| Episodes |
1) Such was the political creed of Jefferson. It is the creed of democracy; and he espoused it with a warm, an active, almost a fanatic zeal. The perfect political equality of all men; the absolute right of every man to be guided by his own pleasure and judgment, so long as he transgresses no law, and his equal claim to a fair participation in the enactment and repeal of every law; these were the very fundamental principles of this political system. Yet Jefferson remained all his life the tyrant of a plantation, in the enforcement of an usurped authority, either personally, or by his delegate, which he himself describes, as "a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, --the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other."
Richard Hildreth, Despotism 15-16
2) Currer was a bright mulatto, and of prepossessing appearance, though then nearly forty years of age. She had hired her time for more than twenty years, during which time she had lived in Richmond. In her younger days Currer had been the housekeeper of a young slaveholder; but of later years had been a laundress or washerwoman, and was considered to be a woman of great taste in getting up linen. The gentleman for whom she had kept house was Thomas Jefferson, by whom she had two daughters. Jefferson being called to Washington to fill a government appointment, Currer was left behind, and thus she took herself to the business of washing, by which means she paid her master, Mr. Graves, and supported herself and two children. At the time of the decease of her master, Currer's daughters, Clotel and Althesa, were aged respectively sixteen and fourteen years, and both, like most of their own sex in America, were well grown. Currer early resolved to bring her daughters up as ladies, as she termed it, and therefore imposed little or no work upon them.
William Wells Brown, Clotel 60
3) Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty.
David Walker
4) It is well known that Jefferson contradicted his philosophy of negro hate by seeking the dalliance of black women as often as he could and by leaving so many descendants of mixed blood, that they are to be found as widely scattered as his own writings throughout the world. One at least, a grand daughter, is a shouting Methodist, in Liberia.
Communipaw
5) As to our author's remarks, indeed, upon the comparative beauty of the two races, I must certainly agree with him in taste, (tho' I own I was a little surprised at his decision after the stories I have heard of him.) I will never give up the lilies, and roses, and blushes of the whites, for the dull mask of the blacks. Nor shall I very readily consent to exchange our flowing hair for their woolly heads.
George Tucker 75
6) Had Clotel escaped from oppression in any other land . . . and reached the United States, no honour within the gift of the American people would have been too good to have been heaped upon the heroic woman. But she was a slave, and therefore out of the pale of their sympathy. They have tears to shed over Greece and Poland; they have an abundance of sympathy for "poor Ireland" they can furnish a ship of war to convey the Hungarian refugees from a Turkish prison to the "land of the free and the home of the brave." They boast that America is the "cradle of liberty"; if it is, I fear they have rocked the child to death.
William Wells Brown, Clotel 220
7) Slavery subverts justice, promotes the welfare of the few to the manifest injury of the many, and robs thousands of the posterity of our forefathers of the blessings of liberty. This cannot be denied, for Paxton, a Virginia slaveholder, says, "the best blood in Virginia flows in the veins of slaves!" Yes, even the blood of a Jefferson. And every southerner knows, that it is a common thing for the posterity of our forefathers to be sold on the vendue tables of the South. The posterity of our forefathers are advertised in American papers as runaway slaves. Such advertisements often contain expressions like these: "has sometimes passed himself off as a white man,"--"has been mistaken for a white man,"-- "quite white, has straight hair, and would not readily be taken for a slave," &c.
Angelina Grimke 10
8) See your Declaration Americans!!! Do you understand your own language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776 -- "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!!" Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us -- men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation!!!!!!
David Walker
9) It has been credibly reported, over the signatures of respectable citizens, that a reputed daughter of Thomas Jefferson has been seen exposed for sale at auction in New Orleans, as a slave. The known usages of slavery in America are such as to render the statement a highly probable one. It is also said that a grand-daughter of Mr. Jefferson is among the colonists of Liberia. The statement, along with the following, is from a communication in "Frederick Douglass' paper" for March 25,1852: "I have heard from an eye witness, that on more than one occasion, when the sage of Monticello left that retreat for the Presidential abode at Washington, there would be on the top of the same coach a yellow boy ' running away.' And when told that one of his slaves was going off without leave, Jefferson said, ' Well, let him go, his right is as good as his father's!' And, somehow, that boy would get a doceur before the 'parting of the ways.'"
William Goodell 142
10) This is a bold and deliberate forgery, whether originating with the Chicago Times and Herald or the Macomb Eagle. Mr. Lincoln never used any such language in any speech at any time. Throughout the whole of his political life, Mr. Lincoln has ever spoken of Mr. Jefferson in the most kindly and respectful manner, holding him up as one of the ablest statesmen of his own or any other age, and constantly referring to him as one of the greatest apostles of freedom and free labor. This is so well known that any attempt, by means of fraud or forgery, to create the contrary impression, can only react upon the desperate politicians who are parties to such disreputable tactics.
Abraham Lincoln
11) Gladly, Mr. Editor, would I draw the mantle of oblivion over a transaction disclosing so dark a spot on the moral escutcheon of the man, whose names stands enrolled so high on the archives of our proud republic, did I not believe, that like the faithful delineations on our sacred pages, of the sin of David, and other eminently great men, it should descend on record, as a solemn beacon, not only to excite disgust and warning against the crime, but also to awaken the lovers of our country, of morality, humanity, and religion, to see the natural results connected with the ‘practical operations' of slavery.
Dr. Levi Gaylord
12) The world knows, that slavery as it existed was, mans, (which was the primary cause of their destruction) was, comparatively speaking, no more than a cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans. Indeed I should not have noticed the Roman slaves, had not the very learned and penetrating Mr. Jefferson said, "when a master was murdered, all his slaves in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death." -- Here let me ask Mr. Jefferson, (but he is gone to answer at the bar of God, for the deeds done in his body while living,) I therefore ask the whole American people, had I not rather die, or be put to death, than to be a slave to any tyrant, who takes not only my own, but my wife and children's lives by the inches? Yea, would I meet death with avidity far! far!! in preference to such servile submission to the murderous hands of tyrants. Mr. Jefferson's very severe remarks on us have been so extensively argued upon by men whose attainments in literature, I shall never be able to reach, that I would not have meddled with it, were it not to solicit each of my brethren, who has the spirit of a man, to buy a copy of Mr. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," and put it in the hand of his son.
David Walker
13) We are told of the wisdom and goodness of our ancestors. I know they were slaveholders. This one fact is enough for me. Slaveholder! What is a slaveholder? I wish I could portray him. He would not be a man driven by poverty, distress, or passion, to rob and murder his victim. But he would be a cold, hard, obdurate man, who had read his Bible and prayed, and then reached his long, bony fingers into the cradle, and take an object newly stamped with the image of its God, and sell it as a chattel! And he could then take the mother of that blessed little being--fit to have her name written on the Lamb's Book of Life--and inflict upon her the severest cruelties. Talk to me of the love of liberty of your Washingtons, Jeffersons, Henrys. They were strangers to any just idea of Liberty! He who does not love Justice and Liberty for all, does not love Liberty and justice. They wrote of Liberty in the Declaration of Independence with one hand, and with the other clutched their brother by the throat! These are the men who formed the union! I cannot enter into it. Give me NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS! I wish to dissolve the union of these States, and to do it in a direct way.
Frederick Douglas 223
14) After a fierce contest between the bidders, the young ladies were sold, one for 2,300 dollars, and the other for 3,000 dollars. We need not add that had those young girls been sold for mere house servants or field hands, they would not have brought one half the sums they did. The fact that they were the grand-daughters of Thomas Jefferson, no doubt, increased their value in the market. Here were two of the softer sex, accustomed to the fondest indulgence, surrounded by all the refinements of life, and with all the timidity that such a life could produce, bartered away like cattle in Smithfield market. Ellen, the eldest, was sold to an old gentleman, who purchased her, as he said, for a housekeeper. The girl was taken to his residence, nine miles from the city. She soon, however, knew for what purpose she had been bought; and an educated and cultivated mind and taste, which made her see and understand how great was her degradation, now armed her hand with the ready means of death. The morning after her arrival, she was found in her chamber, a corpse. She had taken poison.
WillIam Wells Brown, Clotel 206
15) Jefferson Injured in the Person of His Descendants--Notwithstanding all the services and sacrifices of Jefferson in the establishment of the freedom of this country, his own son, now living in Ohio, is not allowed a vote, or an oath in a court of justice!--Cleveland American.
The Liberator, "Jefferson Injured in the Person of His Descendants" 202
16) What a fact for the contemplation of this free republic!! And what a comment on our professions of love of liberty, and practice of slavery!!! The Daughter of the President of the United States, the boasted land of Freedom, sold into interminable bondage!!! Look at it, citizens of our free republic! Here is no violation of law--you have the natural, legalized, common working of the system.
Dr. Levi Gaylord
17) Can the blood that, at Lexington, poured o'er the plain, / When the sons warred with tyrants their rights to uphold, / Can the tide of Niagara wipe out the stain? / No! Jefferson's child has been bartered for gold! / Do you boast of your freedom? Peace, babblers--be still; / Prate not of the goddess who scarce deigns to hear; / Have ye power to unbind? Are ye wanting in will? / Must the groans of your bondman still torture the ear? / The daughter of Jefferson sold for a slave! / The child of a freeman for dollars and francs! / The roar of applause, when your orators rave, / Is lost in the sound of her chain, as it clanks. / Peace, then, ye blasphemers of Liberty's name! / Though red was the blood by your forefathers spilt, / Still redder your cheeks should be mantled with shame, / Till the spirit of freedom shall cancel the guilt. / But the brand of the slave is the tint of his skin, / Though his heart may beat loyal and true underneath; / While the soul of the tyrant is rotten within, / And his white the mere cloak to the blackness of death. / Are ye deaf to the plaints that each moment arise? / Is it thus ye forget the mild precepts of Penn,-- / Unheeding the clamor that "maddens the skies," / As ye trample the rights of your dark fellow-men? / When the incense that glows before Liberty's shrine, / Is unmixed with the blood of the galled and oppressed,-- / O, then, and then only, the boast may be thine, / That the stripes and stars wave o'er a land of the blest.
William Wells Brown, "Jefferson's Daughter"
18) To this latter feeling, noble and refined, and which lurks, however invisible, even in the hearts of a slave-holding aristocracy, Jefferson did not dare to appeal. He was content to act the humble and comparatively inconsiderable part of a champion for equality among the aristocrats; and laboring to forget that the unprivileged class---some of whom, to believe the voice of common report, were his own children, --had any greater capacities or rights than beasts of burden, he curtailed the expansive and universal clauses of his political creed, till the mantle of liberty which should have extended its protection to every citizen, embraced within its torn and mutilated folds only the privileged order.
Richard Hildreth, Despotism 18
19) Do the colonizationists think to send us off without first being reconciled to us? Do they think to bundle us up like brutes and send us off, as they did our brethren of the State of Ohio? Have they not to be reconciled to us, or reconcile us to them, for the cruelties with which they have afflicted our fathers and us? Methinks colonizationists think they have a set of brutes to deal with, sure enough. Do they think to drive us from our country and homes, after having enriched it with our blood and tears, and keep back millions of our dear brethren, sunk in the most barbarous wretchedness, to dig up gold and silver for them and their children? Surely, the Americans must think that we are brutes, as some of them have represented us to be. They think that we do not feel for our brethren, whom they are murdering by the inches, but they are dreadfully deceived.
David Walker
20) But the close resemblance between the father and child annoyed the mistress more than the mere whiteness of the child's complexion. Horatio made proposition after proposition to have the girl sent away, for every time he beheld her countenance it reminded him of the happy days he had spent with Clotel. But his wife had commenced, and determined to carry out her unfeeling and fiendish designs. This child was not only white, but she was the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, the man who, when speaking against slavery in the legislature of Virginia, said,
The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. With what execration should the statesman be loaded who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other! For if the slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another; in which be must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever; that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. . . . What an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives, whose power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose! But we must wait with patience the workings of an overruling Providence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of these our suffering brethren. When the measure of their tears shall be full--when their tears shall have involved heaven itself in darkness--doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to things of this world, and that they are not left to the guidance of blind fatality.
The same man, speaking of the probability that the slaves might some day attempt to gain their liberties by a revolution, said, "I tremble for my country, when I recollect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep for ever. The Almighty has no attribute that can take sides with us in such a struggle."
But, sad to say, Jefferson is not the only American statesman who has spoken high-sounding words in favour of freedom, and then left his own children to die slaves.
WillIam Wells Brown, Clotel 154-55
21) Their preference of the whites, (in their amours I suppose he [Jefferson] means, by his allusion to the obscene fable of the Oranootan,) can hardly be regarded as a concession of the point in our favour, as it may be very naturally ascribed to pride, and ambition to associate with superiors; for La Fontaine tells us, there is always a little grain of ambition in love. Nor is this supposed preference of theirs by any means universal, (whatever Mr. J's own experience may have been.) In Africa too, where artificial associations do not influence their natural notions in the same way, the blacks appear to discover no such partiality for the beauty of the whites.
George Tucker 75-76
22) Let us now consider his moral character. He had a good deal of moral courage, though this was somewhat limited by his sensitiveness to public opinion. He had not great physical courage, else the charge against him as Governor of Virginia could never have been made, and would have been more decisively, repelled. His natural delicacy of nature gave him quick intuitions and rapid perceptions of the Right. These induced him even to avoid the theatre, to hate drunkenness, though he was by no means an ascetic, and to shun tobacco, swearing, gaming, and all indecency. But I think the charge that he was father of some of his own slaves is but too well founded. There is no instance of his having been engaged in any duel. His faults were vices of calculation, and not of passion.
Theodore Parker, Historic 285
23) What words can tell the inhumanity, the atrocity, and the immorality of that doctrine which, from exalted office, commends such a crime to the favour of enlightened and Christian people? What indignation from all the world is not due to the government and people who put forth all their strength and power to keep in existence such an institution ? Nature abhors it; the age repels it; and Christianity needs all her meekness to forgive it. Clotel was sold for fifteen hundred dollars, but her purchaser was Horatio Green. Thus closed a negro sale, at which two daughters of Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of American Independence, and one of the presidents of the great republic, were disposed of to the highest bidder! "O God! my every heart-string cries, / Dost thou these scenes behold / In this our boasted Christian land, / And must the truth be told? / Blush, Christian, blush! for e'en the dark, / Untutored heathen see / Thy inconsistency ; and, lo! / They scorn thy God, and thee!"
William Wells Brown, Clotel 64
24) Thomas Jefferson, the author of the'" Declaration of Independence," made a clause to his last will, conferring freedom on his own slave offspring, as far as the Slave Code of Virginia permitted him to do it, supplying the lack of power by "humbly imploring the Legislature of Virginia to confirm the bequests with permission to remain in the state, where their families and connections are." Two of his daughters by an octoroon female slave were taken from Virginia to New Orleans, after Jefferson's death, and sold in the slave market at $1,500 each, to be used for unmentionable purposes. Both these unfortunate children of the author of the Declaration of Independence were quite white, their eyes blue and their hair long, soft, and auburn in color. Both were highly educated and accomplished. The youngest daughter escaped from her master and committed suicide by drowning herself to escape the horrors of her position. A land of liberty for white people, for slaveholders, was it, where Jefferson could not bequeath liberty to his own children? In Georgia, had he lived and died there, the "attempt" would have been an "offence" for which his estate would have been subjected to a fine of one thousand dollars, and each of his executors, if accepting the trust, a thousand more. In one of his letters Jefferson says, "when the measure of the slave's tears, is full, when their groans have involved heaven itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will listen to their distress."
Alexander Milton Ross 31-32
25) She clasped her hands convulsively, and raised them, as she at the same time raised her eyes towards heaven, and begged for that mercy and compassion there, which had been denied her on earth; and then, with a single bound, she vaulted over the railings of the bridge, and sunk for ever beneath the waves of the river! Thus dies Clotel, the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, a president of the United States; a man distinguished as the author of the Declaration of American Independence, and one of the first statesmen of that country.
William Wells Brown, Clotel 218
26) The authenticity of the above fact [the sale of Jefferson's daughter], rests on the sober testimony of a southern man, whose credibility is unquestioned, in the presence of some respectable merchants of our village, whose names can be given, if necessary; and as it may be highly important to the full development of a system, in which amalgamation, and an utter disregard to the claims of consanguinity and domestic ties, are perfectly commonplace, it is my deliberate opinion, that such astounding facts should be spread before the community, to awaken them to the repulsive workings of that system of wrongs and wretchedness, which has so long been the foulest blot on the fair fame of our republic.
Dr. Levi Gaylord
27) But at a time . . . when the church only opened her mouth to drown the voice of the fugitive crying to God for justice; when the state, which had had but one president who spoke against slavery, and he a man who sold the children of his own body, riveted the fetters still closer on the slave's limbs; at a time when the press of the South and the North, political or sectarian -- but always commercial, low, corrupt, and marketable -- said not one word for the millions of slaves whose chains the state made and the church christened; when no man in Congress either wished or dared to oppose slavery therein, and no petitions could get a hearing; when the governor even of Massachusetts could recommend to her legislature inquiries for preventing freedom of speech on that subject; at a time when the abolitionists were the only men that cared or dared to speak; at a time, too, when they were mobbed in the streets; when an assembly of women was broken up by "respectable" violence, and the authorities of the city dared not resist the mob; when a symbolical gallows was erected at night in front of the house of the leading abolitionist of America, " by the order of Judge Lynch," and a price of five thousand dollars set on his head by the governor of Georgia -- why, such criticism was at least a little out of season!
Theodore Parker, "Scholar" 156
28) But let us review Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us some further. Comparing our miserable fathers, with the learned philosophers of Greece, he says: "Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too, in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's children; Epictetus, Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves, -- but they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction." See this, my brethren!! Do you believe that this assertion is swallowed by millions of the whites? Do you know that Mr. Jefferson was one of as great characters as ever lived among the whites? See his writings for the world, and public labours for the United States of America. Do you believe that the assertions of such a man, will pass away into oblivion unobserved by this people and the world? If you do you are much mistaken -- See how the American people treat us -- have we souls in our bodies? Are we men who have any spirits at all? I know that there are many swell-bellied fellows among us, whose greatest object is to fill their stomachs. Such I do not mean -- I am after those who know and feel, that we are MEN, as well as other people; to them, I say, that unless we try to refute Mr. Jefferson's arguments respecting us, we will only establish them.
David Walker
29) Behind the papers, and almost part of them, is the figure of a black man, razeed to the knees, as if for the convenient handling of his literary peltry. Rain or shine, summer and winter, sure as Sunday morning comes, there stands that figure and the papers. . . . Our colored news vender kneels about four feet ten; black transparent skin, broad and swelling chest, whose symmetry proclaims Virginia birth, fine long hooked nose, evidently from the first families, wide loose mouth, sharpish face, clean cut hazel eyes, buried beneath luxuriantly folded lids, and prominent perceptive faculties. I did not ask time to pull off cloth cap with long greasy ears, lest his brow should prove him the incontestable descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Black Sal.
Communipaw
30) "Fifteen hundred dollars," cried the auctioneer, and the maiden [Clotel] was struck for that sum. This was a Southern auction, at which the bones, muscles, sinews, blood, and nerves of a young lady of sixteen were sold for five hundred dollars; her moral character for two hundred; her improved intellect for one hundred; her Christianity for three hundred; and her chastity and virtue for four hundred dollars more. And this, too, in a city thronged with churches, whose tall spires look like so many signals pointing to heaven, and whose ministers preach that slavery is a God-ordained institution!
William Wells Brown, Clotel 63-64
31) The following fact was related in our hearing, by the writer, Dr. Gaylord, of Sodus, at the Wayne County Anti-Slavery Society's meeting, at Palmyra, last June. At our request, he has now furnished it for publication. Read it, fellow citizens, and ponder. If a daughter of THOMAS JEFFERSON may be sold at auction, what security can you, or any of us, have, that our daughters may no, one day, be sold in the same manner? COLOR IS NO PROTECTION. ‘Bleached or unbleached!' says Gov. M'Duffie! ‘CLEAR WHITE complexion'--say the slave advertisements!
Dr. Levi Gaylord
32) It is well known, as stated in Dr. Bacon's "Wanderings on the shores of Africa," I mean the Dr. Bacon who wrote the lives of the apostles--it is well known that Jefferson contradicted his philosophy of negro hate, by seeking the dalliance of black women as often as he could, and by leaving so many descendants of mixed blood, that they are to be found as widely scattered as his own writings throughout the world. One at least, a grand daughter, is a shouting Methodist, in Liberia.
Communipaw
33) "It is asserted, on the authority of an American Newspaper, that the daughter of Thomas Jefferson, late President of the United States, was sold at New Orleans for $1,000."--Morning Chronicle.
William Wells Brown, "Jefferson's Daughter"
34) I replied, that it was currently reported here, that the ‘best blood of Virginia, flowed in the veins of the slaves;' and the argument therefore could have no force, in regard to the amalgamated portion of the slaves. Said he, with much emphasis, ‘That's true; I saw myself, the DAUGHTER of THOMAS JEFFERSON SOLD in New Orleans,' for ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.'
Dr. Levi Gaylord
