Thoughts on Slavery.
Philadelphia (presumed): circa 1822. First edition. Pamphlet. This exceptionally rare 1822 pamphlet publishes extracts from Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and from letters and reports of the African Institution, an abolitionist and antislavery group in Britain during the early nineteenth century. Though the document lists no publisher, author, or date, its publication is dated to 1822 in Philadelphia. The pamphlet is 23 pages in length, in string-bound paper wraps measuring 7.75 x 4.75 inches.
The word “rare” seems no exaggeration; we located only two institutional copies – in the Boston Athenaeum and the Library Company of Philadelphia. An RBH search showed no copies recorded as offered for sale.
This improbable survivor is intact, including the original binding string, and nearly complete, with only fractional loss to the untrimmed edges of the blank rear cover’s fore edge. Nonetheless, the copy shows its age and fragility, toned and significantly spotted throughout with water staining to the upper front cover, affecting to a progressively lesser degree the first several leaves. The pamphlet is protected within a clear, removable, rigid mylar sleeve.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
These words, from the American Declaration of Independence, whose primary authorship is commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson, are perennially difficult to reconcile with the fact that Jefferson enslaved more than six hundred people over the course of his life, and ultimately the only enslaved family unit he freed was the one he had fathered.
America’s third president, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was “publicly a consistent opponent of slavery” and “believed that slavery presented the greatest threat to the survival of the new American nation… At the time of the American Revolution, Jefferson was actively involved in legislation that he hoped would result in slavery’s abolition.”
But this did not mean Jefferson believed in either racial equality or prospective cohabitation in a truly free America. Rather “Jefferson’s belief that blacks were… ‘as incapable as children,’ coupled with slaves’ presumed resentment of their former owners, made their removal from the United States an integral part of Jefferson’s emancipation scheme.”
Slavery was only one among many of Jefferson’s great contradictions. Ultimately, the ardently anti-federalist Jefferson nonetheless served twice as president of the new American republic, doing much to consolidate and stabilize its federal authority. Volubly anti-imperialist, Jefferson nonetheless doubled the physical territory of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson supported the first ten amendments to the Constitution – known as the Bill of Rights – in order to guarantee personal liberties, even as he persisted in owning, and fathering, slaves. Jefferson’s notions about “ameliorating” the living conditions of slaves ultimately further entrenched the institution; “The unintended effect of Jefferson’s plan was that his goal of ‘improving’ slavery as a step toward ending it was used as an argument for its perpetuation. Pro-slavery advocates after Jefferson’s death argued that if slavery could be ‘improved,’ abolition was unnecessary.”
“To emancipate slaves on American soil, Jefferson thought, would result in a large-scale race war that would be as brutal and deadly as the slave revolt in Haiti in 1791. But he also believed that to keep slaves in bondage, with part of America in favor of abolition and part of America in favor of perpetuating slavery, could only result in a civil war that would destroy the union.” In this prediction, Jefferson proved nearly correct. He perhaps proved less nearly adherent to his professed values with regard to the inalienable rights of men.
References: Sabin; OCLC; Monticello. Item #008485
Price: $3,500.00