"Was He a Good Master?"

That's the most frequent question asked by tourists to the Monticello tour guide (Monticello being the home of Thomas Jefferson). Actually, it's probably safe to say that's the most frequent question asked by white tourists. If you think for a minute about that question you can recognize the moral contradiction. As our tour guide phrased it, "how can any human being who owns other human beings be 'good?'"

Here's how good he was -- the photo is the food ration given to able-bodied adult slaves. A few pounds of corn meal, a pound of fatback (the fat off of pork) and a couple of fish. For a week. What you are looking at is what Mr. Jefferson gave his slaves to live off of for a week. Children and those unable to work got half that.

Of course they couldn't live off it, so they had vegetable gardens and poultry, which they had to tend to after dark, since Mr. J claimed all work from sun up to sun down.

These ration's were typical on Virginia plantations at the time, so Mr. J was no worse in this regard than his neighbors. But in one wise he was worse. He knew slavery was wrong. He admitted it. One can't deal honestly with Mr. Jefferson without acknowledging his rank hypocrisy on slavery.

There are many things I admire about Thomas Jefferson -- and I intend to write about one of them later -- but in this regard this American icon remains severely tainted.