Thomas Jefferson's views on slavery demonstrate the moral dilemma of an enlightened statesman of his era. Jefferson, who was himself a slave owner, believed that while slavery was immoral, gradual emancipation--with deportation of the freed slaves to some other territory--was the only possible solution. It was too impractical to free all the slaves, since there would be a shortage of laborers, and since Jefferson did not consider blacks socially or politically equal to whites, they could not be allowed to live among white people.
The problem of slavery and its material and moral flaws had bothered Thomas Jefferson's conscience for a long time. While he realized that complete abolition was impossible for the present time, he tried at least to prevent its increase. During colonial times he had turned against the British, in part, because the king vetoed Virginia's attempts to prohibit the further importation of slaves. Now that Virginia independent of Britain, Jefferson worked to promulgate laws that would prevent further importation of slaves from abroad and from other states as well (Schachner 153). He hoped that restrictions on importation would "...in some measure stop the increase of this great political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizen may be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature." (Schachner 231).
Although Jefferson had favored the discontinuance of the slave trade before the Revolution and definitely proposed it as early as 1776, the measure of 1778, regarding this issue, was introduced by another at a time when he was not present in the House (Malone 264). This bill was to prevent the future importation of slaves in Virginia. However, it was likely that Jefferson favored this bill. In Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, written to explain correct ideas about America to the French government, and written before the 1778 bill, he advocated gradual emancipation (Malone 264).
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