The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
SLAVERY / ENDING THE PRACTICE
The concern you therein express as to the effect of your pamphlet in
America, induces me to trouble you with some observations on that
subject.
From my acquaintance with that country, I think I am able to judge,
with some degree of certainty, of the manner in which it will have
been received. Southward of the Chesapeake, it 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.
to Dr. Price, 7 August 1785
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