Thomas Jefferson was a political contradiction. In the political arena, Jefferson publicly opposed slavery, labeling it a moral depravity. Legislation continued to be written in the hope it would lead to the abolition of slavery. The importation of slaves in Virginia was banned after Jefferson drafted a bill to prohibit it. In 1784, he proposed federal legislation to Congress, blocking slavery from expanding into the newly acquired western territories. It failed by one vote. Jefferson further expressed his abolitionist sentiments in a letter written to Edward Rutledge. He writes,
I congratulate you, my dear friend, on the law of your state for suspending the importation of slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to prevent it for ever. This abomination must have an end, and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it.
Despite his abolitionist leanings, Jefferson did not practice what he claimed to believe in. He inherited two sizable plantations and over a hundred slaves. As one of the wealthiest planters in Virginia, Jefferson became dependent on slave labor to pay off his debts. Slaves were not viewed as individuals, but as a commodity. During his life, only two slaves were formally freed while more than six hundred were held in bondage.
Jefferson wrote about gradual emancipation, but did not support any bills presented to him. In many of his writings, he notes that Africans were inferior to the white race and would not be able to support themselves without proper training. He further argued the United States would fracture if abolition was forced upon the states without a democratic system in place.
Overall, Jefferson was a complex man who exploited slaves to his own end. After being elected President, his political agenda on slavery came to an end as he focused on more pressing issues. Jefferson expounded on freedom and liberty in the Declaration of Independence, but it appears those sentiments were for white citizens.
Publicly, Thomas Jefferson characterized slavery as a moral evil. He famously wrote, in Notes on the State of Virginia, that when he considered the evil of slavery he could only "tremble for [his] country" in the face of a just God. He also included a passage in his draft of the Declaration of Independence condemning the slave trade and blaming slavery in general on the Crown. This passage was omitted, but it is a fairly clear statement of his moral views on slavery, at least at the time of the Revolution. Later in his life, Jefferson would continue to characterize slavery as an evil that was impossible to bring to an end, comparing Virginia's relationship to the institution to holding a "wolf by the ears."
At the same time, Jefferson was, of course, a slaveholder, owning hundreds of people at Monticello. He depended on their labor and owed his status to it. Historians now know that he fathered multiple children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who spent most of her life with him. He also held views on race that were typical of his time; i.e., he believed that African-Americans were inferior to whites. He ordered slaves whipped, from time to time separated families by sale, and never seriously contemplated freeing his slaves. He privately opposed the compromise measures that would have restrained the expansion of slavery in the nineteenth century, though he did so because he hoped that the spread of slavery might lead to emancipation.
Overall, Jefferson lived and died a large-scale slaveowner, whatever his private moral objections to slavery. After he became President, he never took a public stand on the institution at all, but it seems clear that most of his sweeping statements about liberty were highly racialized and applicable to whites only.
https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/jefferson/jefferson.html
https://www.monticello.org/slavery-at-monticello/liberty-slavery
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