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in what letters or document did jefferson speak for or against blacks? or about the amalgamtion of them?

2007-12-16 06:25:42 · 2 answers · asked by T 1 in Arts & Humanities History

2 answers

During his long career in public office, Jefferson attempted numerous times to abolish or limit the advance of slavery. In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson condemned the British crown for sponsoring the importation of slavery to the colonies, charging that the crown "has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere." However, this language was dropped from the Declaration at the request of delegates from South Carolina and Georgia.
In 1781, Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, wrote that blacks were decidedly inferior to whites, but that offspring would benefit from being mixed with whites. A first generation coupling, Jefferson thought, would be bad for the white but good for the black: "The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by everyone." From that point on, everything depended on which way the next offspring mated. Thirty years later--in 1814-- he wrote: "The amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent."

2007-12-16 06:40:30 · answer #1 · answered by Von 3 · 0 0

Thomas Jefferson
Slavery and racism
Encyclopædia Britannica Article

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Slavery and racism

Even before his departure from France, Jefferson had overseen the publication of Notes on the State of Virginia. This book, the only one Jefferson ever published, was part travel guide, part scientific treatise, and part philosophical meditation. Jefferson had written it in the fall of 1781 and had agreed to a French edition only after learning that an unauthorized version was already in press. Notes contained an extensive discussion of slavery, including a graphic description of its horrific effects on both blacks and whites, a strong assertion that it violated the principles on which the American Revolution was based, and an apocalyptic prediction that failure to end slavery would lead to “convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race.” It also contained the most explicit assessment that Jefferson ever wrote of what he believed were the biological differences between blacks and whites, an assessment that exposed the deep-rooted racism that he, like most Americans and almost all Virginians of his day, harboured throughout his life.

2007-12-16 06:35:43 · answer #2 · answered by Loren S 7 · 0 0

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