The Legacy of Thomas Jefferson

The podcast reacts to the narrow question of whether Thomas Jefferson’s warts, namely the one where he owned over 600 slaves during his life, only freed at his death what most historians believe were his own children created by his ongoing sex, maybe against her will, with his slave Sally Hemings. Stated publicly that black people were inferior to whites whose freedom could only work by sending them away from America (colonization not emancipation), who called Native Americans 'wretches unable to govern' and whether those character flaws when measured against his creative crafting of a new country based on a foundation of the statement “all men are created equal?”

By comparison, is the institution of American slavery a moral equivalent to the Jewish Holocaust? If yes, are there, or should there be, statues erected to Hitler or SS officers if history can show they did great things for their society but sent 6 million Jews to their deaths? Or if a Catholic priest who is honored by Catholics for his work is discovered to have abused children, would that reverence change? In other words, are some behaviors deal breakers for future adulation by societies?

This episode is predicated on the premise that listeners will like listening to a full conversation about a thorny current issue that may be rooted in former limited understandings of our history.

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