I've always found it kind of lazy to criticize someone's ideals on the basis that they themselves fell short of those ideals. Isn't setting your sights on what is today out of reach a critical element of progress?
In Jeffersons? He didn't just fall a little short. He fell way short in ways that both he and his contemporaries knew were monstrous. Jefferson himself wrote that it was too dangerous to support abolition, even if slavery was a moral evil. In comparison, Lincoln wrote that ending slavery was worth the total destruction of the entire wealth of the nation. Jefferson wasn't even willing to personally sacrifice. Ending slavery was absolutely within reach during Jefferson's lifetime. And he personally had the ability to free his own slaves even if broader abolition didn't come quickly.
Jefferson also betrayed his own ideals by failing to support the french revolution (a revolution that was actually about granting power to the people, though it had its own problems).
Fun fact I learned from the Revolutions podcast. Lafayette was imprisoned by the Austrians after trying to escape France through enemy lines. The US learned of his situation (this was during George Washington's presidency) and granted him back pay for his service during the revolutionary war. And that is how he survived those ~5 years in an Austrian prison.