Although colonization now appears a futile and uncharitable scheme, it was the staple of anti-slavery reformers who favored peaceful and constitutional solutions up to the time of the Civil War. Those who advocated an integrated society with political and social equality for blacks were a tiny minority. There is a silent and insidious assumption in much of Mr. O'Brien's discussion to the effect that Jefferson's racial views were less enlightened than those of his contemporaries in general, and the other Founders in particular. Washington, according to Mr. O'Brien, was not a racist because Mr. O'Brien isn't aware that Washington was the author of any racist remarks. On this basis there were very few racists in Jefferson's America.
All indications are that the reverse is true.
Whereas most whites of that day apparently regarded the inferiority of blacks as virtually self-evident, Jefferson pointedly reserved judgment. The discussion of race in Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia that is so painful and insensitive by today's standards insists that the question of racial parity is not a moral but a scientific one, and that it could not be decided by comparing African slaves with free whites. Jefferson allowed, for example, that people held in slavery would necessarily compare unfavorably because of their degraded condition and lack of education, and he insisted that blacks were not inferior in morality or in their natural rights. What Mr. O'Brien does not take into account when he argues that Jefferson's importance and relevance will wane as his views go out of date is that this has already happened many times in our history. Jefferson's strongest political beliefs included a weak central government, strong states rights, and a Supreme Court that had no jurisdiction over the constitutionality of legislative or executive actions.