In 1797, Jefferson, writing to St. George Tucker, speaks of the only possible emancipation as “a compromise between the passions, prejudices, and real difficulties, which will each have their weight in the operation.”  Afterwards, in his letters to Monroe and Rufus King, he advocates a scheme of colonization to some point not too distant.  But let no man, on this account, claim Jefferson as a supporter of the do-nothing school of Northern demagogues, or of the mad school of Southern fanatics who proclaim this ulcerous mass a beauty, and who howl at all who refuse its infection.  For, note, in that same letter to St. George Tucker, the fervor of the Jeffersonian theory:  bitter as Tucker’s pamphlet against slavery was, he says,—­“You know my subscription to its doctrines.”  Note also the vigor of the Jeffersonian practice:  speaking of emancipation, he says,—­“The sooner we put some plan under way, the greater hope there is that it may be permitted to proceed peaceably to its ultimate effect.”  And now bursts forth prophecy again. “But if something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children.”  “If we had begun sooner, we might probably have been allowed a lengthier operation to clear ourselves; but every day’s delay lessens the time we may take for emancipation.”

Here is no trace of the theory inflicting a present certain evil on a great white population in order to do a future doubtful good to a smaller black population.  And this has been nowhere better understood than among the slave oligarchs of his own time.  Note one marked example.

In 1801, Jefferson was elected to the Presidency on the thirty-sixth ballot.  Thirty-five times Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina voted against him.  The following year Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, feeling an itching to specify to Congress his interests in Buncombe and his relations to the universe, palavered in the usual style, but let out one truth, for which, as truth-searchers, we thank him.  He said,—­

“Permit me to state, that, beside the objections common to my friend from Delaware and myself, there was a strong one which I felt with peculiar force.  It resulted from a firm belief that the gentleman in question [Jefferson] held opinions respecting a certain description of property in my State which, should they obtain generally, would endanger it."[4]

    [4] Benton’s Abridgment, Vol.  II. p. 636.

We come now to Jefferson’s Presidency.  In this there was no great chance to deal an effective blow at slavery; but some have grown bitter over a story that he favored the schemes to break the slavery-limitation in Ohio.  Such writers have not stopped to consider that it is more probable that a few Southern members, eager to drum in recruits, falsely claimed the favor of the President, than that Jefferson broke the slavery-limitation which he himself planned.  Then, too, came the