Notes on the State of Virginia

At the end of Query XVI, “Religion,” Jefferson calls for an end to laws that seek to control “the operations of the mind” and infringe upon “the rights of conscience” (159). Such legislation was common in the “Old World” and carried over to some extent to the earlier history of the American colonies. Jefferson has just concluded a discussion of past religious persecution in Virginia. While America has made progress in eradicating such intolerance, Jefferson warns that it could just as easily return, if “the spirit of the times” (161) changes. Progress is not inevitable or permanent; Americans must make a conscious effort to retain their hard-won freedoms.

Reflecting an unromantic view of human nature, Jefferson even argues that “from the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill” (161). He anticipates that Americans will not experience smooth sailing after the Revolution is won, but on the contrary will need to keep on fighting to hold on to their freedoms—not against outsiders, but against themselves and their own worst instincts. Jefferson sees the loss of freedom as a slippery slope that Americans must resist with all their might: “[I]f [free inquiry] be restrained now, the present corruptions will be protected, and new ones encouraged” (159).

Jefferson’s discussion of freedom of conscience relies on the assumption that “the legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others” (159). Thus, the government has no right to punish religious heresy, because this is not harmful to others, which Jefferson interprets as meaning physically harmful: “[I]t does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg” (159).

The spiritual and intellectual sides of life are a matter of private conscience and are off limits to government control. Jefferson and other thinkers of the Enlightenment were reacting to a past era (primarily the 16th and 17th centuries) when religious disagreement tore Europe apart through war and persecution. They wanted to leave this legacy behind and build a future in which citizens would be free to think and believe as they pleased. 

The text’s theme of “nature versus nurture” falls under a meta-theme: the author’s paradoxical blend of intellectual merit with seemingly strategic ignorance. Jefferson, like many Enlightenment thinkers, presents a complex image of immense philosophical aptitude and altruism layered with the willful ignorance of prejudice, and modern readers still struggle to tease apart these traits as they appear in his work. Among the most salient examples of his alloyed thought is his commentary on purported racial differences. Throughout, Jefferson makes logical distinctions, adopts different perspectives, and accounts for certain complicating variables—at the same time as he flatly neglects crucial factors that his lofty intellect is certainly capable of grasping.

Jefferson conveys a certain scientific rigor in the mere fact that he situates the discussion within a question of nature versus nurture. Nevertheless, Query XIV, “Laws,” puts on dramatic display his entrenched prejudice as he details a litany of perceived flaws in Black people, resulting in an aggressively distorted image that roundly discredits the author’s objectivity. As he raises the question of whether racial differences (as he sees them) are inborn or due to “condition of life” (141), he tentatively comes down on the side that the differences between Black people and white people are due to nature—yet at other times he leaves open the possibility that nurture may have an influence. The irony is that while this latter concession suggests an open-mindedness and scientific deference to facts, it takes place entirely within the context of an insular, fallacious premise. In other words, even this intellectual dispassion is spurious. He invites others to prove that Black people’s inferior qualities are environmentally driven—but his very catalog of those qualities is biased and anecdotal, not empirical.

Jefferson also compares enslaved Black people in America with those enslaved in ancient Rome, who were the same race as their enslavers. Those enslaved in Rome, the author claims, were more degraded and oppressed than those in America, yet despite this they showed considerable cultural accomplishment; those enslaved in America, Jefferson asserts, have not shown such accomplishment. This, for Jefferson, further proves that racial difference (and, in effect, white superiority) is inborn. In contrast to his usual attention to scientific variables, however, Jefferson does not acknowledge that enslaved Black people have a drastically different level of opportunity to produce such “culture.” Enslaved Romans (the males) were taught to read and write. They reviewed manuscripts, read to their enslavers, and were trained transcribers. Conversely, nearly all those enslaved in the antebellum South were denied this privilege (eventually even through anti-literacy laws, and to transgress this interdict was legally punishable). Jefferson does not disclose how an enslaved person, denied literacy and much other education, might pioneer their own exalted cultural legacy. He does, however, declare that simply by being given the luxury of overhearing their enslavers’ erudite conversations, Black people should “avail themselves” of this education and produce something artful.

In some situations, Jefferson concedes that the behavior of enslaved people is to be ascribed to circumstance and not to any natural racial inclination. This, he says, is true of the “disposition to theft with which they have been branded” (142): “[T]he man, in whose favour no laws of property exist, probably feels himself less bound to respect those made in favour of others” (142). In other words, he says, it’s understandable that people who are disenfranchised will not feel inclined to respect the law. Jefferson’s assessment demonstrates empathy and attempts to contextualize this “disposition to theft,” but he also ascribes this alleged disposition to a “weaken[ed] […] respect” for the law; He does not address the material conditions—conditions exclusive to enslaved people—that might create the “thief’s” need or desperation. Notwithstanding, he alludes to the irony that enslaved persons themselves have been stolen and treated as property. This layered consciousness—Jefferson’s intermingled awareness and pointed unawareness—suggests the ambivalence required in assessing his overall historical figure. His intellectual hubris is as real as his intellectual humility.

When it comes to the Indigenous Americans, Jefferson believes many aspects of their character are due to nurture rather than nature. He believes they have natural inclinations—for art, for example—that need only further “cultivation” (140). He says of their lower fertility rate and different musculature that “the causes of this are to be found, not in a difference of nature, but of circumstance” (60). In both cases, however, Jefferson implies that Black people and Indigenous Americans need to be improved by contact with white people as beneficiaries of civilization; this attitude is distinctly Enlightenment-era, and some of Jefferson’s attitudes are traceable to this historical context. The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement that dominated Europe through the 17th and 18th centuries, and this gave rise to the American Enlightenment in the 18th and 19th centuries. The spirit of Enlightenment lauded progress and humanism, but the emphasis on both progress and human grandeur led some Europeans and Anglo-Americans to understand themselves as “enlightened” trailblazers of an evolving humanity. This narrative drove their notions of white superiority and, it seemed to them, justified their attempts to “civilize” (i.e., colonize or assimilate) other races.

Jefferson is a vivid model of cognitive dissonance. He demonstrated an encyclopedic breadth of knowledge while also flatly ignoring basic facts. He expressed profound dismay at the institution of slavery while he himself enslaved others. He authored one of the most elevated humanist political documents in Western history—the Declaration of Independence—while other of his writings reflect a dehumanizing perspective. A truthful image of Jefferson necessarily encompasses these incongruities. Both his virtues and his vices have shaped American history.