Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Now on this nineteenth day of January in the year of our Lord,
one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, the said persons above
named are brought before me, in the custody of the Sheriff of
said County, all except the said Hannah and infant boy two weeks
old, (who are satisfactorily shown to be too infirm to be brought
before me,) and except Lawrence (who is necessarily occupied in
waiting on his said Mother, Hannah) and Charles (who is absent in
San Bernardino County, but within the said Judicial District:)
and said Robert Smith, Claimant also appears with his Attorney,
Alonzo Thomas, Esq. And after hearing and duly considering the
said petition for Habeas Corpus and the return of said Claimant
thereto and all the proofs and allegations of the said parties
and all the proceedings previously had herein, it appearing
satisfactorily to the judge here, that all the said persons so
suing in this case, to-wit: Hannah and her said children and
Biddy and her said Children are persons of color, and that
Charles, aged now six years, was born in the Territory of Utah of
the United States, and Marion (aged four years,) Martha (aged two
years) Mary, daughter of the said Ann and aged two years and the
said infant boy aged two weeks, were born in the State of
California and that the said Hannah, Ann, Lawrence, Nathaniel,
Jane and Charles, as well as the said Biddy, Ellen, Ann and
Harriet, have resided with the said Robert Smith for more than
four years and since some time in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, in the State of California;
and it further appearing that the said Robert Smith left and
removed from the State of Mississippi more than eight years ago
with the intention of not returning thereto, but of establishing
himself as a resident in Utah Territory, and more than four years
ago left and removed from said Utah Territory, with the intention
of residing and establishing himself in the State of California
and has so resided in said last mentioned State since some time
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.
And it further appearing by satisfactory proof to the Judge here,
that all the said persons of color are entitled to their freedom
and are free and cannot be held in slavery or involuntary
servitude, it is therefore adjudged that they are entitled to
their freedom, and are free forever. And it further appearing to
the satisfaction of the Judge here that the said Robert Smith
intends and is about to remove from the state of California,
where slavery does not exist, to the state of Texas, where
slavery of Negroes and persons of color does exist and is
established by the municipal laws, and intends to remove said
before mentioned persons of color to his own use, without the
free will and consent of all or any of the said persons of color,
whereby their liberty will be greatly jeopardized, and there is
good reason to apprehend and believe that they may be sold into
slavery or involuntary servitude, and the said Robert Smith is
persuading and enticing and seducing, said persons of color to go
out of the State of California and to be taken and removed
therefrom with the false promise held out to them that they will
be as free in the State of Texas as in the State of California.
And it further appearing that none of said persons of color can
read and write, and are almost entirely ignorant of the laws of
the State of California, as well as those of the State of Texas,
and of their rights, and that the said Robert Smith from his past
relations to them as members of his family, possesses and
exercises over them an undue influence in respect to the matter
of their said removal insomuch that they have been in duress and
not in possession and exercise of their free will so as to give a
binding consent to any engagement or arrangement with him. And it
further appearing that the said Hannah, is aged thirty-four
years, and her daughter, Ann, seventeen years, and all her other
children, to-wit: Lawrence, (aged from twelve to thirteen years)
Nathaniel (aged from ten to eleven years), Jane, (aged eight
years) Charles (aged six years) Marion (aged four years) Martha,
(aged two years) and said infant boy of Hannah aged two weeks, as
well as Mary (aged two years), daughter of said Ann, are under
the age of fourteen years and so under the laws of the State of
California are not competent to choose a Guardian for themselves;
and it further appearing that the said Biddy is aged thirty-eight
years, and the said Ellen is aged seventeen years, and the other
children of said Biddy, to-wit: Ann (aged from twelve to
thirteen) and Harriet (aged eight years) are under the age of
fourteen years, and so by the laws of the State of California are
not competent to choose a Guardian for themselves. It further
appearing that the said infant boy two weeks of age of Hannah is
of tender age and must be kept with his said mother Hannah, the
same is accordingly ordered, and said infant boy is entrusted to
his said mother hereby, and is ordered to appear with him before
the Judge here at the Court House in the City of Los Angeles on
next Monday January 1, 1856 at 10 o'clock A.M. of said day if
her health shall so permit and if not, as soon thereafter as may
be practicable of which the Sheriff of Los Angeles is hereby
notified to notify her the said Hannah and whereof the said
Robert Smith, being now in the Court has notice, it appearing
that she resides in his house and is under his control. And the
said Mary, child of Ann appearing to be of tender age, is
entrusted to the said Ann to be brought before the Judge here at
the time and place aforesaid to be dealt with according to law of
which the said Ann and the said Robert Smith have notice here,
and the said Martha being of tender years is entrusted to the
said Ann, her sister, to be brought before the Judge here at the
time and place aforesaid to be dealt with according to law of
which the said Ann and the said Robert Smith here have notice and
the said Hannah and Ann are appointed Special Guardians
respectively of the children so hereby entrusted to them, and
notified that it is their duty to obey all lawful orders of the
Judge here or of some competent Court touching the premises. And
the further hearing of this case as to the said Hannah and infant
boy and her child, Lawrence and her children Charles and Mary and
Martha is adjourned until said last mentioned time at the Court
House of the City of Los Angeles, and it is further ordered that
the said Nathaniel (aged from ten to twelve years) Jane (aged
eight years) Marion (aged four years) all children of said
Hannah, and said child Ann (aged from twelve to thirteen years)
and Harriet (aged eight years) are committed to the custody of
the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, David W. Alexander, Esq., as
especial Guardian until the further order of the Judge here or of
other Judge or Court of competent Jurisdiction to appoint General
Guardians of aforesaid Children last mentioned, and the said
Sheriff will leave in full liberty and discharge the said Biddy
and her child Ellen (aged Seventeen years) and the said Ann only
being required to obey the said order herinbefore made to appear
before the Judge here in manner and form as aforesaid. And it
further appearing that the said Charles is absent in San
Bernardino County, within said Judicial District. It is ordered
that Robert Clift, Esq. Sheriff of said County be and he is
hereby appointed Special Guardian of said Charles and as such
duly authorized and required to take said Charles in his custody
and him safely keep in such manner that said Charles shall not be
removed out of the State of California, but shall abide the
further order of the Judge here or other Judge or Court of
competent Jurisdiction touching his Guardianship. And it is
further ordered and adjudged that all the costs accrued in the
case up to the present date and in executing the present order of
the Judge here as to the production of the said Hannah and her
said infant two weeks old and said Lawrence, Martha and Mary
before the Judge here as aforesaid shall be paid by the Said
Robert Smith.

Given under my hand as Judge of the first Judicial District of
the State of California on this 19th day of January, A. D. 1856,
at the City of Los Angeles.

BENJAMIN HAYES,
_District Judge_.

On this 19th day of January appears the said Robert Smith by his
attorney, Alonzo Thomas, Esq., and moves the Judge hereto the
costs in this case which is taken under advisement until Monday
next at 10 o'clock, A.M.

BENJAMIN HAYES,
_District Judge_.

On this Monday, January 21st, 1856 the said Smith and the said
parties so ordered to appear as aforesaid do not appear and this
cause is continued until tomorrow at 10 o'clock, A.M.

BENJAMIN HAYES,
_District Judge_.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] These Documents were collected by Miss D. L. Beasley and M. N. Work.

[42] _Miscellany_, p. 35.

[43] _Miscellany_, p. 545.

[44] This paper is from the collection of 105 in the Court House at Eureka. Austin Wiley, whose name appears in the document, was later appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs for California; and during his term of office did much to bring to a satisfactory termination the trouble then existing between the settlers and the natives.

[45] _Miscellany_, p. 541.

[46] These are freedom papers as recorded in the California County Court records, and as they have been found by the California Archivist, Mr. Owen Coy.

[47] This court record was obtained by Mr. W. N. Work.

THOMAS JEFFERSON'S THOUGHTS ON THE NEGRO

I

Jefferson, like a number of liberal-minded men of his time, execrated the slave trade and as the following extracts will show held it as a grievance against the British.

During the regal government we had, at one time, obtained a law
which imposed such a duty on the importation of slaves as
amounted nearly in a prohibition, when one inconsiderate
assembly, placed under a peculiarity of circumstance, repealed
the law. This repeal met a joyful sanction from the then reigning
sovereign, and no devices, no expedients which could ever be
attempted by subsequent assemblies (and they seldom met without
attempting them) could succeed in getting the royal assent to a
renewal of the duty. In the very first session held under the
republican government, the assembly passed a law for the
perpetual prohibition of the importation of slaves. This will, in
some measure, stop the increase of this great political and moral
evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening for a
complete emancipation of human nature.[48]

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire
in those Colonies, where it was, unhappily, introduced in their
infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves
we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from
Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions,
and by imposing duties which might amount to a prohibition, have
been hitherto defeated by his Majesty's negative: Thus preferring
the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting
interests of the American States, and to the rights of human
nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice.[49]

With the same thought as that of the views expressed above Jefferson incorporated into the original Declaration of Independence an indictment of George III as promoting the ruin of the colonies in encouraging the slave trade. He said:

He (George III) has waged cruel war against human nature itself,
violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the
persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating
and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur
miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical
warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the
CHRISTIAN KING of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market
where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his
negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or
to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of
horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now
exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to
purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering
the people upon whom he has obtruded them; thus paying off former
crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes
which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.[50]

II

Influenced by the struggle for the rights of man, Jefferson seriously advocated freeing the Negroes, that they too might work out their own destiny on foreign soil. He did not think that it would be wise to leave the freedmen in this country controlled by white men by whom he believed they should not be assimilated.[51] The first time he had an opportunity, therefore, he made an effort in this direction. This was the case of his work in connection with the committee appointed to revise the laws of Virginia, the report of which he prepared.

Jefferson said:

The bill reported by the revisers of the whole (Virginia) code
does not itself contain the proposition to emancipate all slaves
born after the passing the act; but an amendment containing it
was prepared, to be offered to the Legislature whenever the bill
should be taken up, and further directing, that they should
continue with their parents to a certain age, then to be brought
up, at the public expense, to tillage, arts or sciences,
according to their geniuses, till the females should be eighteen,
and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be
colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should
render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of
household and of the handicraft arts; seeds, pairs of the useful
domestic animals, &c., to declare them a free and independent
people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they
shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same
time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white
inhabitants; to induce them to migrate hither, proper
encouragements were to be proposed.[52]

Discussing the serious difficulties of the problem, he compared that of the Romans with the situation in the colonies:

This unfortunate difference of color, and perhaps of faculty, is
a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people. Many of
their advocates, while they wish to vindicate the liberty of
human nature, are anxious also to preserve its dignity and
beauty. Some of these, embarrassed by the question; "What further
is to be done with them?" join themselves in opposition with
those who are actuated by sordid avarice only. Among the Romans
emancipation required but one effort. The slave, when made free,
might mix with, without straining the blood of his master. But
with us a second is necessary, unknown to history. When freed, he
is to be removed beyond the reach of mixture.[53]

Writing to John Lynch in 1811, Jeff arson gave his ideas as to the possibility of successful African colonization.

You ask my opinion on the proposition of Mrs. Mifflin, to take
measures for procuring, on the coast of Africa, an establishment
to which the people of color of these States might, from time to
time be colonized, under the auspices of different governments.
Having long ago made up my mind on this subject, I have no
hesitation in saying that I have ever thought it the most
desirable measure which could be adopted, for gradually drawing
off this part of our population, most advantageously for
themselves as well as for us. Going from a country possessing all
the useful arts, they might be the means of transplanting them
among the inhabitants of Africa, and would thus carry back to the
country of their origin, the seeds of civilization which might
render their sojournment and sufferings here a blessing in the
end to that country.[54]

Nothing is more to be wished than that the United States would
themselves undertake to make such an establishment on the coast
of Africa. Exclusive of motives of humanity, the commercial
advantages to be derived from it might repay all its expenses.
But for this, the national mind is not yet prepared. It may
perhaps be doubted whether many of these people would voluntarily
consent to such an exchange of situation, and very certain that
few of those advanced to a certain age in habits of slavery,
would be capable of self-government. This should not, however,
discourage the experiment, not the early trial of it.[55]

I received in the first year of my coming into the administration
of the General Government, a letter from the Governor of Virginia
(Colonel Monroe), consulting me, at the request of the
Legislature of the State, on the means of procuring some such
asylum, to which these people might be occasionally sent. I
proposed to him the establishment of Sierra Leone, in which a
private company in England had already colonized a number of
negroes and particularly the fugitives from these States during
the Revolutionary War; and at the same time suggested, if this
could be obtained, some of the Portuguese possessions in South
America, as next most desirable. The subsequent Legislature
approving these ideas, I wrote, the ensuing year, 1802, to Mr.
King, our Minister in London, to endeavor to negotiate with the
Sierra Leone company a reception of such of these people as might
be colonized thither. He opened a correspondence with Mr.
Wedderbourne and Mr. Thornton, secretaries of the company, on the
subject, and, in 1803, I received through Mr. King the result,
which was that the colony was going on, but in a languishing
condition; that the funds of the company were likely to fail, as
they received no returns of profit to keep them up; that they
were, therefore, in treaty with their government to take the
establishment off their hands; but that in no event should they
be willing to receive more of these people from the United
States, as it was exactly that portion of their settlers which
had gone from hence, which, by their idleness and turbulence, had
kept the settlement in constant danger of dissolution, which
could not have been prevented but for the aid of the maroon
negroes from the West Indies, who were more industrious and
orderly than the others, and supported the authority of the
government and its laws ... The effort which I made with
Portugal, to obtain an establishment for them within their claims
in South America, proved also abortive.[56]

In this extract Jefferson goes a step further in presenting a scheme for financing the project, giving even the exact amount which he thought would suffice.

In the disposition of these unfortunate people, there are two
rational objects to be distinctly kept in view. First. The
establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa, which may
introduce among the aborigines the arts of cultivated life and
the blessings of civilization and science. By doing this, we may
make to them some retribution for the long course of injuries we
have been committing on their population. And considering that
these blessings will descend to the _nati natorum et qui
nascentur ab illis_, we shall in the long run have rendered them
perhaps more good than evil. To fulfil this object, the colony of
Sierra Leone promises well, and that of Mesurado adds to our
prospect of success. Under this view the Colonization Society is
to be considered as a missionary society, having in view,
however, objects more humane, more justifiable, and less
aggressive on the peace of other nations than the others of that
appelation. The second object, and the most interesting to us, as
coming home to our physical and moral characters, to our
happiness and safety, is to provide an asylum to which we can, by
degrees, send the whole of that population from among us, and
establish them under our patronage and protection, as a separate,
free and independent people, in some country and climate friendly
to human life and happiness. That any place on the coast of
Africa should answer the latter purpose, I have ever deemed
entirely impossible. And without repeating the other arguments
which have been urged by others, I will appeal to figures only,
which admit no controversy.[57]

There is, I think, a way in which (the removal of the slaves to
another country) can be done; that is by emancipating the
after-born, leaving them, on due compensation, with their
mothers, until their services are worth their maintenance, and
then putting them to industrious occupations until a proper age
for deportation. This was the result of my reflections on the
subject five and forty years ago, and I have never yet been able
to conceive any other practicable plan. It was sketched in the
_Notes of Virginia_. The estimated value of the new-born infant
is so low (say twelve dollars and fifty cents) that it would
probably be yielded by the owner gratis, and would thus reduce
the six hundred millions of dollars, the first head of expense,
to thirty-seven millions and a half; leaving only the expenses of
nourishment while with the mother, and of transportation.[58]

From what fund are these expenses to be furnished? Why not from
that of the lands which have been ceded by the very States now
needing this relief? And ceded on no consideration, for the most
part, but that of the general good of the whole. These cessions
already constitute one-fourth of the States of the Union. It may
be said that these lands have been sold; are not the property of
the citizens composing these States; and the money long ago
received and expended. But an equivalent of lands in the
territories since acquired may be appropriated to that object, or
so much, at least, as may be sufficient; and the object, although
more important to the slave States, is highly so to the others
also, if they were serious in their arguments on the Missouri
question. The slave States, too, if more interested, would also
contribute more by their gratutious liberation, thus taking on
themselves alone the first and heaviest item of expense.[59]

As the proper place for the colonization of emancipated blacks seemed quite a problem, almost any seemingly desirable place was recommended. Santo Domingo proved to be attractive after the bloody scenes of the revolution had passed away.

In the plan sketched in the _Notes on Virginia_, no particular
place of asylum was specified; because it was thought possible
that in the revolutionary state of America, then commenced,
events might open to us some one within practicable distance.
This has now happened. Santo Domingo has become independent, and
with a population of that color only; and if the public papers
are to be credited, their Chief offers to pay their passage, to
receive them as free citizens, and to provide them employment.
This leaves, then, for the general confederacy, no expense but
that of nurture with the mother for a few years, and would call,
of course, for a very moderate appropriation of the vacant
lands.... In this way no violation of private right is
proposed.[60]

III.

In his _Notes on Virginia_ Jefferson discusses all of the phases of slavery as they appeared to him at that time. He took up the justification of the institution of slavery among the Romans, the enslavement of the Indian and the Negroes, the cause of the increase in slaves, and the effects of the same on both the masters and the enslaved.[61]

An inhuman practice once prevailed in this country, of making
slaves of the Indians. This practice commenced with the Spaniards
with the first discovery of America.[62]

Under the mild treatment our slaves experience, and their
wholesome, though coarse food, this blot in our country increase
as fast, or faster than the whites.[63]

We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially,
the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that
of the blacks on the continent of America. The two sexes were
confined in separate apartments, because to raise a child cost
the master more than to buy one. Cato, for a very restricted
indulgence to his slaves in this particular, took from them a
certain price. But in this country the slaves multiply as fast as
the free inhabitants.... The same Cato, on a principle of
economy, always sold his sick and superannuated slaves. He gives
it as a standing precept to a master visiting his farm, to sell
his old oxen, old wagons, old tools, old and diseased servants,
and everything else become useless.... The American slaves cannot
enumerate this among the injuries and insults they receive. It
was the common practice to expose in the island Æsculapius, in
the Tiber, diseased slaves whose cure was likely to become
tedious. The Emperor Claudius, by an edict, gave freedom to such
of them as should recover, and first declared that if any person
chose to kill rather than expose them, it should be deemed
homicide. The exposing them is a crime of which no instance has
existed with us; and were it to be followed by death, it would be
punished capitally. We are told of a certain Vedius Pollio, who,
in the presence of Augustus, would have given a slave as food to
his fish for having broken a glass. With the Romans, the regular
method of taking the evidence of their slaves was under torture.
Here it has been thought better never to resort to their
evidence. When a master was murdered, all his slaves, in the same
house, or within hearing, were condemned to death. Here
punishment falls on the guilty only, and as precise proof is
required against his as against a freeman. Yet notwithstanding
these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans,
their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled, too,
in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their
master's children. Epictetus, Terence, and Phoedrus, were slaves.
But they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition
then, but nature which has produced the distinction. 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.[64]

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 a
fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a 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 or wrong, is neither new, nor peculiar to the color
of the blacks. Homer tells us it was so two thousand six hundred
years ago.[65]

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 submissions on the
other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is
an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in
him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he
sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his
philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance
of passion towards 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 to the worst of passions, and thus
nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be
stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a
prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such
circumstances. And with what execrations should the statesman be
loaded, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on
the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these
into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the _amor
patriae_ of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this
world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is
born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the
faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his
inhuman race, or entail his own miserable condition on the
endless generations proceeding from him.[66]

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 these liberties are of the gift of God? That they
are not to be violated but with his wrath? 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.[67]

With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed.
For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make
another labor for him. This is so true that of the proprietors of
slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor.[68]

It is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject
through the various considerations of policy, or morals, of
history, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they
will force their way into every one's mind.... The way, I hope,
is preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total
emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events,
to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their
extirpation.[69]

IV

During the early part of Jefferson's public career he did not have a good opinion of the Negro and his possibilities. This is his attitude as expressed in his _Notes on Virginia_ in 1782, whenever he referred to the Negro. Ignorant of the fact that science shows that no race is superior to another, Jefferson considered the blacks inferior to the Indians, believed that they lacked literary ability, the finer senses of other races and although exhibiting a little aptitude in music were both physically and mentally inferior to the whites.

It will probably be asked, why not retain and incorporate the
blacks into the State, and thus save the expense of supplying by
importation of white settlers, the vacancies they will leave?
Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand
recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have
sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions which nature
has made; and many other circumstances will divide us into
parties, and produce convulsions, which will probably never end
but in the extermination of the one or the other race.[70]

To these objections, which are political may be added others,
which are physical and moral. Whether the black of the negro
resides in the reticular membrane between the skin and
scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds from
the color of the blood, the color of the bile, or from that of
some other secretion, the difference is fixed in nature, and is
as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is
this difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a
greater or less suffusions of color in the one, preferable to
that eternal monotony, which reign in the countenances, that
immovable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the
other race? Add to these, flowing hair, a more elegant symmetry
of form, their own judgment in favor of the whites, declared by
their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of
the Oranootan for the black woman over those of his own species.
The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention
in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic
animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of color, figure,
and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a
difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body.
They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the
skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor. This
greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of
heat, and less of cold than the whites. Perhaps, too, a
difference of structure in the pulmonary apparatus, which a late
ingenious experimentalist (Crawford) has discovered to be the
principal regulator of animal heat, may have disabled them from
extricating, in the act of inspiration, so much of that fluid
from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with
more of it.[71]

They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labor
through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to
sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out
with the first dawn of the morning.[72]

In general, their existence appears to participate more sensation
than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to
sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in
labor. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect,
must be disposed to sleep of course.[73]

Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which
render it doubtful whether Heaven has given life to us in mercy
or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them.[74]

Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and
imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to
the whites; in reason much inferior, as I think one could
scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the
investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull,
tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to
Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the
same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not
apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right
to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of
education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move.
Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America.
Most of them, indeed, have been confined to tillage, to their own
homes, and their own society; yet many of them have been so
situated that they might have availed themselves of the
conversation of their masters; many of them have been brought up
to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always
been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally
educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and
sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had
before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The
Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve
figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They
will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove
the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants
cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime
oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their
imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that
a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration;
never saw ever an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.[75]

In music they are more generally gifted than the whites, with
accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable
of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the
composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated
harmony, is yet to be proved.[76]

Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in
poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no
poetry. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not
the imagination. Religion, indeed, has produced a Phyllis
Wheatley; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions
published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The
heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of
that poem.[77]

Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition
(than Phyllis Wheatley); yet his letters do more honor to the
heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of
friendship and general philanthropy, and show how great a degree
of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is
often happy in the turn of his compliments, and his style is easy
and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of
words. But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes
incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the
course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent
and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His
subjects should often have led him to a process of sober
reasoning; yet we find him always substituting sentiment for
demonstration. Upon the whole, though we admit him to the first
place among those of his own color who have presented themselves
to the public judgment, yet when compare him with the writers of
the race among whom he lived and particularly with the epistolary
class in which he has taken his own stand, we are compelled to
enroll him at the bottom of the column. This criticism supposes
the letters published under the name to be genuine, and to have
received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be
of easy investigation.[78]

The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first
instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by
every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect
merely of their condition in life.[79]

The opinion that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and
imagination, must be hazarded with great diffidence. To justify a
general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the
subject may be submitted to the anatomical knife, to optical
glasses, to analysis by fire or by solvents. How much more then
where it is a faculty, not a substance, we are examining; where
it eludes the research of all the senses; where the conditions of
its existence are various and variously combined; where the
effects of those which are present or absent bid defiance to
calculation; let me all too, as a circumstance of great
tenderness, where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of
men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may
perhaps have given them. To our reproach it must be said, that
though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the
races of black and or red men, they have never yet been viewed by
us as subjects of natural history. I advance it, therefore, as a
suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct
race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to
the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not
against experience to suppose that different species of the same
genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different
qualifications. Will not a lover of natural history, then, one
who views the gradations in all the races of animals with the eye
of philosophy, excuse an effort to keep those in the department
of man as distinct as nature has formed them?[80]

He was impressed, however, with the integrity of the Negroes and paid them the following tribute:

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
better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and
unshaken fidelity.[81]

V

In later years it seems that Jefferson changed from his position of certainty as to the inferiority of the Negro to that of doubt. At one time he believed in the possibilities of the Negro and then again he receded from that position to take up the argument that the blacks lack the capacity with which the whites are endowed. Jefferson shows that he was either ill-informed or insincere. Writing to General Chastellux in 1785 concerning the future of the Negro Jefferson remarked:

I have supposed the black man, in his present state might not be
in body and mind equal to the white man; but it would be
hazardous to affirm, that, equally cultivated for a few
generations, he would not become so.[82]

To Benjamin Banneker, the surveyor and astronomer, who was regarded by some as his friend, he addressed the following in 1791:

Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit,
that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to
those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a
want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their
existence, both in Africa and America.... I have taken the
liberty of sending your Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet,
Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and member of the
Philanthropic Society, because I considered it as a document to
which your color had a right for their justification against the
doubts which have been entertained of them[83]

Jefferson's letter to the Marquis de Condorcet presented Banneker's attainments as evidence of the mental capacity of Negroes. He said:

We have now in the United States a Negro, the son of a black man
born in Africa and a black woman born in the United States, who
is a very respectable mathematician. I procured him to be
employed under one of our chief directors in laying out the new
Federal City on the Potomac and in the intervals of his leisure,
while on that work, he made an almanac for the next year, which
he sent me in his own handwriting, and which I enclose to you. I
have seen very elegant solutions of geometrical problems by him.
Add to this that he is a very worthy and respectable member of
society. He is a free man. I shall be delighted to see these
instances of moral eminence so multiplied as to prove that the
want of talents observed in them, is merely the effect of their
degraded condition, and not proceeding from any difference in the
structure of the parts on which intellect depends[84]

In a letter to Banneker himself concerning the achievements of this astronomer and mathematician, Jefferson said:

Nobody wishes more ardently than I do to see a good system
commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind
to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their
present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be
neglected, will admit.[85]

A generation later he had, as this letter indicates, retained the opinion that the possibilities of the Negroes were not necessarily limited. To Henri Grégoire who had sent Jefferson a copy of his _Litterature des Nègres_, he wrote:

Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do
to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself
entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted
to the negroes by nature, and to find that in this respect they
are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of
personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where
the opportunities for the development of their genius were not
favorable, and those of exercising it still less so. I expressed
them, therefore, with great hesitation; but whatever be their
degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir
Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not
therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this
subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and
hopeful advances are making towards their reestablishment on an
equal footing with the other colors of the human family. I pray
you, therefore, to accept my thanks for the many instances you
have enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that
race of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the
day of their relief.[86]

Writing to Joel Barlow about the same time Jefferson showed a different attitude. He said:

Bishop Grégoire wrote to me on the doubts I had expressed five or
six and twenty years ago, in the _Notes on Virginia_, as to the
grade of understanding of the negroes. His credulity has made him
gather up every story he could find of men of color (without
distinguishing whether black, or of what degree of mixture),
however slight the mention, or light the authority on which they
are quoted. The whole do not amount, in point of evidence, to
what we know ourselves of Banneker. We know he had spherical
trigonometry enough to make almanacs, but not without the
suspicion of aid from Ellicot, who was his neighbor and friend,
and never missed an opportunity of puffing him. I have a long
letter from Banneker, which shows him to have had a mind of very
common stature indeed. As to Bishop Grégoire, I wrote him a very
soft answer. It was impossible for doubt to have been more
tenderly or hesitantingly expressed than that was in the _Notes
on Virginia_, and nothing was or is further from my intentions,
than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion, where I
have only expressed a doubt. St. Domingo will, in time, throw
light on the question.[87]

He did believe, however, in the industry of the Negroes and thought that this virtue of theirs would make their colonization possible. Concerning such a project he wrote Miss Fanny Wright in 1825:

An opinion is hazarded by some, but proved by none, that moral
urgencies are not sufficient to induce the negro to labor; that
nothing can do this but physical coercion. But this a problem
which the present age alone is prepared to solve by experiment.
It would be a solecism to suppose a race or animals created,
without sufficient foresight and energy to preserve their own
existence. It is disproved, too, by the fact that they exist, and
have existed through all the ages of history. We are not
sufficiently acquainted with all the nations of Africa, to say
that there may not be some in which habits of industry are
established, and the arts practiced which are necessary to render
life comfortable. The experiment now in progress in St. Domingo,
those of Sierra Leone and Cape Mesurado, are but beginning. Your
proposition has its aspects of promise also; and should it not
fully answer to calculations in figures, it may yet, in its
developments, lead to happy results.[88]

VI

Jefferson believed that the emancipation of the slaves could be effected by legislation. To this end he made several noteworthy efforts. In 1776 he submitted to the revolutionary convention in Virginia a constitution in which was incorporated the clause prohibiting slavery. He undertook also to induce the legislature of Virginia to take this step in 1783, and as chairman of the committee of the Congress of the Confederation appointed to draw up an ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory, he submitted a plan providing that after the year 1800 neither slavery nor involuntary servitude should exist there. These clauses and some comments thereon follow:

No person hereafter coming into this country shall be held within
the same in slavery under any pretext whatever.--Proposed Va.
Constitution.[89]

The General Assembly (of Virginia) shall not have power to ...
permit the introduction of any more slaves to reside in this
State, or the continuance of slavery beyond the generation which
shall be living on the 31st day of December, 1800; all persons
born after that day being hereby declared free.[90]--Proposed
Constitution for Virginia.

After the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States,
otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted to have been personally
guilty.[91]--Proposed Ordinance of 1784.

"The clause respecting slavery," said he "was lost by an
individual vote only. Ten States were present. The four Eastern
States, New York and Pennsylvania, were for the clause. Jersey
would have been for it, but there were but two members, one of
whom was sick in his chambers. South Carolina, Maryland, and
Virginia! voted against it. North Carolina was divided, as would
have been Virginia, had not one of its delegates been sick in
bed."[92]

"I congratulate you" said he to a coworker, "on the law of your
state (South Carolina) for suspending the importation of slaves,
and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to
prevent it forever."[93]

VII

Jefferson seemed to get further from the idea of immediate emancipation, looking upon it as a very serious problem. He tended, as the following extracts will show, to advocate lightening the burden of the slave, hoping that in the West Indies, where he thought the Negro would eventually rule absolutely, the blacks might establish governments to which freedmen gradually emancipated in the United States might be sent to shape their own destiny.

Writing to Dr. Price concerning his anti-slavery pamphlet, Jefferson said:

Southward of the Chesapeake, your pamphlet (against slavery) will
find but few readers concurring with it in sentiment on the
subject of slavery. From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeake,
the bulk of the people will approve it in theory, and it will
find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice; a
minority which for weight and worth of character preponderates
against the greater number, who have not the courage to divest
their families of a property which, however, keeps their
conscience unquiet. Northward of the Chesapeake, you may find
here and there an opponent to your doctrine, as you may find here
and there a robber and murderer; but in no greater number. In
that part of America, there being but few slaves, they can easily
disencumber themselves of them; and emancipation is put into such
a train that in a few years there will be no slaves northward of
Maryland. In Maryland, I do not find such a disposition to begin
the redress of this enormity as in Virginia. This is the next
State to which we may turn our eyes for the interesting spectacle
of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression; a conflict
wherein the sacred side is gaining daily recruits from the influx
into office of young men grown, and growing up. These have sucked
in the principles of liberty, as it were, with their mother's
milk; and it is to them I look with anxiety to turn the fate of
this question. Be not therefore discouraged. What you have
written will do a great deal of good.[94]

In his report to Congress of a conference with Count Vergennes, Foreign Minister of France, on commerce, Jefferson wrote:

The British army, after ravaging the State of Virginia, had sent
off a very great number of slaves to New York. By the seventh
article of the treaty of peace, they stipulated not to carry away
any of these. Notwithstanding this, it was known, when they were
evacuating New York, that they were carrying away the slaves,
General Washington made an official demand of Sir Guy Carleton,
that he should cease to send them away. He answered, that these
people had come to them under promise of the King's protection,
and that that promise should be fulfilled in preference to the
stipulation in the treaty. The State of Virginia, to which nearly
the whole of these slaves belonged, passed a law to forbid the
recovery of debts due to British subjects. They declared, at the
same time, they would repeal the law, if Congress were of opinion
they ought to do it. But, desirous that their citizens should be
discharging their debts, they afterwards permitted British
creditors to prosecute their suits, and to receive their debts in
seven equal and annual payments for reimbursement.[95]