View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Richmond University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository History Faculty Publications History 1993 The trS ange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory Edward L. Ayers University of Richmond,
[email protected] Scot A. French Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/history-faculty-publications Part of the Race and Ethnicity Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Ayers, Edward L. and Scot A. French. "The trS ange Career of Thomas Jefferson: Race and Slavery in American Memory." In Jeffersonian Legacies, edited by Peter S. Onuf, 418-456. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993. This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the History at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CHAPTER I 4 The Strange Career of Thomas Jefferson Race and Slavery in American Memory, I94J-I99J SCOT A. FRENCH AND EDWARD L. AYERS For generations, the memory of Thomas Jefferson has been inseparable from his nation's memory of race and slavery. Just as Jefferson's words are invoked whenever America's ideals of democracy and freedom need an elo quent spokesman, so are his actions invoked when critics level charges of white guilt, hypocrisy, and evasion. In the nineteenth century, abolitionists used Jefferson's words as swords; slaveholders used his example as a shield.