Jefferson was wrong about slavery, his attempts at reform at the beginning of his public life notwithstanding. Here again, though, and in dramatic relief, we see that Jefferson the practical politician was a more powerful persona than Jefferson the moral theorist. He was driven by what he had once called, in a 1795 letter to Madison, “the Southern interest,” for the South was his personal home and his political base.17 He could not see a pragmatic way out of the conundrum, so he did what politicians often do: He suggested that the problem would be handled in the fullness of time—just not now.
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