„Reszketek hazámért, ha arra gondolok, hogy Isten igazságos” (Thomas Jefferson és a rabszolgaság problémája)
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just” (Thomas Jefferson and the problem of slavery)

Summary/Abstract: The paper considers the views of Jeffersson on slavery, comparing his slaveholder practice and his theoretical utterances on slavery. The author has found that the behaviour of the third president of the United States was ambiguous in both respects. With regard to his slaveholder practice, he tried to treat his slaves as humanely as possible, but only if it did not hurt his other, chiefly material, interests. And, of course, he never stepped out of the framework of the system by improving the condition of his slaves by freeing great numbers of them. Thus his slaveholder practice seems to have been fundamentally at odds with his views formulated on the equality and the natural rights of men in the Declaration of Independence. The author holds that this contradiction cannot be resolved by simply declaring that Jefferson was a hypocrite or he just lied, but can be understood only by interpreting his views on slavery within the framework of his notion of the working of the whole world. Comparing slaves in the United States to those of antiquity and to native Americans, Jefferson came to the conclusion that Blacks were inferior intellectually. Using the theories of contemporary natural scientists such as Linné and Buffon he found this was the result of Blacks coming into existence in a different phase of creation. From this it followed that their deficiencies could not be blamed on either the American environment or their position as slaves because the white slaves of antiquity, unlike Blacks in modern times, were capable of excellent intellectual performance. These were, therefore, the consequence of their biological constitution. That is why he denounced sexual relationships between Blacks and whites. Because he wanted to prevent the „harmful” mixing of the two races and to avoid the predictably revengeful reaction of Blacks, he thought the only feasible way of freeing slaves was by having them removed from the territory of the United States. [...] He gradually came to regard views, originating in the North, critical of slavery and its territorial expansion as part and parcel of a northern federalist conspiracy intending to restrict the sovereignty of the southern states and the proprietary rights of slaveholders. In his later writings he explained that the federal government had no right to interfere with the issue of slavery, and if it took such measures, the states concerned had the right to nullify those measures. In such a case the southern states would remain the upholders of true republican government and they could even consider leaving the union. He added that the western expansion of slavery was advantageous with respect to emancipation because it would have the burden of freeing slaves divided among a greater number of people involved in it.

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