Part of a series of articles titled Jefferson Memorial Education Series: Quoting Out of Context?.
Article
Jefferson Memorial Education Series: 97 Words, 5 Primary Sources
NPS
Grade Level
Middle School: Eighth Grade, High School: Ninth Grade thru Twelfth Grade
Objective
Compare an inscription in the Jefferson Memorial to the text of the five different sources from which it was taken. Analyze whether the differences between the passage in the memorial and the primary sources alter or affect the meaning. Decide whether the inscription is an example of quoting out of context.
Vocabulary
autobiography: the story of a person's life written by that person
despotism: the exercise of absolute power, especially in a cruel and oppressive way
inscription: words that are written or engraved on a surface
liberty: the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views
misrepresent: to give a false or misleading account of something, usually with an intent to deceive or to be unfair
primary source: immediate, first-hand accounts of a topic
quotation: a group of words taken from a text or speech and repeated by someone other than the original author or speaker
quoting out of context: the practice of misquoting someone by shortening what they said, or by leaving out surrounding words or sentences
Guiding Question
How should Thomas Jefferson's beliefs, philosophies and actions regarding slavery be represented in the Jefferson Memorial? How should the memorial reflect the contradiction between Jefferson's words about liberty and his enslavement of over 600 people during his lifetime?
Jefferson and Slavery
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan."
Think About It
Imagine that you didn't know anything about Thomas Jefferson before you entered the Jefferson Memorial and read this inscription.
- What is the main idea of the text? Are you able to easily figure it out?
- Are there any sentences in the inscription that don't match the theme you chose?
- What principles do you think the inscriptions committee wanted to feature by including this inscription?
- Based on this text alone, what do you think Jefferson believed about slavery?
The 97-word inscription on the northeast wall of the Jefferson Memorial includes quotations from five different sources. In choosing the wording, members of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Inscriptions Committee wanted to draw attention to Jefferson’s “concepts of freedom of the body and to his beliefs in the necessity of educating the masses of the people.”[1] One of the committee members, Jefferson Randolph Kean, was a descendent of Thomas Jefferson. He was determined to portray his great-great grandfather as an oppenent of slavery. He wanted to downplay Jefferson's legacy as an enslaver. Kean felt that if the memorial was to symbolize freedom and democracy, Jefferson needed to be associated with abolition and emancipation. Kean was responsible for the inclusion of these sentences in the inscription:
“Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate then that these people are to be free.”
Kean insisted that the abolition of slavery was “the earliest, latest and strongest passion of his [Jefferson's] soul. Jefferson from an early date was the leader in the movement to abolish slavery and the slave trade.”[2] The main source from which Kean drew his argument was the book Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson published in 1829. The book was written by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's grandson (and Kean's grandfather.)
Back to the Source(s)
When choosing text for the inscription representing Jefferson's beliefs and philosophies about freedom and education, the memorial commission pulled words and sentences from five different sources. Let's break the quotation down and look at each of the sources.
Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division
Inscription
"God who gave us life gave us liberty."
Primary Source: A Summary View of The Rights of British America, 1774
This quote comes from a pamphlet that Thomas Jefferson wrote two years before the Declaration of Independence. He wanted to convince the Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress to stand up to British rule, although he wasn't ready to say that the colonies should separate from Great Britain yet. Here is the paragraph from which this sentence is lifted:
But let them [members of the parliament of Great Britain] not think to exclude us from going to other markets, to dispose of those commodities which they cannot use, nor to supply those wants which they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. The god who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.
Library of Congress
Inscription
“Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Commerce between master and slave is despotism.”
Primary Source: Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-785
Thomas Jefferson published the book Notes on the State of Virginia in 1785, but it was a compilation of ideas and notes he had written down for several years. It covers a period of time between the American Revolution and the adoption of the U.S Constitution, when the nation was operating under the Articles of Confederation. In the book, Jefferson questions many of the country's institutions, including slavery. The quotes in the inscription come from a section of Query XVIII: Manners.
It is difficult to determine on the standard by which the manners of a nation may be tried, whether catholic*, or particular. It is more difficult for a native to bring to that standard the manners of his own nation, familiarized to him by habit. There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.–But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one’s mind. I think a change already perceptible, since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation.
*The word "catholic" in this context means universal or broad-based.
Library of Congress, Manuscript/Mixed Material
Inscription
“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.”
Primary Source: The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1790
Thomas Jefferson began writing his autobiography in 1821, when he was 77 years old. His draft started with his family and his early life, then covered the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the American Revolution, and the early days of the Republic. In the section that includes the sentence used in the inscription, Jefferson discussed the debate about slavery in the new nation.
The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future and general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment whenever the bill should be brought on. The principles of the amendment however were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their place be pari-passu* filled up by free white laborers. If on the contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our case.
*Pari-passu is a Latin phrase meaning on equal footing, or side by side.
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
Inscription
“Establish the law for educating the common people”
Primary Source: Letter to George Wythe, 13 August 1786
George Wythe was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as a law professor and mentor to Thomas Jefferson. When he wrote this letter to Wythe that includes the sentence in the inscription, Jefferson was serving as an ambassador to France. In the letter, Jefferson compared what he was witnessing in Europe to the new nation forming in America. He thought that a big problem in European countries was that kings and other aristocratic people held all the power. One way that Americans could avoid a similar situation, Jefferson believed, was to make education available to everyone.
I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness. If any body thinks that kings, nobles, or priests are good conservators of the public happiness, send them here. It is the best school in the universe to cure them of that folly. They will see here with their own eyes that these descriptions of men are an abandoned confederacy against the happiness of the mass of people. The omnipotence of their effect cannot be better proved than in this country particularly, where notwithstanding the finest soil upon earth, the finest climate under heaven, and a people of the most benevolent, the most gay, and amiable character of which the human form is susceptible, where such a people I say, surrounded by so many blessings from nature, are yet loaded with misery by kings, nobles and priests, and by them alone. Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils, and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance. —The people of England, I think, are less oppressed than here. But it needs but half an eye to see, when among them, that the foundation is laid in their dispositions, for the establishment of a despotism. Nobility, wealth, and pomp are the objects of their adoration. They are by no means the free-minded people we suppose them in America. Their learned men too are few in number and are less learned and infinitely less emancipated from prejudice than those of this country. An event too seems to be prospering, in the order of things, which will probably decide the fate of that country.
Charles Wilson Peale
Inscription
“This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan."
Primary Source: Letter to George Washington, 4 January 1786
Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter three years after George Washington had resigned from his position as General of the Army, and a year before Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention. At the time, Jefferson was ambassador to France and Washington was retired. The letter is primarily about a project that Washington as a private citizen was developing to build canals. Within the paragraph that includes the sentence from the inscription, though, Jefferson mentions education. Jefferson thinks that schools for everyone should be provided by the government, rather than through charitable donations.
The institutions you propose to establish by the shares in the Patowmac and James river companies given you by the assembly, and the particular objects of those institutions are most worthy. It occurs to me however that if the bill ‘for the more general diffusion of knowlege’ which is in the revisal, should be passed, it would supersede the use, and obscure the existence of the charity schools you have thought of. I suppose in fact that that bill, or some other like it, will be passed. I never saw one received with more enthusiasm than that was by the house of delegates in the year 1778. and ordered to be printed, and it seemed afterwards that nothing but the extreme distress of our resources prevented it’s being carried into execution even during the war. It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan. Should you see a probability of this however, you can never be at a loss for worthy objects of this donation. Even the remitting that proportion of the toll on all articles transported would present itself under many favorable considerations, and it would in effect be to make the state do in a certain proportion what they ought to have done wholly; for I think they should clear all the rivers and lay them open and free to all. However you are infinitely the best judge how the most good may be effected with these shares.
Putting it all Together
How did the committee end up using so many sources to represent Jefferson's beliefs and philosophies? It might have been a compromise. Thomas Jefferson Kean originally proposed two different drafts for a possible inscription. Only the second one included a quote from Jefferson. Kean's first two proposals for this inscription were:
THOMAS JEFFERSON EFFECTED ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN TO VIRGINIA IN 1778; INTO THE UNION IN 1807; THE PROHIBITION OF SLAVERY IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY IN 1788. HE WAS THE ONLY POWERFUL STATESMAN OF HIS DAY IN AMERICA TO RISK HIS FORUTUNES IN AN EFFORT TO REMOVE THIS DARK BLOT FROM THE INSTITUTIONS OF HIS NATIVE LANDS
And
THOMAS JEFFERSON EFFECTED ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN VIRGINIA IN 1778; IN THE UNION IN 1807; THE PROHIBITION OF SLAVERY IN THE NORTH WEST TERRITORY IN 1788. NOTHING IS MORE CERTAINLY WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF FATE THAN THAT THE SLAVES ARE TO BE FREE.[3]
Today most historians and scholars agree that Jefferson’s views on slavery are complicated. On one hand, he referred to slavery as a “hideous blot” and a “moral depravity." He even drafted several pieces of legislation that he hoped would eventually lead to the end of slavery in the United States, including a 1784 proposal to prohibit the extension of slavery into the Northwest Territory. Yet throughout his life, Jefferson enslaved over 600 people and directly profited from their labor.
In an 1824 letter, Jefferson acknowledged that neither he nor the country had “disengaged” themselves from the “deplorable entanglement” of slavery. He further admitted that he “shall not live to see” the end of it “but those who come after us will be wiser than we are, for light is spreading and man improving. to that advancement I look.” [4]
Think About It
- How many of the original primary sources represent Jefferson sharing his beliefs about slavery?
- Does the first sentence of the inscription affect the way you interpret the rest of the text?
- Why do you think that the committee included sentences about education in the inscription?
- Now that you have examined the primary sources that were used for the Jefferson Memorial inscription, how would you describe Thomas Jefferson's views about slavery?
Your Turn
- Imagine that you are on the Jefferson Memorial Inscriptions Committee. Write an inscription representing Jefferson's beliefs and philosophies about slavery, liberty, and/or education.
- If you were a park ranger working at the Jefferson Memorial, how would you explain the inscription on the northeast wall to visitors?
Additional Resources
For more information about the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission and the Sub-Committee for Inscriptions, see Chapter 1: Time and Text.
Links to the documents:
A Summary View of the Rights of British America at the Library of Congress
Notes on the State of Virginia Section XVIII from Yale University Law School Avalon Project
Jefferson's Autobiography from Yale University Law School Avalon Project
Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 13 August 1786 at the National Archives
Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 4 January 178[6]
References
[1] National Park Service, Thomas Jefferson Memorial brochure, 1947.
[2] Jefferson Randolph Kean, Letter to Fiske Kimball, February 6, 1941. Correspondence and Records Regarding Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington
[3] The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission: General Records, 1934-1943, Record Group 79:Records of the National Park Service, National Archives.
[4] Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, 18 July 1824. National Archives.
Last updated: August 3, 2023