The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
SLAVERY / OF AFRICANS COMPARED TO BRITISH SEAMEN
...And has not the British seaman, as much as the African, been
reduced to this bondage by force, in flagrant violation of his own
consent, and of his natural right in his own person? and with the
laborers of England generally, does not the moral coercion of want
subject their will as despotically to that of their employer, as the
physical constraint does the soldier, the seaman, or the slave?
But do not mistake me. I am not advocating slavery. I am not
justifying the wrongs we have committed on a foreign people by the
example of another nation committing equal wrongs on their own
subjects. On the contrary, there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a
practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and
political depravity. But I am at present comparing the condition and
degree of suffering to which oppression has reduced the man of one
color, with the condition and degree of suffering to which oppression
has reduced the man of another color; equally condemning both.
to Thomas Cooper (Doctor), 10 September 1814
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