ly by
observation of a long historic development, in a wide range of climate, in
great variety of social position, Jefferson could, as he confesses, know
almost nothing,--for the same reason that the keenest observer of William
the Conqueror's Norman robbers and Saxon swineherds would have failed to
foretell the great dominant race which has come from them by free growth
and good culture. But, on the other hand, of all that comes by observation
of the daily life of the black race, as it then was, he knew almost
everything.

He declares that the black race is inferior to the white in mind, but not
in heart. The poems of black Phillis Wheatley seem to him to prove not
much; but the letters of black Ignatius Sancho he praises for depth of
feeling, happy turn of thought, and ease of style, though he finds no
depth of reasoning. He does not praise the mental capacity of the race,
but, at last, as if conscious, that, if developed under a free system, it
might be far better, he quotes the Homeric lines,--

"Jove fixed it certain that whatever day
Makes man a slave takes half his worth away."

And shortly after, he declares it "a _suspicion_ only that the blacks are
inferior in the endowments of body or mind,"--that "in memory they are
equal to the whites,"--that "in music they are more generally gifted than
the whites with accurate ears for time and tune."

But there is one statement which we especially commend to those in search
of an effective military policy in the present crisis. Jefferson declares
of the negroes, that they are "at least as brave as the whites, and more
adventuresome." May not this truth account for the fact that one of the
most daring deeds in the present war was done by a black man?

Still later, Jefferson says,--"Whether further observation will or will
not verify the conjecture that Nature has been less bountiful to them in
the endowments of the head, I believe that in those of the heart she will
be found to have done them justice. That disposition to theft with which
they have been branded must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any
depravity of the moral sense. The man in whose favor no laws of property
exist probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favor of
others. When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down as fundamental, that
laws, to be just, must give reciprocation of right,--that, without this,
they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not