Sure he did, but you see history belongs to the victor. So while it may be true that he owned like 600 slaves in throughout the course of his lifetime and fathered more than a few illegitimate children with some, most of us have grown up only learning of their virtue. Praising Jefferson for his profound statements on freedom is a farce. I’m not saying that he was an awful person or didn’t do anything good, but let’s not honor a slave-owner for his thoughts on freedom. Just as we shouldn’t honor an adulterer for his thoughts on marital fidelity, or a pathological liar for his thoughts on honesty, or a misogynist for his thoughts on women’s suffrage. It’s disingenuous at best, ignorant at worst.