Thomas Jefferson's Views On Slavery

“We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is on one scale, and self-preservation the other.” Perhaps no better quote than this exemplifies the conundrum of slavery that Thomas Jefferson was plagued with throughout his political career. Jefferson was a founding father, a scientist, a politician, an author, and among many other things, a slave owner. Of all that is known about Thomas Jefferson, his true views on slavery and his motives for such views are still subjects of debate for many historians. The truly massive amounts of contradiction within Jefferson’s own writings and behavior places a thick veil over what his personal beliefs on slavery were. The historian William Cohen attempted to sum
More importantly, research done by the historian Annette Gordon Reed and subsequent DNA testing has led to the accepted fact: Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, had at least one child out of wedlock. The two’s romantic relationship and Jefferson’s interactions with all of his slaves played a large part in his stance on slavery. In contrast, Jefferson was very much a citizen of the south, and his peers were not near as liberal with their slaves as Jefferson was. In multiple letters, Jefferson expressed a patriarchal view of slavery that many southerners held at the time. It is very likely that Jefferson’s belief in black inferiority came from the ideals of the society he lived in, and was later cemented into his core beliefs by commonly read pseudoscience about race that was present during his life (Cohen 513). Thomas Jefferson was sympathetic toward slaves due to his own interactions with them, but was equally pragmatic about slavery and undeniably a racist by product of his
The lack of public resistance to his statements criticising slavery likely came from the fact that Thomas Jefferson is not attributed to any public or private works calling for an immediate end to slavery. His statements against slavery were thought to be no different than beliefs plantation shared with one another behind closed doors (O’Brian). Because of their interpretation of Jefferson’s public statements on slavery, it is likely that southerners also believed that Jefferson shared an equal indifference toward the institution as they did. Being born and raised in a society where slavery was commonplace, we ought not burden Jefferson with the responsibility of ending slavery as he had no access to credible information that could give him a moral imperative to do so. As the man can make the times, so can the times make the