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This selection of texts is from Notes on the State of Virginia (Boston, 1 pages 144-151, 169-171). It has often been quoted because of the eloquent appeal to end slavery as degrading to the Southern family and endangering the liberty of all.
Jefferson was one of the remarkable group of Virginia liberal slaveholders who hoped to free the slaves and colonize them in Africa. In Notes on Virginia, first published in 1782 shortly after his term of office as governor, Jefferson explained his legislative program for the emancipation of all -slaves born after the passage of his law, providing for education at public expense "according to their geniuses," and thereafter to be colonized in a distant area under the protection of this country.
His arguments against permanently absorbing the Negroes into the general population emphasizes "Deep-rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real distinctions nature has made . .
Jefferson's Notes makes it clear that he shared the contemporary beliefs about the biological dangers of race mixture, the innate cultural differences, and the impression of undesirable physical characteristics. However, like William Byrd II, the enlightened planter of early eighteenth century Virginia, he believed that present environmental factors might, to some extent at least, account for the limited achievements of the Negro. Moreover, Jefferson urged caution and scientific investigation before anyone reached final conclusions on racial potentialities.
Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison were especially convinced that manumission without colonization meant race war after the Gabriel Prosser insurrection of 1800 near Richmond in which Gabriel had organized 1100 slaves for an attack in emulation of the current Haitian massacre of planters. The Virginian leaders thereupon turned to the organization of the American Colonization Society, which took form in 1816.