by the Creator with the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." They either meant that all men were created equal, that every man was entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or they did not mean it at all. The Declaration of Independence was a white man's document that its author rarely applied to his own or any other slave. Thomas Jefferson suspected blacks were inferior. These suspicions, together with his prophecy that free blacks could not harmoniously co-exist with white men for centuries to come, are believed to be the primary reasons for his contradictory actions toward the issue of slavery. At the end of the eighteenth century, Jefferson fought the infamous Alien & Sedition Acts, which limited civil liberties. As president, he opposed the Federalist court, conspiracies to divide the union, and the economic plans of Alexander Hamilton. Throughout his life, Thomas Jefferson, hypocrite, slave holder, pondered the conflict between American freedom and American slavery. He bought and sold slaves; he advertised for fugitives; he ordered disciplinary lashes with a horse whip. Jefferson understood that he and his fellow slave holders benefited financially and culturally from the sweat of their black laborers. One could say he regarded slavery as a necessary evil. In 1787, he wrote the Northwest Ordinance which banned slavery in territory acquired from Great Britain following the American Revolution. However, later as a retired politician and ex-president, Jefferson refused to free his own slaves, counseled young white Virginia slave holders against voluntary emancipation of theirs, and even favored the expansion of slavery into the western territories. To Jefferson, Americans had to be free to worship as they desired. They also deserved to be free from an overreaching government. To Jefferson, Americans should also be free to possess slaves. In ne...
