Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

by Jon Meacham

Jefferson supported banned the expansion of slavery into the new territories.51 The plan failed by a single vote in the Congress (a delegate from New Jersey was too ill to attend, dooming the bill).52,53 Reflecting on the closeness of the decision, Jefferson wrote: “Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful moment.”54 After an early legal and legislative life attempting to abolish slavery, Jefferson, now at midlife, made a calculated decision that he would no longer risk his “usefulness” in the arena by pressing the issue.55 (There was a partial victory later: The Northwest Ordinance of 178756 prohibited slavery north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi rivers.) In all, though, for Jefferson public life was about compromise and an unending effort to balance competing interests. To have pursued abolition, even when coupled, as it was in Jefferson’s mind, with deportation, was politically lethal. And Jefferson was not going to risk all for what he believed was a cause whose time had not yet come.