re: #565 calcajun

What I have been reading as of late suggests that he could not have freed them even if he wanted to as he borrowed against them— he used them as collateral for his loans to pay down his ever-present debt.

Yep. A looong time ago, I wrote my History Honors thesis about it (that’s partly how I wound up at UVA; the other being invited to get to their accelerated 3 year PhD program in American History) and in point of fact, ole TJ was an even worse businessman than I was! But to his credit he did try to free his slaves on 3 different occasions and was prevented from doing so by the courts. And when he was elected to Virgina’s House of Burgess (after he had been POTUS, no less) for something like 9 straight terms he introduced bills abolishing slavery in Virgina. Of course, he lost each time, but he did keep trying.