Discussions

7 1 2 | T H O M A S J E F F E R S O N

5. This sentence fragment represents a pro- posed revision to the Virginia state constitu-

tion (“the act”). 6. Abilities, capacities.

From Query XIV. Laws

* * * [slavery]

To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act.5 The bill reported by the revisors does not itself contain this proposition; but an amendment contain- ing 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 par- ents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniusses,6 till the females should be eigh- teen, 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 house hold and of the handicraft arts, seeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and in de pen dent 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 whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed. It will prob ably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state, and thus save the expence 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 pro- duce convulsions which will prob ably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.— To these objections, which are po liti cal, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The "rst difference which strikes us is that of colour. 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 colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is "xed 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 share of beauty in the two races? Are not the "ne mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? Add to these, dowing hair, a more elegant symmetry of form, their own judgment in favour of the whites, declared by their preference of them, as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black women over those of his own species. The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy atten- tion in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, "gure, 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 kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This

N O T E S O N T H E S T A T E O F V I R G I N I A | 7 1 3

7. Crawford [Jefferson’s note]. British scientist Adair Crawford (1748–1795).

8. Greek mathematician (d. c. 300 b.c.e.).

greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. Perhaps too a difference of structure in the pul- monary apparatus, which a late ingenious experimentalist7 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 duid from the outer air, or obliged them in expiration, to part with more of it. They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though know- ing he must be out with the "rst dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be pres ent. When pres ent, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afdictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than redection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not redect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their facul- ties 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;8 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 con- versation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in Amer i ca. Most of them indeed have been con- "ned to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversa- tion of their masters; many 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 "gures 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 cul- tivation. 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 "nd that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with

7 1 4 | T H O M A S J E F F E R S O N

9. Estrus: period of (sexual) receptivity and fer- tility; heat. 1. Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753–1784), the "rst published African American female poet, whose poems appear later in this volume. 2. In his mock- heroic Dunciad, the En glish poet Alexander Pope (1688–1744) satirizes hack writ- ers. Jefferson is saying that just as the severely unhealthy and deformed Pope was not the myth- ological hero Hercules, so Wheatley was less tal- ented than Pope’s targets.

3. Black Briton, composer, actor, and writer (c. 1729–1780), known for his posthumously pub- lished letters, an early account of African slavery by a former slave. 4. As in the highly inventive novel Tristram Shandy, by the Anglo- Irish writer Laurence Sterne (1713–1768). 5. I.e., during the period when Augustus (63 b.c.e.–14 c.e.) was Rome’s "rst emperor (27 b.c.e.–14 c.e.).

accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imag- ining 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. Mis- ery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry.— Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar œstrum9 of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately,1 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 Her- cules to the author of that poem.2 Ignatius Sancho3 has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more honour to the heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general phi- lanthropy, and shew 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 stile is easy and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean4 fabri- cation of words. But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes inces- santly 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 pro cess of sober reasoning: yet we "nd him always substituting senti- ment for demonstration. Upon the whole, though we admit him to the "rst place among those of his own colour who have presented themselves to the public judgment, yet when we 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 his name to be genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be of easy investigation. The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the "rst 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 of life. We know that among the Romans, about the Augustan age especially,5 the condition of their slaves was much more deplorable than that of the blacks on the continent of Amer i ca. The two sexes were con"ned 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 par tic u lar, took from them a certain price. But in this coun- try the slaves multiply as fast as the free inhabitants. Their situation and manners place the commerce between the two sexes almost without restraint.— The same Cato, on a princi ple of œconomy, always sold his sick

N O T E S O N T H E S T A T E O F V I R G I N I A | 7 1 5

6. I.e., from chapter  2 of De Re Rusticâ, also known as De Agri Cultura (Latin for Of Agricul- ture or Of Farming), by the Roman statesman Cato the Elder (234–149 b.c.e.). The Latin quo- tation is preceded by its En glish translation. 7. Pres ent- day Tiber Island, in the Tiber River, which runs through Rome. “Expose”: abandon to die.

8. Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero (10 b.c.e.–54 c.e., reigned 41–54). 9. Publius Vedius Pollio (d. 15 b.c.e.), Roman equestrian and friend of Augustus. 1. Respectively, Greek phi los o pher in Rome (c. 55–135 c.e.), Roman dramatist (186 or 185– ?159 b.c.e.), and Roman Fabulist (c. 15 b.c.e– c. 50 c.e.).

and superannuated slaves. He gives it as a standing precept to a master vis- iting his farm, to sell his old oxen, old wagons, old tools, old and diseased servants, and every thing else become useless. “Vendat boves vetulos, plaus- trum vetus, ferramenta vetera, servum senem, servum morbosum, & si quid aliud supersit vendat.” Cato de re rusticâ. c. 2.6 The American slaves cannot enumerate this among the injuries and insults they receive. It was the com- mon practice to expose in the island of Æsculapius, in the Tyber,7 diseased slaves, whose cure was like to become tedious. The Emperor Claudius,8 by an edict, gave freedom to such of them as should recover, and "rst declared, that if any person chose to kill rather than to expose them, it should be deemed hom i cide. 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,9 who, in the presence of Augustus, would have given a slave as food to his "sh, 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 him 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 mas- ter’s children. Epictetus, Terence, and Phædrus,1 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 ver- ify the conjecture, that nature has been less bountiful to them in the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, in whose favour no laws of property exist, prob- ably feels himself less bound to res pect those made in favour 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 prob lem 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 justi"ably take a little from one, who has taken all from him, as he may slay one who would slay him? That a change in the relations in which a man is placed should change his ideas of moral right and wrong, is neither new, nor peculiar to the colour of the blacks. Homer tells us it was so 2600 years ago.

7 1 6 | T H O M A S J E F F E R S O N

2. I.e., book 17, line 323 of the Odyssey, by the ancient Greek epic poet Homer. The Greek quotation is followed by Alexander Pope’s translation (1726).

’Ημισυ, γαζ τ’ dρ∈τdς dποαAνυళαι ∈DρAθπα Ζ∈Bز. ’Αν∈ροز, ∈υτ’ gν μιν κατb δaλιον nμαζ Fλησιν.

Od. 17. 323.2

Jove "x’d it certain, that what ever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.

But the slaves of which Homer speaks were whites. Notwithstanding these considerations which must weaken their res pect for the laws of property, we "nd among them numerous instances of the most rigid integrity, and as many as among their better instructed masters, of benevolence, gratitude, and unshaken "delity.— The opinion, that they are inferior in the faculties of rea- son and imagination, must be hazarded with great dif"dence. To justify a general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the subject may be submitted to the Anatomical knife, to Optical glasses, to analy sis by "re, or by solvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a sub- stance, we are examining; where it eludes the research of all the senses; where the conditions of its existence are vari ous and variously combined; where the effects of those which are pres ent or absent bid de"ance to cal- culation; let me add 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 of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as subjects of natu ral 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 dif fer ent spe- cies of the same genus, or va ri e ties of the same species, may possess dif fer- ent quali"cations. Will not a lover of natu ral 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? This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of fac- ulty, is a power ful 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, embar- rassed by the question “What further is to be done with them?” join them- selves 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 staining 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.