A Reflection On Our Nation's Historical Compromises

Shortly before taking off on a road trip to Monticello this summer, I went to see a production of the musical 1776. I’m no purist, but I’m pretty sure that Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams never celebrated the Declaration of Independence with a kick-line. And maybe Thomas Jefferson skipped out on the Continental Congress for a liaison with his pretty, young wife… maybe not.

But the most dramatic scenes in the musical—the impassioned fights over slavery—were true to the history books, and so severe in their time that they threatened to destroy the colonial confederation before it declared itself a nation.

Visiting Monticello, I reflected on America’s “original sin” of slavery, which Jefferson and other authors of the Declaration of Independence compromised on in order to make it possible for all thirteen colonies to sign the document. I could not help but wonder: could this nation have come into existence without that compromise? Were there alternatives?

I toured Mulberry Row (the area that housed Jefferson’s own slaves), my head spinning with contradictory images. Jefferson was acutely aware that future generations would pay the price of the compromise on slavery. It was Jefferson who said, “I shall not live to see [disengagement from slavery] but those who come after us will be wiser than we are...To that advancement I look… to devise the means of effecting what is right.”

He held slavery as a moral wrong, and yet he owned slaves. He loved liberty and denied it to millions. And as I struggled with the question of “when is compromise too costly?” I thought about the work of the Essential Partners.

We never ask dialogue participants to compromise their values and beliefs. Instead, we often ask “what is at the heart of the matter?” This question encourages people to look honestly into themselves.

What if someone had asked Jefferson “What is at the heart of the matter?” What if he had asked that question of himself, of his colleagues in Philadelphia in 1776? We can’t rewrite history, but we can wonder. Could there have been another outcome?