Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Most Blessed Of The Patriarchs 20160531

Many of the events are open to the public. Look for them to in the future on book tv, on cspan2. Welcome to the free library of philadelphia. I am representative jim roadblock, i am certainly very happy to be here this evening. H i am a native philadelphia, graduated from central highhmy a school. [applause]. My particular focus tonight is on the fact that i went to First College at Virginia University in richmond, from which i received a history degree of honors and then i did my masters and phd at the university of virginia in charlottesville. So i am a wahoo as they say. Subsequent to that, i taught history at Drexel University for more years than i would like to think about, hitting all the right points here. I worked briefly in the Mayors Office as an assistant to mayor wilson good and i was elected to the state legislature where i still serve and im currently the minority, or or democratic chair of the house education committee. Fr the Free Libraries dedicated to advancing literacy, guiding learning, and inspiring curiosity. From its Award Winning author event series to its thoughtprovoking programs like of the upcoming american president ial series which will present compelling programs through the president ial election season. It is now my pleasure and honor to introduce the preeminent g scholars annette ward and reever who will be the presenters for this evening. Annette is a professor at harvard, both in the University Law school. She received the 2008 National Book award in the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in history for the hemmings of monticello. Umanitied her other multitudes of honor include the National Humanities medal, a good in time fellowship in the humanities, and a make author fellowship. Peter is one of americans leading jefferson scholars serving as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor Emeritus at the university of virginia and the Senior Research historian at the Robert H Smith Institutional Center for jefferson studies. His books include the mind of in the Thomas Jefferson was put in them news book, Thomas Jefferson her and the empire imagination, they present a revealing character study, the man for monticello who we thought we knew. President ial historian john praises and i quote, withight characteristic insight and intellectual rigor. Annette has produced a powerful and lasting portrait of the mind of Thomas Jefferson. This is an essential and brilliant book by two of the nations foremost scholars. A book that will, like its its protagonist, endured. We are so pleased to have them here with us this evening, ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming annette and peter to the free library [applause]. About thank you very much. It is wonderful to be here and to be here with one of my very best friends, annette. I annette. S i just like to start by talking about our friendship. The theha secret is, i would not have done this book if it had not been for a net inviting me and then an opportunity to spend time with her. Thats what a serious scholar i am. [laughter] people ask how we came to do this and when this book began. The idea of redoing it, and i say it began sometime at the end of the 1990s when i had written a manuscript aboututat Thomas Jefferson. It looked at the way historians had treated the story of Jefferson Hemmings and i wanted to find people who would be skeptical of the story because i think its always better to have people who tell you what you do wrong as opposed to people who will agree with you with whatever your say. So i called them up and i said i have this manuscript that i worked on and i called him because he was the Thomas Jefferson memorial and he was a success to Merrill Peterson to do bull malone. And and so i figured he would be hostile to what i was saying and he read it and to my surprise he liked it. He actually not only liked it but he wanted to use University Press of virginia, to publish the book. I had an offer from another trade publisher and i decided that i wanted to go with virginia because it was Jefferson University and some Academic Press. Because of the nature of what i was was doing, i thought it would be better to have academics know that this was a book that was abetted by other academics. Usually when you submit it book to an Academic Press at least two, sometimes three scholars are asked to review it before they decide to publish it. I thought it was better to go with virginia, and i did. Ever since then we have been really good friends. Weve been on this journey together. Peter has been writing about jefferson from the standpoint of a human intellectual historian so he writes about of jeffersons writing, what he read and how it influenced his life. I am more social history, i do i write about jefferson and slavery, his private life, some of the politics as well, so this is an opportunity for two people who have been looking from a different perspective to come together and see what we could see. Until jefferson came into my life i did not write about people. Dead people did did not interest me particular. Er im interested in ideas. And of jefferson, until annette was all about people. She is a social historian. It was a thrill for me, as an we old guy to find out that i could do the kind of history that we were doing together but the Common Ground we had is that we are trying to this guy out. We start with the premise that we can figure him out. He he did not want us to understand him. And now you are the first readers of World History to understand Thomas Jefferson. [laughter]out jefferson the other thing is we have been having these conversationsn about jefferson all of these years. As he alluded to there is this notion that he is a screw the boat person that he is so contradictory, so mysterious, that it cant be figured out and we think we can figure him out to the extent that you can figure anybody out, so we are all very complicated people. The best approach was to look at him as an inner and to take them as his word. That caveat was to when he says that when his intentions are as what he believes, what he thinks is going to happen. We have have come to the conclusion that jefferson scholarship and his personal life and understanding as a man had run into a ditch. To be exemplified by one word, hypocrisy. Even the headlights. Is the last of the word will be margin. Even the headlines forie writing about the book, book in which we say that her progress google r he is not the proper lens in which to view jefferson use the word hypocrisy because it is so calming, it rolls off of peoples tongs when thinking about him without thinking about the hypocrisy of the other members of the founding generation. He cornered the market on that. It was sorta the way to say that i knew something about him by saying hypocrite. That could see two thirds of the way. We wanted to move beyond that and sayy look, theres much more tohi writing about him and thinking about him than this sort of trope of hypocrisy is the thing that defines him. I think the first clue on jefferson is that he erected a wall around himself. Youve heard of this wall of separation between church and state. We. We think that metaphor applies to jefferson and the rest of the world. He insisted on his privacy in his sanctum sanctorum in hisis no house. He would be all alone and nobody would penetrate that space. That very insistence on the distinction between private and public, between his life within his family, among his friends, with the slaves, and his life as a statesman and leader. His assistance that they are why distinctive domains is the first clue and understanding him. Why does he insist so much on this. This is where i think we get to the title of the book because the keyword, youll get youll get it right here in the title and you can tell the book by its title but not because of the beautiful art, the pitcher jefferson but because that onene word. Patriarch. So help these people, people, this is an astonishing a concept. This is an astonishing idea that the great icon of democracy, the man who wrote the words that then led to the creation of this that i am now wearing, i do you use this audiovisual kind of stuff, that he could call himself a patriarch which has a sort of a ring of the archaic. The predemocratic, you might even said the antidemocratic. Absolutely. He uses the phrase in a letter he writes to angelica church, Angelica Schuyler church, people have seen the play hamilton it is the woman who is one of the schuyler sisters who is looking for minded work she says of the song. Jefferson and she knew each other, met each other when he was in france and they had something of a flirtation. People people mainly think of jefferson in relationship to mariah causeway in france. But angelica was another woman in which he flirted and have a highly charged relationship. In 1793 he writes to her at the eno of his tenure as secretary of state in washingtons cabinet. He has been beat up by alexander hamilton, angelicas georg brotherinlaw who he sort of in competition with hamilton for the favor of george washington. Hamilton wins this battle and jefferson is going on. He writes to her and says, he doesnt mention the sort of wars with hamilton but he knows, he knew what she knew all about the stuff because they were close. He writes to her and says im going back to monticello. One of the lines as he talk about having to go home to his fields, farms, and books and to watch for the happiness of those who labor for mines in other words the enslaved people on his plantation. He talks about his daughters and he says they come live next to me and are married often do well then i will be the most blessed of the patriarchs. I will come myself as a blessed and as peter said, that is such a strange word to use it to describe a person he saw himself as a republic democratic republican. A champion of the common man. A person who person who believed in the power of an people. Some the common people, a patriarch is an autocrat. Patriarch is someone who rules over his domain, his his family, sometimes enslaved people. You think about ancient times. In another letter he describes himself as living like an antediluvian patriarch among his farming family. We s so what we wanted to do is say how can these things exist together. We see this as contradiction but it made sense to jefferson. Its much more than a contradiction. Think think of jeffersons association with rights. He is the president who defines the rights, hes hes the one who articulates the natural rights. T one of the rights that seems most natural to him is to have complete control over the domestic domain. If if anybodye else is exercising influence in his Household Economy and the Little Society of his mountaintop plantation, then this control would be subvertedo if he is not secure in his, then he cannot be truly independent. That word independence is resonant both for the country as a whole and for Thomas Jefferson and other american men. Theyre independent so that they can form a government based on consents with each other. We make the further move that the people in the family should be equal to. That is what he says, all, all men and he means including women, are equal in some fundamental human sense, but the family unit itself is natural. That is the key to understanding this like that we are exploring between the private and the public. The families not just a refuge, way to get away from alexander hamilton. You can understand that. Jefferson says he hates politics, but he is lying. So we do call him out occasionally. Thats not a progress he. Everybody has to say that. You have to say particularly in the revolutionary. In the founding. Because if you are in politics for the sake of power and selfaggrandizement. You would be the enemy of democracy. When i supposed to have political parties, people dont run for office, they stand. You understandnd that distincti. It means means you are an upright man, people see you and they say, we we want you to represent us. So we think that as we begin to explore that connection between how jefferson lives in what he thinks, that both dimensions of his life become clear to us. But family is natural as you say and natural order in the family with a male as the head of the family and hisin understanding of natural. Jefferson was born in 1743, i will remind you of what natural was. The man is the patriarch is the head of the family over who he exercise power. The not also from whom he had responsibility. Theres this notion that jefferson has with himself as something that we think is problematic, a benevolent patriarch, a benevolent figure and thats how he thought people were supposed to rule in the family. The family be in the basic unit of the community, of the nation, you start with the family and you radiate out to the community at large, locally and then up to the National Government that it itself is sort of a model of family. What led hi that made sense to him but they gave him a particular view of could be in the nation, who who could be a part of the people. That is what let him to believe that there should be an end to slavery, but African Americans had to find their own country. He did not believe there could be a conflict free, multiracial, the way we aspire to a Multiracial Society with blacks and whites living together. Whites would never give up their against blacks, blacks would never forgive whites what they have done, theres no way, hed cannot at that time argue for, intermixed year. It was not something, not a plan that could be adopted. So it had to happen was africanamericans, black people would find their own country. They did not come to the country voluntarily, they are brought here in chains, they would have to find their place so that they could have their own country and have their own full rights. Jefferson could not have conceived of a society where there were large numbers of people were secondclass ever citizens, republican nation would have to have firstclassor citizenship for everybody. Its not the kind of world that we had after the civil war where laws were passed, where blacks and even when laws werent pass, as blacks or treat as secondclass citizens. You had to fight for citizenship. Its funny to think about jefferson and malcolm x. Malcolm x. Said, he sorted chiding king and others over its demonstrators say why do you have to fight for your freedom . If you are citizens of the country, why should you have to fight for freedom . Thats telling you something s there you have to do it. So we condemn jefferson allottes people condemn him a great deal for that statement, but its the truth. We have had sort of conflict and serious conflict among the races from the very beginning. This is is not to say that we cannot overcome them, but i thought it was naive to suggest that it was crazy when he suggested it was a possibility. When you look at history and see what is happening. It is very easily to moralize about jefferson. Word very easy to use that word a packer see us the morally compelling issue of the founding era was the definition of the American People and for us that it did not include all of ussnd then is very disturbing. The best way to understand it is not to start waking her finger and condemning jefferson as if he falls short of a standard he should have had. The best way to get a jefferson of slavery is to work through his mind. I think this is one of the ways we develop a complementarity and that has beautifully retold the story or told the first time the sum of the people who lived at monticello and that is a story that we need to hear and it is very compelling to us. What was jefferson thinking . It is important to bring up what might seem like an old, boring story to and that is, jefferson and his fellow revolutionaries that they were changing the world by attacking monarchy, aristocracy, aristocracy, privilege, established churches, all of these forms of inequality and secondclass citizenship. They were struggling against the tyranny of george the third, they were killing the king, his role have become unnatural because he was making war on his own subjects. People who, in america revered him until the imperial crisis that led to independence. Or in other words, king george was a bad father. We get back to the notion of fatherhood and a simple way to understand what mobilized a loth of men, the very independent men of virginia who thought well of themselves and still do in the first families, to think of george the third is somebody who challenged their own patriarchy, there fatherhood on their fit plantations and in the families. There fatherhood was incompatible with the wicked fatherhood of george the third. This is all about men. We have to understand this because for jefferson the difference in gender, which we take to be a social construction is the fashionable way to put ip because we are all basically a like, we keep discovering that were not, its very upsetting to me. We dont think that this difference should really matter very much. Were struggling with it. For jefferson, its nature. Its. Its supposed to be like this. A in the same way i think we can think about race in this way. Think of the idea of race, it really, really means the same thing as people. R it means the same thing as a nation. Thomas jefferson and his colleagues were Nation Builders comments on the basis of these natural connections among republican families who came together to govern themselves because they had rejected the mass of a bad father of the backing. This is the ugly side that we are contemplating and that is, families who come together in ah democracy are held together by bonds of love. But what is the boundary of that great family of families . It is those people who are not part of your family, who are not here in america voluntarily, who are a captive nation in chains. How would you solve that problem . How would you do justice to the enslaved people held against their will and working for you . You dont have to agree with jefferson, and we dont and his solution and that was talking about. Emancipation in a speech revision, country of your own. But at least the beginning of understanding is to understand where it comes from, it comes from these ideas of what is natural and that is another way of saying what is right. What is moral. Is doubly confusing because we think of the enlightenment, even the word as inevitably positive. You are in mind, you learn things, but the dark side of the enlightenment was this racial hierarchy, classification and the tendency to put everything in its place. A system a system of the way the world works. I wonder what he wouldve made a particle visits . You thin [laughter] if you could explain to him at the new level the world works this way but on a microscopic level everything that you think is right and natural dont apply at all. I wont go off on that. Nny thin but, the enlightenment fires jeffersons imagination and he wants desperately the thing that is clear and i hope it comes through in his book, he wants, he wants desperately to be seen as a progressive person. The funny thing about it is that now he is seen as thise e reactionary conservative person, during his lifetime he was seen as this a wild eyed revolutionary. There are people in South Carolina, who thought that he was gonna leave the slave revolt. It is just craziness. The image that he had at the time it was that is far out there, largely because of inai part because of his religious views and the things that he said about slavery, he was very afraid of how people were going to react to the words and in virginia where he criticized slavery. This tells you that you never know what people are going to be looking at in later generations are going to look at. The part of notes on the state of virginia when he says disparaging things about black people, that is what we fixate on. Those are not throwaway lines for him but that is not the core of what he is talking about. Hes making the grant pronouncement of the evils of slavery and his concern that his fellow virginians, who he he ish tested out by trying to, as a young man he wants to have anlly emancipation to introduce legislation emancipated slaves and they totally rejected. In 1796 later on st. George tucker does a same thing a same thing and they totally reject it. Or he knows i virginians are not going mike theres not going to be a republican solution to the end of slavery. In in other words they are not going to vote it out. He sort of gives up on all that with these people. E. There is a pathos to this, we can sympathize with jefferson because the standard he held was it takes an enlightened people to do the right thing but this new form of selfgovernment will enable people to see the light, and as they see that light they will act against slavery, will not happen now, maybe the, maybe the next generation, my take several generations. This is where the turn toward jeffersons religion because because this is a prayerful attitude. He prays that his children and childrens children will see the light and do the right thing about slavery. The pathos of it is, it gets harder and harder, and harder to do the right thing because slaves are worth too much. Theyre too valuable, just check just check the price of slaves. If jefferson could actually understand his own portfolio, to use a modern term,. Which he didnt. Know thats another thing about jefferson. That was his capital. That was whatever legacy he left to his children. He had hoped and thought, and many online thinkers did that slavery was an archaic form and it would disappear as if by well, the kind of magic that brought the light to the alignment. Because after all, free labor is more productive, isnt it . It people have incentives, if they are using their body to serve the interests of the people they love, their labor goes towards the good that they recognize in their own families, its not true unfortunately. This is one of the things that is important to know when we talk aboutut jefferson and slavery. Its a big discovery over the last few generations over historians of slavery. Its a profitable institution. Institution. The fact that Thomas Jefferson never became an apologist for slavery, and never said slavery was a positive good, is itself a remarkable thing because it was so easy to go and move in that direction of rationalization. Thats what we also send the book, as if he he has said that, if he had just said, like the generation that comes after him that slavery is not a necessary evil. The generation after him says its not a necessary evil, in fact its a positive good would be understandable. E. Be enslaved. He would be consistent in that point. He thought that there were certain things of the enlightenment. The world would get better and they believed they were basically good and they could be trained to become better. He believed those things and its difficult for us i think in our much more cynical age to actually take that seriously. When i grew up in in the neck this tradition and when jefferson calls himself a christian i think he says that not to curry favor but to protect himself so let me finish the story. I said i had difficulty with that if he does not have the divinity of christ if he did not believe in the trinity i am not talking about my personal beliefs but my understanding of what christianity is from the web was raised. And i was about to say that arguing with peter convince me i was being prejudiced and to move dogmatic Something Like that. Is good for [laughter] but i was not taking his religion there is the council that people talked about so i a bad step away from that. He cannot call himself a christian. Into hear the voice of jesus who can speak to mankind without the intermediation of the sioux have aeen selfinterest to interpret him in a certain way. The it isnt trying toderstand understand from gods creation in the way of worshiping god . Because we take the leap of faith and i think that is wrong with the gospel of peace and love you couldnt believe it would happen soon or in your lifetime with more respect than it has gotten. Rabil embrace of the miracle or the mysticism and teaching because of a real person relationship of god and christ there must be a cowboy this doubt there. Wherever you are you are a needt neediest. Key new religion would be a part of American Life in to remove volume of miracles to keep his peers teachings in tact and he wanted this in the new Republican Society he needed the life and morals of jesus of nazareth not jesus christ. Was given now to the house of representatives members can anyone imagine . [laughter] now you are picking on everything. So he though so he thought that kind of book would be a good book for a Republican Society. But not that we thought to be interpreted by people for those who had ulterior ha motives or were somehow connected so just like we had in the cold war or a system it was monarchies for those who are hooked up with a remarkable for readent government they did not allow people to participate in government. Al is the time to prepare yourself every young man in America Elwood be he is a visionary. [laughter] in this is important in coming back to read the ms. The spiritual quest about making sense history. But to freely choose which preaching to hear they would become increasingly in light and and through a the marketplace and what will emerge is a genuine democratic religion of the people to shape their moral and ethical vision we said before if we have selfgovernment than the light and people will do the right thing. Jefferson didnt take it wasin enough to let people as they were to make these momentous decisions needed to be educated and taught and truly enlightenment would do that but i would risk to say that jefferson advocated theto e emergence of a christian nation dont start pushing back because that is a term that is used with a very antijeffersonian position of as he also believe there was intelligent design and it made sense this was his quest to make sense of the world in the face of his own ignorance of all the things he did not know or could not predict. With that i believe we are to take questions. Thanks for that provocative it presentation can you say a word about jeffersons mentor and also what role if any did henry adams having your understanding of the imperial empire of the imagination . We henry adams at the beginning because he creates the line that people use to read the semi transparent shadows to suggest jefferson is the inscrutable individual henry adams is a masterful writer and his family have and develop relations with Jefferson George was his teacher he studied law longer than most people studied law and said he was his master when he was murdered later in he was of incalculable importance as a mentor and in favor of amendment talk about williamsburg to suggest his relations that they were hishers teachers and they put him on a path and he told his grandson later because he said intel young people got to be a certain age were not fit for making their own decisions as you should call yourself after other people than he would say if he was in a difficult situation what would he do . You could say the mentor for jefferson was a culture hero it is his model of the relationship between the bet generations to pass on the wisdom that is why he is the professors favor a founder. Can you both addresses his fascination in the importance of music to him . We have the chapter on music isnt typical soup to nuts there are some teams but the second part of the book is when he is a traveler but music is the first chapter he said that was the favorite passion he plays the violin but he would sing he would sing for people he would sing when he was by himself he is called Isaac Jefferson the grainger is israel last name he was always singing and his granddaughter remembers him singing all the time and his wife was excellent on the harpsichord and shes saying and that was a part of of the f family to sing together to play Music Together his younger daughter was not as enthusiastic as the musician but tried to please him the sons of sally had meetings were violinists the youngest made his living as say musician in ohio and one of the favorite tunes is whatas he was known for playing so was very important sentiment as the meeting of the mining door of the heart so this person who is seen as too could be described distant or chile i would say maurer shy but music was a way to make connections. The model of an idealthe idel conversation but you have to be welltrained and played but a together and of course, it is completely unrealistic that he and his family could practice in his home and he could imagine for the sake of American History a very good ref for jefferson it would be harmony it would not be rancorous there would not be doing so lowes but one great beautiful songsocietyw even then he is thinking of society as a whole. We will try what do you think jefferson would think of our freedoms of today . But also freedom for women . Women did not get the go and tell 50 years after male slaves got the vote. I think the emancipation of women would be more difficult for him than racial front for women it isnt natural he says they venture out a suspension that blacks are inferior to whites and many people believe that today but it was never a suspicion that women were different that would have been clear as a bedrock principle somebody would ask me would he be more upset about barack obama being president or Hillary Clinton . [laughter] i dont think it is any question he would be more upset about a woman president because that would have violated nature even though there were men in other countries or a king or queen if something went wrong but he talks about slaves in people revolting and rising up against their masters he talks about men with bin are not in thet picture or an object of fear for him. Hesitate to throw that because they get in trouble but the qualification that i would make and i am serious that his notion of democracynt isnt that were all capable now as to find us he thinks you have to work for it to and people get upset he writes to his daughter who is 12 years old about how she can please him if you do this i will love you anybody who was then in the fred rogers neighborhood but of course, mr. Rogers a good preacher loves you just the way you are but jefferson doesnt end it is and that he doesnt love his daughters but he wants you to be all that you can be but the point is serious that with female education with his granddaughter is in their ability. I will push back a bit. And she is 12 when he writes the passage he is middle age who has lost his wife and he has two daughters he has no idea what to say to them. This separate sphere of male and female he is saddled loss of what to do by the time he gets granddaughters he knows how to talk to young women. I am not saying the war attacking him but i. M. Qualifying the notion he thinks he is being a dutiful father in all of that but i fame kit comes from a place of panic and not understanding how will i do this . They dont have a mother now i am control and what do i do. We could go on we argue all the time. [laughter] ft f. You paint jefferson as an ans idealist to except the best and the potential is there ever a moment where he gave bin touse cynicism them lost faith of the of a potential. A great question. The thing about optimism the highest proportion of psycho analyst in the world as a boy in a series. [laughter] but that love and hate are very close to each other and optimism and pessimism onlype makes sense to gather but on the exercise is a fear off fail. Failure by seeing constantly he lived with the fear of failure why he engaged in a spiritual quest he was afraid it would all fall apart. We talk about the spiritual quest jefferson speaking of religion at the end of his life is differentg from the young man that may be a natural progressionn when he looks back to takeeta stock of what has worked and what hasnt but he is broke and for a long time it is pretty clear this will not th work out he keeps fantasizing ways to get out of debt he has a Development Plan we think of charlottesville as his toe but for most of his life milton is pretty much nothing now but he wanted to buy property their city kept trying but near the end it is pretty clear it will all fall apart. And he was nasty in politics there is a lot of nasty stuff in his life. And there is a lot of nasty stuff in politics i of have not been able to read either of your books yet although i have read any of jeffersons books or his letters rorer to john adams but i have a problem reconciling the hypocrisy of jefferson and as a founding father pertaining to slavery my limited understanding of American History i am led to believe that when the Founding Fathers were confronted with the opposing the evils of the british those monarchy slavery been the foremost that to get the colonies to unite to those two colonies that were insisting on having slavery South Carolina and georgia . And my correct . Am no. You are wrong it was everywhere. But they insisted. It to the question we have to move on. But i just find it hard i guess it is easy to say as a white person that he was being hypocritical he heard the institution my impression is he didnt likemy h it. That is a fine statement we dont like the word and we told you not to say it. [laughter] it is understandable for people to reconcile but what we say about jefferson is people have a set of intellectual beliefs that we dont always have the strength to live up to and it is a glaring flaw to us peek says we look back to use the by not dealing with this in the beginning, we see what happens so the standard answer there would be no union so people can say or suggest they could go pee off and make their peace but that is not the way it went. It is important to remember Abraham Lincoln and the way he turns back for a the principles that ultimately the end to slavery. Disenc but we cannot find that in jefferson but what we can believe it is a she had initiated common not achieved do we turn back that it was against mankind . Take your pick it. Why do you think jefferson did not free her . We talk about this in the book. So of that relationship to free the children but not her. When jefferson died is in order to free her he would have to put her name in a document and in a will everybody knew who she was her last name was not given the people talk about jokes he would have to petition in the legislature because the law said if he did againin legislative permission you have to leave virginia or you would reread enslaved after one year. At the time she was 50 years old you could not free and slave above the age of 45 or below the age of 21 without explaining how you h would take care of them up petition to the legislature to say we never would have argued about this that would have then ended mission everything they said was true and this is just my speculation that i dont believe he would humiliate her like that. Be another thing is that i dont think jefferson would have thought it was proper he did free people who were older at the time he didnt want to read this or free a wo wanted he had to free the daughter because said the child she had the two oldestpeof so that and now they are not all white she is young and has children and has children they arent slaved but sally have the eggs we would not be talking about him we would not be here tonight if he has admitted he lived 38 years with seven children with an africanamerican and enslaved will bid he would never be on mount rushmore. Re. [laughter] it just is not possible if very much into the goshen of notion of legacy the way he wanted to live through the ages he knew they had done Something Special to create United States of america the white the whit Community Never would have accepted him as a hero. Look at how that reevaluation it is sally that is what did this is he doing his people would never jefferson says they are not a ft ready he do his people if he. Admitted that they would never have honored him. We have had our time limit. [applause]