Professor Paul Finkelman joins David to discuss his New York Times Op-Ed The Monster of Monticello. He argues that, contrary to popular belief, Thomas Jefferson was always deeply committed to slavery, and even more deeply hostile to the welfare of blacks, slave or free. His proslavery views were shaped not only by money and status but also by his deeply racist views, which he tried to justify through pseudoscience. Rather than encouraging his countrymen to liberate their slaves, he opposed both private manumission and public emancipation. Even at his death, Jefferson failed to fulfill the promise of his rhetoric: his will emancipated only five slaves, all relatives of his mistress Sally Hemings, and condemned nearly 200 others to the auction block. Even Hemings remained a slave, though her children by Jefferson went free.  Professor Finkelman os a John Hope Franklin visiting Professor of American Legal History at the Duke University School of Law and President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy, and Senior Fellow in the Government Law Center at Albany Law School. A specialist in American legal history, constitutional law, and race and the law, Professor Paul Finkelman is the author of more than 150 scholarly articles and more than 30 books including his latest Defining Slavery Under A “Government Instituted for the Protection of the Rights of Mankind.”  His op-eds and shorter pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and on the Huffington Post. 

 Paul Finkleman on Thomas Jefferson