Town Hall Meeting: 

My name is Thomas Jefferson. Most people know me as the Third President of the United States, but there is a lot more to my name than just that. I served as a member of the Virginia legislature in the House of Burgesses, wrote the Declaration of Independence, was a delegate and governor to Virginia, and drafted treaties with France before becoming the Minister to France for three years. I was the Secretary of State for President Washington until Alexander Hamilton angered me to the point of resignation. Then I retired from politics...until the next election, which I lost...but still became Vice President of the Adam's administration. I then won the very contentious election of 1800. During my tenure as the President, I made the Louisianan Purchase: the single largest territorial purchase in US history which doubled the land of the country. Before, during, and after my tenure in office, I was an active voice in the argument against abolition. 

I have always been a slave owner and throughout the course of my life I have owned 600 slaves. I even had children with one of my slaves: one Sally Hemings, who was only 14 at the time this relationship began. Additionally, the only ten slaves I ever freed were members of the Hemings' clan.

When I was in Paris, under French law, my slaves were technically free and yet, they were not given permission to leave me, nor did they choose to. In fact, "as far as I can judge from the experiments which have been made, to give liberty to, or rather to abandon persons whose habits have been formed in slavery is like abandoning children. These slaves choose to steal from their neighbors instead of work...and in most instances were reduced to slavery again". 

My views on the freedom of African Americans are most explicitly described in my novel: Notes on the State of Virginia. The African American race I believe to be distinctly inferior to the Caucasian one. Not only are African Americans as "incapable as children" their "unfortunate coloring...is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation" of them. Separate nations of blacks and whites cannot live peacefully together as one. 

I have spent my life building a nation built on equality in which everyone is avoided certain unalienable rights. However, in terms of slavery my actions speak louder than my words. Though the nation I am building affords all people these rights, I believe it is distinctly undemocratic and Anti-Revolutionary for a government to forcibly enact abolition, especially given that slavery is intrinsically tied to the economy. 

My beautiful homeland of Monticello is my prized possession, married to the economic structures of this time. Farming is essential. It is, of course,  inconceivable that I should work my own land and the land is of no value unless it is worked, thusly the land is tied to the slaves I possess. Slavery is like "holding a wolf by the ear. we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go"