I don't know that Jefferson could have survived as a farmer then in that society without having an ability to work his farm with...slavery. It seems abominable to us looking back, but was a way of life then. And I think the saving grace of Jefferson's philosophy is that the things for which he stood and which he expressed so vividly and so clearly and emotionally, were what later permitted our country to escape from slavery itself.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I don't know that Jefferson could have survived as a farmer then in that society without having an ability to work his farm with...slavery. It seems abominable to us looking back, but was a way of life then. And I think the saving grace of Jefferson's philosophy is that the things for which he stood and which he expressed so vividly and so clearly and emotionally, were what later permitted our country to escape from slavery itself." in the context of "Jimmy Carter in the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation documentary, Thomas Jefferson: Pursuit of Liberty (1991), quoted in 'How Presidents See the Presidency', Humanities, Volume 14, Number 1 (January/February 1993), p. 12" to mean that wisdom is timeless.