Critical Response to My 4th of July Essay

Reflections on the hypocrisy of Thomas Jefferson et al.

By JOHN LEAKE

There’s a funny scene in the novel Imperium, by Robert Harris—an historical novel about Cicero’s adventures in the late Roman Republic—in which a Roman patrician comes to Cicero (a lawyer) complaining that his young wife has divorced him. He refuses to recognize the validity of her lawsuit for divorce, even though it’s perfectly valid under Roman law.

To bolster his argument, he has brought along to the meeting a renowned Greek philosopher, who presents a metaphysical argument for why the bond of marriage cannot be severed. Cicero listens carefully and then tells both men that they are missing the point. The divorce is not only valid; it is already accomplished, and no amount of philosophical argument is going to change it.

Since the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, Great Britain has recognized that the United States is an independent and sovereign nation. I suppose one could argue that King George III should NOT have done this, but the fact is, he did. Given the other conspicuous fact that I am a citizen of the United States and have enjoyed great security and prosperity as a result of my citizenship, on Independence Day I thought it appropriate to relate a funny and poignant story about Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It’s a quirky habit I have of making celebratory gestures on occasions like weddings and anniversaries.

Since I posted my essay, a few readers have contacted me to say that Thomas Jefferson and the whole lousy lot of them were insufferable humbugs who wrote all high and mighty about “liberty” and the “inalienable rights of man” while they themselves owned slaves.

This criticism is not original. Indeed, responding to the colonists’ demands in 1775, the great English essayist, Samuel Johnson, asked, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

In his 1942 short story, The Bear, William Faulkner’s protagonist reflects on the possibility that the innocence of the natural wilderness of the American South was tainted as soon as the institution of slavery was introduced to it.

As I have remarked in previous posts, it seems to me that people who have enjoyed long periods of unprecedented prosperity and security—largely as a result of massive debt financing of everything—have a tendency to start thinking that they are very special and would have—had they lived in the past—discerned the injustices of the day and protested them.

I doubt it. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that most people are very quick to comply with whatever dictates are issued by the prevailing authorities and to question little.

QUESTIONS

1). Because the principle author of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, should we no longer celebrate our independence from Great Britain?

2). Should we Americans today—none of whom have ever owned a slave—petition King Charles III to reunite with Great Britain (which abolished the slave trade in 1807 and the institution of slavery in British colonies in 1833)?

3). If, as Faulkner seemed to suggest, white men tainted the innocent wilderness when they introduced slavery to it, what are we to make of deaths of hundreds of thousands of Confederate soldiers, most of whom didn’t own slaves? Is it reasonable to suggest that their violent deaths expiated their sins?

4). What are we to make of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers, including recent Irish immigrants, in the Civil War?

5). What are we to make of all the hard work and investment made in this country over the last two hundred years by people who never owned slaves?

I’ll conclude by posing a difficult question. If Jefferson had recognized his hypocrisy and corrected it by liberating his slaves before he drafted the document, what practical responsibilities could he have reasonably been expected to assume for his liberated slaves?

To frame the question more directly: Which of the following do you believe you would have done if, like Thomas Jefferson, you inherited upon your father’s death in 1757 a plantation and thirty slaves?

1). Offered your liberated slaves room and board, with no obligation to perform any work, for the rest of their lives?

2). Offered a daily wage in return for maintaining their occupations as plantation laborers?

3). Paid for their transportation to Africa?

4). Found them jobs as laborers working in the growing cities of the colonies?

5). Exhorted them to “Go West, young man and woman,” and seek their fortunes on the frontier?

As always, I welcome and am delighted to read your comments.