I am slightly disappointed at the conclusions you and Drifter seem to be jumping to of me here. He posted something with out a reference, I was not previously acquainted with it. I am not much into apotheosising founding fathers.
Speaking for myself, I drew no conclusions - merely expressed surprise because you have always stuck me as well read. Perhaps you missed it but the extract
was cited with a reference that's why I was surprised when you questioned its authenticity.
The comment that (in my experience) has drawn much ire is:
"I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind."
This is in fact from the section on Laws, rather than constitution.
I'm not seeking to judge Jefferson as a man, I have no right to do so and I'm unqualified. We must also bear in mind that his comments were written close to a century before Darwin forced a less anecdotal approach to this issue (and many others). We are also evaluating his words with the benefit of over 200 years of hindsight. They may have reflected the prevailing wisdom of his day but by any modern standard they are seen for what they are. We can pour scorn on his words, for they
are unambiguous, but we can only make informed guesses about his motivation for expressing them.
While Jefferson wasn't a principal architect of the Constitution many provisions therein fly in the face of his earlier assertion that -
"... all men are created equal", not to mention his status as a slave owner, I'd say. The one truth about Jefferson that is self evident is that, like many (then and today) he
didn't practice what he preached.
This leads (in a roundabout way) to the bizarre allusion by Nick4444 (I may have misunderstood him - ut can be tricky to understand what he means) that because Jefferson was born a citizen of the Empire he is somehow absolved of responsibility for his views and actions, and thus by inference the US in a wider sense isn't responsible for the ensuing 200+ years of race relations policies formulated and enforced within its borders.
Even if I accepted the former (which I don't, Jefferson was an intelligent, educated man who profited from the exploitation of those many would believe he strove
unstintingly to emancipate) I certainly don't accept the latter. Indeed, Nick's grasp on reality is further undermined where he writes (in response to a comment by Drifter about racism in the US):
which again, had its genesis and exposition across the Atlantic, and which began to lose force on American soil, as the energy, vitality, and genius of the formerly subjugated, helped to shape this new nation...
Followed up with:
all in the history books, dear fellow
Indeed it is in the history books but not as he would argue. History doesn't record a neat and steady decline in racial tensions and divisions, quite the reverse:
How does Nick explain that almost 200 years after Jefferson wrote those words the US was still en
forcing, its own brand of Apartheid?
How does he explain the genocidal acts perpetrated against Native Americans?
How does he explain how the US failed to abolish a trade he argued it 'inherited' from its former colonial master
decades after said colonial power had done so?
How can he argue for a weakening of racial intolerance when the very constitution under which he lives failed (at its inception) not only to forbid the traffic in slaves, inserted in clause 3 (which is
still extant) that escaped slaves be returned to their owners, delayed the abolishion of the trade but above all
expressly valued a slave as 3/5 of a man?
Back to reality - I appreciate the constitution was a political compromise; my point being that the a large part of price the US paid for its birth was the lives and liberty of those who helped underpin the very prosperity and values it today holds dear. For Nick to deny this and seek to shift the blame onto a former colonial power is both callow and an affront to those who suffered and died at the hands of those who he (and others) would seek to deify.
The founding Fathers had an opportunity to right more wrongs than they did, and it's easy to second guess them 250 years into the future but at least acknowledge the imperfection.
The other risk here is that this will be seen as an attack on the US and an attempt to absolve the UK for its own sins. Neither is the case, the UK has blood on its hands too, but I do believe it has (overall) been more successful at coming to terms with its
true history. Denial is a appealing analgesic, but it's no cure.
Which brings us neatly to the OP and the role Obama may (or may not) play in the administration of that cure. It would seem from a distance that even today, too many remain unwilling to concede that there is even much of a need for one.
