For Locke the "natural rights" were for "life, liberty and property.

Racially derogatory statements were made by Thomas Jefferson against people of African descent. He undermined his various antislavery pronouncements with his racist position while people like Thomas Paine, Martin Luther and George Mason were unambiguous in their condemnation of slavery The establishment of the American Colonization Society of the 1817 witnessed the uprising of the Black abolitionism. The colonization movement constituted by the popular and wealthy political figures from North and South proposed the removal of all blacks to Africa and this plan was first conceived by Thomas Jefferson. This notion was however strongly and vehemently opposed by overwhelming majority of the African American population as they saw it as a racist agenda aimed at further strenghten slavery and deny the black population of equal citizenship rights in the US.

John Locke was the writer of the basic constitution of Southern Carolina that established slavery. He categorized slavery as external to social contract but gave a justification that enslaved Africans claiming that they are taken as prisoners in just war .This notion was used by most American slaveholders to justify their right to property in defense of chattery slavery.

It will be observed that Jefferson only derived his antislavery supposed disposition from a rhetoric perspective. His antislavery reputation was gained when he deleted the clause in the Declaration of Independence and condemned the slave trade. Rather than Jefferson opposing slave trade in action, he nonetheless promoted its expansion. He was a wicked master and sold his personal slaves and metes out punishment to the runaway slaves. He also did not make any efforts to manumit his slaves with the exception of slaves from the Hemmings family. The failure of Jefferson to accept environmental reasons as the cause of racial differences and apparent inferiority of slaves presented him with enormous intellectual problem. Jefferson made the pronouncement that Negroes were members of race that is not only alien but also inferior and that no hope exist that there will be coexistence of blacks and whites on the bias of equality. This notion of his was congruent with his behavior as both a politician and a planter. Jefferson erroneously assumed that he was a benevolent master while he was on the contrary a harsh, tribalistic leader on the prevailing standard of the period. As opposed to his words and pronouncements, he bought and sold slaves, sought after runaway ones while he embraced certain steps that promote the prevalence of slavery in the South West, isolating the Haitian Republic and insuring his survival in Louisiana.

The opposition of Jefferson to slavery was more intense in the early part of his career than the later part. He took certain steps that were proslavery. Jefferson opined that he was resolved to destroy slavery but his personality and conduct disprove this assertion. Jefferson was initially opposed to slavery and favored Haitians while he was the president. However, he later overrule this favor given to Haitians in their struggles against France when he adopted policies that suppressed the Haitan republic as he feared slave rebellion in the US, most important in the wake of Gabriels Rebellion in Virginia in the1800s. He also did not want to put the strategic interest of the US at risk and was also unwilling to challenge the political power of the South planters.In Kennedy's argument Jefferson could have promoted yeoman farming but did not in trying to promote slaveholding class of large planters of which Jefferson belong. The defense of Jefferson on slavery was because he was a member of the southern planting class that depended so much on slaves. To properly understand Jeffersons relationship to slavery, his position on slavery as a social problem need to be related with his own dilemma as someone who also possess slaves. The transition that took place in his thinking between 1783 and 1794 towards passivity and procrastination must also be considered. Before 1784, Jefferson held an intense opinion that slavery was not compatible with the principles upon which America was founded. His rhetorical denunciation of slavery and his initial support to put an end to slave trade coupled with his choice of some days dedicated to gradual emancipation, if adopted, would have thrown the issue of slavery in the dustbin. His sudden change afterwards could have resulted from the fact that he was stunned by the hostility of his slave-owner colleagues about his condemnation of slavery in Virginia. He also changed as he could not provide answers to what will become of the former slavers after emancipation. His growing personal dept in the 1780s made him also to rely on slaves to maintain his way of life. The aftermath of all these was that Jefferson has a twisted and tortured position on slavery that blend together the unambiguous condemnation of the institution in abstraction with wanton procrastination each time emancipation schemes were suggested

Quotes All men are in a state of equality wherein all the owner and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection"

But though this is a statue of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence:though man in that state has the uncontrollable freedom to dispose of his person or possessions he has nor liberty to destroy creature in his possessions but for nobler use"

And being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us that may authorize us to destroy another, as we were made for one anothers uses". For by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred." And hence it is , he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with home.

For nobody cab desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom i.e. make me a slave Anything of such is an enemy to my preservation

Freedom is the foundation of all the rest

He who makes an attempt to enslave me puts himself at war with me."

Slavery is justified so long as the enslaved is an unjust aggressor conquered in war (it is a prolonged state of war in which the victor delays killing his slave

Jefferson quotes "Under the law of nature, all men are born free, everyone comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance "No person hereafter coming into this country shall be held within the same in slavery under any pretext whatever." The assembly passed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the importation of slaves.

. "The General Assembly shall not have power to...permit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this state The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation "[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people."

John Locke Critics point out that John Locke invested in the English slave-trade through the Royal Africa Company. Also, Locke helped draft the Fundamental Constitution of the Carolinas, which created a feudal aristocracy and left slaves under the complete control of their masters. Beyond that, some people believe that Locke's statements regarding unenclosed property helped justify the Native American displacement. These critics often accuse him of hypocrisy, since his major writings oppose slavery and aristocracy. John Locke considered people to be naturally independent and equal, which to him meant that nobody had the right to harm another person's "life, health, liberty, or possessions."

References Kramnick and Lowi, American Political Thought: A Norton Anthology, Norton; ISBN: 0393928861 Morgan, Michael L., ed. Classics of Moral and Political Theory. 4th ed. Chapters 2&4 pp.713720 Cambridge: Hackett Company, 2005. Print. Retrieved November 29,2011 from http://books.google.com.ng/books? id=c3PqM23wF7IC&pg=PA1119&lpg=PA1119&dq=classics+of+Moral+and+Political+theory %2Bslavery&source=bl&ots=QN95dzOfnl&sig=6aWDFqcDPlHADW3xRwfL970-

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