Also, the Declaration (not sure if this part is TJ) has a lot of "us" and "our" language in the specific rights/violations. I do not see the antislavery passage as including people of African descent in those first person plurals.
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I can see a generalized human rights liberty/life opening claim that (for TJ) incorporated all people, including Africans, but a more limited specification of rights-in-political-society that depends on membership, which would not include (not equally, if at all) Africans (or Native Americans).
jul 21, 2025, 10:33 pm • 0 0 • view
I am currently reading up on Jefferson and the Haitian Revolution, where he is similarly confounding and ends up choosing/acting poorly (non-recognition, embargo, etc) when presented with precisely the situation that made the antislavery version of the Declaration come to life fully.
jul 21, 2025, 10:33 pm • 1 0 • view
I’m not saying he shouldn’t have done differently in 1802, but there *were* widespread massacres of former slave owners in Haiti—and while on some level those are understandable too, it’s a different situation. We are talking about 1776 and claims to human rights. And the “men” part is clear.
jul 22, 2025, 12:19 am • 2 0 • view