People for Thomas Jefferson V. People AGAINST Thomas Jefferson?

Question

My teacher is having us play lawyer we are either people for Thomas Jefferson or against him. If you are for him then you must debunk all the claims made by the Anti Thomas Jefferson Society of America. If you are against him your goal is to put him in jail, I don’t know which side I should fight for. Here are the charges being made by the A.T.J.S. of A would you agree with the charges below or disagree? give an adequate reason(s)

•Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal even though he owned more than 200 slaves at his home in Monticello.
•In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson makes inflammatory and derogatory remarks directed against African Americans.
•He makes no mention of the rights of African Americans in the Declaration of Independence.
•He has not released all of his slaves in accordance with the prevailing sentiment that slavery was morally and ethically wrong in the period after the Declaration of Independence.

We are not charging him based on today’s standers, because that would be unfair. We are charging him as if we were law clerks during Thomas Jefferson’s time.

Answer 1

All charges are true. Jefferson was an elitist. Jefferson did not include African Americans because Jefferson believed that only land owners should be allowed to vote, hold office, serve in the judiciary. Since AAs were never going to own land he felt no need to mention them.

Jefferson also maintained his own militia (hence the second amendment) and even a small navy. These personal forces were made up almost completely of indentured debtors. Jefferson aggressively and with predator methods illegal today loaned small property owners money to buy essentials like seed, breed stock, food, and under conditions that would make today's loan sharks blush.

Eventually the property owners defaulted and Jefferson indentured them in service to pay their debts. All this after he took their property and belongings.

Jefferson threatened the government if the capital was not moved to Washington he would claim his estate as a private enclave.

Jefferson was a piece of work. And nothing of a hero or leader.

Answer 2

Sounds like a stupid project...why ? Because no one has every persecuted someone else based on todays values when what they did happened so long ago. back then what he did was perfectly acceptable and part of what all people seemed to think. Before you slam Thomas J, consdier the fact that Even though he had slaves , its irrelevant because you can't prove the conditions as to how he treated them. We can speculate, but no one know's. One charge shot down.
Making remarks at best, even in todays court systems have ranged from public appoligies to fines. Even a conviction wouldn't hold much of a sentence.
He covers the rights (Africans included) when he drafts the Declaration of Independance. It doesn't say all White men are created equal. And no one should be dumb enough to think women weren't also included jsut because he said "all men".
As for the release, again, he can have all the personal freedom to express his view of something being wrong or immoral, but that is his opinion. In that day, it was acceptable behaviour.
Not saying that it was right, or justifying slavery, but how many times have we seen something wrong in our society and frustrated by the fact that people should understand these things to be wrong, yet its acceptable in the time it existed.
Did anyone actually find justice for the rounding up of Japanese Americans during WW2 ? Or when the Native Americans where tricked and got the short end of the stick on land trades ? What about when in WW2 8 Germans landed on American soil and they were caught, rushed through a military tribunal and executed. Granted.. a time of war, but unprecidented all the same.
That is why in America we are given the right to free speech, and to peaceably assemble. From tie to time we need the Rosa Parks and Martin Luther Kings to stand up and point out that Hey....why are we doing this...this isn't right...this isn't acceptable. And we..as a nation have slowly, but surely complied with that sentiment that we need to be self correcting to do what is right.
I say fight it. Dont let some stupid program try to slander the name of one of our fore-fathers and patriots.