A Qualified Defense of Thomas Jefferson:

Or a Plea for Mercy in the History Wars

The “Great Man” and his “Exploited Enablers” https://www.flickr.com/photos/timevanson/7236045290

I’m sorry. Erect as many new statues as you want.

I need Jefferson. I can’t teach US history without him. Jefferson the schizophrenic hydra who tears at the American soul.

You can contextualize him and build a mausoleum to every Hemmings who ever lived. But if we erase Jefferson we erase the founder cited by Frederick Douglass…