While Jefferson believed that blacks might be able to govern themselves in a colony separate from whites, he also indicated that black intelligence was not on par with that of whites. Barton says that Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, “also twice lightly questioned whether blacks might be inferior” (italicized in Barton).[335] We have included a lengthy quote from the Notes so that readers can judge whether Jefferson was ‘lightly’ questioning whether blacks ‘might’ be inferior
