We sell each other short when we pass up an opportunity to teach living history in the context of the time and think that removing them from sight is a suitable replacement.
I am a long time "student" of Jefferson's and of all his short comings the one that remains a conundrum is his treatment of Sally Heming. I can only get close to understanding that when I put it in the context of his time. Better to "struggle" with understanding than to remove any opportunity of learning tolerance and acceptance.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis