In response to Henry Wiencek's first message of Dec. 19, 2011, Kevin  
Hardwick wrote on Dec 19, 2011:

"[I]f Jefferson did in fact believe that persons raised as slaves  
could not well fend for themselves, then it would not be especially  
surprising that he would draw the conclusions that Turner asserts that  
he did [regarding James Hemings's suicide as confirmation of that  
belief].  The more troublesome issue, then, at least so far as  
Turner’s arguments go, is not the plausibility of the inference he  
ascribes to Jefferson, but rather the fact that, as you [Henry  
Wiencek] say, there is no evidence that Jefferson actually drew that  
conclusion."

Without more research than time permits (Gordon-Reed's Hemingses of  
Monticello being the obvious first stop), I can't shed further light  
on any conclusions TJ did or did not draw from Hemings's suicide.  It  
is true, however, that he repeatedly expressed the belief that those  
who had been brought up in slavery could not well fend for themselves  
in freedom.  The estimable Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia conveniently  
supplies the following quotations, at http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-slavery-and-emancipation 
:

1789 January 26. (to Edward Bancroft). "As far as I can judge from the  
experiments which have been made, to give liberty to, or rather, to  
abandon persons whose habits have been formed in slavery is like  
abandoning children. Many quakers in Virginia seated their slaves on  
their lands as tenants. They were distant from me, and therefore I  
cannot be particular in the details, because I never had very  
particular information. I cannot say whether they were to pay a rent  
in money, or a share of the produce: but I remember that the landlord  
was obliged to plan their crops for them, to direct all their  
operations during every season and according to the weather, but, what  
is more afflicting, he was obliged to watch them daily and almost  
constantly to make them work, and even to whip them. A man's moral  
sense must be unusually strong, if slavery does not make him a thief.  
He who is permitted by law to have no property of his own, can with  
difficulty conceive that property is founded in anything but force.  
These slaves chose to steal from their neighbors rather than work.  
They became public nuisances, and in most instance were reduced to  
slavery again. . . ."

1814 August 25. (to Edward Coles). ". . . For, men, probably of any  
colour, but of this color we know, brought up from their infancy  
without necessity for thought or forecast, are by their habits  
rendered as incapable as children of taking care of themselves, and  
are extinguished promptly wherever industry is necessary for raising  
the young. In the mean time they are pests in society by their  
idleness, and the depredations to which this leads them. . . ."

I seem to recall at least one other letter in which TJ expressed the  
same opinion, but can't put my hands on it at the moment.

--Jurretta Heckscher


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"I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter."

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