After reading Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia, and George Fitzhugh’s points of view on slavery in the world, an interesting topic was discovered that many would think absurd. Is Thomas Jefferson a hypocrite? Without knowing outside facts, you would think that Jefferson was the “stand up” guy, while Fitzhugh was a confused individual whose twisted mental state left him completely convinced that the world should not continue without slavery.
After the class discussion, it became apparent that things were not necessarily as they appear. While Thomas Jefferson seems to be standing up against slavery, and conceptually working to make things right, he owns slaves for his own and discredits his own thoughts. How can someone work to make a point to improve the quality of living for these people, yet own slaves himself? This leads me to believe that Jefferson was working to impress others and make himself look good within his writing, yet couldn’t even back up his own point of view. Was Thomas Jefferson really the leader that the American public may think? As a President of our country and the principle author to the Declaration of Independence I never expected to find that his remarks and his actions would differ from each other to such an extent. I would hold a man of this magnitude to a higher level than Jefferson held for himself.
Fitzhugh was much different from Thomas Jefferson. His thoughts on slavery were that “Southern thought and Southern example must rule the world.” He was very outspoken in what in his mind were the qualities of slavery. Fitzhugh was able to solidly back up his perspective. He said “All kinds of slavery are right”, and showed that he believed it by speaking of the ways that it helped the community, as well as explaining that other races should be slaves if the “inferior race” were not already enslaved. He did not contradict his own perspective by describing the situation and doing the exact opposite.
I still believe that Jefferson did believe in his thoughts and had good intentions but it was too convenient for him to sway to the other side. Fitzhugh, on the other hand had an infinite number of flaws that left him with sick thoughts of the way that the world should work. Overall, I found Jefferson was a hypocrite, but Fitzhugh proved himself to be nauseating.
5 comments:
I thought the same thing. I also said that he was trying to make himself look good. In his writings you get the idea that he is trying to make all people equal but this is not the case he still had slaves as you mentioned. I thunk he wanted to make all men that owned land equal.
While you are right that Jefferson did seemingly contradict himself by writing “all men are created equal” and then owning slaves, I think that we must consider the times. Perhaps there were enough Constitutional issues at the time that he was dealing with that he did not want to take on the issue of slavery too. I think he probably did feel that slavery was wrong, which is why he allegedly freed his slaves in his will, as was mentioned in class. However, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, he advocates transporting the slaves back to other countries because he thinks race relations will otherwise always be difficult. He clearly didn’t want slavery but thought that the issue was a big one. I think he just did not want to create personal issues by renouncing slavery himself during his lifetime. While this may not be completely honorable, I do not think that his status as a great American leader should not be discredited.
Also, Fitzhugh, while not making any apparent contradictions, also did not consider slavery from a slave’s personal perspective. He did not think about how slaves do not get to make family choices, earn wages, travel, etc. when explaining how it was preferable to being “slaves to capital.” I don’t think Fitzhugh’s argument is as flawless as it seemed; otherwise we would probably still have slavery.
I agree with your views on both men. The first thing you read in Jefferson's article is the quotation that he bases his entire argument on. This in itself is absolutely absurd and there is no evidence to support his claims. Blacks should be slaves because they smell? Thats like saying that boys have cuties. These are arguments of uneducated children. The further you read into Jefferson's writing the more he enforces his stance as a hypocrite. Did he actually have his own opinion? Fitzhugh on the other hand clearly believed in slavery and although I do not believe in slavery I do have more respect for Fitzhugh than for Jefferson, if only because he could formulate his own opinion and back it with real facts.
I agree with you about Jefferson leading to impress others, along with making himself look good in his writtings. If he really believed in something he should have stood up and did something about it. But instead, he cared too much about what everyone else though. A good example of this is on page 36, Jefferson talks about slaves being free in a sentence, then talks about how the others will respond to that.
Good points, Drew. It seems that both of these men are a little hard to digest, though for different reasons. I happen to think Jefferson was a bit of a hypocrite, as we all know that he wrote 'all men are created equal,' but as you point out, owned slaves himself. How could anyone not think him to be a hypocrite? His concepts on paper are very different from how he behaved in his real life. On the other hand, we have Fitzhugh who, although we disagree with him, are somehow forced to consider what he is saying because he makes such a strong argument and backs this up with valid and logical points. The reader is not satisfied with either man by the end of their pieces.
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