system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
Wasn’t he also the one who would’ve freed them all had he not been too broke, or was that another founder?

Laws at the time definitely made it extremely hard to free slaves, and there were costs and fees when you did it. Pretty sure that putting it in your will was a lot easier.
gpt
Not an expert but from what I remember, slavers went very heavily in debt to buy slaves and all their income came from slaves so if they freed their slaves they'd be without an income and still heavily in debt. He was only broke in the sense that a landlord with 100 mortgages would be broke. 

TJ tried to include their introduction of slavery as one of the reasons why Britain sucked in the declaration of independence but it was cut out for obvious reasons. 

Still doesn't exonerate him considering he lived a VERY lavish life off of the suffering of others + the whole child sex slave thing and he definitely could've worked out a way to free his slaves or at the very least give them a high quality of life. Importing mac &amp; cheese and living life as if he was a French aristocrat was sadly more important to him. 

Also big shout-out to Lafayette who tried hard to convince Washington &amp; Jefferson to give up slavery