Racial Views of Thomas Jefferson
African American History I
10 December 2009
Racial View Of/On Thomas Jefferson Before Thomas Jefferson was known as the third president of the United States he was elected as the first secretary of state by George Washington. He was the second youngest member delegate in the second continental congress at Philadelphia in which he was selected for drafting the Declaration of independence which is a part of our nation’s constitution to which he acquires a lot of his fame. He was also very well known for the three-fifths comprise which is one of the many analytical highlights discussed in the Negro President by Gary Wills. His personal life also became a scandal and his views on slavery which John C. Miller elaborates on events in his life in the book Wolf By The Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery. However his ultimate legacy was the founding of the University of Virginia. The Negro President was a very interesting book and it had satisfactory information with references to support its findings. Jefferson was a member of the southern aristocracy in which he was standing in the middle of the nation’s major controversy which would eventually astound America to its foundations, that of slavery. The intention Wills carries out in this book is to analyze Jefferson’s role in the ongoing debate concerning it and he was able to become president on the strength of a rule that was seen as a compromise between the north and the south on the subject of slavery, known as the three-fifths rule. In this book the Wills sees Jefferson as a “negro president” because he was the recipient of the discreditable rule, achieving the presidency as a result of its application. By having large numbers of slaves counted as three- fifths of a person this fragment made it possible for Jefferson to attain the presidency. With so many slaves located in the states where Jefferson had potency, the three-fifths compromise provided a missile thrust which made the difference in the election of
10 December 2009
Racial View Of/On Thomas Jefferson Before Thomas Jefferson was known as the third president of the United States he was elected as the first secretary of state by George Washington. He was the second youngest member delegate in the second continental congress at Philadelphia in which he was selected for drafting the Declaration of independence which is a part of our nation’s constitution to which he acquires a lot of his fame. He was also very well known for the three-fifths comprise which is one of the many analytical highlights discussed in the Negro President by Gary Wills. His personal life also became a scandal and his views on slavery which John C. Miller elaborates on events in his life in the book Wolf By The Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery. However his ultimate legacy was the founding of the University of Virginia. The Negro President was a very interesting book and it had satisfactory information with references to support its findings. Jefferson was a member of the southern aristocracy in which he was standing in the middle of the nation’s major controversy which would eventually astound America to its foundations, that of slavery. The intention Wills carries out in this book is to analyze Jefferson’s role in the ongoing debate concerning it and he was able to become president on the strength of a rule that was seen as a compromise between the north and the south on the subject of slavery, known as the three-fifths rule. In this book the Wills sees Jefferson as a “negro president” because he was the recipient of the discreditable rule, achieving the presidency as a result of its application. By having large numbers of slaves counted as three- fifths of a person this fragment made it possible for Jefferson to attain the presidency. With so many slaves located in the states where Jefferson had potency, the three-fifths compromise provided a missile thrust which made the difference in the election of