Jefferson and Slavery

On this fourth of July, some observations from the writer of the Declaration of Independence on the evils of slavery.  Jefferson has some very nasty things to say in the book this comes from, Notes on the State of Virginia, but here he expresses his sense of the price that's paid for the continuation of the practice, by slaves and slave owners alike:

"It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic, or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are even 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 for ever: 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.—But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation."

Jefferson includes a draft of a revised constitution for Virginia, which was never approved.  In it, there's the following clause:

"The general assembly shall not have power . . . to permit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this state, or the continuance of slavery beyond the generation which shall be living on the thirty-first day of December, one thousand eight hundred: all persons born after that day being hereby declared free."

I'm posting this not so much to absolve Jefferson as slave owner--as I said, he has some horrible things to say in this book.  My purpose is to suggest that, even at the moment of the nation's founding, the evil of slavery was well known.  The continuation of slavery under the Constitution was a compromise with pure evil, and the compromisers knew it.

Bars and Stars

I've seem memes galore about the banning of the Confederate flag.  I'm against banning anything, but at the same time I don't think that "banning" is the right word to apply to what's happening to the Confederate flag.  There's no law that says, "Thou shalt not manufacture the flag."  There are no laws banning the flag.  What's happening is that businesses are making a cold, hard calculation and deciding that it's best for their bottom lines, at this point in history, anyway, not to sell or not to show the Confederate flag.  There are no laws banning the flag.  That state assemblies and congresses may want to remove the flag from public places, which I think is a good idea, doesn't equal banning the flag.  There's no law that says, "Thou shalt not display the flag on your premises." There are no laws banning the flag.

As to why I think it's a good idea not to make use of the flag, there are two reasons, both of them also deriving from memes that I've seen.  With the first I agree:  you're perfectly free to fly the flag; and I'm perfectly free to conclude from that decision that you're a bigot.  Free speech has consequences.

Why a bigot and not just someone who celebrates the greatness of the Southern past?  Well, consider another meme, which says basically that the Confederate flag is in principle not different from the American flag.  The American flag has flown over many and many a despicable act of horror and terror, from the genocide of Native Americans to the enslavement of Africans and from the mistreatment of Revolutionary War loyalists to the massacres at My Lai and elsewhere, too numerous to count.  All flags, the American included, have presided over horrible events.  But (a "but" worthy of an elephant, it's so big) although the American flag may have flown during such horrors, the purpose of America, and so of the flag that represents it, is ultimately not genocide or slavery or mistreatment or massacre.  On the other hand, the Confederate flag had one purpose:  to preserve and protect the institution of slavery.

So, again, my three points:  there are no laws banning the Confederate flag; I think it's stupid to take Dukes of Hazard off the air or to forbid the flying of the Confederate flag; I reserve the right to attribute the intended purpose of that flag to those who choose to fly or celebrate it.