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Jefferson and Slavery

First of all, in this period we see him revising the translation and arranging the publication of De Tracy's "Commentaire sur l'Esprit des Lois." He takes endless pains to make its hold firm on America; engages his old companion in abolitionism, St. George Tucker, to circulate it; makes it a text-book in the University of Virginia; tells his friend Cabell to read it, for it is "the best book on government in the world." Now this "best book on government" is killing to every form of tyranny or slavery; its arguments pierce all their fallacies and crush all their sophistries. That famous plea which makes Alison love Austria and Palmer love Louisiana--the plea that a people can be best educated for freedom and religion by dwarfing their minds and tying their hands--is, in this book, shivered by argument and burnt by invective.

As we approach the last years of Jefferson's life we find several letters of his on slavery. Some have thought them mere heaps of ashes,--poor remains of the flaming thoughts and words of earlier years. This mistake is great. Touch the seeming heaps of ashes, and those thoughts and words dart forth, fiery as of old.

In 1814, Edward Coles attacks slavery vigorously, and calls on the great Democrat to destroy it. Jefferson's approving reply is the complete summary of his matured views on slavery. Take a few declarations as specimens.

"The sentiments breathed through the whole do honor both to the head and heart of the writer. Mine, on the subject of the slavery of negroes, have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger proof. The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a mortal reproach to us that they should have pleaded so long in vain."

"The hour of emancipation is advancing in the march of time. It will come, and whether brought on by generous energy of our own minds or by the bloody process of St. Domingo... is a leaf of our history not yet turned over."

"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."

"This enterprise is for the young,--for those who can follow it up and bear it through its consummation. It shall have all my prayers."

No wonder that this letter of Jefferson to Coles seems to have been carefully suppressed by Southern editors of the Jeffersonian writings.

Take also the letters to Mr. Barrows and to Dr. Humphreys of 1815-17. Disappointment is expressed at the want of a more general anti-slavery feeling among the young men; hope is expressed that "time will soften down the master and educate the slave"; faith is expressed that slavery will yield, "because we are not in a world ungoverned by the laws and power of a Supreme Agent."

Entering now the stormy period of the Missouri Debate, we have one declaration from Jefferson which, at first, surprises and pains us,--the opinion given in a letter to Lafayette, that spreading slavery will "dilute the evil everywhere and facilitate the means of getting rid of it." The mistake is gross indeed. To all of us, with the political knowledge forced upon us by events since Jefferson's death, it seems atrocious. But unpardonable as such a theory is now, was it so then?

Jefferson had not before him the experience of these last forty years of weakness and poverty and barbarism in our new Slave States,--and of that tenacity of life which slavery shares with so many other noxious growths. Hastily, then, he broached this opinion. Let it stand; and let the remark on "geographical lines," and the two or three severe criticisms of Northern men, wrested from him in the excitement of the Missouri struggle, be tied to it and given to the Oligarchs. These expressions were drawn from him in his old age,--in his vexation at unfair attacks,- in his depression at the approach of poverty,--in his suffering under the encroachments of disease. Any one of those bold declarations in the vigor of his manhood will forever efface all memory of them.

The opinion expressed by Jefferson, at the same period, that "the General Government cannot interfere with slavery in the States," all our parties now accept -as a peace policy; but if we are forced into an opposite war policy, let our generals remember Jefferson's declaration as to the taking of his slaves by Cornwallis "Had this been to give them their freedom, he would have done right."

But there is one letter which all Northern statesmen should ponder. It warns them solemnly, for it was written a very short time before Jefferson's death;--it warn them sharply, for it struck one whom the North has especially honored. This son of the North had made a well-known unfortunate speech in Congress, and had sent it to Jefferson. In his answer the old statesman declares,--

"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 Constitutional modifications of that pretension, we are probably nearer together."

There was a blow well dealt,--through at one now greatly honored. We may refuse the subordinate idea in the letter, but we will glory in that main confession of political faith, in the last year of Jefferson's life; and we will not forget that the last of his letters on slavery chastised the worst sin of Northern statesmanship.

Jefferson, the, in dealing with slavery, was a real political seer and giver of oracles,--always sure to say something; whereas the "leading men" who in these latter days have usurped his name are neither political seers nor givers of oracles, but mere political fakirs,--striving, their lives long, to enter political blessedness by solemnly doing and seeing and saying--nothing.

Jefferson was a true political warrior, and his battle for human rights compares with the Oligarchist battle against them as the warfare of Cortes compares with Aztec warfare. He is the man full of strong thought backed by civilization: they, the men trying to keep up their faith in idols, trying to scare with warpaint, trying to startle with war-whoop, trying to vex with showers of poor Aztec arrows.

Jefferson was an orator,--not in that he fed petty assemblages with narcotic words to stupefy conscience, or corrosive words to fill conscience, but in that he gave the world those decisive, true words which shall pierce all tyranny and slavery.

Jefferson was the founder of a democratic system, strong and full-orbed: "leading men" have fastened his name to an aristocratic system with mobocratic cries.

This great tree of Liberty which we are all trying to plant will, of course, not grow as we sill, but as God and Nature will. Some branches will be exuberant through too great wealth of sunshine,--others gnarled and awry through too great fury of storms. We need find no fault with any growth, but we may admire some branches and prize some fruits more than others. Some grafts set by noblest hands have often blossomed in bad temper and borne fruit bitter and sour. Some fruitage has been of that poor Dead-Sea sort,--splendid in coating, but inwardly ashes,--wretched "protective" schemes and the like. The world may yet see that the limbs of toughest fibre and fruit of richest flavor have come from grafts set by just such strong men in theory and in practice as Thomas Jefferson.

"Jefferson and Slavery" by A. D. White, The Atlantic Monthly; January 1862.