The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor; and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispassionate and steady conduct, will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1801
America's third president, Thomas Jefferson, is a divisive figure in American history. On the one hand, he was a champion for liberty and freedom, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and an author of the Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions in opposition to fellow patriot John Adams and the Federalists' Alien & Sedition Acts.
On the other hand, like a lot of Americans of the time, he was an ardent slaveholder and father of multiple children by slave mothers he owned as chattel property and while he should be condemned for that part, that does not mean he should be condemned elsewhere. Heck, Democrats still have in some places Jefferson-Jackson Dinners' and both Jefferson and (Andrew) Jackson were noxious people by today's culturally chauvinistic standards.
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