Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Jefferson's letter here to M. de Meunier on the passage of the Ordinance of 1787 shows how he either shifted from his position of regarding emancipation a serious problem to that of agitating against slavery or that he varied his correspondence to suit the person addressed.

There were ten States present; six voted unanimously for it,
three against it, and one was divided; and seven votes being
requisite to decide the proposition affirmatively, it was lost.
The voice of a single individual of the State which was divided,
or of one of those which were of the negative, would have
prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the
new country. Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on
the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful
moment! But it is to be hoped it will not always be silent, and
that the friends to the rights of human nature will in the end
prevail.

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! who
can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself,
in vindication of his own liberty, and, the next moment, be deaf
to all those motives whose power supported him through his
trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which
is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in
rebellion to oppose.[96]

He seemed to regard it later as a problem to be solved only by miraculous methods.

We must await with patience the workings of an overruling
Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of
these, our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears
shall be full, when their groans shall have involved heaven
itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to
their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their
oppressors, or, at length, by His exterminating thunder, manifest
His attention to the things of this world, and that they are not
left to the guidance of a blind fatality.[97]

Jefferson, however, seemed to have a kind feeling for the bondmen, as these extracts will show.

I observe in your letter ... that the profits of the whole estate
(of Monticello) would be no more than the hire of the few negroes
hired out would amount to. Would it be better to hire more where
good masters could be got? Would it be better to hire plantations
and all, if proper assurance can be provided for the good usage,
of everything?[98]

I am miserable till I shall owe not a shilling. The moment that
shall be the case, I shall feel myself at liberty to do something
for the comfort of the slaves.[99]

The check on the tenants against abusing my slaves was, by the
former lease, that I might discontinue it on a reference to
arbitrators. Would it not be well to retain an optional right to
sue them for ill-usage of the slaves or to discontinue it by
arbitration, whichever you should choose at the time?[100]

As far as I can judge from the experiments which have been made
to give liberty to, or rather, to abandon persons whose habits
have been formed in slavery is like abandoning children.[101]

I am decided on my final return to America to try this
experiment. I shall endeavor to import as many Germans as I have
grown slaves. I will settle them and my slaves, on farms of fifty
acres each, intermingled, and place all on the footing of the
Metayers (Medietaini) of Europe. Their children shall be brought
up, as others are, in habits of property and foresight, and I
have no doubt but that they will be good citizens. Some of their
fathers will be so; others I suppose will need government. With
these all that can be done is to oblige them to labor as the
laboring poor of Europe do, and to apply to their comfortable
subsistence the produce of their labor, retaining such a moderate
portion of it as may be a just equivalent for the use of the
lands they labor, and the stocks and other necessary
advances.[102]

The inculcation (in your book) on the master of the moral duties
which he owes to the slave, in return for the benefits of his
service, that is to say, of food, clothing, care in sickness, and
maintenance under age and disability, so as to make him in fact
as comfortable and more secure than the laboring man in most
parts of the world, ... gives great merit to the work, and will,
I have no doubt, produce wholesome impressions.[103]

In the first or second session of the Legislature after I became
a member, I drew to this subject the attention of Colonel Bland,
one of the oldest, ablest, and most respected members, and he
undertook to move for certain moderate extensions of the
protection of the laws to these people. I seconded his motion
and, as a young member, was more spared in the debate; but he was
denounced as an enemy of his country, and was treated with the
grossest indecorum.[104]

My opinion has ever been that, until more can be done for them,
we should endeavor, with those whom fortune has thrown on our
hands, to feed and clothe them well, protect them from ill usage,
require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by
freemen, and be led by no repugnances to abdicate them, and our
duties to them. The laws do not permit us to turn them loose, if
that were for their good; and to commute them for other property
is to commit them to those whose usage of them we cannot
control.[105]

Jefferson was opposed to slavery, but he hesitated to take certain steps against it because of public opinion.

I am very sensible of the honor you propose to me of becoming a
member of the society for the abolition of the slave trade. You
know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition, not
only of the trade, but of the condition of slavery; and certainly
nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that
object. But the influence and information of the friends to this
proposition in France will be far above the need of my
association. I am here as a public servant, and those whom I
serve, having never yet been able to give their voice against
this practice, it is decent for me to avoid too public a
demonstration of my wishes to see it abolished. Without serving
the cause here, it might render me less able to serve it beyond
the water. I trust you will be sensible of the prudence of those
motives, therefore, which govern my conduct on this
occasion.[106]

I have received a letter from Mr. Thomas Brannagan, ...
Philadelphia, asking my subscription to the work announced in the
enclosed paper.[107] The cause in which he embarks is so holy,
the sentiments he expresses in his letter so friendly, that it is
highly painful to me to hesitate on a compliance which appears so
small. But that is not its true character, and it would be
injurious even to his views, for me to commit myself on paper by
answering his letter. I have most carefully avoided every public
act of manifestation on that subject. Should an occasion ever
occur in which I can interpose with decisive effect, I shall
certainly know and do my duty with promptitude and zeal. But, in
the meantime, it would only be disarming myself of influence to
be taking small means. The subscription to a book on this subject
is one of those little irritating measures, which, without
advancing its end at all, would, by lessening the confidence and
good will of a description of friends composing a large body,
only lessen my powers of doing them good in the other great
relations in which I stand to the public. Yet, I cannot be easy
in not answering Mr. Brannagan's letter, unless he can be made
sensible that it is better I should not answer it; and I do not
know how to effect this, unless you would have the goodness ...
to enter into an explanation with him.[108]

We have received with great satisfaction notification of the
orders of his Catholic Majesty, not to permit that persons, held
in slavery within the United States, introduce themselves as free
persons into the Province of Florida.... As a consequence of the
same principles of justice and friendship, we trust that your
Excellency will permit, and aid the recovery of persons of the
same description, who have heretofore taken refuge within your
government.[109]

The governor of East Florida informs me that he has received the
King's orders, not to permit, under any pretext, that persons
held in slavery in the United States introduce themselves as
free, into the province of East Florida. I am happy that this
grievance, which had been a subject of great complaint from the
citizens of Georgia, is to be removed.[110]

Jefferson thought that the Negro republics of the West Indies would become a safety valve for the United States.

I become daily more convinced that all the West India Islands
will remain in the hands of the people of color, and a total
expulsion of the whites sooner or later take place. It is high
time we should foresee the bloody scenes which our children
certainly, and possibly ourselves (south of the Potomac), have to
wade through and try to avert them.[111]

If something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the
murderers of our own children. The "_murmura venturos nautis
prudentia ventos_" has already reached us (from San Domingo); the
revolutionary storm, now sweeping the globe, will be upon us, and
happy if we make timely provision to give it an easy passage over
our land. From the present state of things in Europe and America,
the day which begins our combustion must be near at hand; and
only a single spark is wanting to make that day to-morrow. If we
had begun sooner, we might probably have been allowed a lengthier
operation to clear ourselves, but every day's delay lessens the
time we may take for emancipation. Some people derive hope from
the aid of the confederate States. But this is a delusion. There
is but one State in the Union which will aid us sincerely, if an
insurrection begins, and that one may, perhaps, have its own fire
to quench at the same time.[112]

As to the mode of emancipation, I am satisfied that that must be
a matter of compromise between the passions, the prejudices, and
the real difficulties which will each have its weight in that
operation. Perhaps the first chapter of this history, which has
begun in St. Domingo, and the next succeeding ones, will recount
how all the whites were driven from all the other islands, may
prepare our minds for a peaceable accommodation between justice,
policy and necessity; and furnish an answer to the difficult
question, whither shall the colored emigrants go? and the sooner
we put some plan under way, the greater hope there is that it may
be permitted to proceed peaceably to its ultimate effect.[113]

Jefferson finally despaired of seeing his emancipation scheme succeed.

I have long since given up the expectation of any early provision
for the extinguishment of slavery among us. There are many
virtuous men who would make any sacrifices to effect it, many
equally virtuous who persuade themselves either that the thing is
not wrong, or that it cannot be remedied, and very many with whom
interest is morality. The older we grow, the larger we are
disposed to believe the last party to be. But interest is really
going over to the side of morality. The value of the slave is
every day lessening; his burden on his master daily increasing.
Interest is, therefore, preparing the disposition to be just; and
this will be goaded from time to time by the insurrectionary
spirit of the slaves. This is easily quelled in its first
efforts; but from being local it will become general, and
whenever it does, it will rise more formidable after every
defeat, until we shall be forced, after dreadful scenes and
sufferings, to release them in their own way, which, without such
sufferings we might now model after our own convenience.[114]

VIII

Because of frequent insurrections in this country and the West Indies there was much talk of establishing a penal colony to which the leaders of such uprisings could be sent. With Gabriel's insurrection in Virginia in 1800 in mind, James Monroe, then Governor of Virginia, wrote Jefferson, asking him to support such a project, a resolution on which had already passed the Virginia House of Delegates. Jefferson wrote him the following:

Questions would arise whether the establishment of a (negro
penal) colony within our limits, and to become a part of our
Union, would be desirable to the State of Virginia itself, or to
other States--especially those who would be in its vicinity.
Could we procure lands beyond the limits of the United States to
form a receptacle for these people? On our northern boundary, the
country not occupied by British subjects, is the property of
Indian nations, whose title would have to be extinguished, with
the consent of Great Britain; and the new settlers would be
British subjects. It is hardly to be believed that either Great
Britain or the Indian proprietors have so disinterested a regard
for us, as to be willing to relieve us, by receiving such a
colony themselves.... On our western and southern frontiers,
Spain holds an immense country, the occupancy of which, however,
is in the Indian natives, except a few insulated spots possessed
by Spanish subjects. It is very questionable, indeed, whether the
Indians would sell? whether Spain would be willing to receive
these people? and nearly certain that she would not alienate the
sovereignty. The same question to ourselves would recur here
also, as did in the first case: should we be willing to have such
a colony in contact with us? However our present interests may
restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look
forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will
expand itself beyond those limits, and cover the whole northern,
if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same
language, governed in similar forms, and by similar laws; nor can
we contemplate with satisfaction either blot or mixture on that
surface. Spain, France, and Portugal hold possessions on the
southern continent, as to which I am not well enough informed to
say how far they might meet our views. But either there or in the
northern continent, should the constituted authorities ties of
Virginia fix their attention, of preference, I will have the
dispositions of those powers sounded in the first instance.[115]

Writing to Rufus King in 1802 Jefferson discussed in detail the feasibility of the plan.

As the expense of so distant a transportation would be very
heavy, and might weigh unfavorably in deciding between the modes
of punishment, it is very desirable that it should be lessened as
much as is practicable. If the regulations of the place would
permit these emigrants to dispose of themselves, as the Germans
and others do who come to this country poor, by giving their
labor for a certain time to some one who will pay their passage;
and if the master of the vessel could be permitted to carry
articles of commerce from this country and take back others from
that, which might yield him a mercantile profit sufficient to
cover the expenses of the voyage, a serious difficulty would be
removed.[116]

The course of things in the ... West Indies appears to have given
a considerable impulse to the minds of the slaves in ... the
United States. A great disposition to insurgency has manifested
itself among them, which, in one instance, in the State of
Virginia, broke out into actual insurrection. This was easily
suppressed; but many of those concerned (between twenty and
thirty, I believe) fell victims to the law. So extensive an
execution could not but excite sensibility in the public mind,
and beget a regret that the laws had not provided for such cases,
some alternative, combining more mildness with equal efficiency.
The Legislature of the State ... took the subject into
consideration, and have communicated to me through the Governor
of the State, their wish that some place could be provided, out
of the limits of the United States, to which slaves guilty of
insurgency might be transported; and they have particularly
looked to Africa as offering the most desirable receptacle. We
might, for this purpose, enter into negotiations with the
natives, on some part of the coast, to obtain a settlement; and,
by establishing an African company, combine with it commercial
operations, which might not only reimburse expenses, but procure
profit also. But there being already such an establishment on
that coast by the English Sierra Leone Company, made for the
express purpose of colonizing civilized blacks to that country,
it would seem better, by incorporating our emigrants with
theirs, to make one strong, rather than two weak colonies. This
would be the more desirable because the blacks settled at Sierra
Leone, having chiefly gone from the States, would often receive
among those whom we should send, their acquaintances and
relatives. The object of this letter is to ask ... you to enter
into conference with such persons, private and public, as would
be necessary to give us permission to send thither the persons
under contemplation.... They are not felons, or common
malefactors, but persons guilty of what the safety of society,
under actual circumstances, obliges us to treat as a crime, but
which their feelings may represent in a far different shape. They
will be a valuable acquisition to the settlement, ... and well
calculated to cooperate in the plan of civilization.

... The consequences of permitting emancipation to become
extensive, unless a condition of emigration be annexed to them,
furnish matter of solicitude to the Legislature of Virginia.
Although provision for the settlement of emancipated negroes
might perhaps be obtained nearer home than Africa, yet it is
desirable that we should be free to expatriate this description
of people also to the colony of Sierra Leone, if considerations
respecting either themselves or us should render it more
expedient. I pray you, therefore, to get the same permission
extended to the reception of these as well as the (insurgents).
Nor will there be a selection of bad subjects; the emancipations,
for the most part, being either of the whole slaves of the
master, or of such individuals as have particularly deserved
well. The latter are most frequent.[117]

IX

He was firm to the end in his effort to abolish the slave trade.

Whatever may have been the circumstances which influenced our
forefathers to permit the introduction of personal bondage into
any part of these States, and to participate in the wrongs
committed on an unoffending quarter of the globe, we may rejoice
that such circumstances, and such a sense of them, exist no
longer. It is honorable to the nation at large that their
Legislature availed themselves of the first practicable moment
for arresting the progress of this great moral and political
error.[118]

I congratulate you (Congress) on the approach of the period at
which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to
withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further
participation in those violations of human rights which have been
so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and
which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our
country, have long been eager to proscribe. Although no law you
may pass can take prohibitory effect till the first day of the
year one thousand eight hundred and eight, yet the intervening
period is not too long to prevent, by timely notice, expeditions
which cannot be completed before that day.[119]--Sixth Annual
Message.

X

In his old age Jefferson became decidedly less radical in his advocacy of abolition, contenting himself with the utterances of the nature of an academic deprecation of the evil, expressing the hope that in some way it might be eradicated, but at the same time despairing of it. Writing to Edward Coles, he said:

My sentiment on the subject of slavery of negroes have long since
been in possession of the public, and time has only served to
give them stronger root. The love of justice and the love of
country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a
moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in
vain, and should have produced not a single effort, nay I fear
not much serious willingness to relieve them and ourselves from
our present condition of moral and political reprobation.... I
had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their
early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in
every breast, and had become, as it were, the vital spirit of
every American, that the generous temperament of youth, analogous
to the motion of the blood, and above the suggestions of avarice,
would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved
their love of liberty beyond their own share of it. But my
intercourse with them since my return (from Europe) has not been
sufficient to ascertain that they had made towards this point the
progress I had hoped.[120]

The hour of emancipation is advancing, in the march of time. It
will come; and whether brought on by the generous energy of our
own minds; or by the bloody process of St. Domingo, excited and
conducted by the power of our present enemy (England), if once
stationed permanently within our country, and offering asylum and
arms to the oppressed, is a leaf of our history not yet turned
over.[121]

From those of the former generation who were in the fulness of
age when I came into public life, which was while our controversy
with England was on paper only, I soon saw that nothing was to be
hoped. Nursed and educated in the daily habit of seeing the
degraded condition, both bodily and mental, of those unfortunate
beings, not reflecting that that degradation was very much the
work of themselves and their fathers, few minds have yet doubted
but that they were as legitimate subjects of property as their
horses and cattle. The quiet and monotonous course of colonial
life had been disturbed by no alarm, and little reflection on the
value of liberty. And when alarm was taken at an enterprise on
their own, it was not easy to carry them to the whole length of
the principles which they invoked for themselves.[122]

As to the method by which this difficult work is to be effected,
if permitted to be done by ourselves, I have seen no proposition
so expedient on the whole, as that of emancipation of those born
after a given day, and of their education and expatriation after
a given age.[123]

I hope you will reconcile yourself to your country and its
unfortunate condition; that you will not lessen its stock of
sound disposition by withdrawing your portion from the mass;
that, on the contrary, you will come forward in the public
councils, become the missionary of this doctrine truly Christian,
insinuate and inculcate it softly but steadily, through the
medium of writing and conversation; associate others in your
labors, and when the phalanx is formed, bring on the press the
proposition perseveringly until its accomplishment.[124]

Writing to David Barrow in 1815 about the preparation of slaves for emancipation, Jefferson said:

Unhappily it is a case for which both parties require long and
difficult preparation. The mind of the master is to be apprized
by reflection, and strengthened by the energies of conscience,
against the obstacles of self interest to an acquiescence in the
rights of others; that of the slave is to be prepared by
instruction and habit for self-government, and for the honest
pursuits of industry and social duty. Both of these courses of
preparation require time, and the former must precede the latter.
Some progress is sensibly made in it; yet not so much as I had
hoped and expected. But it will yield in time to temperate and
steady pursuit, to the enlargement of the human mind, and its
advancement in science. We are not in a world ungoverned by the
laws and the power of a Superior Agent. Our efforts are in His
hand, and directed by it; and He will give them their effect in
his own time. Where the disease is most deeply seated, there it
will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern States it was
merely superficial, and easily corrected. In the Southern it is
incorporated with the whole system, and requires time, patience
and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally be
effected, and its process hastened, will be my last and fondest
prayer.[125]

In a letter to Dr. Thomas Humphreys in 1817, Jefferson expressed fear about the purchase of slaves by the United States.

The bare proposition of purchase (of the slaves) by the United
States generally would excite infinite indignation in all the
States north of Maryland. The sacrifice must fall on the States
alone which hold them; and the difficult question will be how to
lessen this so as to reconcile our fellow citizens to it.
Personally, I am ready and desirous to make any sacrifice which
shall ensure their gradual but complete retirement from the
State, and effectually, at the same time, establish them
elsewhere in freedom and safety.[126]

I concur entirely in your leading principles of gradual
emancipation, of establishment on the coast of Africa, and the
patronage of our nation until the emigrants shall be able to
protect themselves.[127]

Jefferson saw in the extension of slavery that which had given the institution a new aspect in lessening the difficulty by dividing it.

I can say with conscious truth that there is not a man on earth
who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this
heavy reproach in any _practicable_ way. The cession of that kind
of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would
not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general
emancipation and _expatriation_ could be effected; and,
gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. But, as
it is, we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him,
nor safely let him go. Justice is in the one scale and
self-preservation in the other.[128]

Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one
State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being
who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater
surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally
facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing
the burden on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, too,
from this act of power would remove the jealousy excited by the
undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the
different descriptions of men composing a State, which nothing in
the Constitution has taken from them and given to the General
Government. Could Congress, for example, say that the non-freemen
of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate
into any other State?[129]

During the closing years of his life he expressed little hope of seeing his plan of gradual emancipation carried out.

It was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition
(gradual emancipation), nor will it bear it even at this day
(1821). Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt
it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in
the book of fate, than that these people are to be free; nor is
it less certain, that the two races, equally free, cannot live in
the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible
lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to
direct the process of emancipation and deportation, peaceably,
and in such slow degree, as that the evil will wear off
insensible, and their place be, _pari passu_, filled up by free
white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself
on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should
in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation, or
deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our
case.[130]

* * * * *

In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of
the country in which I live (Albemarle), and so continued until
it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body
for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was
rejected; and indeed, during the regal government, nothing
liberal could expect success. Our minds were circumscribed within
narrow limits, by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be
subordinate to the mother country in all matters of government,
to direct all our labors in subservience to her interests, and
even to observe a bigoted intolerance for all religions but hers.
The difficulties with our representatives were of habit and
despair, not of reflection and conviction. Experience soon proved
that they could bring their minds to rights on the first summons
of their attention. But the King's Council, which acted as
another house of legislature, held their places at will, and were
in most humble obedience to that will; the Governor, too, who had
a negative on our laws, held by the same tenure, and with still
greater devotedness to it; and, last of all, the royal negative
closed the last door to every hope of
ameloration.--Autobiography.[131]

The first establishment (of slavery) in Virginia which became
permanent, was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes
in the Colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves
were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the
trade, and continued it until the Revolutionary war. That
suspended, _ipso facto_, their further importation for the
present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the
legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year
'78, when I brought in a bill to prevent their further
importation. This passed without opposition, and stopped the
increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts
its final eradication.--Autobiography.[132]

Our only blot is becoming less offensive by the great improvement
in the condition and civilization of that race, who can now more
advantageously compare their situation with that of the laborers
of Europe. Still it is a hideous blot, as well from the
heteromorph peculiarities of the race, as that, with them,
physical compulsion to action must be substituted for the moral
necessity which constrains the free laborers to work equally
hard. We feel and deplore it morally and politically, and we look
without entire despair to some redeeming means not yet
specifically foreseen. I am happy in believing that the
conviction of the necessity of removing this evil gains ground
with time. Their emigration to the westward lightens the
difficulty by dividing it, and renders it more practicable on the
whole. And the neighborhood of a government of their color
promises a more accessible asylum than that from whence they
came.[133]

Showing the difficulty of purchase in case of the adoption of the policy, Jefferson wrote Jared Sparks in 1824:

Actual property has been lawfully vested in that form (negroes)
and who can lawfully take it from the possessors?[134]

Who would estimate its blessed effects? I leave this to those who
will live to see their accomplishment, and to enjoy a beatitude
forbidden to my age. But I leave it with this admonition,--to
rise and be doing. A million and a half are within our control;
but six millions (which a majority of those now living will see
them attain), and one million of these fighting men, will say,
"we will not go."[135]

The separation of infants from their mothers would produce some
scruples of humanity. But this would be straining at a gnat, and
swallowing a camel.[136]

Jefferson became interested in the schemes of Miss Fanny Wright, who was endeavoring to promote gradual emancipation through an Emancipating Labor Society. He wrote her in 1825:

The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never,
therefore, to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted,
every experiment tried, which may do something towards the
ultimate object. That which you propose is well worthy of trial.
It has succeeded with certain portions of our white brethren,
under the care of a Rapp and an Owen; and why may it not succeed
with the man of color?

At the age of eighty-two, with one foot in the grave and the
other uplifted to follow it, I do not permit myself to take part
in any new enterprises, even for bettering the condition of man,
not even in the great one which is the subject of your letter,
and which has been through life that of my greatest
anxieties.[137] The march of events has not been such as to
render its completion practicable within the limits of time
allotted to me; and I leave its accomplishment as the work of
another generation.[138]

Although Jefferson lost hope of seeing his plans carried out, this letter to Edward Everett, written near the close of his career, shows that he had not changed his attitude.

On the question of the lawfulness of slavery, that is of the
right of one man to appropriate to himself the faculties of
another without his consent, I certainly retain my early
opinions. On that, however, of third persons to interfere between
the parties, and the effect of conventional modifications of that
pretension, we are probably nearer together.[139]

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 102.

[49] "_Rights of British America_," Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, I, p. 440.

[50] "This clause," says Jefferson, in his Autobiography (I, p. 19), "was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren, also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."

[51] "Their amalgamation with the other color," said he, "produces a degradation to which no lover of excellence in the human character can innocently consent."--Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IX, p. 478.

[52] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 243.

[53] _Ibid._, III, p. 250.

[54] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IX, p. 303.

[55] _Ibid._, IX, p. 304.

[56] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IX, p. 303.

[57] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, X, p. 290.

[58] {Transcriber's Note: Missing footnote text in original.}

[59] _Ibid._, X, p. 291.

[60] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, X, p. 292.

[61] To General Chastellux, who had proposed to publish in a French scientific paper certain extracts from Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, he wrote the following in 1785:

The strictures on slavery (in the Notes on Virginia) ... I do not wish to have made public, at least till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible, that in my own country, these strictures might produce an irritation, which would indispose the people towards (one of) the two great objects I have in view; that is, the emancipation of their slaves.--Ford edition of the Writings of Jefferson, III, p. 71.

[62] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 154.

[63] _Ibid._, III, p. 192.

[64] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, II, p. 247.

[65] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, II, p. 249.

[66] _Ibid._, III, p. 266.

[67] {Transcriber's Note: Missing footnote text in original.}

[68] {Transcriber's Note: Missing footnote text in original.}

[69] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 267.

[70] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 244.

[71] {Transcriber's Note: Missing footnote text in original.}

[72] {Transcriber's Note: Missing footnote text in original.}

[73] _Ibid._, III, p. 245.

[74] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 245.

[75] _Ibid._, III, p. 245.

[76] _Ibid._, III, p. 246.

[77] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 246.

[78] _Ibid._, III, p. 247.

[79] _Ibid._, III, p. 247.

[80] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 249.

[81] _Ibid._, III, p. 249.

[82] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, III, p. 138.

[83] _Ibid._, V, p. 377.

[84] _Ibid._, V, p. 379.

[85] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, V, p. 377.

[86] _Ibid._, IX, p. 246.

[87] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IX, p. 261.

[88] _Ibid._, X, p. 344.

[89] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, II, p. 26.

[90] _Ibid._, III, p. 325.

[91] _Ibid._, III, p. 409.

[92] _Ibid._, III, p. 471.

[93] _Ibid._, IV, p. 410

[94] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IV, p. 82.

[95] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IV, p. 127.

[96] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IV, p. 185.

[97] _Ibid._, IV, pp. 181-185.

[98] _Ibid._, IV, p. 342.

[99] _Ibid._, IV, p. 343.

[100] _Ibid._, V, p. 31.

[101] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, V, p. 66.

[102] _Ibid._, V, p. 67.

[103] _Ibid._, IX, p. 329.

[104] _Ibid._, IX, p. 477.

[105] _Ibid._, IX, p. 479.

[106] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, V, p. 6.

[107] This refers to "Avenia; or, A Tragical Poem on the Oppression of the Human Species," an antislavery work printed in Philadelphia in 1805.--Note in the Ford edition.

[108] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, VIII, p. 351.

[109] _Ibid._, V, p. 296.

[110] _Ibid._, V, p. 296.

[111] _Ibid._, VI, p. 349.

[112] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, VII, p. 168.

[113] _Ibid._, VII, p. 167.

[114] _Ibid._, VIII, p. 340.

[115] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, VIII, p. 104.

[116] _Ibid._, VIII, p. 162.

[117] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, VIII, pp. 161, 163.

[118] _Ibid._, VIII, p. 119.

[119] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, VIII, p. 492.

[120] _Ibid._, IX, p. 477.

[121] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IX, p. 478.

[122] _Ibid._, IX, p. 477.

[123] _Ibid._, IX, p. 478.

[124] _Ibid._, IX, p. 479.

[125] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, IX, p. 515.

[126] _Ibid._, X, p. 76.

[127] _Ibid._, X, p. 76.

[128] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, X, p. 157.

[129] _Ibid._, X, p. 158.

[130] Jefferson MSS. Rayner, 164.

[131] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, I, p. 5.

[132] _Ibid._, I, p. 51.

[133] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, VII, p. 310.

[134] _Ibid._, X, p. 200.

[135] _Ibid._, X, p. 292.

[136] _Ibid._, X, p. 293.

[137] In 1817 Jefferson had written Thomas Humphreys:

I have not perceived the growth of this disposition (to emancipate
the slaves and settle them elsewhere) in the rising generation, of
which I once had sanguine hopes. No symptoms inform me that it
will take place in my day. I leave it, therefore, to time, and not
at all without hope that the day will come, equally desirable and
welcome to us as to them. Perhaps the proposition now on the
carpet at Washington to provide an establishment on the coast of
Africa for voluntary emigrations of people of color may be the
corner stone of this future edifice.--Ford edition of Jefferson's
Writings, X, p. 77.

[138] Ford edition of _Jefferson's Writings_, X, p. 344.

[139] _Ibid._, X, p. 385.

SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES

A LITTLE SLAVE BOY was intrusted with a card which he was to bear to a person to whom it was directed and so charmed was he with the beautiful inscription drawn upon it that he was seized with an unconquerable desire to learn the mystery it contained. To this end he persuaded a little boy of his master's to teach him the letters of the alphabet. He was discovered in the act and whipped. His curiosity, however, to learn the secret, which was locked up in those mysterious characters, was only increased, and he was detected in another attempt, and accordingly chastised. By this time he had so far penetrated the secret that nothing could deter him from further effort. A third time he was detected, and whipped almost to death. Still he persevered; and then to keep the matter secret, if possible, he crept into a hogshead, which lay in a rather retired place and leaving just hole enough to let in a little light, he sat there on a little straw, and thus prosecuted his object. He knew he must be whipped for being absent; and he often had to lie to conceal the cause; but such were the strivings of his noble nature, such his irrepressible longings after the hidden treasures of knowledge, that nothing could subdue them, and he accomplished his purpose.[140]

EDWARD MITCHELL, a colored man, was brought from the South by President Brown of Dartmouth College. He soon indicated a desire for mental culture on being brought within its influence at college. At first there was some hesitation about admitting him as the children of southerners sometimes attended Dartmouth and one of them had recently instructed his son to withdraw should the institution admit a Negro to his classes. Mitchell was prepared for entering the Freshman class, was received as a regular student and was promoted through all other classes to a full honorable graduation. He was uniformly treated with respect by his fellow students throughout his collegiate career. Upon graduating in 1828 he was settled as a pastor of a Baptist church in the State of Vermont, where he rendered creditable service.[141]

LUKE MULBER came to Steubenville, Ohio, in 1802, hired himself to a carpenter during the summer at ten dollars a month, and went to school in the winter. This course he pursued for three years, at the expiration of which he had learned to do rough carpenter work. Industry and economy crowned his labors with success. In 1837 he was a contractor hiring four or five journeymen, two of whom were his sons, having calls for more work than they could do. He lived in a fine brick house which he had built for himself on Fourth Street, valued at two thousand five hundred dollars and owned other property in the city. Persons who came into contact with Mulber found him a quiet, humble, Christian man, possessing those characteristics expected of a useful member of society.[142]

SAMUEL MARTIN, a man of color, and the oldest resident of Port Gibson, Mississippi, emancipated six of his slaves in 1844, bringing them to Cincinnati where he believed they would have a better opportunity to start life anew. These were two mulatto women with their four quadroon children, the color of whom well illustrated the moral condition of that State, in that each child had a different father and they retained few marks of their partial African descent. Mr. Martin was himself a slave until 1829. He purchased his freedom for a large sum most of which he earned by taking time from sleep for work. Thereafter he acquired considerable property. He was not a slaveholder in the southern sense of that word. His purpose was to purchase his fellowmen in bondage that he might give them an opportunity to become free.[143]

FOOTNOTES:

[140] _The Philanthropist_, July 28, 1837.

[141] _Ibid._

[142] _The Philanthropist_, June 2, 1837.

[143] _Cincinnati Morning Herald_, June 1, 1844.

BOOK REVIEWS

_Negro Education, A Study of Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States._ By THOMAS JESSE JONES. United States Bureau of Education in Cooperation with the Phelps-Stokes Fund. Issued as Bulletins, 1916, Nos. 38 and 39. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1917. Vol. I, pp. 700. Vol. II, pp. 700.

This report is the result of a survey of Negro education made during the past four years under the direction of Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, specialist in the education of racial groups, United States Bureau of Education. This is the most comprehensive and authoritative report relating to Negro education that has been made. The report covers all Negro private schools above the elementary grades. The total number of schools described is 748, of which 635 are private schools, 28 are state institutions, 68 are public high schools, and 27 are county training schools. Reports are also made on 43 special institutions such as hospitals, orphanages and reformatories.

It appears that no form of education for Negroes is satisfactorily equipped or supported. The striking facts in the study of the financial support of Negro education are, first, the wide divergencies in the per capita of public school expenditures for white and Negro children: $10.06 for each white child and $2.89 for each Negro child, and second, the extent to which schools for Negroes are dependent upon private aid. It also appears that the private schools provide the greater proportion of all educational opportunities above the elementary grades. They also offer practically all the instruction in agriculture, medicine and religion.

In the discussion of a program for educational development, it is pointed out that the public school authorities are responsible for elementary education and that so long as the elementary school facilities are insufficient, every phase of education above the elementary grades is seriously handicapped. With reference to secondary schools and teacher training, it is suggested that their chief effort should be to supply trained teachers for the public elementary schools. More than fifty per cent. of the teachers now in these schools have an education less than the equivalent of six elementary grades.

In the discussion of the importance of industrial education, it is pointed out that in spite of the striking progress made in the accumulation of property, the Negroes are "still a poor people." The large percentage of women and children who have to earn a living indicates the need of elevating their economic status so that more children may attend school, and the women have a better opportunity to care for the morals and hygiene of the home. Because three fourths of the Negroes live in rural districts, instruction along agricultural lines is one of the most important phases of Negro education. "Preparation for rural life," says the report, "is the greatest problem of the white and colored people of the South."

The most radical recommendations made in the report are those relating to higher education. These recommendations are along the line of improving the facilities and raising the standards of Negro college work. The schools teaching subjects of college grade, 33 in number, are classified according to the amount of college work done, into three groups: first, colleges; second, those doing secondary and college work; and third, those schools in which some college work is offered. "Only three institutions, Howard, Fisk, and Meharry Medical, have a student body, a teaching force and equipment, and an income sufficient to warrant the characterization of college. Nearly half of the college students and practically all of the professional students are in these three institutions." It is suggested that there should be concentration on the development for Negroes of two institutions of university grade. Howard and Fisk are suggested as these two institutions. It is recommended that three institutions be developed and maintained as first class colleges. One such institution would be located at Richmond, Virginia; one at Atlanta, Georgia, and one at Marshall, Texas. A number of other institutions would be developed into junior colleges or schools doing two years of college work. In these junior colleges, large provision would be made for the training of teachers.

M. N. WORK

* * * * *

_Los Negros Esclavos, Estudio Sociologico Y de Derecho Publico._ By FERNANDO ORTIZ, Professor in the University of Havana. Revista Bimestere Cubana, Havana, 1916. Pp. 536.

This work, as its title signifies, is a monograph intended to show the working out of the problems of enslaving the blacks in Cuba. The study begins with a description of the life of Cuba as conducive to the introduction of slavery and then that of the blacks themselves. Although acknowledging the difficulty of making an ethnographic study of the imported Africans, the author endeavors to trace the origin of these slaves to their native regions in Africa to determine the traits which entered into the formation of the character of the Cuban slaves. He then connects the institution with the sugar industry, which increased the demand for slaves, gave the institution an economic aspect and made the slave trade an international concern of great moment. The movement for the amelioration of the condition of the slave and the early efforts at abolition are noted only to show that these efforts proved to be insignificant when the traffic became universal and the institution reached the economic stage in the sugar colonies. The atrocities incident to the methods of the victors in the tribal wars of Africa supplying the traders frequenting the coast are duly treated. The author even gives in detail the procedure, prices and numbers.

A considerable portion of the book is concerned with the real life of the slave. Professor Ortiz believes that the punishments inflicted in Cuba were not so severe as in some other countries. He discusses the work done by the men, women and children, their habitations, food, dress and diversions. The diseases of the slave arising in adjusting themselves to the new world are also noted. Going further into the details of the life of the slaves, the author describes the urban Negroes and distinguishes this class of the bondmen from those of the plantation. He then discusses the free Negroes, who even from an early period constituted a considerable element of the black population and explains why some of them returned to Africa. The rights of all of the elements of the black population at law are mentioned so as to give the reader an idea of the black code as enforced in that island. How these classes thus kept down were moved from time to time to organize insurrections to secure their freedom, constitutes one of the chapters of the book.

On the whole it cannot be said that Professor Ortiz has shown that slavery in Cuba differed widely from what it was in some other large islands of the West Indies. He has, however, made a contribution to scholarship in showing exactly how this institution affected the life and the development of Cuba. The work is well illustrated and has an appendix of valuable documents bearing on slavery in Cuba.

C. G. WOODSON.

* * * * *

_A Social History of the American Family, from Colonial Times to the Present._ By ARTHUR W. CALHOUN, PH.D. Volume I, Colonial Period. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, U. S. A., 1917. Pp. 348.

This work is a study in genetic sociology to be completed in three volumes. The purpose of it is to develop an understanding of the forces that have been operative in the evolution of the family institution in the United States. The author will endeavor to set forth the influences that have shaped marriage, controlled fecundity, determined the respective status of father, mother, child, attracted relative and servant, influenced sexual morality and governed the function of the family as an educational, economic, moral, and spiritual institution as also its relation to state, industry, and society in general in the matter of social control.

In this first volume of the series the effort is to show that the American family is a product of European folkways, of the economic transition to modern capitalism, and of the distinctive environment of a virgin continent. How European customs brought to America underwent modification in the new environment and how differences of population in this country may be traced to geographical differences, constitute an important part of this treatise. The reader is finally directed to see the colonial family as a property institution dominated by middle class standards and operating as an agency of social control in the midst of the social order governed by the interests of a forceful aristocracy, which shaped religion, education, politics, and all else to its own profit.

On the whole this is a valuable work. When one has finished reading this volume, however, he must get the impression that the life of the slave attached to the colonial family has not been adequately treated. Among the early colonists the African slave was connected with the family after the manner of the bondmen of families in ancient countries. The slaves, being few in number, maintained this relation until the industrial revolution throughout the modern world changed the institution from a patriarchal to an economic one. Prior to this time the slaves were treated almost as well as the children of the family. They lived under the same roof, worshipped at the same altar and in some cases were taught in the same school. Care was taken so to elevate the slave and keep him above corrupting influences as to make him not merely a tool for exploitation but a decided asset in the family economy of life. That the slave of this type had much to do with the development of the colonial family no one will doubt.