Taxation & Estate Planning

Thomas Jefferson: Rogue Executor?

By Joel A. Schoenmeyer

I'm currently reading James W. Loewen's Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. It's a follow-up to Mr. Loewen's book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. I recommend both books.

One section touches on Thomas Jefferson and his quotes featured on the Jefferson Memorial. (Mr. Loewen finds these quotes misleading.) As background, Mr. Loewen states the following:

Thaddeus Kosciusko, the Polish hero of the Revolutionary War, made Jefferson the executor of his American estate. His will directed Jefferson to sell about $17,000 in government securities and use the money to buy, free, and educate young African Americans. According to historian John Miller [in his book The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery], Jefferson "refused to execute this project," so the money went "to other purposes which had nothing to do with furthering the education of blacks."

Here is the language from Thaddeus Kosciusko's Will.

Full post as published by Death and Taxes Blog on June 29, 2009 (boomark / email).