More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 15, 2016 - January 30, 2019
And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.[247] (emphasis added)
Who influenced Jefferson’s religious views?
reasoned analysis of the situation. If God is a loving father, then why would he abandon his children to the wiles of the devil?
In The Jefferson Lies, Barton creates a narrative that barely acknowledges the very influences Jefferson pointed to as the basis for his beliefs. Instead, Barton highlights ministers in central Virginia who Jefferson hardly mentions and may not have known.
Did Jefferson arrange for James O’Kelly to preach to Congress?
Despite the lack of any contemporaneous evidence corroborating this story, Barton weaves a narrative that makes it appear that a source existed at the time of the event. Barton asserts that a newspaper editor reported Jefferson’s tearful proclamation, “following one of those occasions.” However, the only citations used by Barton in The Jefferson Lies are from the early 1900s and all lead back to the same source: Rev. J. P. Barrett, the Christian Church newsletter editor.
To recap, there is no record in Jefferson’s or O’Kelly’s writings to indicate that the two men knew each other. There is no indication in available Congressional records that O’Kelly ever preached in the House of Representatives or was invited to preach anywhere by Jefferson. There are no reports of that era (i.e., newspapers, church records, letters, etc.) which corroborate any aspect of the story or that link the two men. Thus, it appears that this story is more legend than anything else.
Thus, Barton’s claim in The Jefferson Lies that Jefferson “openly embraced and promoted” the Restoration and Christian Primitivist movement fails when one considers the words of Jefferson in their context. Jefferson’s hope for a return to the doctrines of Jesus had been expressed during his presidency in his Syllabus, and his extractions from the Gospels. Even before his presidency he rejected the Trinity and attended Joseph Priestley’s Unitarian congregation in Philadelphia. All of Jefferson’s expressions about getting back to the teachings of Jesus are more properly associated with
...more
Was Unitarianism an evangelical denomination in Jefferson’s day?
To call nineteenth-century Unitarians a “very evangelical Christian denomination” is like calling a circle a square. While many were deeply pious, Unitarians rejected the deity of Christ and consequently the Trinity. Since the common sense meaning of “evangelical Christian” usually entails an affirmation of Christ’s deity and by implication the Trinity, it strikes me as a rather oddly creative use of the term to suggest Unitarians were “evangelical Christians.”
Jefferson seemed to end his life with hopes that Unitarianism would flourish.
Perhaps, Unitarian, or as Greg Frazer suggests, theistic rationalist, are more accurate designations.
Barton’s effort to rewrite the narrative of Jefferson’s religious views falls flat when one considers Jefferson’s own words throughout his life.
Jefferson and the University of Virginia
Jefferson could reasonably be called the first education president.
He indicated that Bible reading should not be used with youth. Rather, he called for children to learn to read history and the classics.[275]
Was the University of Virginia the first transdenominational school?
If there was some contemporaneous sense of the University as being “transdenominational,” important religious leaders in Virginia did not feel it.
Jefferson told Cooper in the November 22, 1822 letter that the divinity schools would have access to the University while at the same time, “preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other.” As it turned out, the idea never caught on and no divinity schools were established. Thus, Jefferson did not increase the number of divinity professors. Barton’s claim is false.
Calling the University “transdenominational,” however, depicts it as something no one did at the time and misrepresents the situation for readers today.
Did the University of Virginia have chaplains?
Jefferson left decisions about religious matters to the Board of Visitors of the school and did not make any recommendations about the office of chaplain. In all the writing Jefferson did about public education, he did not mention a role for a chaplain.
Religious activities were contemplated, but not as an integral part of the curriculum as Barton claims.
Chaplains were eventually recognized by the university, but Jefferson had no role in developing those “impartial regulations” beyond acknowledging the possibility of religious worship sometime in the future.
One must consider that Jefferson was widely known as the founder of the school and his religious reputation was also associated with it. The university did eventually have chaplains but not while Jefferson was involved.
Five • Jefferson and Slavery
A careful investigation of Jefferson and slavery reveals a rather mixed portrait of our third president. What seems certain is that one cannot say, as Barton writes, that “Jefferson faithfully and consistently advocated for emancipation and civil rights throughout his long life, even when it would have been easier and better for him if he had remained silent or inactive.”[296]
Barton’s errors, however, paint an incomplete and incorrect portrait of Jefferson on slavery and race, overshadowing any accurate statements he makes.
First, we examine the claim that Jefferson was unable to free his slaves because of restrictions under Virginia law. We then briefly assess Jefferson’s treatment of slaves and conclude by examining his views on the equality of the races. In reviewing these matters, we also consider some facts not discussed by Barton, such as Jefferson’s views on deportation and colonization of freed slaves.
Was Jefferson unable to free his slaves under Virginia law?
He deliberately omits the section that indicates slaves could be freed by an owner with appropriate deed. In fact, many slaves were freed by other owners in this way.
The crucial omission is this phrase: ...or by any other instrument in writing, under his or her hand and seal, attested and proved in the county court by two witnesses, or acknowledged by the party in the court of the county where he or she resides... This section allowed slave owners to release their slaves by a deed. Emancipated slaves needed a document to prove that their former owners had freed them. This law allowed slave owners when they were alive to free their slaves. Thus, Jefferson could have freed many of his slaves within the law while he was alive.
Regarding Jefferson and the legal environment of slaves and their possible emancipation, Barton misrepresents Virginia laws regarding slavery. More significantly, what a tremendous act in support of human equality it would have been had Jefferson, like Robert Carter, freed his slaves while he was President of the United States. He could have done so, but chose not to. One could argue that Jefferson was constrained by cultural conditions or by his own financial needs to have slaves, but he cannot be called a champion for the emancipation of slaves.
Was Jefferson merely a ‘passive’ slave owner?
For now, notice that Barton simply lifts the 187 figure from Cohen without explaining that the vast majority of the slaves Jefferson owned by 1774 were acquired in a manner other than inheritance from his father at age fourteen.
One who argues that Jefferson had no alternative but to sell slaves must note that Jefferson also sold some of his land to pay off debts. By 1810, he had 197 slaves and by 1822, the count was up to 267. So it is indisputable that he continued to acquire slaves after those which he had inherited as a young man.
While in some respects Jefferson was sometimes a kind master to his slaves, he still viewed slaves as assets. He certainly sold slaves to meet his debts and, once they were sold, he could have no control as to how those slaves were treated.
In 1769 he advertised in the Virginia Gazette seeking the return of a runaway slave. According to Cohen, “throughout his life, Jefferson hired slave catchers.”[325] In 1806, while he was President of the United States, Jefferson offered a bonus for a bounty hunter to return Joe, a mulatto slave.[326] Joe was apprehended and returned to Monticello. If one truly abhorred slavery, then doesn’t it seem reasonable that one might look the other way allowing a slave to escape to his or her freedom?
While we can praise some actions by Jefferson, such as working to end the importation of slaves, Jefferson’s private actions as a slave owner and one engaged in the buying and selling of human beings must be taken into account. Jefferson was not without options, nor was he merely constrained by “geography and circumstances,” as Barton claims.[329] He was a lifelong and active participant in the buying and selling of human beings. Those private actions are greatly inconsistent with Barton’s claim that Jefferson was “a bold, staunch, and consistent advocate and defender of emancipation and
...more
Did Jefferson believe blacks and whites could live together?
Consistent with the passage above, in private letters Jefferson expressed his support for removal of blacks from the United States.
While Jefferson believed that blacks might be able to govern themselves in a colony separate from whites, he also indicated that black intelligence was not on par with that of whites. Barton says that Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, “also twice lightly questioned whether blacks might be inferior” (italicized in Barton).[335] We have included a lengthy quote from the Notes so that readers can judge whether Jefferson was ‘lightly’ questioning whether blacks ‘might’ be inferior
Jefferson then criticized the literature of blacks and added:
Jefferson concluded this section with a call for segregation:
Jefferson did not express his doubts about the credibility of the stories of black achievement to Father Gregoire directly. Instead, Jefferson sent the abolitionist priest, “a very soft answer.” Later, however, to his friend Barlow, Jefferson belittled Gregoire’s book of literature, implying that some of the productions could have been fictitious or come from mixed-race authors. Jefferson then went further and cast doubt on the credibility and intelligence of Benjamin Banneker, a black mathematician to whom Barton refers as having impressed Jefferson.
Not only was Jefferson willing to amend the Constitution to put his plan of segregation into effect, he considered the separation of black babies from their black mothers as being of gnat-like insignificance.
Getting Jefferson right means seeing the whole person; with his accomplishments and admirable traits as well as his failings and inconsistencies.
Concluding Thoughts
Overall, we believe Barton does what he accuses mainstream historians of doing.
We close this book where we began – with a sincere desire to illuminate the facts and provide them in their proper historical context.
