A Comparison between “Jefferson Is America and America Is Jefferson” and “The Sublime Oxymoron”

First of all, these essays have a lot of differences and similarities. One of the similarities between them is that in the essay “The Sublime Oxymoron” the author Charles Krauthammer talks about Jefferson’s contradictions the same as in “Jefferson Is America and America Is Jefferson” where the author David K. Shipler says that Jefferson represents the biggest contradiction in America. On the one hand, Mr. Krauthammer says that Jefferson wanted independence and equality. On the other hand, Mr. Shipler claims that Jefferson would not give slaves the same equal opportunity. Whereas Shipler writes that Jefferson wrote in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, “All man are created equal,” which the word “Men” leaves no doubt that Jefferson meant slaves, Mr. Krauthammer points out that nobody can understand the contradiction between Jefferson’s thoughts and his actions.

            In contrast, Mr. Krauthammer believes that Jefferson sees Native Americans as a difficult problem, but equal to white people, and Mr. Shipler explains that for Jefferson the black color was less attractive than white and that black people did not smell good. However, Jefferson believed black people were brave and adventuresome. Jefferson also thought that black people had the same capacity to memorize things like white people did, but not to reason. Another important point to mention is that according to Mr. Krauthammer, Jefferson wanted to do the right thing to the Indians. Also, Jefferson knew that white men needed to introduce fear in the Indians or the American experiment would fail. On the one hand, Mr. Shipler says that Jefferson is like us because of belief in human equality as well as his stereotypes and racism. On the other hand, Mr. Krauthammer asserts that Jefferson is not like us because he wrote the most beautiful expressions ever written by someone about human liberty. However, he says Jefferson is like us because he was a man that always was looking for the perfection even though he