Trigger warning: 12 'offensive' Thomas Jefferson quotes his own college is trying to forget
Thomas Jefferson’s words are once again safe for open
discussion at the University of Virginia, thanks to something rarely
seen in American academia: an administrator brave enough to stand up to
the demands of the offended.
Following a politically correct dustup over an email that she sent out about last week’s election, the school’s newspaper reported that several professors took issue with University president Teresa Sullivan over an email she wrote containing a quote from America’s Founding Father and third president.
“Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that University of Virginia students ‘are not of ordinary significance only: they are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes,’” read the UVA president’s email.
In response, over 450 students and faculty signed a letter, stating they were deeply offended at the mere quoting of the university’s founder (due to Jefferson’s ownership of slaves).
Teresa Sullivan responded, rebutting the complaint.
"In my message last week, I agreed with Mr. Jefferson's words expressing the idea that U.Va. students would help to lead our republic,” Sullivan said. “He believed that 200 years ago, and I believe it today."
The quote that started the whole firestorm was wholly uplifting, inspiring, and, perhaps most significantly, with the aim of unifying after a particularly contentious political season. But that doesn’t matter; the safe space reductionism of the perpetually offended knows no bounds.
In order to better understand exactly how foolish this latest incident in Virginia is, we’ve pulled together some other deeply offensive quotes from Thomas Jefferson that would also be completely chased out of the realm of discussion if campus speech police in 2016 had their way.
On slavery:
Maybe, just maybe, the issue might be just a little bit more
nuanced than the idea of “he owned slaves; therefore he must be
scrubbed from public discourse.”
Perhaps Jefferson believed the most prudent and realistic way to remove the inhumane institution was incrementally — a sentiment that was echoed in the compromises that created the U.S. Constitution. But before we address that further, here are some more of the Virginian’s greatest hits, which would also be removed from dialogue at the University of Virginia (and, no doubt, countless other college campuses) if the P.C. police had their way.
On the University of Virginia:
On the freedom of conscience:
And the time he attempted to heal the wounds of the incredibly divisive election of 1800 in his first inaugural address in 1801:
This is the problem with reducing history to the angels and demons
binary; nuance, complexities, and the prismatic nature of narratives get
thrown by the wayside. Jefferson’s legacy is far from perfect. But that
doesn’t justify bleaching him from history and the conversation
(especially at a prestigious institution he himself founded). Coming to
grips with the darker realities of our history is difficult, but seeking
to shut the door on it is for the emotionally weak and intellectually
dishonest.
But just in case all this has been too jarring, here’s a quote from Jefferson with which many of us (if not most) can agree.
"[Coffee is] the favorite drink of the civilised world." - 1824
Following a politically correct dustup over an email that she sent out about last week’s election, the school’s newspaper reported that several professors took issue with University president Teresa Sullivan over an email she wrote containing a quote from America’s Founding Father and third president.
“Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that University of Virginia students ‘are not of ordinary significance only: they are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes,’” read the UVA president’s email.
In response, over 450 students and faculty signed a letter, stating they were deeply offended at the mere quoting of the university’s founder (due to Jefferson’s ownership of slaves).
Teresa Sullivan responded, rebutting the complaint.
"In my message last week, I agreed with Mr. Jefferson's words expressing the idea that U.Va. students would help to lead our republic,” Sullivan said. “He believed that 200 years ago, and I believe it today."
The quote that started the whole firestorm was wholly uplifting, inspiring, and, perhaps most significantly, with the aim of unifying after a particularly contentious political season. But that doesn’t matter; the safe space reductionism of the perpetually offended knows no bounds.
In order to better understand exactly how foolish this latest incident in Virginia is, we’ve pulled together some other deeply offensive quotes from Thomas Jefferson that would also be completely chased out of the realm of discussion if campus speech police in 2016 had their way.
On slavery:
1. "The abolition of domestic slavery is the
great object of desire in those colonies where it was unhappily
introduced in their infant state. But previous to the infranchisement of
the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations
from Africa. – A Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774
2. "He [George III] has waged cruel war
against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life
& liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or
to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This
piractical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of
the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market
where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative
for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain
this execrable commerce […]” – draft of the Declaration of Independence (1776)
3. “I am not advocating slavery. I am not
justifying the wrongs we have committed on a foreign people, by the
example of another nation committing equal wrongs on their own subjects.
on the contrary there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable
plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political
depravity.” – Letter to Thomas Cooper, 1804
4. "God who gave us life gave us liberty.
Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a
conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble
for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot
sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism.” – Notes on the State of Virginia
5. “We feel & deplore it [slavery] morally and politically,
and we look, without entire despair to some redeeming means not yet
specifically foreseen.” – Letter to William Short 1823
6. "I congratulate you, my dear friend, on
the law of your state [South Carolina] for suspending the importation of
slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to
prevent it for ever. This abomination must have an end, and there is a
superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it." – Letter to Edward Rutledge, 1787
Perhaps Jefferson believed the most prudent and realistic way to remove the inhumane institution was incrementally — a sentiment that was echoed in the compromises that created the U.S. Constitution. But before we address that further, here are some more of the Virginian’s greatest hits, which would also be removed from dialogue at the University of Virginia (and, no doubt, countless other college campuses) if the P.C. police had their way.
On the University of Virginia:
7. "This institution will be based on the
illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to
follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as
reason is left free to combat it." – Letter to William Roscoe, 1820
8. "I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." – letter to Benjamin Rush, 1800
9. "It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." – Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785
10. “The legitimate powers of government
extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no
injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It
neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” – Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785
11. “I consider the government of the U.S.
as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious
institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.” – Letter to Samuel Miller, 1808
12. “All, too, will bear in mind this sacred
principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to
prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority
possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate
would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one
heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony
and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary
things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that
religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we
have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as
despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.”
But just in case all this has been too jarring, here’s a quote from Jefferson with which many of us (if not most) can agree.
"[Coffee is] the favorite drink of the civilised world." - 1824
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