American Literature / Unit 5 AML 0413 short lesson, about 20 seconds
*Notes on the State of Virginia* and Its Contradiction
Captions available
The idea
In Notes on the State of Virginia, published in seventeen eighty-five, Jefferson catalogues his state's geography and people, and sets out views of Black Americans that contradict the Declaration's premise. He held people in slavery while writing that all men are created equal.
In practice
The premise, and the practice, by one hand.
Where people slip
The contradiction is in his own two documents.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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