The professor of history continued even as he braced for the response he knew would come. “Like so many of his contemporaries, particularly those from the south, Mr. Jefferson was more than willing to talk the talk of democracy but never quite managed to get the hang of the walk. Though he had resolved during the Revolution to free his slaves, he never found the courage to do so. Conventional wisdom and a keen eye for a good deal when it came to cheap labor seem to have stayed his hand until his death.”
Unable to hold back, and seeing an opening, Kozak let loose. “Professor Fallner, isn’t that the point? Thomas Jefferson was a prisoner of his time, his culture, and his society, just as we are of ours. To have gone against any of them would have left him isolated and unable to serve his country in any capacity.”
With the battle now open, Fallner abandoned his notes, leaned one elbow on the podium, and faced Kozak. “Ah, well, that’s just my point. We have these men, Jefferson included, throwing up this facade of democracy while, at the same time, working hard to enshrine institutions that limited the franchise to themselves and a handful of fellow patricians. With one breath they declare that all men are created equal. With the next, they allow slavery to continue, restrict voting to those who owned land, and permit only men the right to participate in the machinery of their newly created republic.”
Leaning over her desktop, Kozak assumed an aggressive posture. “Like his contemporaries, Jefferson was just that, a man. None of them were gods. There wasn’t even a demi-god amongst them. Chosen or self-appointed, they were leaders, mortal men faced with creating a form of government unlike anything that had ever existed before. While their intentions might have been noble, they were wise enough to face the harsh realities of their times and the world they lived in. To have held out for a utopian form that encompassed every aspect of radical political thought of the day would have condemned their entire enterprise to failure. The framers of the Constitution were, after all, answerable to their constituents, people who held certain beliefs to be true and sacred. Our founding fathers understood that if the document they were drafting was to have meaning, they would have to forge a compact between themselves and those who had sent them to Philadelphia. It was those people, after all, who would have to open their pocketbooks and spill their blood for the nation that was being created.”
“So, Ms. Kozak,” Fallner stated triumphantly as he stood upright, glanced at the clock on the wall, and smiled, “you believe that the continuation of slavery was justified, that political expediency can excuse a person from doing what is morally correct.”
Fighting the anger she felt welling up in her. Nancy Kozak brought her two hands together on her desk, squeezed them tightly, and responded carefully so as not to betray anger. “As difficult as the concept may seem, especially when discussed in the sterile halls of an institution divorced from the realities of the real world, there are times when people have to pick between the lesser of two evils. To have pushed for the exclusion of slavery and the total enfranchisement of all adults, men and women, in the late eighteenth century would have condemned this nation to obscurity and failure before it was even born. Jefferson and his contemporaries were, above all else, rational men who understood the world they lived in and their fellow citizens. That, sir, is more than I can say for those in positions of authority today.”