Anyone that owned slaves is pretty low on my list of someone with ethics.How can one speak of equality in any sense and do the opposite at the same time?By that time slavery was banished from most countries,and it was a sad historical note for America.

he had some great ideas, but yes, i believe he was hypocritical.

It is easy for us to call Thomas Jefferson hypocritical in 2008. But honestly, none of us could imagine actually living in the historical era that was his status quo. I am not defending having slaves. In fact, I think it was kind of hypocritical that he did have them, truth be told. But I have to give allowance to the human condition - a person can only accomplish so much. He offered new ideas; was an academic scholar; has an impressive list of contributions and achievements in American history. My college is considered "Mr. Jefferson's University" - this institution is a marvel of higher education in its manifesting his vision. He wanted a place where faculty and students were more closely involved, and he expanded the entire principles of higher learning. He built the school from the ground up - and anyone who goes there is proud to be associated with the place. In studying American history and actually having the privilege to view an original Declaration of Independence, there is no doubt that Jefferson was a staunch defender of liberty and equality for all men. Sometimes, a couple hundred years blurs the distinctions between 'doing the best you can' and 'hypocrisy'.... things ought to be viewed within a certain context. Furthermore, we must remember to extract and appreciate the contributions of our forefathers.

He was a great man, and he contributed a lot to the foundation of this great country.

i think at that time he believed in what he thought was equality it didn't occur to him but that doesn't mean he was a hypocrite

My opinion has ever been that, until more can be done for the slaves, we should endeavor, with those whom fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed and clothe them well, protect them from ill usage, and require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by freemen. The laws do not permit us to turn them loose. I see manumission as similar to abandoning children, who have no way of caring for themselves. It would take generations for the Negro to assimilate enough knowledge to become independent of mind and spirit, if ever that could occur. What I am about to write will no doubt leave most of you who have a more modern egalitarianism agast. No matter how strenuously most attempt to avoid judgement, there is no denying that in your time I would be adjudged a racist and apartheidist. I believe--admittedly with great misgiving--that the African people are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind. For more thoughts of this, I leave you to read my only plublished book, Notes on the State of Virginia. However, I tried 7 times in my lifetime to produce legislation to free the Negro from bondage and return him to his native home. I could not see how two races, with a legacy steeped in hatred and oppression could ever live together. If I could have freed all my servants I would have done it. If I could have freed all the bondsmen, I would have done it. It was too much of a complex social and political question for my generation to resolve. It was as if we had a wolf by the ears, able to neither release him, nor hold him fast. Most of my servants were inherited from my wife's father along with the debts he accumulated. I could have sold them to pay the debts, rather I assumed the debts and watched over these people. This "peculiar institution" haunted me all my days. I know, it is inconceivable for a man who wrote, "all men are created equal' to have owned over two hundred of them. Yet, it is so. I am guilty of the greatest evil one human can commit against another. It is one of the great inconsistencies of my life. I deserve your loathing and contempt and accept it without defense. You must remember that if you lived south of the Pennsylvania state line in 1776, 99 of 100 persons there would have thought you insane for the avocation of the manumission of the slaves. The southern states would not have joined the fight against Great Britian if the paragraph I placed in the Declaration of Independence accusing George III of perpetuating the slave trade upon us and requiring the freedom of the slaves was not stricken from the document. I was incensed at the removal, but could say nothing. We would have lost the conflict, and there could then have been no new nation. We deferred it for another generation. It was a difficult era. I left it for future generations to correct the ills of their fathers. Yr Obedient Servant Th. Jefferson