Jefferson’s republican ideology framed virtue as a white trait to justify slavery

Evidence

More concretely, the attitudes and beliefs of Thomas Jefferson provide a vivid example of how certain values became linked to a justification of white privilege. Jefferson argued that the United States should be a fundamentally new nation based on republican values. This ideology of republicanism held that the character and fate of a nation rest not so much on wealth and power, as was the case in Europe, as on the degree of value consensus and the public virtue of its citizenry. Virtue was a product of reason, self-reliance, industriousness, and moral restraint. These qualities, of course, were viewed as more characteristic of whites than of blacks (Takaki, 1979, p. 64). Although slavery, with the enormous power it gave one person over the life of another, introduced temptations that might weaken adherence to these values, the gravest threat to republicanism came from the same forces that threatened the institution of slavery. For Jefferson, the increasing industrialization and commercialization of the North, along with the attendant pressures for a stronger federal government that would further facilitate these developments, would only undermine the Southern way of life and republican values. The pastoral character of the farm and the plantation were, in his view, most conducive to the maintenance of virtue. Thus, despite Jefferson’s moral discomfort with slavery, many of his letters, speeches, and other writings would become a basis for certain secessionist, states’ rights, and proslavery positions. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3410

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in ideology masking material interests — same mechanism as republican ideology legitimizing the economic exploitation of slavery.
• DEFINE: Illustrates how ‘republicanism’ functioned as a racialized ideology of value consensus and public virtue.