Here comes the Fourth of July, number 236 since the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence and riders on horseback rushed it to the far corners of the thirteen new United States -- where it was read aloud to cheering crowds. These days our celebration of the Fourth brings a welcome round of barbecue, camaraderie with friends and family, fireworks, flags, and unbeatable prices at the mall.
But perhaps, too, we will remember the Declaration of Independence itself, the product of what John Adams called Thomas Jefferson's "happy talent for composition." Take some time this week to read it alone, to yourself, or aloud with others, and tell me the words aren't still capable of setting the mind ablaze. The founders surely knew that when they let these ideas loose in the world, they could never again be caged.
Yet from the beginning, these sentiments were also a thorn in our side, a reminder of the new nation's divided soul. Opponents, who still sided with Britain, greeted it with sarcasm. How can you declare "All men are created equal," without freeing your slaves?
Jefferson himself was an aristocrat whose inheritance of 5,000 acres, and the slaves to work it, mocked his eloquent notion of equality. He acknowledged that slavery degraded master and slave alike, but would not give his own slaves their freedom. Their labor kept him financially afloat. Hundreds of slaves, forced like beasts of burden to toil from sunrise to sunset under threat of the lash, enabled him to thrive as a privileged gentleman, to pursue his intellectual interests, and to rise in politics.
Even the children born to him by the slave Sally Hemings remained slaves, as did their mother. Only an obscure provision in his will released his children after his death. All the others -- scores of slaves -- were sold to pay off his debts.
Yes, Thomas Jefferson possessed "a happy talent for composition," but he employed it for cross purposes. Whatever he was thinking when he wrote "all men are created equal," he also believed black people were inferior to white people. Inferior, he wrote, "to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind." To read his argument today is to enter the pathology of white superiority that attended the birth of our nation.
So forcefully did he state the case, and so great was his standing among the slave-holding class, that after his death the black abolitionist David Walker would claim Jefferson's argument had "injured us more, and has been as great a barrier to our emancipation as any thing that has ever been advanced against us," for it had "... sunk deep into the hearts of millions of the whites, and never will be removed this side of eternity."
So, the ideal of equality Jefferson proclaimed, he also betrayed. He got it right when he wrote about "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" as the core of our human aspirations. But he lived it wrong, denying to others the rights he claimed for himself. And that's how Jefferson came to embody the oldest and longest war of all -- the war between the self and the truth, between what we know and how we live.
So enjoy the fireworks and flags, the barbecues and bargain sales. But hold this thought as well: that behind this Fourth of July holiday are human beings who were as flawed and conflicted as they were inspired. If they were to look upon us today, they most likely would think as they did then, how much remains to be done.
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President Jefferson is not a "perfect man." He has his faults like the rest of living or dead. Our country was was founded on the principle of "creating a more perfect union." Many people died in war to support this notion."
We recently voted for a black man to be a President. A lot has changed since President Jeferson days. And I bet, he his smiling from heaven thinking " my beloved country."
Are you saying but for slavery black people would not be upon these shores?
." Many people died in war to support this notion."
Including black and Native American men. See the Daughter's of the American Revolution's : "Forgotten Patriots"
"We recently voted for a black man to be a President."
And yet we have some people calling him, the President outside his name and office based on his ethnicity which they call race. The examples are too numerous. We have people questioning the place he was born. That is fine but to belabor the point shows how much they disrespect him. See Donald Trump.
They disrespect him and therefore they show no respect to the office of President; for example the Daily Caller reporter interrupting the President while he is giving a speech in the Rose garden.
I think the point Mr. Moyers was trying to make is that some believe their skin color gives them the privilege to spew their vitriol; as if they believe they are the only people who spilled blood for the republic which is far from the truth.
I will agree with you that blacks played a key role in the revolutionary war and other conflicts. Blacks are truly great patroits that deserve great praise for their works!
I never though a black guy would be elected president in my lifetime. To my surprise, Barrack Obama made it. I do not agree with many things he done or says. But your right, the Donald Trumps and other fools who disrescts him sucks.
But the white guys before him ate crow too, Mr Bush was portrayed as dummy, had shoes thrown at him and so forth.
My point was to look for some good things and not just point all the bad character flaw.
Thomas Jefferson was trying to get the University of Virgina of the ground in his latter days and went broke doing so. So he had to sell all his assests which included his slaves. Not a nice thing to do by 21st century standards.
RE: beadstallcup, most Afr-Americans and non-racist whites are aware that YOU did not do anything, that is an obvious fact. What you miss in your statements is this: THAT AS A RESULT OF SLAVERY, and the legacy the remnants of it, there are INEQUALITIES IN SOCIETY TO THIS DAY. Many many whites enjoy a privelege that you still do benefit from. It is invisible to you as water to a fish. Those who really benefited most are the wealthy titans, from families that prospered then and TODAY as a result of trading in human beings as slaves, among other ruthless things they did for money. The legacy of oppression and racism is still apparent in our cities, our education system to this day. That is not abut being "politically-correct." The fact of some exceptional, and successful blacks does not negate the entire system to which you are blind, as it does NOT AFFECT YOU on a daily basis the way it does those of African-descent.
There could be NO Declaration of Independence if we depended on some of today's politic "leaders" and their fans who hold a take-no-prisoners approach that abhors compromises.
Without compromise there is no America and those who refuse to participate will be the ones who kill this nation and its ideals...
Why do you think that so many of the legendary military units were the Black units? We have fought in every conflict that this nation has engaged in, often out of proportion of our percentage of population total.
Our insistence on making the law work as written and intended is the patriotic statement that Black people have made.
PS I had a comment for this post agreeing with Mr Moyers. I guess the details were too real. Some of us, moderators, still like the truth with a little watery.
Your dismissal of our founding history is itself a tremendous disservice to that same founding. It is also how we come dangerously closer to simply burying our past, instead of sharing the lessons learned from it. You’ve already dipped your toes in that water, by comparing taxes to slavery.
Thanks once again for a reasonable, well written article, based in fact.
Some have noted the Jeffersonian thinking lives today. Yes, it does. So all the rest of us must try to diminish its power by our support of logic and reason and action (speaks louder than words).
While we need a balanced Supreme Court and a balanced Congress to function as a government at our best, some are doing all they can to tear us apart with greed for power and money, fear, destruction to the people. I hope with faith that we shall soon see a return to balance, to logic, to sister/brotherhood.
I had posted a similar comment the morning of the 4th wishing you a happy 4th, but HP managed to lose all my comments that morning. I guess I was up too early for their moderators to attend to such details.