Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, was no doubt a great man of his time and he helped in the shaping of America today. As far as the issue of slavery goes, Jefferson wasn’t quite sure where his position was at. Jefferson owned slaves for many years and yet he was always trying to abolish slavery in his political positions. To me that sounds ridiculous that he wanted to get rid of slavery, but he owned slaves. Another thing about him was that he fathered children with on of his slaves, Sally. As shown in our book on page 82, you can see the black descendants of Jefferson. Of course Jefferson denied all claims of this considering that for one having children out of wedlock was morally wrong and second Jefferson’s entire campaign about releasing the slaves also stated that they should not be able to “mix” with the whites. My explanations of these differences are all because of politics. Jefferson felt one way about slavery when he was by himself, but when he was in the public eye he had to act a certain way to gain approval. I do not disagree that Jefferson was one of the greatest men to lead our nation to greatness, but I believe when it came to slavery Jefferson didn’t know what he wanted.