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Jefferson's Antislavery Actions
"You know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition not only of the trade but of the condition of slavery; and certainly nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that object."
-- Thomas Jefferson to Brissot de Warville, February 11, 1788
Early in his public life, Jefferson was one of the first statesmen anywhere to take action to end slavery. In 1778, he introduced a Virginia law prohibiting the importation of enslaved Africans. In 1784, he proposed a ban on slavery in the Northwest Territory, new lands ceded by the British in 1783. In Notes on the State of Virginia, published in 1785, he proposed a plan of gradual emancipation. After 1785, as tensions over slavery grew, he continued to believe in the injustice of slavery but remained publicly silent. |