...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,...it might be. But as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation...

...As things stood now, the sheer number of slaves concentrated in the south worked against this goal: "we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in the one scale and self-preservation in the other" (to John Holmes, Apr. 22, 1820). Another worry in...

...our own children [for] the revolutionary storm, now sweeping the globe, will be upon us." And again: "we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go."H But while such statements are trenchant and informed by a rhetoric of revolution, they were shaped...

...defends its absolution."3 Thomas Jefferson framed the problem more clearly in his famous statement, "We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go."4 In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson had written at length about his belief that blacks were inferior...

...1831. * As Jefferson wrote of slavery in April 1820: "we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neidier hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the odier."2 While Jefferson himself saw no viable political solution to this problem, I want to suggest...

...market forces and technological advances, Jefferson blurted out the dilemma of American slavery in 1820: "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, not safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and selfpreservation in the other." The battle to eliminate...

...the extermination of the one or the other race.16 Writing in 1820, Jefferson observed that "we have a wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor...Justice is in one scale, and selfpreservation in the other."17 When faced with real conflicts of interest and values, the happy revolutionary retreated...

...before his death, Thomas Jefferson described the dilemma over slavery: "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." Because the US Constitution specifically allowed slavery, many Southerners considered the morality...

...this division? Taking a metaphor from an ancient Greek proverb, he said, "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." To understand Jefferson's metaphor, we need to know two things: first, that so far as late eighteenth-century...

...effected, and gradually with due sacrifice I think it might be. But as it is, we have a wolf by years and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale and self preservation in the other". In order to make the point clear, two things we must tabulate: 1....