Thanks for your response. I’m with you on moving away from religion toward spirituality. I don’t think that we should give up trying to get into the minds of historical figures though. Jefferson knew that slavery was wrong. In his notes, he wrote that slavery corrupted both master and slave alike. To his credit, he was instrumental in banning the Atlantic slave trade.

Jefferson arguably couldn’t afford to free his slaves (considered property assets), even in his will, because of his large debts, which were in part inherited from his father-in-law. He died with a debt of $107,000 (which would have been much more in today’s currency). That figure, however, would be a conservative estimate of the cost of constructing Monticello, even excluding the value of the slave labour employed. So, we might say that Jefferson had to keep his slaves so he could indulge his architectural hobby, the construction of Monticello, which, counting continuing reconstructions, went on for 40 years.

After Jefferson’s death, most of his slaves were sold off as part of the estate. Jefferson stated that masters were corrupted by owning slaves. But Jefferson was also corrupted by his own self-indulgence and vanity. Monticello is one man’s monumental creation. It was also his sin.