In a message dated 1/20/2007 12:23:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Jefferson didn't necessarily like being a slave owner but there > wasn't much he could do about it. He could not have legally freed > all of his slaves even if he wanted to. Even if it was legally to do > so if he had done so he would have been ruined financially loosing > everything he owned and he would have ended up in a debtors prison > for a very long time. Given that was the reality of the situation > what would you have done? Nicholas Carter was the only founder who > owned vast numbers of slaves who ended up freeing all of them before > his death but it was not easy for him to do so and it took him years > to do it legally and without destroying himself financially. > > $ Dan, knowing you, you have studied this. It does not make logical sense for such an action to destroy a person financially. So that means there is something I do not know here. A persons wealth is made up of what they own. How much of their wealth was based on the ownership of the Slaves and how much was based on their other possessions. There must have been a fee to register the papers that freed the slaves but it could not have been that much. Was there some other consideration that was required, like 40 acres and a mule, or just 5 acres, or $100.00 to get them started or nothing at all. If half of their wealth was based on the ownership of the slaves, They would have still had half of it left. Without the expenses of keeping the slaves their expenses would be much less. They could have hired those same people for less than it would have taken for them to hold them as slaves. Their income could have remained the same, their expenses less, their profit more. Such a statement as "destroying himself financially" just does not compute. What am I missing here. John Wayne So, question: [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
