No one would ever accuse you of supporting freedom, Phill. I'm sure it was an accident.
Actually I have been very active in circles like Liberty (the UK version of the ACLU). Its just that we have entirely different ideas of what liberty is. Perry believes that libery is license and I believe in the utilitarian formulation of Liberty as advanced by Mill, Russell et al.
(BTW, Jefferson's slaves were inherited and an an entailment clause in the will prevented him from freeing them during his lifetime. Not, of course, that this matters -- the idea of confusing the messenger and the message is the ad hominem fallacy.)
Nope, ad-hominen is a perfectly acceptable form of attack when calling into question a speaker's credentials. The words are used because they were Jefferson's and because he is held up as a supporter of liberty. Pointing out that the words are the cant of a hypocrite is entirely justified. Notwithstanding entailment clauses, Jefferson was under no compunction to exploit his slaves by exploiting their labour. He could have paid them competative wages and allowed them to chose to work for others. In short he could in effect have freed them. Of course then he would not have had the financial means to live as a member of the privileged classes. Genuine philosophers have made such sacrifices. Russell gave away his inheritance after completing Principia because he objected to the idea of inherited wealth. Of course if Perry was interested in genuine liberty instead of a slave owner's idea of liberty - liberty to exploit others he would see the contradiciton in his rhetoric. Phill