...slaves).43 Jefferson portrayed himself, as he did others in his position of slave master, as paralyzed: "We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither...Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."44 Reports of slave uprisings inspired Jefferson to make dire predictions. In a 1797 letter...

...which would not cost me a second thought, if in that way, a general emancipation, and expatriation could be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices...think it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by die ears and we can neidier hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation...

...lengths to end slavery "in any practicable way." As things stood, he wrote, "we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go....in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." If he became maddeningly circumspect about slavery, with the fear of black insurrection always in the...

...passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. . . . [W]e have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go."15 The crusade of the abolitionists in the 1830s-1850 and the battle over expanding or limiting...

...Jefferson's role. Miller, John Chester. The Wolf by the Ears. New York: The Free Press, 1977. "We have a wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go," wrote Jefferson in 1820. "Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." In Miller's...

...referring to slavery, Jefferson framed the issue in animal metaphors. "We have the wolf by the ear and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in scale, and self preservation in the other" (Finkelman 177). Clearly, in his conception of Black people,...

...more than race control. These New South capitalists did not even recognize Jefferson's famous cry: "We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him or let him go." The proslavery warriors would not let go of their profits, their pride, their honor,...

...thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation, and expatriation could be effected; and, gradually, with due sacrifices I think it might be. But as it...in one scale, and self-preservation in the other. Clay was "on principle and in feeling, opposed to slavery," and yet he owned slaves, Lincoln averred....

...fire-bell in the night, [which] awakened and filled me with terror," and then moved on to say that "we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither...in one scale, and selfpreservation in the other." His letters of this time are dramatically inconsistent, ranging from despair over the supposed betrayal...

...and blacks.56 In later years, Jefferson occasionally agonized over the impact of the emancipation: "We have the wolf by the ears and we can neither hold...Justice is in one scale and self-preservation in the other."57 Similarly, in an 1821 statement he makes this famous comment: Nothing is more certainly written...