“Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.” Thomas Jefferson, 1785

And indeed he should. After victory, George Washington dispatched slave catchers to return his “freed slaves,” since, like Lincoln, the British “freed” all slaves who fought with them against their masters. Washington wrote to Jefferson to inquire if he wanted his slaves returned by Washington’s agents. For his part, Jefferson began having children with his slave, Sally Hemmings, when she was 14 years of age. Hemmings implored Jefferson to free their children and upon his death, out of a total of over 600 slaves, Jefferson “freed” only his children with Hemmings, who had remained slaves up until that point.

Who can forget Tom’s immortal phrase: “All men are created equal?”

Some things never change…