style="font-size:15px;"> We have now noted Jefferson’s battle against slavery in the founding of the Republic: let us go on to his work in the building of the Republic.
In 1782 he gave forth the “Notes on Virginia.” His opposition to slavery is as fierce here as of old, but it takes various phases,—sometimes sweeping against the hated system with a torrent of facts,—sometimes battering it with a hard, cold logic,—sometimes piercing it with deadly queries and suggestions,—and sometimes, with his blazing hate of all oppression, biting and burning through every pro-slavery theory.
But in taking up the “Notes,” we must understand the relation of Jefferson’s way of thinking to his way of working. In his thinking, the slave system was evidently a violation of the whole body of good principles, for he calls it an “evil”;—a violation of morality, for he calls it an “enormity”;—a violation of justice, for he calls it a “wrong”;—a violation of republican pretensions, for he calls it a “hideous blot”;—a violation of the healthy action of our institutions, for he calls it a “disease”;—a violation of our whole public happiness, for he calls it a “curse.” But his way of working was more calm and cool,—often displeasing those whose plans of action are formed far from any direct entanglement in the slave system.
This union of fervent thought and cool action has, of course, brought upon Jefferson the invectives of two great classes. One class have looked merely at his thinking, and have distrusted him as a dreamer. To these he is a dealer in oracles, at second-hand, from Voltaire and Diderot. The other class have studied his plans of practical philanthropy, with all his shrewd researches and homely discussions in agriculture, finance, mechanics, and architecture, and have ridiculed him as a tinker. To such Jefferson seems a grandmotherly sort of person,—riding about in a gig arranged to register the length of his rides,—walking about in boots arranged to register the length of his walks,—weatherwise, and profound in dealing with smoky chimneys and sheep-breeding.
But whether men have cavilled at him for a dreamer or laughed at him for a tinker, they have been mainly foolish, for they have cavilled and laughed at the very combination which made him powerful. In no other American have been so happily blended highest skill in theory and highest strength in practice.
The remarks, in the “Notes on Virginia,” on the colored race are clear and fair. He studied carefully and stated fully all that could be learned in his time. On the whole, his examination greatly encourages those who hope good things for that race. But one distinction must be made. As to those profound views of the character and destiny of the race which come only by observation of a long historic development, in a wide range of climate, in great variety of social position, Jefferson could, as he confesses, know almost nothing,—for the same reason that the keenest observer of William the Conqueror’s Norman robbers and Saxon swineherds would have failed to foretell the great dominant race which has come from them by free growth and good culture. But, on the other hand, of all that comes by observation of the daily life of the black race, as it then was, he knew almost everything.
He declares that the black race is inferior to the white in mind, but not in heart. The poems of black Phillis Wheatley seem to him to prove not much; but the letters of black Ignatius Sancho he praises for depth of feeling, happy turn of thought, and ease of style, though he finds no depth of reasoning. He does not praise the mental capacity of the race, but, at last, as if conscious, that, if developed under a free system, it might be far better, he quotes the Homeric lines,—
“Jove fixed it certain that whatever day
Makes man a slave takes half his worth away.”
And shortly after, he declares it “a suspicion only that the blacks are inferior in the endowments of body or mind,”—that “in memory they are equal to the whites,”—that “in music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for time and tune.”
But there is one statement which we especially commend to those in search of an effective military policy in the present crisis. Jefferson declares of the negroes, that they are “at least as brave as the whites, and more adventuresome.” May not this truth account for the fact that one of the most daring deeds in the present war was done by a black man?
Still later, Jefferson says,—“Whether further observation will or will not verify the conjecture that Nature has been less bountiful to them in the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with which they have been branded must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man in whose favor no laws of property exist probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favor of others. When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give reciprocation of right,—that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in conscience; and it is a problem which I give to the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for him as well as his slave,—and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who has taken all from him as he may slay one who would slay him. That a change in the relations in which a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right and wrong is neither new, nor peculiar to the color of the blacks.”
Here Jefferson puts forth that very idea for which Gerrit Smith, a few years ago, was threatened with the penalties of treason.
But to quote further from the same source:—
“Notwithstanding these considerations, which must weaken their respect for the laws of property, we find among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken fidelity. The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination must be hazarded with great diffidence.”
The old hot thought blazes forth again in the chapter on “Particular Manners and Customs.” Can men speak against the proclamations of Abolition Conventions after such fiery words from Jefferson?
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose rein to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by its odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.” (Here fire begins to flicker up around the words.) “And with what execration should a statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens” (note the word) “to trample on the rights” (note the word) “of the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one and the amor patriae of the other! And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis,—a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are the gifts of God, that they are not to be violated but with His wrath?” (Now bursts forth prophecy. The whole page flames in a moment.) “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of Fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.”
Well may Jefferson say, immediately after this, that “it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through
