Talk:Thomas Jefferson and slavery

Tagged article
I tagged the article because there are a number of issues.


 * Bare link citations - I have the tool to expand citations running (it's taking some time) - and hopefully that fixes a lot of them.
 * Uncited content / possible Original research - when there's this much uncited content, it seems that it is original research.

My gut reaction is to remove all the uncited content, but that would remove quite a bit of information. Tags, I find, are generally useless and long-living. But, if someone else see this and would like to help clean the article, I would be happy to help quite a bit.–CaroleHenson (talk) 13:53, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and removed the uncited content here and I removed the original research and uncited content tags.


 * I will be back, I generally cannot find a source that covers what someone has typed, so it's much easier to search on a couple of key words, and then write content from there. I'll be back to work on this. There is some clean-up needed on the citations that were used as well.–CaroleHenson (talk) 14:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

3/5s Compromise
I'm opening discussion between User:Rogsonl1 and myself regarding this edit. He said: I find your response to my modification strange. Are you arguing that the 3/5th rule did not reduce the number of members of the house for Virginia and the rest of the slave holding states? That it was not it's goal? Please explain. I modified it once more to indicate that had the rule not existed, Jefferson would have gotten more votes, not less, so he would still been elected President.


 * My response:
 * The 3/5s rule gave the slave states an unrealistically high number of electoral votes. The slaves, who weren't citizens and couldn't vote, would not have been counted at all if the Three fifths compromise hadn't been necessary to get the slave states to ratify the Constitution.
 * That's also what the reference to Finkelman says. YoPienso (talk) 21:25, 28 July 2021 (UTC)


 * A policy you should know about it WP:EDITWAR. The proper thing now is for you--not me--to restore my edit, i.e., undo yours. If I do it, it could be perceived as edit warring. YoPienso (talk) 22:31, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've updated the article. YoPienso (talk) 00:27, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect referral to the relationship between Sally Hemmings and Jefferson as consensual. Why is this so?
Is there a reason why you all still refer to what I and everybody else knows to be an a relationship without consent as a normal relationship between Sally Hemmings and Jefferson? She was a minor. Please change this erroneous information you have posted on Wiki. It is deceptive. 69.14.139.169 (talk) 22:28, 4 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I think that the nature of their relationship could be made clearer. Within the article, Sally is described as:
 * In a long-term relationship with Jefferson
 * Considered his concubine
 * A house slave
 * Left the plantation / given her time after Jefferson’s death


 * It could be made clearer that Jefferson began a sexual relationship with Hemmings when she was an enslaved teenager, without the ability to prevent or consent to the relationship.–CaroleHenson (talk) 00:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I do not see that the article implies that the relationship was consensual. TFD (talk) 02:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * , I wonder if "In a long-term relationship" implies that it was consensual.–CaroleHenson (talk) 03:01, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * According to your section title, a relationship can be consensual or non-consensual. Note too that the sentence you quote continues, "with her half-sister, Sally Hemings, a slave at Monticello." It should be clear to readers that there was a power imbalance. If you want the article to say the relationship was non-consensual, you need a source that discusses this, per no original research. TFD (talk) 03:14, 5 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Of the four ways that I saw her depicted in the article (bullets above), the only thing that I see as an issue is "long term relationship" that could make it seem consensual. I am sure that it will be easy to find sources that discuss whether or not their relationship was consensual. I'll do some research.–CaroleHenson (talk) 04:23, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Apparently this needs to be debated again. I am unaware of any reliable sources describing this relationship as "non-consensual." Annette Gordon-Reed even goes out of her way to criticize this argument. While one could certainly make an argument for that, it needs to be presented as the position of whichever person is making the argument, rather than asserted as fact on Wikipedia.23.28.77.117 (talk) 16:01, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Do we have sources that say this was non-consensual? The Hemmings article doesn't suggest one way or the other and I don't see that this article does either.  Certainly it's quite possible this was outright non-consensual.  I would find it hard to believe there wasn't some aspect of power imbalance in play even if it were Hemmings who say pushed the issue as a way to gain favorable treatment (note: this is trying to cover a range of possibilities, not claiming any one as correct).  Still, I'm not sure that supports a claim in the opening sentence that this was not-consensual in wiki-voice in the opening of the article. , since you added the claim to the lead  can you provide the sources for the claim?  Ping  as involved as well. Springee (talk) 02:37, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Well, Monticello's own website says "Enslaved women had no legal right to consent". (It does also note, I think fairly, that exactly how much agency Hemings had in the relationship is still a matter of historical debate.) This lack of consent is a lot clearer in non-academic sources like this Vox article.
 * I find academic sources tend to want to tiptoe around the issue that, at least after they returned to the US from France, their relationship could not have been consensual simply by virtue of the fact that he owned her. But we don't have to share their shyness to draw WP:BLUESKY conclusions from the facts they lay down, especially when we *do* still have RSes who *are* willing to draw those sorts of conclusions. Loki (talk) 03:01, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Are those sources in this article? If nothing else that is clearly a claim that requires WP:V. Springee (talk) 03:29, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Since slaves were not legal persons, they lacked the power of consent. But we wouldn't say for example that if a slave bought their freedom they were freed "without their consent," just because they lacked the legal power of consent.
 * The Monticello website says, "The nature of Sally Hemings’s sexual encounters with Thomas Jefferson will never be known." That seems to preclude any claim in the article about its nature. TFD (talk) 10:06, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In looking at the content of this article, the body of the article says that there is still dispute if Jefferson and Heming had children though most sources believe the evidence is strong enough to assume this to be true (call it a 95% chance of being true). So right there we have an issue in the lead in that it states the relationship in wiki-voice as a unequivocal fact while the body doesn't quite support that.  Nothing in the body would support the claim that this was non-consensual.  If the body of the article is correct then we should probably state that the relationship is generally accepted to be true based on X evidence.  I personally think the evidence is extremely strong but I also think Wikipedia should err on the side of not claiming consensus if experts don't agree.  I'm mixed on pushing this content to the top of the lead vs later in the lead as it used to be.  The efforts to stream line the lead  have paid big dividends in readability.  However, I think the lead should say something to the effect of suspected of being his children based on a relationship most historians believed he had had with Heming.  I would prefer a word that is stronger than "believe" but something other than a 100% statement of fact. Springee (talk) 14:01, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Lead too long
The lead of this article is way too long. It's five paragraphs long, which is longer than some non-stub articles. I'm going to attempt to trim it down a bit. Loki (talk) 02:50, 27 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Having looked at the before and after, I think you did a commendable job reducing things. It probably would be good to put in a bit more about the contrast between many of his statements vs his actions.  I also think that should be the first paragraph.  The second and third paragraphs can highlight both his actions/statements against slavery as well as his own complex/hypocritical actions.  Springee (talk) 14:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)