Why is jefferson honored

Scholars have a range of views on whether Jefferson statues and other honors should be reconsidered, but they generally agree that the public doesn't know enough about Jefferson's poor record on issues of race. Paul Finkelman, author of Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson Routledge , said that he couldn't judge how colleges should deal with Jefferson statues, but he said the history is clear.

Jefferson never took such a step. Henry Wiencek, author of Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves Farrar, Straus and Giroux , said via email that his approach to the issue of statues and other honors for Jefferson as well as Wilson and others would be based on a Jefferson quote: "The earth belongs to the living. Explained Wiencek: "If the rising generation finds the actions of these men to be repugnant, then the new generation has the right to demand the removal of memorials to them.

There should be informed and reasoned discussion and debate -- universities are the ideal forum. Let the defenders of the memorials make their case on behalf of the enslavers.

Norton -- that have criticized previous generations of scholars for ignoring evidence or downplaying the story of Jefferson's relationship with one of his slaves. Via email, Gordon-Reed said that she didn't think Jefferson statues should be taken down. Further, she said it is important to distinguish Jefferson whatever his record on slavery from figures associated with the Confederacy or Jim Crow, for whom there may not be any reason for honors on campuses to continue.

He is just too much a part of the American story … to pretend that he was not there. This conversation about statues and symbols really got going with calls to take symbols and figures from the Confederacy out of the public sphere.

That's a lot of people to be disappeared. There is every difference in the world between being one of the founders of the United States and being a part of group of people who fought to destroy the United States. Statues and buildings for Jefferson Davis and John C.

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A portico with eight Ionic columns forms the main entrance. An Adolph A. Weinman sculptural group in the pediment shows Jefferson and his colleagues presenting their draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress.

Rudulph Evans' bronze statue of Jefferson dominates the white marble interior of the memorial. It shows Jefferson in midlife, wearing a waistcoat, knee breeches, and a long, fur-collared coat. In his left hand, he holds what is believed to be the Declaration of Independence.

At the dedication in , the statue was made of plaster. The bronze version had to wait until wartime restrictions on the use of metals ended.

The statue is 19 feet in height and stands on a 6-foot pedestal of black Minnesota granite. Four quotation blocks drawn from several of Jefferson's writings, in addition to the personal credo quoted above, adorn the interior of the memorial and illustrate some of the principles to which he dedicated his life.

During this period, he sold his collection of books almost volumes to the government to form the nucleus of the Library of Congress before promptly beginning to purchase more volumes for his final library.

Jefferson embarked on his last great public service at the age of seventy-six with the founding of the University of Virginia. He spearheaded the legislative campaign for its charter, secured its location, designed its buildings, planned its curriculum, and served as the first rector.

Like so many Virginia planters, he had contended with debts most of his adult life, but along with the constant fluctuations in the agricultural markets, he was never able to totally liquidate the sizeable debt attached to the inheritance from his father-in-law John Wayles.

His finances worsened in retirement with the War of and the subsequent recession, headed by the Panic of Despite his debts, when he died just a few hours before his friend John Adams on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, , he was optimistic as to the future of the republican experiment.

Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time , 6 vols. Boston: I; Appendix I, I Bear and Lucia Stanton, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, I: TJ to Benjamin Latrobe, 10 Oct. PTJ Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Henry L. Pierce, et al. Nicolay and John Hay, eds. Notes on the State of Virginia. Library of America, ,