Symmetry wrote:Ray Rider wrote:Symmetry wrote:Ray Rider wrote:Symmetry wrote:thegreekdog wrote:When Symmetry, Neoteny, and I all agree, that answer is probably accurate.
I think the resistance here is a combination of "Thomas Jefferson was a great political mind, therefore he could not be a rapist" and "Shit, I know I'm wrong, but I'm going to dig in my heels."
Aye, that's been my general impression.
Oh, so three of you agree, therefore that is correct? I say meh, when a large number of people believe a fallacy, that just means a large number of people are wrong; nothing more, nothing less.
As for Thomas Jefferson's cult following; I'm not an American and couldn't care less about him or his reputation, yet I still don't see how you can prove he's a rapist.
He had sex with someone who wasn't free to consent to sex. That would be rape, no?
As has already been mentioned to you repeatedly, she could have claimed her freedom in France and abandoned Thomas Jefferson.
Under French law, both Sally and James could have petitioned for their freedom, as the 1789 revolutionary constitution in France abolished slavery in principle.[13] Hemings had the legal right to remain in France as a free person; if she returned to Virginia with Jefferson, it would be as a slave. According to her son's memoir, Hemings became pregnant by Jefferson in Paris and agreed to return with him to the United States after he promised to free her children when they came of age.[7] Hemings' strong kinship ties with her mother, extended family and siblings likely drew her back to Monticello.
No- you're suffering under the same delusion as Stahr on this.
On 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#Working_toward_a_constitutionSo no 1789 constitution. If we're talking about the declaration, it says nothing about slavery-
The declaration did not revoke the institution of slavery, as lobbied for by Jacques-Pierre Brissot's Les Amis des Noirs and defended by the group of colonial planters called the Club Massiac because they met at the Hôtel Massiac.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen#SlaveryEven if it had, Jefferson was back in the US within weeks of its publication. Can we put this tiresome myth to bed now? She went to France as a slave, was a slave in France, and returned to the US as a slave. She was neither free, nor did she have legal recourse to become free under a non-existent constitution.
Feel free to show me the 1789 revolutionary constitution that would have allowed her to petition for freedom if you feel I've missed it in my research.
You seem to be mistaking the constitution for the entire law of France. There were other laws besides the constitution, FYI, laws which were in place before being codified into the constitution. Perhaps you would like to explain why you're ignoring the account of a first hand witness to the relationship, Sally's son Madison, who said she could have kept her freedom had she remained in France?
When Mr. Jefferson went to France Martha was just budding into womanhood. Their stay (my mother's and Maria's) was about eighteen months. But during that time my mother became Mr. Jefferson's concubine, and when he was called back home she was enciente by him. He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred. She was just beginning to understand the French language well, and in France she was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he promised her extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promise, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia. Soon after their arrival, she gave birth to a child, of whom Thomas Jefferson was the father. It lived but a short time. She gave birth to four others, and Jefferson was the father of all of them. Their names were Beverly, Harriet, Madison (myself), and Eston--three sons and one daughter. We all became free agreeably to the treaty entered into by our parents before we were born. We all married and have raised families.Or how about Thomas Jefferson's own admission:
Jefferson had something of a problem keeping two slaves in France with him, however. According to French law, slavery was illegal, and they could petition for their freedom. During his tenure in France as U.S. minister, he received a query from an American couple about the legality of bringing a slave servant into the country. He replied that he had “made enquiries on the subject of the negro boy, and find that the laws of France give him freedom if he claims it, [414] and that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to interrupt the course of the law. Nevertheless I have known an instance where a person bringing in a slave, and saying nothing about it, has not been disturbed in his possession.” This person was, of course, Jefferson himself, who brought James Hemings with him. Jefferson advised the Americans to take the same course; the slave was young and "it is not probable he will think of claiming freedom.”
It is unlikely that James Hemings remained ignorant of his status under French law; he was nineteen when Jefferson brought him to Paris and twenty-four when he and his sister Sally returned to America with Jefferson and his two daughters. Jefferson no doubt used all of his arts of persuasion to convince Hemings that a life of bondage as Thomas Jefferson’s cook was preferable to freedom in Paris. He would never be permitted to return to America, or to see his family again, for example. Jefferson’s trump card would have been a promise of future freedom. [415] It was a pledge he drew up into a formal document in 1793...thegreekdog wrote:BigBallinStalin wrote:Ray Rider wrote:thegreekdog wrote:I typed this before, but imagine you are in the same position as this slave and make your determination on that basis. We know the relevant pieces of information as I laid out in handy list format above. Stahr provided even further evidence for the coercive aspect of the relationship; namely that she had to bargain to have her children not be slaves.]
You're not really making any sense now.
It would be impossible for a slave in a truly coercive relationship to bargain with their master. It would be a case of "do what I say or I'll have you whipped," not "if you do x for me, I'll do y for you."
Yup, exactly. TGD has reduced bargaining to something indicative of coercion which makes little sense, but in a convoluted way it supports his position--on poor grounds.
ITT, in general, the opposition has built a nice wall of arguments, but I'm still going to point to the huge crack in their foundation. They can ignore it all they like or imagined that it's paved over, but that doesn't change the problem with some of their fundamental assumptions.
Oh boy. I'm not sure some of you guys understand coercion.
What were the choices of the slave when she was in France:
(1) Have children, remain free in France, children free in France.
(2) Have children, remain a slave in the US, children free in the US.
(3) Have children, remain a slave in the US, children slaves in the US.
The best option is (1), no? Then why did she select (2)? Because she was in love with Jefferson? If she was in love with Jefferson, why didn't she choose (3)?
I think I began to address that here:
Ray Rider wrote:If you really want to discuss the impact of his name, we can do so; but what we think of him doesn't matter in the least--the real question is, did Sally care about him or his title/position? That may have been part of the reason why she chose slavery under him over freedom. Consider her choice between freedom in poverty as a nobody in a foreign land or returning to her home country as a slave to one of the most important officials in the world with promised "extraordinary privileges" and children who would be freed.
Option (1) of remaining free but poverty stricken in France wasn't necessarily the best choice, considering we know that as Jefferson's slave she was given fine clothing, paid for her work, given "extraordinary privileges," and remained in the household of one of the most prominent men in the world. However to continue with your point (2), the possibility does exist that she may have loved him and felt comfortable remaining his slave; however given that there were no guarantees of how Jefferson's heirs would treat her children (or to whom they would have been sold, especially because of his debts) had they remained slaves, it would be reasonable of her to see that it would be safer to grant them their freedom a let them choose their own destiny.