Benj,
Nice poem. I lived in Richmond for a time as a boy, and I’ve hiked in the Blue Ridge Mountains with my wife and kids, and I’ve taken them to Monticello several times; and I always get the feeling of freedom there, not a feeling of slavery. Thomas Jefferson knew that slavery was wrong, and he began to free his slaves; but he died before it was finished. It was Thomas Jefferson who wrote “all men are created equal,” re-stating a Divine moral law which eventually trumped the 3/5 law of the Constitution. I understand why the 3/5 law was in the Constitution – if it weren’t there the Constitution would not have been ratified, the nation would not have been born, and the War of Independence would have been lost – England would have allied herself with the South.

“The assertion that “all men are created equal” was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.” Abraham Lincoln