Slavery: The Stain on Jefferson?

It is one of the great enigmas in American history - how can Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Constitution and the creator of that greatest of American phrases ''all men are created equal" be the same person who held more than 700 slaves in his lifetime?

In an attempt to explore that troubling paradox, Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard law and history professor and the winner of both the Pulitzer and National Book prizes for her The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family was joined by National Public Radio host Michel Martin tonight at  the Smithsonian for a discussion of Jefferson and the Hemingses, as well the history of colonial-era slavery and the implications that institution still has for Americans today.

In response to a direct question of how could he hold slaves from Martin, Gordon-Reed said the answer is centered in the predominant culture of Virginia at the time. "That was the society he was born into," she explained, noting that Jefferson said one of his earliest memories was being handed up to a slave for a trip and his last action was asking a slave to prop his head up on a pillow. "So his earliest memory and his last sight was of an enslaved person."

Gordon-Reed stated that while the times may help explain Jefferson's actions, it did not exonerate him from moral responsibilities. "He was somewhat unusual in saying (in his writings) that slavery was wrong, but the problem here is that someone is saying that this is wrong, but never extricating himself from it,"  Gordon-Reed said.

Of course, Jefferson was not the only American president to personally have to deal with the question of slavery in a supposedly free country. Twelve of America's first 18 presidents held slaves. Gordon-Reed said economic conditions were at the root of slavery's continuation until the Civil War during which President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

"There was a lot of money is slaves," she said. "It became a really big business. It was a pervasive part of the economy and you just don't walk away from something like that. There was a shift (in the south) from slavery being a  necessary evil to it being a positive good."

Sex also clouds the Jefferson/slavery issue. After his wife died, he remained a widower, but apparently engaged in a long-time, intimate personal relationship with his slave Sally Hemingses who fathered children by her master, a fact supported by family DNA tests in the 1990s.

"The idea of sex between equals is a very modern idea," Gordon-Reed said. "Jefferson believed in a very hierarchical relationship. I don't believe he thought blacks or women were equal to him. Men were supposed to order women around and women were supposed to be under the control of men."

Gordon-Reed says slavery definitely played a large role in shaping America's attitude toward race.  As both a historian and an African-American, she takes umbrage at attempts to dismiss or downplay American slavery. "Some people say 'get over it.' You might as well say get over the Constitution. It's too intertwined with America. There is no way to get over it unless you forget all of American history," she concluded.

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Tonight's discussion, officially entitled Monticello, Slavery, and the Hemingses, was sponsored by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, but was held at the Baird Auditorium in the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. The reason for the staging was simple - the new African American museum will not open on the Mall until 2015. However, as host Heather Taylor pointed out with talks such as this and the current exhibit on slave families at Monticello at the Museum of American History, "the museum is open even before we have a building."