Thomas Jefferson Quotes
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people [blacks] are to be free; nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government.
Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, 3rd President of the United States (Democratic Republican, VA), Autobiography
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The first sentence is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC. The last two sentences are rarely quoted.
This quotation is very interesting historically. Despite the fact that Washington DC was a thoroughly racially segregated city, and the Southern racists controlled much of Congress, Blacks as well as whites were welcome in the Congressional galleries, and they attended many debates. Slavery and equality were not just debated in the 1850s but the issue was in constant friction from the earliest Congress.
One of the most amazing things about Abraham Lincoln is the way he grew and matured over time. In 1854 he was not sure that the Negro could be the equal of the white. As he met more Black leaders, saw more, reflected more, and had more responsibility, he grew and developed his views on race. But it was statements like this that led to the great distrust that the very strong abolitionists like Wendell Phillips had in him.
Earlier {629154} Smith was much more sympathetic with slavery. His views evolved as you can see by the comparison. He stated that he had a vision and made two prophesies {629156} that indeed came true. The last idea of slave buyouts seemed plausible to many abolitionists initially when they were not really knowledgeable about the economics of slavery. However, once they studied it, it became clear what it would not work even if the Southerners would then be willing to accept Blacks as free laborers which most were not, The two biggest problems were: 1) the international slave trade had been abolished. The only source of new slaves for growth was breeding them. Therefore, having slaves had TWO economic values—the work that they could do and the reproduction of themselves. A critical mass of owned slaves produced an income forever. And for Southerners who were culturally adverse to work (see {629169}), just having cash for their slaves was not enough. They were the servants, the farm labor, and their recreational sex. 2) and most important, the value or the slaves of the South was greater than the economic value of all the land, all the farms, all the buildings, all the factories, and all the inventory of the stores of the South all put together. The Southern slaves were the majority of the wealth of the south. There was no asset that could ever produce enough value to pay for the slaves—even over time. It would be like trying to buy all the shares of all the corporations in America today. There is no asset big enough to raise the money to ever finance it. The idea may have worked in Colonial America or even prior to the outlaw of the international slave trade, but by the time anyone took the idea seriously it was economically no longer feasible.
As enlightened and progressive that his views on Blacks were, he was amazingly racist when it came to Native Americans. See {588991}.
Jefferson was an enigma with respect to slavery. Whereas he always abhorred it in his writings, and argued for an end to slavery, he maintained slaves himself and never did free them, unlike Washington, who spoke on the subject much less, but left orders in his will that all slaves were to be set free.
This quotation’s authenticity and accuracy are challenged by many scholars. The only source is the personal reminiscences of General Butler, a politician with Presidential aspirations who had his own agenda. The nuance of wording is very critical as to whether Lincoln was trying to accomplish export or whether he was asking Butler to staff out the feasibility so that Lincoln could deal with others who had raised the issue. Butler’s reply was that it was not feasible ({633655}), and there is no other record of the idea being advocated or implemented. The quotation, if indeed it was a quotations, is taken by some to indicate that Lincoln was no friend of Blacks and very racist to boot.
The editor at the time was Dr. William H. Boyle but no one is sure whether he, the owner, or someone else, wrote the editorial. The quotation illustrated a fascinating twist of logic that was very commonly held at the time. “If God created men of different colors, he must have meant them to be separate.” It is fascinating that virtually no one at the time made a similar argument about hair or eye color, intellect or other differential traits of people. Although this logical fallacy waned in the latter part of the 20th century, there are some who still hold to it.
Jessie Helms was his young assistant who drafted this race baiting ad. There are two vicious but subtle aspects to this kind of attach ads. First, not that the ad does not address the problem of white men working along side of blacks. It only refers to wives and daughter. This interracial sex innuendo played on and increased the fear of whites that Blacks would commonly rape white women. The second nasty aspect of the ad is the specific attack on the opponent. Instead of saying that he favored desegregation, the phrase “mingling of the races” was used which implied that Graham was in favor of biracial intermarriage and children—again another sex innuendo. When integration of the workforce finally occurred in the South, there was no increase in Black men sexually assaulting white women. There has been a substantial increase in racial intermarriage however as racial bigotry has diminished in America.
The reason for secession was the threat to slavery, which was a great threat to the slave-owners of the South. However, the non slave-owners had a very strong vested interest in maintaining slavery in that most Southerners had been brought up with such a negative view of Blacks that they were paranoid of Black equality or even worse some Blacks in positions of authority over whites. At the time, it was the Republican Party that was the advocate for minority equality and the Democratic Party embraced the racists. The parties would flip flop after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ending legal segregation was passed by a Democratic President and a Democratic Majority Congress.
Referring to Montgomery Alabama in 1950.
The Boers were generally furious because the British emancipated the Blacks that the Boers were holding as slaves. This hurt their economic interests. But according to this woman in the middle of it all, the worst of it was the insult of giving the Blacks political and functional equality. This was really very similar to most American Southern racist feeling during Reconstruction. Racism is very pernicious, in that the remedies always bring about insult and anger because the belief structure of slavery and discrimination must be based in a theory of inferiority.
Lincoln, just before the Civil War, quoted Jefferson that if slavery were not ended in America the results would be disastrous. But Lincoln at the time probably did not imagine how right Jefferson was, and Jefferson himself probably 1 how terrible the Civil War would be.
Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He had previously served as the second vice president of the United States under John Adams between 1797 and 1801. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national levels.
