![]() He thought that white Americans and enslaved blacks constituted two “separate nations” who could not live together peacefully in the same country. Jefferson’s belief in the necessity of abolition was intertwined with his racial beliefs. Pro-slavery advocates after Jefferson’s death argued that if slavery could be “improved,” abolition was unnecessary. 13 The unintended effect of Jefferson’s plan was that his goal of “improving” slavery as a step towards ending it was used as an argument for its perpetuation. 12 Like others of his day, he supported the removal of newly freed slaves from the United States. 11 Third, all born into slavery after a certain date would be declared free, followed by total abolition. 10 Second, slaveowners would “improve” slavery’s most violent features, by bettering (Jefferson used the term “ameliorating”) living conditions and moderating physical punishment. First, the transatlantic slave trade would be abolished. From the mid-1770s until his death, he advocated the same plan of gradual emancipation. Jefferson’s belief in the necessity of ending slavery never changed. 9 But by the 1800s, Virginia’s most valuable commodity and export was neither crops nor land, but slaves. In an attempt to erode Virginians’ support for slavery, he discouraged the cultivation of crops heavily dependent on slave labor-specifically tobacco-and encouraged the introduction of crops that needed little or no slave labor-wheat, sugar maples, short-grained rice, olive trees, and wine grapes. Instead, slavery became more widespread and profitable. Jefferson had assumed that the abolition of the slave trade would weaken slavery and hasten its end. ![]() The slave population in Virginia skyrocketed from 292,627 in 1790 to 469,757 in 1830. 8Īlthough Jefferson continued to advocate for abolition, the reality was that slavery was becoming more entrenched. To Jefferson, it was anti-democratic and contrary to the principles of the American Revolution for the federal government to enact abolition or for only a few planters to free their slaves. 7 But Jefferson always maintained that the decision to emancipate slaves would have to be part of a democratic process abolition would be stymied until slaveowners consented to free their human property together in a large-scale act of emancipation. 6 In 1784, he proposed an ordinance that would ban slavery in the Northwest territories. 5 In 1778, he drafted a Virginia law that prohibited the importation of enslaved Africans. More on this topic in Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty »Īt the time of the American Revolution, Jefferson was actively involved in legislation that he hoped would result in slavery’s abolition.Browse a selection of Jefferson quotes about Race and Slavery ».4 These views were radical in a world where unfree labor was the norm. 3 Jefferson also thought that slavery was contrary to the laws of nature, which decreed that everyone had a right to personal liberty. ![]() ![]() Calling it a “moral depravity” 1 and a “hideous blot,” 2 he believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of the new American nation. Throughout his entire life, Thomas Jefferson was publicly a consistent opponent of slavery. Although he made some legislative attempts against slavery and at times bemoaned its existence, he also profited directly from the institution of slavery and wrote that he suspected black people to be inferior to white people in his Notes on the State of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” and yet enslaved more than six-hundred people over the course of his life.
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