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Title: "Negro President" : Jefferson and the Slave Power by Garry Wills ISBN: 0-618-34398-9 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.42 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Good Addition to Wills Canon
Comment: Garry Wills returns again to Thomas Jefferson, sort of. The title of the book is "Negro President", Jefferson and the Slave Power, but that can be somewhat misleading. The historical personage who sits front and centre in this discussion of the slave power is New England's own Timothy Pickering. The author provides a different take on this often maligned character. It is shown how Pickering doggedly fought againt the 3/5 federal ratio that allowed the Southern slave states to count their slaves (partially) in order to increase their place in the houses and, in the case of Jefferson, help elect a President of the United States. Jefferson's role in this extension of slave power is examined. Particularly enlightening is a new look at the selection of Washington as the site of the new capital. When focused must directly on these aspects, the book is strongest. The text does, on occasion, wander a little farther afield though. The sections on John Quincy Adams feel undeveloped in an appendix sort of fashion, although interesting in their own right. It is nice to see a reexamination of Pickering, particularly as a way to view Jefferson in a fresher light.
Rating: 5
Summary: Performing a Service by Stimulating Debate
Comment: Gary Wills once more reveals himself as an author of courage who explores controversial issues with a microscopic eye. This time he has the author of America's Declaration of Independence and the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson, in his analytical sights.
Despite being an admirer of Jefferson's and much of what he stood for, Wills also realizes that he was, as a member of the Southern aristocracy, standing in the middle of the fledgling nation's major controversy, which would ultimately rock America to its foundations, that of slavery. While Americans who have studied the history of the nation's early years were aware of the highly controversial three-fifths rule, the service Wills performs in this book is to analyze Jefferson's role in the ongoing debate concerning it and deduce that he was able to become presidency on the strength of a rule that was seen as a compromise between the north and the south on the subject of slavery.
Wills sees Jefferson as a "Negro president" in that he was the beneficiary of the controversial rule, achieving the presidency as a result of its application. By having large numbers of slaves counted as three-fifths of a person this segment made it possible for Jefferson to achieve the presidency. With so many slaves located in states where Jefferson had strength, the three-fifths rule provided a rocket thrust which made the difference in the election of 1800. The tragic irony is that fictitious votes of individuals who were not even considered persons in the legal sense, and had no right to vote, made the difference. Slavery ended up serving as a gigantic bonus, providing an electoral boost.
This is a debate that is certain to continue, and Wills deserves praise for setting it into motion. In order to know about ourselves as a people we must tackle all questions, no matter how tough or unpleasant.
Another point Wills covers is that Jefferson's founding of the University of Virginia, which he considered his proudest accomplishment, was also tied strongly to the ongoing slavery debate between the south and the north. Wills asserts that Jefferson wanted a university in his own state of Virginia to serve as a counter balance to strong anti-slavery sentiments at institutions of learning in the north such as Yale and Harvard.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Tragedy of the Three-Fifths Compromise
Comment: While Wills begins this book by saying that he does not want to disparage Thomas Jefferson or cause people not to admire him, it was impossible not to see him and other Southern presidents like James Madison and James Monroe in a more tarnished light after finishing the book. NEGRO PRESIDENT presents a much clearer picture of how the Three-Fifths Compromise continued the appalling practice of slavery in this country and led the United States inevitably toward the Civil War. Readers learn, too, of the unsung hero of the anti-slavery movement, Thomas Pickering, whose death seems to have finally transformed John Quincy Adams into an unflinching opponent of slavery towards the end of his career. This is a very interesting book that everyone should read. There should be more done to counter the mythology of slavery and the South that has developed in this country since the end of Reconstruction. It's good to know that the Founding Fathers were not "supermen." They were simply the same flawed people that we all are.
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Title: An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America by Henry Wiencek ISBN: 0374175268 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 15 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Inventing A Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson by Gore Vidal ISBN: 0300101716 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: We Are Lincoln Men : Abraham Lincoln and His Friends by David Herbert Donald ISBN: 0743254686 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Jefferson's Demons : Portrait of a Restless Mind by Michael Knox Beran ISBN: 0743232798 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 07 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein ISBN: 0195169115 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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