history

This discussion assignment will be based upon a specific set of materials found in Chapter Seven of your textbook, “Debating Thomas Jefferson and Slavery” (see pp. 264-267).  In this section, you’ll read excerpts from two prominent scholars who have examined Thomas Jefferson in some detail, Douglas Wilson and Paul Finkelman.  You’ll also be reading excerpts from some documents that Jefferson wrote in which he discusses slavery, the abolition movement, and African-Americans in general.  In the discussion, it might be useful to begin to addressing the following questions:

1. Regarding the excerpts from Wilson and Finkelman, what judgments do these scholars make of Jefferson? Are they the same, or different?  How do they arrive at these judgments?

2. Regarding the primary documents by Jefferson himself, how did Jefferson view the institution of slavery?  Is there any evidence that he regarded slavery as morally problematic? How did he regard African-Americans?