Thomas Jefferson Quotes
The day is not distant when we must bear and adopt [the abolition of slavery], or worse will follow.
Jefferson, Thomas. "From Thomas Jefferson to William A. Burwell, 28 January 1805." The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 45, Princeton University Press, 2021, p. 382.
The first anti-slavery newspaper published in the United States & the first journal in America to advocate immediate, unconditional emancipation
This prophecy written in the later years of Jefferson’s life turned out to be all too true. St. Domingo was an Island in the Caribbean where slavery produced a bloody war. The American Civil War would be far worse.
Under the pre-Civil War Southern economic system the poor whites had little chance of upward mobility and were in many wars as poorly off as slaves. Johnson saw this reform as much more important than the emancipation of the Negro.
Though Leo XIII was very much opposed to slavery, his claim that the Catholic Church “from the beginning” sought to end slavery overlooks the inconsistent reality of several of his predecessors’ teachings. For an example of this inconsistency one may find a relevant example as late as the 19th century, see the teachings of Gregory XVI {611428}, Pius IX {612304}, and Leo XIII {611844}
The issue of slavery which had been suppressed in Congress for the first decades of the nation broke out when Missouri statehood was considered. By previous agreement, slavery was not even discussed in Congress but the time period elapsed. Tallmadge not only proposed that no more slaves could come into Missouri {613176} but most shocking to the Southerners was that every person born in the new state would be free at the age of 25. In a generation, there would be no more slavery in Missouri and there would be no economic compensation for slave owners at all. The House of Representatives accepted the amendment, but it failed in the Senate. At that time, Senators were not elected by voters but were appointed by the state legislators and the Southern slave states had a disproportionate share of the senate from a population point of view. But what this quotation shows clearly that a majority of the country in 1819 were opposed to slavery and were willing to end it without compensation.
Fitzhugh was a Southern iconoclast whose view of Northern labor was much like that of Karl Marx but who was an enthusiastic supporter of slavery. Fitzhugh was of the opinion that slavery would be reinstated in the North and his treatise agues for that. More and more intellectual opinion was coming to the conclusion that slavery must be abolished or made universal before Lincoln’s famous statement in his debate against Douglas. Although Northerners and Southerners had come to agree on this point, they disagreed about which alternative would and should prevail.
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.
