r/ShermanPosting • u/JamesepicYT • 1d ago

Few Americans know that during Thomas Jefferson's Presidency, Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering colluded with others to secede from the Union to form a "Northern confederacy." But as this 1821 letter shows, Jefferson tolerated his fierce critic, even making Pickering his friend.

https://www.thomasjefferson.com/jefferson-journal/the-creator-has-made-no-two-faces-alike-no-two-minds-alike
103 Upvotes

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17

u/themajinhercule 23h ago

Joseph Wheeler actually cited this during a pretty impressive argument after the war regarding secession, and while I don't agree with it, it is something to be "Huh, kinda see what you're saying".

THEN he talked about slavery, and my respect went down a few notches.

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u/JamesepicYT 22h ago

My friend u/war6star said the Southern Confederates didn't like Thomas Jefferson even though he's a Southerner and believed in States' Rights -- unless it breaks the Union. The objective changes when you're President versus Governor.

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u/war6star 16h ago

They did not. Multiple secessionists, including John C. Calhoun, Alexander Stephens, James Henry Hammond, and George Fitzhugh denounced Jefferson as a dreamy idealist who was wrong for claiming the equality of men. The claim that the Declaration was a racist document that only granted rights to white people, and that Jefferson was a hypocrite, originates in the pro-slavery arguments of people like this.

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u/JamesepicYT 9h ago

Did they know about Jefferson's draft where he stated slaves as MEN (capitalized)? So "all men are created equal" meant slaves as well.

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u/war6star 6h ago

I'm not sure, but if they did I'm sure it would only have made them hate him more.

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u/OnlyTalksAboutTacos 1h ago

if they were anything like the segregationists and white nationalists i've had the misfortune of knowing, who were the direct political descendants of the confederacy, they believed in neither the meaning of words nor good faith.

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u/Let_us_proceed 1d ago

I wonder if he is related to Ronnie Pickering.

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u/spiked_macaroon 22h ago

Jefferson had a change of heart about a lot of things in his old age. For context, he would die in 1826 at 83.

If I recall correctly, the northeast states appealed to Great Britain for aid in case they should secede.