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To: Pharmboy
Your comment: "Hamilton--a man who argued against slavery, while Jefferson paid lip service to abolition, though supported slavery in fact and in deed. Jefferson always impressed me as the first American limousine liberal."

So, let's examine the two.

On the issue of slavery, here is Thomas Jefferson's record.

Beginning with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Jefferson introduced strong wording in the initial draft condemning the practices and processes of the slave trade.

In the Virginia Assembly, in the 1788, legislator Jefferson supported a bill to prohibit the state from importing slaves.

Next, in the 1784 Congress, Jefferson proposed federal legislation banning slavery in the New Territories of the Northwest.

As President in 1807 he signed a bill prohibiting the US from participating in the international slave trade.

And now Hamilton's actions:............

87 posted on 05/29/2012 3:01:58 PM PDT by PeaRidge
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To: PeaRidge
Well, you obviously know nothing about Hamilton that doesn't revolve around the bank. And, your citing of Jefferson's actions re slavery prove my point: a limousine liberal--if there ever was one in the 18th century. Yes indeed he wrote beautifully...about slavery among other things. But, PeaRidge, what was happening at Monticello? What was his actual life like? Oh...indeed...there were slaves there. And, he might have used them for more than chores around the fields and in the house.

He did not even free them at his death. Yes: do as I say but not as I do.

And Hamilton did nothing? He was a founding member of the NY Manumission Society (abolition of slavery). Here is the entire section on Hamilton and slavery from Wiki (they use much from the latest biography of Hamilton by Chernoff):

Hamilton's first polemic against King George's ministers contains a paragraph that speaks of the evils that "slavery" to the British would bring upon the Americans. McDonald sees this as an attack on the institution of slavery, David Hackett Fisher believes the term is used in a symbolic way at that time.[97]

During the Revolutionary War, Hamilton took the lead in proposals to arm slaves, free them, and compensate their masters. In 1779, Hamilton worked closely with his friend John Laurens of South Carolina to propose that such a unit be formed, under Laurens' command. Hamilton proposed to the Continental Congress to create up to four battalions of slaves for combat duty, and free them. Congress recommended that South Carolina (and Georgia) acquire up to three thousand slaves for service, if they saw fit. Although the South Carolina governor and Congressional delegation had supported the plan in Philadelphia, they did not implement it.[98]

Letter from Alexander Hamilton, 1779 Hamilton argued that blacks' natural faculties were as good as those of free whites, and he warned that the British would arm the slaves if the patriots did not. In his 21st-century biography, Chernow cites this incident as evidence that Hamilton and Laurens saw the Revolution and the struggle against slavery as inseparable.[99] Hamilton attacked his political opponents as demanding freedom for themselves and refusing to allow it to blacks.[100]

Hamilton, often in close association with his friend John Jay, was a leader in the anti-slavery movement in New York City following the Revolutionary War. They founded the New York Manumission Society to abolish the city's role in the international slave trade, and to pass legislation that would permanently end slavery in New York State. Both goals were accomplished by 1799.[101]

In January 1785, he attended the second meeting of the New York Manumission Society (NYMS). Jay was president and Hamilton was the first secretary and later became president.[102] Chernow notes how the membership soon included many of Hamilton's friends and associates. He was a member of the committee of the society that petitioned the legislature to end the slave trade, and that succeeded in passing legislation banning the export of slaves from New York.[103] In the same period, Hamilton returned a fugitive slave to Henry Laurens of South Carolina.[104]

Hamilton never supported forced emigration for freed slaves. Horton has argued from this that he would be comfortable with a multiracial society, and that this distinguished him from his contemporaries.[105] In international affairs, he supported Toussaint L'Ouverture's black government in Haiti after the revolt that overthrew French control, as he had supported aid to the slaveowners in 1791—both measures hurt France.[106]

Hamilton may have owned household slaves, as did many wealthy New Yorkers (the evidence for this is indirect; McDonald interprets it as referring to paid employees).[107]

He supported a gag rule to keep divisive discussions of slavery out of Congress. He opposed the compromise at the 1787 Constitutional Convention by which the federal government could not abolish the slave trade for 20 years, and was disappointed when he lost that argument.[108]

End of wiki section.

Now tell me again: what did Jefferson do re slavery?

90 posted on 05/29/2012 5:09:29 PM PDT by Pharmboy (Democrats lie because they must.)
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