Why Did Thomas Jefferson Live Such A Hypocritical Life?

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Throughout Thomas Jefferson’s entire life, he has opposed slavery, but for all the wrong reasons; Jefferson believes that slavery should not exist but only because whites and blacks are “separate nations” and wouldn't be able to live together in peace. He often talked about slavery and believed that slavery presented a great threat to America (Stanton). On the other hand, Thomas owned multiple slaves, nearly 200 slaves to be exact, and at one time even believed that slaves are naturally inferior to other races (“Jefferson’s Views on Slavery”). Why did Jefferson live such a hypocritical life? If he realized the evils of slavery then why didn't he stop owning slaves and start taking some sort of action to prevent anyone from ever owning slaves? …show more content…
Even when slaves are free from slavery, they will never forget their background and the owners will never forget the fact that they owned slaves. With this being said, Jefferson believed that in order to remove the stench of slavery from our memories there would have to be a war; whoever kills off the other wins. Thomas then concluded that deporting the slaves to another location, such as Africa or the West-Indies, was an essential move to the emancipation. He stated that slavery was like holding “a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go (“Jefferson’s Views on Slavery”).” In other words, he believes that having slaves is bad because you’re taking someone else's power away from them but letting them go will also be faulty since the slaves now have the power to hurt the people who previously held
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