Theresa Diaz
Professor James Voorhies
History 1301 S70
November 17, 2015
Thomas Jefferson through another life
We grasp and learn why in Willard Sterne Randall's detailed biography, "Thomas Jefferson: A Life." It was hardly possible to surpass the language and power of the Declaration, written a quarter of a century before Jefferson became the third President. Most of Mr. Randall's intensive research came through Jefferson's Literary Commonplace Book, were Jefferson filled with passages that he copied from Greek, Latin, French, and English books throughout his life time and his first hand thoughts of his experiences. Mr. Randall's repetitious book shows that no President was better prepared for the job. Jefferson was a delegate to the first …show more content…
As a young lawyer, he had argued in court the birthright of freedom of all men that he had imbibed from his study of the classics. As Governor of Virginia, he wrote in his notes racist views of blacks as inferiors who would need to be treated like children once they were freed gradually. Now, an old man, he worried about the growing dissension over slavery that had flared into a furious debate in Congress over the admission of Missouri as a slave state"(Jefferson 230.) The way Jefferson mentions the Slavery was an inherently violent and coercive system, although Jefferson states “My first wish is that the laborers may be well treated" (Jefferson 340.) Rather than force and beat a slave to work under the threat of the whip, Jefferson attempted to motivate slaves to perform tasks with incentives such as gratuities (tips) or other rewards. He experimented with new modes of governance of enslaved people, which was intended to moderate physical punishment and to capitalize on the human desire to
Professor James Voorhies
History 1301 S70
November 17, 2015
Thomas Jefferson through another life
We grasp and learn why in Willard Sterne Randall's detailed biography, "Thomas Jefferson: A Life." It was hardly possible to surpass the language and power of the Declaration, written a quarter of a century before Jefferson became the third President. Most of Mr. Randall's intensive research came through Jefferson's Literary Commonplace Book, were Jefferson filled with passages that he copied from Greek, Latin, French, and English books throughout his life time and his first hand thoughts of his experiences. Mr. Randall's repetitious book shows that no President was better prepared for the job. Jefferson was a delegate to the first …show more content…
As a young lawyer, he had argued in court the birthright of freedom of all men that he had imbibed from his study of the classics. As Governor of Virginia, he wrote in his notes racist views of blacks as inferiors who would need to be treated like children once they were freed gradually. Now, an old man, he worried about the growing dissension over slavery that had flared into a furious debate in Congress over the admission of Missouri as a slave state"(Jefferson 230.) The way Jefferson mentions the Slavery was an inherently violent and coercive system, although Jefferson states “My first wish is that the laborers may be well treated" (Jefferson 340.) Rather than force and beat a slave to work under the threat of the whip, Jefferson attempted to motivate slaves to perform tasks with incentives such as gratuities (tips) or other rewards. He experimented with new modes of governance of enslaved people, which was intended to moderate physical punishment and to capitalize on the human desire to