of men, and that
the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded
condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I can
add with truth, that nobody wishes more ardently to see a good
system commenced for raising the condition, both of their body and
mind, to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their
present existence, and other circumstances which can not be
neglected, will admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your
Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of
Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society,
because I consider it a document to which your color had a right
for their justification against the doubts which have been
entertained of them. I am, with great esteem, sir, your most
obedient, humble servant,

"THOS. JEFFERSON."[7]

The next instances of precocious black men which must have come to his
knowledge were, doubtless, Negro Tom, in whom the mathematical faculty
was strangely developed, and James Derham, the New Orleans physician.
If Mr. Jefferson had rewritten his "Notes," he would, probably, have
included mathematics and medicine among the special subjects which
were peculiarly adapted to the capacities of the negro mind.

It was not the question of the natural rights of the negro, the
prejudice of color, nor of the ruinous improvidence of the system of
slavery, that controlled the decision in Mr. Jefferson's mind, as to
the methods by which the system should be terminated. On these points,
he was as radical as the extremest abolitionist; but he could not
satisfy himself as to the mental capacity of the negro--whether he had
the full complement of human capabilities, and the qualifications for
equality of citizenship with the white man; for he saw that
emancipation, without expatriation, meant nothing else than giving the
black man all the rights of citizenship. The theory that the negro is
a decaudalized ape, a progressing chimpanzee, is an invention of the
last forty years, and contemporaneous with the discovery that the
Bible sanctions slavery. He was, on the whole, inclined to the opinion
that they were an inferior race of beings, and that their residence,
in a state of freedom, among white men was incompatible with the
happiness of both. He thought they had better be emancipated, and sent
out of the country. He therefore took up w