President Evil

Jill! This nailery is dangerous!

Henry Wiencek's article on the horrors of Monticello really shocked me (h/t Lindsay Beyerstein); I didn't realize the extent to which southern slavery intersected with industrial, and even financial, capitalism. Jefferson's slaves worked in his―very profitable―nail factory, and he used his slaves as collateral for loans. That is to say, he produced nails using brutal violence, and he borrowed money using brutal violence. I have no illusions about the treatment of household slaves in the antebellum South, but the sheer scale of human suffering at Monticello is sickening.

I never understood why Yankee abolitionists focused on how slavery affects the slaveholder, rather than focusing on the injustice of slavery. I figured that even abolitionists were relying on an impoverished morality, because they still failed to recognize blacks as full human beings―and I still think that's true. But it's hard to read about Monticello without the visceral feeling that Jefferson was an evil man, especially in light of Washington's example.

Did Jefferson's experiences of industry and finance, on the backs of slaves, influence his agrarian fantasies? I always figured that it was the other way around: first, a desire for the life of a landed gentleman, along with a distaste for modern capitalism, and a subsequent acceptance of slavery. But the combination of slavery and capitalism sullies both.