Sunday, May 26, 2013

Does a Zygote have the Right to Enslave?

Samuel Adams observed that tyrants pervert the plain meaning of words. In the question whether or not a zygote has the right to enslave, I start with a definition of terms, using http://dictionary.reference.com. 
  • person - an individual human being. 
  • individual - a single organism capable of independent existence [Biology definition] 
  • zygote - the cell formed by the union of the nuclei of two reproductive cells (gametes), especially a fertilized egg cell. 
  • embryo - an animal in its earliest stage of development, before all the major body structures are represented. In humans, the embryonic stage lasts through the first eight weeks of pregnancy. In humans, other placental mammals, and other viviparous animals, young born as embryos cannot thrive. 
  • fetus - the unborn offspring of a mammal at the later stages of its development, especially a human from eight weeks after fertilization to its birth. In a fetus, all major body organs are present.
 
Some say the zygote has rights. Others say rights are acquired at birth. I differ with both camps. Here are viewpoints from both camps, which do not include religion-based arguments:

      "The question as to when a human person begins is a philosophical
       question—not a scientific question. I will not go into great detail here,
       but "personhood" begins when the human being begins—at fertilization."
       - http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html 

      "Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child
       cannot acquire any rights until it is born."
       - http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/abortion.html   
 
      "What of the fetus? Does it have rights which must be respected? The
       concept of rights is based on man's nature and presupposes the existence
       of an actual, fully formed and separate human being. Fetuses and embryos
       are not actual human beings; they are potential human beings. They have
       no rights until they exist apart from the mother, i.e., at birth. This is not to
       condone the morality of arbitrarily delaying an abortion until the last
       months of pregnancy--when the fetus is approaching humanness. But the
       function of the law is to protect rights--not to dictate moral issues which
       involve no violation of rights."
       - http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?id=5105
 
       Here is An Objectivist Condemnation of Abortion.  
 

Does a zygote have the right to enslave? I answer this question using the following principles of Thomas Jefferson: 

"The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being… Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights… A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature…”

“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable;
That all men are created equal & independent,
That from that equal creation
They derive rights inherent & inalienable,
Among which are the preservation of
Life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness…”


"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him."

The zygote has the complete number of chromosomes of a unique human. But, does a zygote have the right to force its mother to feed and take care of it for the next 19 years? Many Objectivists hold that rights commence at birth. But, birth does not give the baby ability to procure its own food in order to preserve its own life. Using birth as the basis of rights is using a principle based on location, since the only difference of an unborn six-month-old fetus with a baby born prematurely after six months in the womb is its location. This is contrary to Jefferson's principle that rights are based on the laws of man's nature.

The zygote cannot have a right no man has. "No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another." Its mother must choose to be responsible for it. The pregnant girl/woman is free to make this decision until the onset of the fundamental independence of the new unique human, which is the presence of brain activity that makes the unborn capable of breathing. No one has the right to stop an innocent from breathing, whether the innocent is in a crib, in an incubator, or in the womb.

The embryo is not sentient. It does not have brain activity. The central nervous system is fully formed on the 9th week, the start of the fetal stage. The fetus takes its first breath on the 10th week. [link]

A fetus has its own bodily parts. Its brain activity is separate from its mother's. The placenta, which the fetus uses to breathe, comes from embryonic cells. The new human breathes using an organ created from itself. A fully formed human with brain activity has acquired the NATURAL ATTRIBUTES of an ACTUAL living human. It is not birth that accords actuality; birth only changes the location of the innocent. 

Rights are UNOBSTRUCTED actions according to one's will, limited only by the equal rights of others. If the mother is in coma and life support, the fetus will continue to breathe. This further evinces that the breathing of the fetus is an independent action. The unborn with brain activity has INHERENT NATURAL rights. It has the right to continue breathing.

Based on the laws of man's nature, the zygote has no rights. Man is fallible, and even the young have strong sexual urges. The individual right to the preservation of liberty and the pursuit of happiness guarantees the pregnant girl's right to choose whether or not to be responsible for another human for 19 years. This right is consistent with what nature has provided: a window to change course, which is the stage where the unborn has no brain activity. Based on human nature, the criterion for the cessation of the life of a fully formed human should be the criterion used for its onset.   







Sunday, May 5, 2013

Thomas Jefferson's Philosophy

A man's philosophy is his fundamentals. When he has integrity, his concretes, i.e. his decisions, match his fundamentals. When a man has no philosophy, his actions or inactions are based on whatever.

Abraham Lincoln said, "The principles of Jefferson are the definitions & axioms of free society.” [articles

Here is a comprehensive, easy-to-understand presentation of the branches of philosophy: http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/FiveBranchesMain.html

Axioms are under the first branch, Metaphysics.
http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Main.html

Here is a kid-friendly explanation of philosophy [fb note]:

Picture a five-storey building. The fourth floor is politics, where how man should treat other men is determined. Politics, the fourth branch of philosophy, defines the principles of a proper social system. The politics floor rests on the third floor, ethics or morality, the code of values to guide man’s choices and actions in determining the purpose and the course of his life. The third floor rests on the second floor, epistemology, which is also called the reason-and-logic floor. In turn, the reason-and-logic floor rests on the first floor and the building’s foundations: metaphysics - the study of existence, nature, metaphysical reality.

A political principle that does not rest on ethics is like the fourth floor of a building floating on air. Ethics or a morality code without an epistemological and metaphysical base is like a table with no legs. The proper code of values is established by means of reason in accordance with logic and in consonance with man’s nature.


Metaphysics    - REALITY
Epistemology  - REASON
Ethics             - EACH INDIVIDUAL's PURSUIT of HAPPINESS
Politics           - INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and REPUBLICANISM
 
METAPHYSICS QUOTES:
 

"The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being… Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights… A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature…”  

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free; every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." -


“It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish them. The law of nature impels every one to escape from confinement; it should not, therefore, be subjected to punishment.”

EPISTEMOLOGY QUOTES:
 

"Shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under w/c weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, & call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear…. It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason.”

"Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven…. Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind."

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

ETHICS-POLITICS QUOTES:

"We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable;
That all men are created equal & independent,
That from that equal creation
They derive rights inherent & inalienable,
Among which are the preservation of
Life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness
;
That to secure these ends,
Governments are instituted among men,
Deriving their just powers
From the consent of the governed..."

ETHICS QUOTE:

"If we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater are we made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been charged." - Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1782. ME 4:196, Papers 6:185

POLITICS QUOTES:
 

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

“That there exists a right independent of force; that a RIGHT to PROPERTY is FOUNDED in our NATURAL WANTS, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings; that NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO OBSTRUCT ANOTHER exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature; that justice is the fundamental law of society; that the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest, breaks up the foundations of society; that action by the citizens in person, in affairs within their reach and competence, and in all others by representatives chosen immediately and removable by themselves constitutes the essence of a republic...” - http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-9116915

A JEFFERSONIAN adheres to the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson.


"... But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation. One would state with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true, but nevertheless he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society..." - LINCOLN'S TRIBUTE TO JEFFERSON

Article: Purveyor of Truth (Part 1) – Definitions: Guardians of Rationality

 




Sunday, December 16, 2012

TJ Erased ALL Internal Taxes & the Nat’l Debt



On December 16, 1773, Boston Tea Partiers revolted against taxation. Unfortunately, the present Tea Party has been hijacked by DARK-AGES warriors.
While abolishing ALL internal taxes
Including the whiskey tax and the land tax
In the first year of his first presidency,
While engaging in the Barbary War
Within two months of his first presidency,
And then spending $15 million
In the Louisiana Purchase
To double the then size of the USA,
Jefferson reduced the national debt
From $83 million to $57 million
[And then, according to a Mises.org article,
Paid it off].
 
“Indeed, the national debt was paid off twice in American history, the first time by Thomas Jefferson and the second, and undoubtedly the last time, by Andrew Jackson.” http://mises.org/daily/1423

“Jefferson and Gallatin managed to redeem $37.2 million of the principal of the federal debt and bring the total amount outstanding down from $83 million in 1800 to $57 million at the end of 1808.” http://mises.org/daily/4473

“When Thomas Jefferson was elected President..., direct taxes were abolished…” - History of the US Tax System

“Thomas Jefferson repealed all internal taxes and ran the government solely from trade tariff revenue.” [link]


Jefferson’s first term: “He eliminated all internal taxes, abolished the Internal Revenue Service, slashed Army and Navy expenditures, and reduced the national debt by one third. Through his purchase of land from Napoleon in 1803, Jefferson nearly doubled the size of the U.S. and thus provided additional land for settlement and development.” [link2]

1800 With the assistance of his Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, newly elected Republican President Thomas Jefferson sought to reorient the fiscal policy of the United States. Jefferson’s four main goals included: (1) a reduction in government expenditures, (2) a balanced budget; (3) a decrease in the size of the national debt, and (4) alleviation of the tax burden. The latter two objectives seemed to conflict with one another; specifically, Jefferson's desire to abrogate Hamilton's funded debt plan and retire all government obligations as judiciously as possible required a steady stream of revenue.

Nevertheless, Jefferson abolished all internal taxes, including the whiskey excise tax and the land tax. Meanwhile, the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, though a diplomatic minefield for American statesmen, proved a significant stimulus to the economy of the United States. Vigorous commerce enriched merchants while customs duties swelled the federal Treasury. By 1808 the national debt had been reduced from $80 million to $57 million, even though the Louisiana purchase had added an $11 million liability. By 1806, duties proved so lucrative that Gallatin and Jefferson fretted about what to do with the surplus above that required for debt retirement. Treasury reserves increased from $3 million to $14 million between 1801 and 1808.”
http://www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/THM1777?OpenDocument

The National Debt

The Jefferson administration had two main objectives in 1801: the reduction of the national debt and the reduction of direct taxes. Gallatin felt that "...the reduction of the public debt was certainly the principle in bringing me [Gallatin] into office...". It was with this thought in mind that he began his first year in office.

According to Mr. Gallatin, on January 1, 1801, the United States was more than eighty million dollars in debt. Gallatin had a plan to reduce the debt. It called for the practice of economy within the government, particularly in the military. The two main sources of revenue for the reduction of the national debt were: capital gained through the sale of public lands and that revenue brought in through custom duties (import taxes).During the first year of Gallatin's term of office he succeeded in reducing the national debt by over two million dollars. In 1803 the government increased its debt fifteen million dollars when the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. Still, this major expense did not alter Gallatin's plan for the nation's economy. He continued to enforce his plan and by January 1, 1812, Gallatin had succeeded in reducing the national debt to just over forty-five million dollars.

Albert Gallatin left office in 1814. Those who came after him continued to enforce the measures to reduce the debt that he had started. In January, 1833 the federal government considered the national debt totally extinguished.”
http://www.nps.gov/frhi/historyculture/secretaryofthetreasury.htm

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." - Thomas Jefferson

Other Quotes
 
I am against all taxes, like I am against the military draft. Like having a volunteer army, the financial support of one’s country should be voluntary.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Thank Jefferson for the Bill of Rights


Happy Bill of Rights Day!




On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights became part of the US Constitution. Four years earlier, on December 20, 1787, Thomas Jefferson, who was then serving as ambassador to France, wrote to James Madison, "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."

The following letter of December 20, 1787, to James Madison, helped to convince the latter that the Constitution needed such an addition.”- Britannica

"Madison’s mentor Thomas Jefferson… helped convince him of [the Bill of Rights] necessity..." – History.com

"The American Bill of Rights, inspired by Jefferson…” ACLU, The Bill of Rights: A Brief History

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government - The Bill of Rights

"I disapproved from the first moment... the want of a bill of rights [in the new Constitution] to guard liberty against the legislative as well as the executive branches of the government." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789. ME 7:300

"I do not like... the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land and not by the law of nations." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:387

"A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:388, Papers 12:440
 

Basic Contents of a Bill of Rights


"By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald, 1788. ME 6:425

"The Constitutions of our several States vary more or less in some particulars. But there are certain principles in which all agree, and which all cherish as vitally essential to the protection of the life, liberty, property, and safety of the citizen: 1. Freedom of religion, restricted only from acts of trespass on that of others; 2. Freedom of person, securing every one from imprisonment or other bodily restraint but by the laws of the land. This is effected by the well-know law of habeas corpus; 3. Trial by jury, the best of all safeguards for the person, the property, and the fame of every individual; 4. The exclusive right of legislation and taxation in the representatives of the people; 5. Freedom of the press, subject only to liability for personal injuries." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:489

"I like [the declaration of rights] as far as it goes, but I should have been for going further. For instance, the following alterations and additions would have pleased me:

Article 4. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty, property or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the confederacy with foreign nations.

Article 7. All facts put in issue before any judicature shall be tried by jury except, 1, in cases of admiralty jurisdiction, wherein a foreigner shall be interested; 2, in cases cognizable before a court martial concerning only the regular officers and soldiers of the United States, or members of the militia in actual service in time of war or insurrection; and 3, in impeachments allowed by the Constitution.

Article 8. No person shall be held in confinement more than -- days after he shall have demanded and been refused a writ of habeas corpus by the judge appointed by law, nor more than -- days after such a writ shall have been served on the person holding him in confinement, and no order given on due examination for his remandment or discharge, nor more than -- hours in any place at a greater distance than -- miles from the usual residence of some judge authorized to issue the writ of habeas corpus; nor shall that writ be suspended for any term exceeding one year, nor in any place more than -- miles distant from the State or encampment of enemies or of insurgents.

Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding -- years, but for no longer term, and no other purpose.

Article 10. All troops of the United States shall stand ipso facto disbanded at the expiration of the term for which their pay and subsistence shall have been last voted by Congress, and all officers and soldiers not natives of the United States shall be incapable of serving in their armies by land, except during a foreign war.

These restrictions, I think, are so guarded as to hinder evil only. However, if we do not have them now, I have so much confidence in my countrymen as to be satisfied that we shall have them as soon as the degeneracy of our government shall render them necessary." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:450

 

The Endeavor to Secure Rights


"[If] a positive declaration of some essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude, [the] answer [is], Half a loaf is better than no bread. If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:310

"The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, [and] we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Clay, 1790. ME 8:4

"Instead of that liberty which takes root and growth in the progress of reason, if recovered by mere force or accident, it becomes with an unprepared people a tyranny still of the many, the few, or the one." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1815. ME 14:245

"Most [revolutions] have been [closed] by a subversion of that liberty [they were] intended to establish." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1784. ME 4:218, Papers 7:106

"In endeavors to improve our situation, we should never despair." --Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 1817. ME 15:148

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal Government the power of borrowing. I now deny their power of making paper money or anything else a legal tender. I know that to pay all proper expenses within the year would, in case of war, be hard on us. But not so hard as ten wars instead of one. For wars could be reduced in that proportion; besides that the State governments would be free to lend their credit in borrowing quotas." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798. ME 10:64

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government - The National Debt  


 

Sunday, December 9, 2012

26-YO Jefferson's Emancipation of Slaves Bill


Logically & morally, one cannot be faulted for something outside of one's choice. Slavery was OBTRUDED on the Colonies by King George III. Thomas Jefferson INHERITED slaves. It was AGAINST THE LAW TO FREE THEM. When he was 26 years old, chosen for the first time to be a member of a legislature, he submitted a bill for the EMANCIPATION of ALL slaves. As a lawyer in 1770, age 27, Jefferson defended a slave, saying: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free."

Facts:


1769: Chosen for the first time to be a member of a legislature, Thomas Jefferson made one effort in the House of Burgesses for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, but was rejected.

From Jefferson's autobiography: http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff01.txt

"In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the county in which I live, and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected: and indeed, during the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success."

  1770: As a lawyer, Thomas Jefferson defended a slave, saying: "Under the law of nature, all men are born free."

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free; everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." -- Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376

  1776: He strongly condemned slavery in his version of the Declaration of Independence.

"He (King George III) has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/declaration/declaration.html

  1778: The legislature passed a bill he proposed to ban further importation of slaves into Virginia.

“On Government for the Western Territory, the basic document for the growth of the United States... Jefferson's effort to abolish slavery failed by one vote.”http://history-world.org/thomas_jefferson.htm

  1784: His draft of what became the Northwest Ordinance stipulated that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" in any of the new states admitted to the Union from the Northwest Territory.

1806: President Jefferson requested Congress to ban all slave importation to the US.

1807: Jefferson signed a bill abolishing the slave trade: On March 3, 1807, as President of the USA, Thomas Jefferson signed a bill making slave importation illegal in the United States.

http://ilynross.blogspot.com/2012/04/principles-of-jefferson-are-definitions.html

"While Jefferson did not free all of his slaves on his death (as did Washington), a law passed in Virginia in 1806 required that the legislature pass a special bill that would attest to the exemplary behavior of each slave to be freed. If freed, THE SLAVE HAD TO LEAVE THE STATE WITHOUT HIS OR HER FAMILY.

Jefferson tried unsuccessfully to get this law changed. Further, Jefferson trained his slaves in skills that would be useful when they were free. He believed that to free them first would be irresponsible -- since they would be homeless and without family."http://www.liberty1.org/defense.htm

For clarity: The law passed in VA in 1806 allowed ONLY the SELF-SUPPORTING to be freed. The freed must leave the state within the year. If a self-supporting slave had children or parents who were not, he/she had to leave them. Jefferson did not want to separate families.

Jefferson did not want nor need slaves. He inherited them. A first-time legislator at age 26, he wanted to free all slaves. He fought all his life to free them. Jefferson was a polymath and polyglot. He passed the bar at age 22. He was an architect, a scientist, an inventor. He never patented any of his inventions.

After being away from his farm for 10 years, serving his country, he found it deranged. He became a NAILMAKER. From age 26 to 66, he served his country, and after that, he served the causes of science and education.


JEFFERSON (Thomas), A Nailmaker. "In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker. On returning home after an absence of ten years, I found my farms so much deranged that I saw evidently they would be a burden to me instead of a support till I could regenerate them; and, consequently, that it was necessary for me to find some other resource in the meantime. I thought for a while of taking up the manufacture of potash, which requires but small advances of money. I concluded at length, however, to begin a manufacture of nails, which needs little or no capital, and I now employ a dozen little boys from ten to sixteen years of age, overlooking all the details of their business myself, and drawing from it a profit on which I can get along till I can put my farms into a course of yielding profit. My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an additional title of nobility or the ensigns of a new order are in Europe."

T. Jefferson to M. de Meunier. Ford ed., vii, 14. (M., 1795.)

Related article: DNA Evidence has Exonerated Jefferson  

Videos:

Saturday, December 8, 2012

DNA Evidence has Exonerated Jefferson


"Jefferson's principles are the definitions and axioms of free society", and his words are "a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression."
 
Thus, the anti freedom demonize him. The little perpetuate the malevolence and vitriol against him.
 
"A fact that went largely unreported was that the DNA test did rule out Thomas Jefferson as the father of Thomas Woodson, the eldest of Hemings' sons..." - http://www.liberty1.org/defense.htm
 
1/9/2001
Scholars Challenge Jefferson-Hemings Allegations
The National Association of Scholars
 
A careful, year-long analysis of claims that Thomas Jefferson fathered one or more children of his slave, Sally Hemings, has yielded stunning conclusions. In a stark challenge to earlier reports, all but one of the 13 scholars expressed considerable skepticism about the charge, and some went so far as to express a conviction that it is almost certainly not true."
 
 
May 21, 2001
The Fable of Tom and Sally
By James P. Lucier
 
"According to Insight Magazine, the claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings has been shown to be baseless by a learned group of the nation's most distinguished scholars."
 
 
"William Hyland, Jr., talked about his book In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemmings Sex Scandal (Thomas Dunne Books; June 9, 2009). In his book the former prosecutor argues that Thomas Jefferson did not have an affair with Sally Hemmings nor fathered her child."
 
 
"I would at this time only remark that as to the case of the lady there is not a gentleman in the U. States of either party who does not hold in detestation the pitiful propagation of so pitiful a tale." - Letter by Robert Smith to Thomas Jefferson, July 4, 1805

"In Jefferson Vindicated, Cynthia Burton offers convincing evidence for the absolution of Thomas Jefferson’s reputation, character and integrity."

"PBS and The Washington Post had DNA information exonerating Jefferson in their possession when they ran their stories claiming he was the father." [article] 

Here is the link to the facebook photo.

"I should have fancied myself half guilty had I condescended to put pen to paper in refutation of their falsehoods, or drawn them respect by any notice from myself."

[Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Dr. George Logan, June 20, 1816]