the House a very small part of the time, and, when I was there, had never spoken in public. During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together."
Consequently, it's a lot more likely that Jefferson didn't speak up in defense of his original draft, than it is that Adams tried to kill his anti-slave trade passage, a charge that Pea has never provided evidence for.
I don't get why he keeps going on with this. We all know Jefferson had a checkered record on slavery. Some good spots, some bad ones. I guess he was like most people in that, not pure good or pure evil either. He wasn't wholly a villain, but there are better heroes out there if you want one. If some of us take a particular dislike to him, it's because of hero-worshipers like this guy.
You’re trying too hard. Isn’t it embarrassing?
“..clearly shows no evidence of Jefferson personally calling for an end to the slave trade.”
It looks like you have not been following this thread very closely, or you would have seen this:
1774 July. From Jefferson's A Summary View of the Rights of British America. “
"The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the infranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa."
Wanted you to lnow the truth so next time you can be more correct.
Here for you to read, and please do so in order that you may be better informed next time.
First, Founding Father Jefferson was engaged in countless efforts to express his concepts of Liberty for his entire life.....not failing to “speak up”, and this manifested itself while he was serving as a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Virginia Convention, Continental Congress, Confederation Congress, and as Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State, Vice President and President of the United States. (His speeches are preserved, if you care to take a look).
He was constantly corresponding with the most influential men, organizations, and publication entities of his time. He was not bashful in presenting ideas that ran counter to those in power. You can find evidence of that in "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" and the original draft of the DOI. There is no mistaking his willingness to break from the status quo.
“Jefferson drafted more reports, resolutions, legislation, and related official documents than any other Founding Father. Above all, Jefferson wrote letters, probably more than his illustrious contemporaries, and a larger number of these letters survive—some 18,000.
He corresponded with many leading lights of liberty, including Thomas Paine, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Marquis de Lafayette, James Madison, George Mason, Jean-Baptiste Say, Madame de Stael, and George Washington.” (James Powell, 1995).
Note to rockrr.........don't believe everything X says. My "bloviating" consisted of 505 words in post 163, a response to his post with 625 words.
He is such a kidder.
Note to rlmorel.......waiting on your "charm school" evaluation of the X poster. Don't keep us waiting.
No, I was trying to get you to understand that a person advocating a position says something like “I advocate....”
Jefferson didn’t personally advocate what you wish to attribute to him in the document you reference. No matter how many times you point to it and say, “See - there it is” the fact of the matter is there it isn’t. Instead, what he did was to make note of a condition rhetorically and in an entirely 3rd person way.
But thanks for trying - would like like a star for your lunch box?
PeaRidge, do not ping me on anything.
I am not interested in your opinions on these things.
If you persist, I will speak to a moderator to see about having you removed from Free Republic.
Failing that, I will go to Jim Robinson personally and ask him to have you removed.
He has no evidence for his earlier assertions, so he simply repeats the same meaningless tosh he wrote above.
I'd say he's run out of steam or run aground, but then that would assume that he had something worth saying to begin with.
Apparently, the Hamilton on the new $10 bill has his admirers, and some college girls have been rather too into Hamilton and the other founders for some time now.
Wow! Who knew? Thanks for the link. Fascinating reading.
I have given you proof that from his very earliest political actions and publications, Thomas Jefferson was a consistent and ardent opponent of slavery. (Reference if you need it: Bear, James, A., Jefferson at Monticello. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967.
He considered it vile practice, imposed upon the colonies by the Crown. I have given you evidence that he called the institution an ‘abominable crime,’ (you both have already seen that quote), a ‘moral depravity,’ He is quoted as using the terms ‘fatal stain’ and ‘hideous blot,’
Now X would have everyone believe that simply because he says that Jefferson did not speak often, his source being dubious at best, that he would be accurate in characterizing Jefferson's efforts as meaning nothing.
X, you are certainly welcome to your opinion, but the facts stand behind Jefferson as a powerful and active slavery opponent.
Let's look again at what he did early in his political career. It is well documented that Jefferson took actions intended to influence fellow lawmakers, and put an end to slavery. He drafted the Virginia law of 1778 prohibiting the importation of enslaved Africans.
Then, again, in 1784 he proposed an ordinance banning slavery in the new territories of the Northwest.
It is clear that from the mid-1770s he was advocating many plans designed to stimulate emancipation.
As historian David Davis said, Jefferson was ‘one of the first statesmen anywhere to advocate concrete measures for eradicating slavery.’
I think that clears up your efforts to denigrate this Founding Father.
You don’t think you are being a bit sensitive there, do you?
But, do what you must. Tell Mr. Jim I said hello.
You are welcome to your feelings. No one is denigrating jefferson.
Yeah, let's see what else David B. Davis had to say about Jefferson:
But Jefferson himself did nothing to encourage gradual emancipation in the northeastern states; he was in France when Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, and he later issued no public statements to defend or extend its free soil principles; as President, he expressed no regret over the extension of slavery into Louisiana; he made no comment when fellow Virginians sought to legalize slavery in Indiana and even pressed Congress to repeal the Northwest Ordinance. The final exclusion of slavery from Illinois was no more or no less "Jeffersonian" than was the admission of Missouri as a slave state. (Slavery in the Age of Revolution), pp. 168-9
So there it is in black and white. The witness Pea summons doesn't even agree with Pea's argument. And there's more elsewhere in the book. When "the chips were down ... he threw his weight behind slavery's expansion." (pp. 184-5)
_______________________
I guess what Pea is doing is cyberstalking. He keeps coming back to this dead thread posting the same stupid blather, unaware that the thread is dead, that he hasn't proved his point and that the world has moved on.
He isn't going to convince anybody he hasn't already convinced, and he's done more to turn people away from his point of view than to attract them to it.
I would suggest just declaring victory and not responding to his asininities and hoping he finally takes the hint.
Yay! We win! Whatsisname loses!
I wouldn't bank on it. But I agree that this thread has run its course.
What do you mean “No one is denigrating Jefferson.”
Are you just not paying attention or just being a huckleberry for X needing a rah-rah section for his misrepresentations.
Look at his quotes....
"If some of us take a particular dislike to him, ..(admitting his negative thinking.)
"TJ made one timid attempt at a law allowing masters to free their slaves (undocumented biased opinion).
"Jefferson was prettifying things for his audience. Anybody who objected to slavery was told it would go away with the king's tyranny, so they'd support Jefferson's political objectives. But was that really in the cards? Or was it another example of Jefferson's ability to deceive himself and others? (All of that total, unabashed personal commentary).
"Jefferson's language was wordy and bloated. Here it was bombastic...". (What kind of undocumented crap is this?)
"The timid Jefferson....
"Jefferson, who was too timid to speak before Congress....(Whose opinion was this?)
"...he was more about poses and appearances than following through. (More bashing)
"....timid Jefferson didn't really express his reaction (Bashing
Just read back and you will see what is really going on.
Davis states in the positive that “Jefferson was ‘one of the first statesmen anywhere to advocate concrete measures for eradicating slavery’, while later stating what you said.
So what? The entire paragraph you quote is a list of things that he thinks Jefferson could have done. Absence of action does not negate action already taken.
Nowhere does Davis make the case that his early actions are falsified by his later actions, or inactions in this case.
You cannot eradicate history with no history.
Incorrect. When the chips were really down,
“...as President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson urged Congress to act before January 1, 1808 to ban the Slave Trade, he denounced it in the strongest language ever used by any president prior to Lincoln. He called it a violation of the “human rights of unoffending Africans.” (K. Blackwell, American Thinker, 2012)
I know you like that author, but his work is cheesy.
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