WEBVTT - Part Three: Thomas Jefferson: King of Hypocrites 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:03.240 Also media. 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:08.560 Thomas Jefferson more like Thomas. 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:13.320 Jerk jerk jerk made sons that. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.319 Come on, I don't what are we doing? 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:18.200 What are we doing here? Tried? 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.439 You know, likes Anderson? How about the mass? 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:22.239 And there you go. 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:35.120 He apologize, the queen apologize, and I'm getting a very 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:35.840 dirty look. 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:37.720 This is this, This is like. 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.680 Hold up, caught a stray over there? I apologize. 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.279 This is like when when two climbers trying to do 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.920 like Killimanjaro, but is a surprise storm apologize like because 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:51.839 because what we do, I would say, is like the 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:54.560 emotional equivalent of climbing kill him and Jarro, which I 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:56.120 assume is one of the hard mountains. 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.360 I don't know much exactly the same. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.160 Yeah, it seems like it's difficult. You know what else 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:01.800 is difficult? 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.720 Prop what else is difficult? 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.759 Talking about the life and many moral compromises of Thomas Jefferson. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.440 And we're gonna do it four hours several. 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.600 More hours to go. Yes, I hope you're feeling nice 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.560 and rested after our first two parts, because we are 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:22.720 getting into well, I guess we already got into the 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:24.480 meat of it. We're getting into more of the meat 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.040 of it. It's like like an RB's sandwich. There's a 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:28.440 lot of meat. Yeah. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:30.720 Did you have a nice birthday? 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:31.040 Prop? 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.080 I did? It was fun. I went fly fishing for 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.360 a little bit. Then I came home and I wrapped 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.840 at the La County Fair. Oh cool. Which they're now 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.679 like they're curating the stage a little better. So it's 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.320 like usually if you're not like War or Steely Dan, 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.800 it's like it's not worth your time, like to perform 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.080 at the fair. Yeah, but now like you're usually you're 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.920 going after like a Journey cover band, But now like 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.160 they're curating the stages better. So this was like a 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.200 hip hop stage next best La And that was dope. 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:01.440 Man. 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:04.440 It is something every man has to ask himself at 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.680 some point. Are you more of a Journey cover band 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.040 or are you more of a Steely Dan cover band? 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.840 Man? I think I think I'm a Steely Dan guy. 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.640 I'm Journey. I've known that about myself for a long time. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:17.360 Yeah, I'm neither. 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:21.560 Yeah, Yeah that makes sense, Sophie, I wouldn't. 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:23.000 I mean, yeah, I. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.520 Feel like you could do a really good rendition of 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:26.920 Come sail Away by Sticks. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.680 I'd do a War, You'd you'd be a fun Telly 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.359 cover band. Okay, okay, I could see you do I 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.880 could see you in a George Clinton band like yeah, 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:37.680 in the base maybe, and. 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.800 I could see you in the mov PCU like George Clinton. 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.919 I can't do any of these performance I have no talent, 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:46.480 so I can't do any of these things. 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.680 Being a boss, Jeremy, he was, Okay, you're right, Sorry, 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.480 we should stop. I shouldn't make my twelfth reference to 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:55.960 that movie. 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.399 Yeah, don't, don't do it. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:01.800 So that's the cold open. We'll come back in a 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:11.320 second with some Thomas Jefferson for you, and we're back prop. 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.359 You would have guessed how many kids Martha Jefferson had 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.120 during the first ten years of her marriage to Thomas. 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.120 How many kids Martha Jefferson? I wish I knew this. Ten? 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.760 No, No, six, six, That's still that's still a lot 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:26.120 of kids. 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:29.040 For Test's still a gang of kids, dude. After now, 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.560 I've obviously I've never given birth to a child, but 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:36.360 I watched it once and if I were a female, 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.440 I would be like, yeah, never get yeah, never akin, 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:41.640 Am I going to do that? 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.680 Yeah? I don't feel like I would want to, and 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:46.680 I especially wouldn't want to if I had the kind 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:48.400 of track record Martha has, cause you want to I 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:50.160 want you to guess how many of those six kids 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:51.480 do you think made it to adulthood? 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:57.760 Oh my god, five, two, two. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:02.360 They didn't do great. This is a difficult time to 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:06.040 have kids. But that's not a good race. Six kids 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:12.120 two out of six is not good, man. And it's 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.160 some of this is I think Martha. Martha has from 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.280 what we can tell, difficult pregnancies, like and this is 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.080 going to do a lot of permanent damage to her, 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:20.520 right she. 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:25.840 Just had Obviously, you know we've we've said this many times. 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.920 You're considering the state of like, let's sit racism aside 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.480 for a second, but considering just the state of medicine, 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:36.320 there's no other air i'd want to live in. 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:37.560 Absolutely not. 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:42.360 Yeah, there's no thank you, But there's some like sorry, 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.279 I'll pass. I'm just yeah, I'm like, okay, uh, you 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.359 got to cut on your arm. We just have to 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.480 chop it off. And there's this, here's some whiskey and 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.479 a stick to bite down on. Nah, I'm good, No, 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.920 I'm good. 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.040 From that narrative, Yeah, I. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.720 Would give up modern medicine for one thing, and it's 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.480 if they could send me back far enough to see dinosaurs. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:08.000 I would give up most things for dinosaurs, Like even 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.560 if they immediately come after me and eat me, Like 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:12.919 I mean, I feel thirty seconds would be worth it. 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.360 Yeah, your thirty seconds would be worth it because whatever 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:20.080 ancient mosquito that bites you immediately, right, it's. 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:26.480 Like yes, super super yellow fever. Yeah, yeah, your malaria 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:34.440 gets malaria, yeah immediately. Oh yeah, just just ruined. So anyway, 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.840 the Jeffersons, I don't know if I want to say, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.240 like give him too much shit for this ratio. I 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.680 kind of a get we get so little from Martha 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.359 in part because Thomas destroys a lot of her correspondence 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.880 after she dies. So maybe she was super as much 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:52.960 into having kids as he is. It's kind of hard 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.039 for me not to look at how he treated the 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.520 people he owned and the fact that Martha was basically 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.800 pushed into having so many kids until her body gave out, 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.000 and like, yeah, kind of drawing a line between those 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.719 two maybe wow, But maybe that's not fair because we 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.480 just don't know anything about what she really felt on 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.680 the matter. Yeah, you know, sure, as a result of 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.039 you know the fact that Martha's in ill health this 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.360 whole time, the whole time that they're married and trying 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.560 to have kids. But Jefferson's engaged in an activity that 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.599 was very common for American slave owners, and in fact 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.760 very common for rich people using like not enslave, but 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.720 like peasants and stuff over in Europe too, which is 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.279 having a wet nurse. Right in their case, the wet 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.359 nurse was Ursula, who's again, you know, one of the 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.159 people that Thomas owns, and she is the wet nurse 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.320 for basically the entirety of the time that Thomas has 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.680 kids and grandkids. Ursula is almost as much of an 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.440 unknown as Martha, or is actually more of an unknown 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.400 even than Martha, because we do get a little bit 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.320 from Martha, but we can assume from the facts that 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.880 she was almost super humanly tough. She nursed for base 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.520 twenty five years straight, both je kids and his grandkids. 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:09.920 That's a lot sheesh, Yeah, that's that's a lot of nursing. 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.440 That's a lot of milk. Her poor boobs, got it? 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:14.720 Ya know? 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.360 It hurts to hear that, Yeah, it does. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.680 You're just in and I still don't understand how you 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:25.680 can I mean, I don't. I don't know how how 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.240 a person can laxate when it's not their child. I 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.000 know it's a normal thing, but like idea, Yeah, I 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.360 just there's there's parts of science and me me being 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.920 a girl dad with like a wife and two daughters. 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:41.119 I'm still there are still parts of Therefore, I'm sorry. 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.280 I'm one of those basic men where it's like I 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.240 feel like I'm pretty progressive, but there are certain things 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.480 that I'm just like, aw, that's a mystery. I don't 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.520 know how you do that magic. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.480 I don't know how like emotionally because it's it's it 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.280 seems like it's such a head fuck, right, yeah, you 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.360 really you can't even like these are the kids of 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.240 the people who own you. You can't nurse a baby 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.440 and not develop a connection to the baby. Like it's 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.040 just it's a baby. You're nursing it. That's like what 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:10.960 people do. 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:15.880 An incredibly intimate moment, yeah, of bonding, which is like 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:21.480 why we the humans do it? You like you bond 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:21.960 you know? 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:27.080 Yeah? Yeah, it just feels like almost unavoidable. And Thomas 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.000 has a habit of crediting in his writing Ursula's milk 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.200 with almost supernatural power writing that when one of his 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.400 children was sick, a quote a good breast of her 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.080 milk would heal them almost instantaneously. That's how he writes 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:41.520 about the quantity a. 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:42.520 Good breast. 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:48.720 Of breasts. Yeah, wow, yeah, one a unit of breast. 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.599 I get. Yeah, I don't know, it's weird. Seems like 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:52.040 a weird way to write it, but I don't actually 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:53.840 know how else you'd write it. Yeah. 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:55.280 Is he trying to be poetic? 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:00.120 I think he usually is. Yeah, in this case it 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:02.040 comes across off putt it doesn't y y. 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:02.640 Yeah. 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.360 And it's one of those things, like, you know, we 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.319 have to keep a couple again, of kind of complex 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.960 things here, which is that this is on Jefferson's part, 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:17.480 you know, obviously a system based on violence. On Ursula's part, 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.040 this is also like her family, and that might be 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.480 how she, at least from what little we know about her, 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:25.360 that may very well be kind of how she felt 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.720 about these kids that she's nursing. Yeah, and again kind 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.559 of saying that I'm not saying that like Jefferson was 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.319 a good slave master because that didn't exist, or that like, well, 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:36.280 this was one of the good places to be in. 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.400 But if you're nursing two generations of babies, you probably 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.360 feel something for those kids, And that seems to be 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.960 the case. And one of the reasons I like Henry 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.119 Winseck's book Master of the Mountain is that he reflects 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.800 on the complex dimensions of this relationship with a line 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.520 that I think is really useful to parsing out what's 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:58.040 going on here on a moral level. Quote asked to 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.200 reminisce about Jefferson, several summoned up warm memories of their master. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.120 On the other side of the divide. However, Jefferson left 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.480 no intimate account of the Monticello slaves. In other words, 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.360 members of the Hymmings, Granger Evans families expressed affection for 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:19.160 Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson relied utterly on these people for the 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.880 health and safety of his family, and, based on the 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.960 writing We left Behind, never gave them a second thought. 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.880 Beyond that, there's no real evidence he thought of them 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:28.560 as people. Yeah. 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.920 Function, They were able to see him as a person, 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:36.160 which I think is interesting. Yeah, yeah, complete function. Transaction 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:38.559 in the way that you would take care of your car, 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.200 right right, the way Cato thought of slaves, Yes, exactly. 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:42.920 Yeah. 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.640 Man still hung up on like the mother part of this, 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.880 I'm like, because again, like my organizing premise is that 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.440 people are just the same. As long as the time changes, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:59.800 it's still the same. So like, is it vanity for 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.040 you're a woman to be like I'm not gonna nurse 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.600 my own child because I want to keep being a 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.240 part of like the social life. Is this like is 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.880 my baby like a is it like an accessory? You 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:14.720 know what I'm saying. So like I caught them out 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.240 to impress the other girls, but far be it for 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.760 me to let my figure look weird now, Like, so 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:21.800 I don't want my boobs to sag? Or is it 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.720 like are you jealous? Is it a sign of status 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.560 that someone else's nursing your child? Like, I just I 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:30.400 want to know so much more about like what's the 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.240 mindset on that, which, of course is like. 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.400 It's actually like super com it's not super uncommon even 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:37.800 in today's day and age. 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:39.760 So no, that's why I was like, it's got to 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:41.240 be I'm like, it's got to be a thing because 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:42.800 clearly we still do it now. 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:44.960 Yeah, a lot of times it's health based. 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.200 Yeah, I think everything that you said, all of the 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.800 different reasons are reasons why people in the past and 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.600 probably the sumach sent today have had nurse maids, especially 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.480 when you're talking about like we are talking about enslaved 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.880 people being used as nurse maids here, but like in Czarist, 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.079 you have people who are not slaves, they're not really 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.680 fully free, and they're used as nursemates by like the 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.880 wealthy families, the czar and stuff. And sometimes it is 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:10.760 it like, well, I don't want to be doing that, 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.600 you know, I don't want to take this onto my body. 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.200 I don't have time but a lot. I think with 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.280 Jefferson in particular, and with with Martha Jefferson, it's that 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.920 she's just not well, she's not yeah, and they're they 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.160 think that this will help make the children more because 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:25.520 the kids are also not healthy. 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:27.600 Oh yeah, because they keep dying and they keep they 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.520 keep things. Okay, yeah, obviously, like the health stuff is 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:32.440 like I mean, every woman can't like to it like that. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:33.720 It is what it is, you know what I'm saying. 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.199 So I totally understand that. Please guys, don't come at 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.240 me like I know like you, I'm a dad. I 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.400 know that, like everybody can't make milk, But it just 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.000 seemed like this was a strange, like yeah, the grankiest cuz, 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:46.680 like you know what I'm saying, Like you tell me 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.000 nobody in this family, you know. So that's why I 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:49.840 was like, what's going on? 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.320 You know? I wonder too if someone what's going on 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:56.240 with like ursula is Obviously, when you're a slave, you 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.200 are being constantly taken advantage of by all of the 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.000 people who own you, right, But these babies, even though 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.840 like they're their parents, obviously are taking advantage of you. Yeah, 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.720 the babies, they're babies, right, Like they need milk, you know. 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.720 And so to a degree, maybe I understand like why 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.520 that would be that would make the whatever you have 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.760 connection you have to them like stand out more because 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.600 like it is this thing that needs you that is blameless. 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.560 I don't know, I don't know, can't get it. You know. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.040 There's probably a million different ways people felt when they 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.040 were in this situation, and we'll never know because they 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:35.640 were denied the ability to like express themselves anyway. So 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:41.040 that's a bummer. And the eighteen nineties, du mas Malone 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.280 writes a six volume history of Thomas Jefferson. This is 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.600 generally considered to be like the first definitive biography of Jefferson. 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.640 It still gets cited quite a lot to the present 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.640 day because obviously the eighteen nineties you're probably not talking 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.360 to a lot of people who knew Thomas directly, but 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:59.160 a lot of people who's like parents knew Thomas you 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:01.000 can still talk to, right, So you do have a 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:06.360 lot closer access to a lot of those sources. And 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:10.679 obviously Dumas's book there's a lot of scholarly value to it. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.280 But Dumas Malone also very much wants to pretend slavery 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.199 is not happening, right, or not that it's not happening, 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.280 but that it wasn't Jefferson was not a bad example 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.800 of a slave owner. Right. Part of how he does 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.760 this is he really emphasizes all of the things Jefferson 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.920 would say about how ugly slavery was, like this quote. 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.280 No one could find in his words any ground whatsoever 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.400 for the opinion that slavery in eighteenth century Virginia was 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.240 or would ever become a beneficent institution. He regarded it 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.000 as fundamentally cruel and was in no possible doubt that 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.400 it undermined the morals and destroyed the industry of the 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:49.040 masters while degrading the victims. So we see, even decades 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.560 after the Civil War, you've got this respected historian parroting 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.080 Jefferson's line. And we talked about this in the early episodes. 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.960 Jefferson would always be like, Yeah, slavery's bad because of 0:14:58.000 --> 0:14:59.920 all of the bad things it does to white people. 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.600 It makes the masters lazy, and it makes them like 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:03.760 worse people. 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:04.080 Right. 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:08.320 I find it interesting that Malone is carrying that forward 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.640 kind of and not really he doesn't do what a 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.080 historian should, which is examine what wine Seck is going 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.120 to do more than a century later, which is actually examined, well, 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.720 how did Jefferson actually behave in his life? Did he 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.920 act like a man who felt like it was unethical 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.640 to yet these people he owned do all of the 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:32.440 work for him, and he doesn't, you know. Yeah. Malone 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.400 goes on to quote another line from Notes on the 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.120 State of Virginia, which he describes as perhaps the most 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.880 erudent summary of the evil of slavery, and can the 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.240 liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.000 removed their only firm basis a conviction in the minds 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.200 of the people that this liberties are of that these 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:50.640 liberties are of the gift of God, that they are 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.400 not to be violated but with his wrath. Indeed, I 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:56.480 tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.920 that his justice cannot sleep forever. That considering numbers nature 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.880 and natural means only a revolution of the wheel of 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.120 fortune and exchange of the situation is among possible events. 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.760 That it may become probable by a supernatural interference. The 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.320 Almighty has no attribute which can take a side with 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:13.640 us in such a contest. 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.240 That that's the quote, that's the one who that's the one? Yeah, yeah, 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.160 at least that I've been refercent where I'm just like, bro, yeah, 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:26.520 if if God is just, he's not on our side. Yeah, 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.120 Like what like how you let that come about your mouth? Like, well, 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.080 I mean it's true, you know what I mean. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.080 It's true, and it's it is good writing, like just yes, 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:39.280 structurally obviously as a piece of like craft, it's it's good, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.520 except for I think you can't you can't view it 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.480 as craft in a vacuum. You have to look at 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.040 in part what he actually meant by this, And I 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.000 don't think it's often enough stated that what he's talking 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:51.920 about here is his belief that a race war is 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.200 inevitable if black and white people live too, true, right, Yeah, 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:57.800 Like that is what he's expressing, and that is something. 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:02.080 He believes, and and they and a genuine fear at 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.800 the time. Yeah, you know, it's like we can't like 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.399 at this point, you can't let them because they're just 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:09.280 gonna there's more of them, and they're going to destroy 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:13.199 us because we've been treating them terribly. Yeah, obviously this 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.159 is such a sensitive topic, especially with like being like 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:21.560 all eyes on Rafa, you know, and just a sentiment 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:30.240 that I would venture to say is might actually be 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:34.840 a motivating factor for how you know, obviously I'm not 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.200 at the table, but how like some of the people 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.199 in the government of Israel might be thinking too in that, Like, 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.480 you know, every we've covered it so many times, a 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:48.240 hood put politics, like every piece of research, every piece 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.880 of research is like, when you have state sanctioned violence 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:57.960 like this, you inevitably radicalize and create insurgencies. What you're 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:00.840 doing will do this. And and if you are trying 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.760 to eradicate every possible threat to your safety, it's genocide. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:07.560 That's your only option. You gotta kill everybody, you know, 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.040 what I'm saying because someone's you can't you know what 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:13.280 I mean. So it's like, so I wonder if they're like, well, shit, 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.639 we can't stop now, like we went this far. Like 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.919 if they do, they're gonna wipe us out because we're wrong, 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.480 you know. So I just I wonder if that thinking 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:24.640 is like a part of it, a part of their 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:26.840 calculation right now, Well, I mean, what are we gonna do? 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:29.879 You know, I certainly, I'm sure, I certainly don't think 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:31.560 when we're talking about like net and Yahoo right that 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:33.960 I don't know that I think he's capable of thinking 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.000 that he's wrong on a moral level. And also, you know, 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.639 a lot of this comes down to like beliefs about 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.840 religion and God, which totally further kind of derange some 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:50.560 of that. Yeah, Jefferson expresses accurately why slavery is evil 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.359 and expresses a fear that that evil will rebound upon 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:58.080 white people in America. Yeah, and then he doesn't do 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:02.800 anything to even make a better situation for the people 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.359 he owns, right, And that is contrary to how he 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.080 is depicted. Even in Ellis's book American Sphinx, they had 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:11.600 this long passage where he's like there was no such 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.760 thing as good slavery, Like it was bad and it 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.800 was hypocritical of Jefferson, But among people who owned people 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.240 in the Americas, he treated the people he owned better 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.320 than most. And the case that win Seck makes is 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.399 that like he really didn't. And this is going to 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.159 bring me prop to a thing that I did not 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:35.399 know about, which is Thomas Jefferson, slavery and smallpox. Yes, yes, okay, 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.200 so you're are you yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.720 give it to. At the time of the Revolutionary War, 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.400 there existed a fairly effective inoculation against smallpox. Now by 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.040 modern standards, it was brutal and dangerous, like by the 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.840 by the standards of a modern vaccine. This is basically 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.800 cutting someone's skin and sticking like the scab from like 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.600 what's called like either from cowpox or another like smallpox 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.320 or whatever, like under their skin, and it kind of 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.119 where it works basically the way that a vaccine works. 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.560 Obviously it is one or two percent of people die 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:07.040 that you need. 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.480 Yeah, it's an analog. It's an analog vaccine, you know. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:12.960 Yeah, yeah, it's it's an anally. That's a good, A 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.200 good way to look at it. And it's it's pretty 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.959 unpleasant to receive, but it's also a one or so 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.400 percent chance of dying from this is wildly better than 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.560 your odds of just raw dogging smallpox. Right, Like, smallpox 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.280 is one of the worst things that human being never 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:33.440