Of all the Founding Fathers, it was Thomas Jefferson for whom the issue of race loomed largest. In the roles of slaveholder, public official and family man, the relationship between blacks and whites was something he thought about, wrote about and grappled with from his cradle to his grave. Jefferson's first memory was of being carried on a pillow by a slave when he was two years old; on his deathbed, the last face he saw was that of the slave who attended him in his final hour. The interest in Jefferson's racial views, long the subject of scrutiny, has reached...
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