Peter Onuf talked about President Thomas Jefferson and how his career, thoughts, and actions relate to the origins of the Confederacy and the coming of the Civil War. The unresolved disagreements about the status of slavery and the nature of the federal union created situations that presaged the dissolution of the union in 1861 since its founding. Professor Onuf talked about President Jefferson’s soci-political philosophy of nationhood and contrasted it with the Southern philosophy. He responded to questions from members of the audience.
Peter Onuf is the author of Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (University Press of Virginia, 2001) and editor of Jeffersonian Legacies (University Press of Virginia, 1993).
“Four American Presidents (But What Did They Have to Do With the Civil War?),” the annual symposium of the Museum of the Confederacy, was co-sponsored and hosted by the Library of Virginia on Saturday, February 20, 2010.