The course of things in the neighboring islands of the West Indies appears to have given a considerable impulse to the minds of the slaves in different parts of the US. a great disposition to insurgency has manifested itself among them, which, in one instance, in the state of Virginia broke out...
I have long since given up the expectation of any early provision for getting in the extinguishment of slavery among us. there are many virtuous men who would make any sacrifices to effect it. many equally virtuous who persuade themselves either that the thing is not wrong, or that it cannot be...
I recieved last night a letter from mr Thomas Brannagan ... the cause in which he embarks is so holy, the sentiments he expresses in his letter so friendly that it is highly painful to me to hesitate on a compliance which appears so small. but that is not it’s true character, and it would be...
I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United states from all further participation in those violations of human rights, which have been so long continued on the unoffending...
the retort, on European Censors, of their own practices on the liberties of man, the inculcation on the master of the moral duties which he owes to the slave, in return for the benefits of his service, that is to say, of food, cloathing, care in sickness, & maintenance under age &...
Your position that a small farm, well worked and well manned, will produce more than a larger one ill-tended, is undoubtedly true in a certain degree. there are extremes in this as in all other cases. the true medium may really be considered and stated as a Mathematical problem. ‘Given the...
I am glad to learn that you are shewing us the way to supply ourselves with some of the most necessary tropical productions, and that the bette-rave, which we can all raise, promises to supplant the cane particularly, and to silence the demand for the inhuman species of labour employed in it’s...
mine on the subject of the slavery of negroes have long since been in possession of the public, and time has only served to give them stronger root. the love of justice & the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a mortal reproach to us that they should have...
I have seen no proposition so expedient on the whole, as that of emancipation of those [slaves] born after a given day, and of their education and expatriation at a proper age.
my opinion has ever been that, until more can be done for them, we should endeavor, with those whom fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed & clothe them well, protect them from ill usage, require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by freemen, and be led by no...
there is nothing I desire so much as that all the young people in the estate should intermarry with one another and stay at home. they are worth a great deal more in that case than when they have husbands and wives abroad.
I concur entirely in your leading principles of gradual emancipation, of establishment on the coast of Africa, and the patronage of our nation until the emigrants shall be able to protect themselves.
We are about to establish a College near Charlottesville on the lands formerly Colo Monroe’s, a mile above the town. we do not propose to erect a single grand building, but to form a square of perhaps 200 yards, and to arrange around that pavilions of about 24. by 36.f. one for every...
now what we wish is that these pavilions as they will shew themselves above the dormitories, shall be models of taste & good architecture, & of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the Architectural Lectures.
the mortality among our negroes is still more serious as involving moral as well as interested considerations. I have had n they are well fed, and well clothed, & I have had no reason to believe that any overseer, since Griffin’s time, has over worked them. accordingly the deaths among the...
I am very happy in being able, at last, to congratulate you on the success of the Bill for the establishment of an University at the Central college. It was carried, on yesterday, by in the House of Delegates by the overwhelming & unexpected majority of 141 to 28 ... Among the many sources of...
the banks, bankrupt law, manufactures, Spanish treaty are nothing. these are occurrences which like waves in a storm will pass under the ship. but the Missouri question is a breaker on which we lose the Missouri country by revolt, & what more, God only knows. from the battle of Bunker’s hill...
if our legislature does not heartily push our University we must send our children for education to Kentucky or Cambridge. the latter will return them to us fanatics & tories, the former will keep them to add to their population if however we are to go a begging any where for our education, I...
all the states but our own are sensible that knolege is power. the Missouri question is for power. the efforts now generally making thro’ the states to advance their science is for power, while we are sinking into the barbarism of our Indian aborigines, and expect like them to oppose by ignorance...
I thank you for your information on the progress & prospects of the Missouri question. it is the most portentous one which ever yet threatened our Union. in the gloomiest moment of the revolutionary war I never had any apprehensions equal to what I feel from this source.
this Missouri question by a geographical line of division is the most portentous one I have ever contemplated. King is ready to risk the union for any chance of restoring his party to power and wriggling himself to the head of it. nor is Clinton without his hopes nor scrupulous as to the means of...
Altho’ I had laid down, as a law to myself, never to write, talk, or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs & therefore had ceased to read newspapers. yet the Missouri question arroused and filled me with alarm. the old schism of federal & republican, threatened nothing...