Saturday, February 19, 2011

"Under the Law of Nature, All Men are Born Free." - Thomas Jefferson

Slavery was OBTRUDED on the Colonies by King George III. Thomas Jefferson INHERITED slaves. It was AGAINST THE LAW TO FREE THEM.

When he was 26 years old, chosen for the first time to be a member of a legislature, he submitted a bill for the EMANCIPATION of ALL slaves. As a lawyer in 1770, age 27, Jefferson defended a slave, saying: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free."

Facts:

1769: Chosen for the first time to be a member of a legislature, Thomas Jefferson made one effort in the House of Burgesses for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, but was rejected.

From Jefferson's autobiography: http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff01.txt -

"In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live, and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success."

1770: As a lawyer, Thomas Jefferson defended a slave, saying: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free."

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free; every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." -- Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376

1776: He strongly condemned slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence.

1778: The legislature passed a bill he proposed to ban further importation of slaves into Virginia.

1784: His draft of what became the Northwest Ordinance stipulated that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" in any of the new states admitted to the Union from the Northwest Territory.

1806: President Jefferson requested Congress to ban all slave importation to the US.

1807: As President, Jefferson signed a bill abolishing the slave trade: on March 3, 1807, as President of the USA, Thomas Jefferson signed a bill making slave importation illegal in the United States.

Thomas Jefferson is the author of the Declaration of Independence, the Father of religious freedom, the advocate of the Bill of Rights, and the President who abolished the slave trade: “the business or process of procuring, transporting, and selling slaves, esp. black Africans to the New World prior to the mid-19th century.” Jefferson successfully abolished primogeniture in Virginia, the rule by which the first born son inherited all the land.

Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence evinces his abhorrence of slavery -

"He (King George III) has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."

The anti-freedom lie about Jefferson. They dishonestly drop context.

"While Jefferson did not free all of his slaves on his death (as did Washington), a law passed in Virginia in 1806 required that the legislature pass a special bill that would attest to the exemplary behavior of each slave to be freed. If freed, THE SLAVE HAD TO LEAVE THE STATE WITHOUT HIS OR HER FAMILY.

Jefferson tried unsuccessfully to get this law changed. Further, Jefferson trained his slaves in skills that would be useful when they were free. He believed that to free them first would be irresponsible -- since they would be homeless and without family."

- http://www.liberty1.org/defense.htm

Thomas Jefferson on gossips: "I should have fancied myself half guilty had I condescended to put pen to paper in refutation of their falsehoods, or drawn them respect by any notice from myself."

‎"A fact that went largely unreported was that the DNA test DID RULE OUT Thomas Jefferson as the father of Thomas Woodson, the eldest of Hemings' sons..."

THOMAS JEFFERSON: A DEFENSE OF HIS CHARACTER -- http://www.liberty1.org/defense.htm

Abraham Lincoln extolled: "THE PRINCIPLES OF JEFFERSON ARE THE DEFINITIONS AND AXIOMS OF FREE SOCIETY… ALL HONOR TO JEFFERSON - to the man, who in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and sagacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there that to-day and in all coming days it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression.”

Historians have lied about Jefferson. I compiled these facts when this came to my attention:

The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia website states: “As historian David Brion Davis noted, if Jefferson had died in 1785, he would be remembered as an antislavery hero, as "one of the first statesmen anywhere to advocate concrete measures for eradicating slavery." After that time, however, there came a "thundering silence." Jefferson made no public statements on American slavery nor did he take any significant public action to change the course of his state or his nation.”

This is a MALEVOLENT LIE.

Other articles I've written about Thomas Jefferson and facebook pages I created:

I am a Jeffersonian.

- http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2011/01/jeffersonian.html
- http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-am-a-Jeffersonian/102951273112979?v=wall

Thomas Jefferson - The Mind of the American Revolution

- http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2010/03/thomas-jefferson-mind-of-american.html
- http://www.facebook.com/pages/Thomas-Jefferson-The-Mind-of-the-American-Revolution/367591548897


 
 

10 comments:

Ilyn Ross said...

Slavery was OBTRUDED on Thomas Jefferson - HE DID NOT CHOOSE TO OWN SLAVES. He inherited them; it was against the law to free them. He fought slavery laws all his life with all his being - http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2011/02/under-law-of-nature-all-men-are-born.html

Logically and morally, one cannot be faulted for something outside of one's choice.

Ilyn Ross said...

http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2011/02/under-law-of-nature-all-men-are-born.html

Logically & morally, one cannot be faulted for something outside of one's choice. Slavery was OBTRUDED on the Colonies by King GIII. TJ INHERITED slaves. It was AGAINST THE LAW TO FREE THEM.

Chosen for the 1st time to be a member of a legislature at age 26, he submitted a bill for the EMANCIPATION of slaves. As a lawyer, age 27, TJ defended a slave, saying: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free."

Ilyn Ross said...

The Thomas Jefferson - Sally Hemings Myth and the Politicization of
American History

http://www.ashbrook.org/articles/mayer-hemings.html#V

Ilyn Ross said...

For clarity: The law passed in VA in 1806 allowed ONLY the SELF-SUPPORTING to be freed. If a self-supporting slave had children or parents who were not, he/she had to leave them.

Ilyn Ross said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk5NAeIRY4k&feature=related

From Jefferson’s “original Rough draught” of the Declaration of Independence

"He (King George III) has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who... never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."

http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/declaration/declaration.html

Ilyn Ross said...

http://www.facebook.com/#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=195043533921505&id=186756111381852

Ilyn Ross said...

The anti freedom evade the truth -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk5NAeIRY4k&feature=related

Ilyn Ross said...

Congress Again--and France This first retirement was brief. In a year his wife died. Jefferson reentered Congress, throwing himself into the work of lawmaking, this time for the national government. Within two years he wrote some of the most meaningful state papers of the Continental Congress. Three reports were especially good: 1. On Government for the Western Territory, the basic document for the growth of the United States, in which Jefferson's effort to abolish slavery failed by one vote.

http://history-world.org/thomas_jefferson.htm

Ilyn Ross said...

Debating Slavery Clause in the Declaration of Independence: Second Continental Congress

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_41wDUvai1s

Ilyn Ross said...

Slavery was OBTRUDED on the Colonies by King George III. Thomas Jefferson INHERITED slaves. It was AGAINST THE LAW TO FREE THEM.

When he was 26 years old, chosen for the first time to be a member of a legislature, he submitted a bill for the EMANCIPATION of ALL slaves. As a lawyer in 1770, age 27, Jefferson defended a slave, saying: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_41wDUvai1s