cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/45348900

https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/thomas-jefferson-slavery-wrath-of-god

This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.

  • BeanisBrain [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    27 days ago

    There’s this common idea that “Oh but nobody back then saw slavery as wrong” and quotes like this demonstrate just how false that statement is even if you exclude the slaves themselves from “nobody.”

    • red_giant [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      29·
      27 days ago

      He also advocated for an end to the transatlantic slave trade.

      Which sounds like a good thing until you learn that he owned one of the largest breeder farms in the US, aremoved factory, and he saw the transatlantic slave trade as a competitor. He advocated banning the transatlantic slave trade because he was one of the biggest domestic suppliers of slaves.

      He was an unbelievably evil person. There are some good quotes you can find him saying but they were always self-interested and hypocritical. He used the arguments of abolition as a tool for establishing protectionism for his own economic interest in being a “supplier” of slaves.

      He made Virginia the central “production center” of new slaves. That’s the reason so many black Americans can trace their ancestry to him…

      Hopefully hell exists.

      • Ekranoplane [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        27 days ago

        Yeah the American North fought the civil war because the bourgeoisie factory owners wanted to increase their profits by turning slaves into proles. The enlightenment thing was post hoc rationalization.

        • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          7·
          27 days ago

          That’s partly true, but it’s also partly true that the Amerikkkan North fought the civil war because the Amerikkkan South started the civil war, and that the South started the civil war because they were terrified of more Jean-Jacques Dessalines and more John Browns.

          The bourgeoisie factory owners of the North would have been happier with several generations of gradual means tested manumission for pell grant recipients who run a small business for five years.

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    27 days ago

    “But I’m going to keep the CSA going on my end, just as a little way to dare Him to do it. I spit in the face of the Almighty because I can clearly get away with it.”

    Aside: by far the worst part of Hamilton is when Sally Hemmings gets introduced as Jefferson’s hype woman.