Paul Finkelman has commented on the difference between Jefferson's and
Washington's attitudes toward African-Americans and their innate
capabilities, and I would like to make one brief point.  Unlike
Jefferson, Washington was not a racist, at least at the end of his
life.  Washington came to believe that the apparent deficiencies in
blacks were not innate but the result of their enslavement.  One very
powerful indication of this is to be found in Washington's will, in
which he freed his slaves and specified that the orphan children and the
children of parents unwilling or incapable of providing for them should
be bound out to masters and mistresses until age 25 for proper care and
education in a trade.  Here is his language on this point:

"The Negros thus bound, are (by their Masters or Mistresses) to be
taught to read & write; and to be brought up to some useful occupation,
agreeably to the Laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, providing for the
support of Orphan and other poor Children. and I do hereby expressly
forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any
Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever."

Clearly, Washington believed that blacks had a right to freedom; that
formerly enslaved blacks were quite amenable to education and training;
furthermore, he clearly believed that they had some just claim to
education and decent work; finally, he seems to have believed that with
education and training the freed children of slaves could immediately
take a fruitful and productive place in Virginia society as free people
because he emphatically specified that no one should be exiled.  His
position was vastly different from Jefferson's.

Henry Wiencek
Charlottesville

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