Jefferson’s antislavery rhetoric traced back to his own economic stake in the slave trade

Evidence

If slavery could not continue its western expansion, his finances might be affected by the decreased demand for enslaved Africans in the domestic slave trade. As he agonized over the future livelihood of the United States and his own economic prospects, Jefferson could not have helped but think of the nation’s past and his own past—and how both had reached this point of no return. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 408

Categorization

• XREF: This is Kendi’s core causal inversion applied to Jefferson directly: the economic self-interest (pro-slavery expansion to protect his finances) comes first, and the antislavery/colonization ideology justifies it. — connects to: Free trade rhetoric concealed British imperial violence and famine causation — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 260
• SEED: Essay angle: the Missouri Compromise’s real stakes were property-market economics, not abstract union or balance — the domestic slave trade ran on western expansion.