I'd like to give you a an image that Jefferson has of himself as we turn our discussion to Jefferson in peace time. And this is a letter he writes to Alexander Hamilton's sister in law, Angelica Schuyler Church in November 1793 just as Jefferson is thinking, longingly about finally returning to Virginia to Monticello after years of service in the Federal Government as Secretary of State. And his bitter rivalry with Angelica Skylar Churches. His brother in law, Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson tells Mrs. Church That he sees himself at Monticello as the most blessed of the patriarchs, looking out for the welfare of my own children. And he imagines his daughters settling there or nearby. And their growing families. So what would be now three generations. But he also and significantly, includes this statement. I will look out for the welfare, for the happiness of those who provide for mine. In this notion of patriarchy, Jefferson is including his slaves. It's a fascinating statement and its jarring in its juxtaposition to the idea, that in effect a plantation is a battlefield or potentially a battlefield that slaves are your enemies and they have every right to hate you to want to kill you to wreak vengeance against you. Here, somehow Jefferson looks forward in 1793, looks forward to this idyllic fantasy of a self-contained world over which he presides, almost like a king. A patriarch. What are the implications of this notion of patriarchy for Jefferson's own slaves? Well, the most important implication is this. Slaves are property. They're fungible, that is they, you can exchange a slave for other property. You can move this property around. And what you will do in the normal operation of any plantation system, and Jefferson has of course, several farms at Monticello, and he has plantations elsewhere, is you'll move your slaves around to make the most rational and profitable distribution of those slaves so that you can produce the kind of wealth that will sustain this patriarchal fantasy. Now Jefferson insists that he keeps families, black families together when he can. But what slavery does of course is to destroy families, because they can be broken apart through sale, and perhaps more fundamentally is to emasculate slave men who have no authority in their own families. Think of the tragic dissonance between Jefferson's claims to authority, the claims of a father. Claims that still resonate for us in modern American society. That is, well, fathers are losing it, but in theory, fathers have authority. It's, it's still being overcome. Through several waves of feminism. But it used to be, and Jefferson thought it was natural for a father to rule. And that maybe true, he could claim in his own time within white families. But what about the black father? Well, sometimes the black father wasn't even the father because many children on plantations. Were the children of their masters or as at Montichello of white workers free workers. There was no sanctity to the black family, it had no legal standing and black men had no role, had no authority. And as you might suspect, it's this denial of authority, this Emasculation which leads to what Jefferson fears will be, just black rage. Where would the energy for revolution come from? Where would that servile insurrection start? It would start in the battered selves of black men, black men who claimed their natural rights in the only way they could, which is through violence through destroying their masters. That's why Jefferson says we have to act preemptively. We have to make them independent on our terms, on terms that do not jeopardize the sanctity of our white households and families, which do not jeopardize the property rights we still have in our slaves. So let's think for a minute then about that idyllic fantasy, patriarchal fantasy that Jefferson has about his life at Monticello and what it means for the people he owns. Well, when Jefferson comes home in 1793, when he comes home after being Secretary of State, he wants to be a reformer, this is a Jefferson that we're familiar with who wants to make things better, and as he tells mrs Church I want to make things better for my slaves too. But what's striking here is he's not worried about their rising up and rebelling against them, why? Because he's domesticating them, he's incorporating them imaginatively at least into a capacious family, black and white. He's domesticating them, meaning that he's emasculating the black man. But what an image because Jefferson presides over this world, as the ultimate authority. But his authority is based in his benevolence. He's blessed, because of what he does for his family, including, his slaves, so that vision of course is completely at odds with the notion of two nations at war, black and white. And here we have Jefferson in peacetime as a reformer making things better, one of the things he's going to do. As a reformer, one of the things he's already done in his revisal of the laws in 1779 is end primogeniture and entail in Virginia that is the large estates being passed down through aristocratic families in the future will have a broad distribution of large. Public land will be made freely available, to enterprising settlers, we will not keep great estates together in entail. We will not privilege elder sons as we do in primogeniture, instead, this is the great revolution in land owning in Virginia. And its part, and parcel of a broad and comprehensive plan of reforms, including the end of slavery. But here's the irony about Jefferson's land policy and about his reforms generally. And that is when large estates are broken up, as they are with the passage of generations. Then, large slave holdings will be broken up as well, there'll be a dispersal of slaves. In fact, what is clear is that for the first time there's a vigorous, robust market. And human flesh within Virginia. A redistribution of slaves, a democratic redistribution of slaves, so that more and more White Virginians could either own slaves, aspire to own slaves or hire slaves, including some of Jefferson's slaves when they're underemployed. On his plantations. And Jefferson, for that matter, is himself busily involved in the labor market, hiring slaves in the neighborhood. The University of Virginia was largely built by hired slaves. So, democratization, the creation of a republic in which all white citizens have authority. They are the source of authority, they're consent makes the republic work. This is a world, a new republic, in which slavery becomes more entrenched and expands its scope. Not only in Virginia but across the great Southwest. Ultimately, across the Louisiana territory after its' purchase from France in 1803 so that we have an empire of slavery. [MUSIC]
