I come down on the side of giving Jefferson no credit whatsoever, even given the standards of the time. Unlike fellow Founder John Jay who although he owned slaves, freed many of them during his lifetime, made sure children of his slaves were born free and led efforts in New York to end slavery. Jefferson is responsible for the compromise in the Constitution that allowed the International Slave Trade to continue for at least twenty years (to appease South Carolina where Charleston was the largest port of entry) and also passed legislation a year early to end it which benefited Virginia slaveholders like himself who were selling their excess slaves to Southern plantations. Jefferson laid the legal groundwork for slave breeding. He built Monticello and the University of Virginia with slave labor. Slaves working at UVA were subject to beatings and rapes and Jefferson did nothing. He freed only two slaves during his lifetime (one of whom paid $200) and five more upon his death. Perhaps he had real feelings for Sally Hemings, as his slave, she had no ability to refuse him and he never freed her while alive. Sorry, credit denied.
