Thomas Jefferson Research Paper

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Thomas Jefferson: Failed Mastermind
The notion that Thomas Jefferson had a revelation in 1819 and suddenly subscribed to the idea of “dissemination” is utterly false. Regardless, this belief is as widespread as it is erroneous. The few laymen who are aware that there was a revolution in Haiti and have made the connection between the insurrection and the Louisiana Purchase fail to realize the underlying motives of Thomas Jefferson. Historians too have been blind to the nuanced indicators that prove Jefferson’s true motives behind his Haitian, Louisiana Territory, and slave trade policies. They uniformly insist that his support for diffusion began nearly thirty years after it actually did. Thomas Jefferson’s conviction that slavery could only be ended with the employment of dissemination can be traced back to the 1790’s by a careful reexamination of his policies as president. The compilation of Jefferson’s exerted influence in Haiti, his purchase of the Louisiana territory, and his discrete avocation for the extension of slavery clearly indicate that he was attempting to end slavery by diffusion as early as 1801.
Due to the panoply of seemingly contradictory actions and statements by Thomas Jefferson, there is no widely accepted “truth” to the intentions behind his actions from 1790-1807 regarding slavery, the revolution in Haiti and the Louisiana Purchase and historians fail to make the connection to diffusion. Garry Wills, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, maintains that Jefferson’s policies were a direct result of popular Southern pressure. Wills’ artfully crafted argument depicts Jefferson as the epitome of a politician: pragmatic, ruthless, and opportunistic, whose main motive was to protect the South and extend slavery to...

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...nditions that would allow him to employ it. Jefferson supported Haitian rebels in their fight against his second favorite country, denying them aid and using force against them. His actions in Haiti caused the closure of the International slave trade, an institution he despised and his first step to ending slavery. Jefferson betrayed his deep-rooted Republican beliefs yet again when he extended federal power by reaping the fruits of his labor in Haiti and purchased the Louisiana Territory. After finally acquiring this massive piece of land he discretely advocated for the extension of slavery in order to diffuse slavery, which he thought, would eventually end it. His plan was thwarted by the South Carolinian legislature when it decided to reopen its slave trade. It was further damaged when all slavery became legal in the northern region of the Louisiana Territory.

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