Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and American Slavery, by Russell Goodman

When: Tue, Feb 14 2012 6:00pm

Where: UNM SUB

The pragmatist philosopher John Dewey wrote that “every evil is a rejected good.”

In this presentation I will explore ways in which slavery both appeared as a good to, and was rejected as evil by, two great American writers and statesmen: Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Franklin’s rejection of slavery was gradual and by the end of his life quite clear, as he served as President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.

Jefferson condemned slavery early on and throughout his life, while continuing to run a slave plantation at Monticello and, after the 1780s, fostering a slave family with Sally Hemings.

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