eturn for the benefits of his
service, that is to say, of food, clothing, care in sickness, and
maintenance under age and disability, so as to make him in fact
as comfortable and more secure than the laboring man in most
parts of the world, ... gives great merit to the work, and will,
I have no doubt, produce wholesome impressions.[103]

In the first or second session of the Legislature after I became
a member, I drew to this subject the attention of Colonel Bland,
one of the oldest, ablest, and most respected members, and he
undertook to move for certain moderate extensions of the
protection of the laws to these people. I seconded his motion
and, as a young member, was more spared in the debate; but he was
denounced as an enemy of his country, and was treated with the
grossest indecorum.[104]

My opinion has ever been that, until more can be done for them,
we should endeavor, with those whom fortune has thrown on our
hands, to feed and clothe them well, protect them from ill usage,
require such reasonable labor only as is performed voluntarily by
freemen, and be led by no repugnances to abdicate them, and our
duties to them. The laws do not permit us to turn them loose, if
that were for their good; and to commute them for other property
is to commit them to those whose usage of them we cannot
control.[105]

Jefferson was opposed to slavery, but he hesitated to take certain
steps against it because of public opinion.

I am very sensible of the honor you propose to me of becoming a
member of the society for the abolition of the slave trade. You
know that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abolition, not
only of the trade, but of the condition of slavery; and certainly
nobody will be more willing to encounter every sacrifice for that
object. But the influence and information of the friends to this
proposition in France will be far above the need of my
association. I am here as a public servant, and those whom I
serve, having never yet been able to give their voice against
this practice, it is decent for me to avoid too public a
demonstration of my wishes to see it abolished. Without serving
the cause here, it might render me less able to serve it beyond
the water. I trust you will be sensible of the prudence of those
motives, therefore,