February 25
[In my February 25, 1809 letter to Henri Grégoire, a French Catholic priest, bishop, and prominent abolitionist, I write from Washington during my final days as President of the United States to thank him for sending his book defending the intellectual achievements of Black writers. I confess my own long-held, publicly expressed doubts regarding the natural intelligence of African Americans, which I attribute to my personal observations of their degraded condition in Virginia, yet I firmly declare that an individual's level of intellect can never dictate their human rights. My philosophical argument that because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others stands as one of my most foundational defenses of universal human equality, severing the concept of natural rights from intellectual capability.]
I have received the favor of your letter of August 17th, and with it the volume you were so kind as to send me on the "Literature of Negroes." Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves. My doubts were the result of personal observation on the limited sphere of my own State, where the opportunities for the development of their genius were not favorable, and those of exercising it still less so.
I expressed them therefore with great hesitation; but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others.
On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their re-establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family. I pray you therefore to accept my thanks for the many instances you have enabled me to observe of respectable intelligence in that race of men, which cannot fail to have effect in hastening the day of their relief; and to be assured of the sentiments of high and just esteem and consideration which I tender to yourself with all sincerity.
[In this excerpt from my February 25, 1812 legal pamphlet concerning the New Orleans batture land dispute, I write from Monticello to offer a defense of my past presidential actions against a hostile lawsuit brought by Edward Livingston. I argue that the law does not demand human infallibility and protects public servants from being held liable for honest errors in judgment, stating that punishment is only justified when an official acts with blatant, undeniable corruption or malice. My memorable maxim that the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest encapsulates my core political philosophy, framing a complicated, highly technical property battle as a simple matter of public integrity and executive duty before God and man.]
The wise know their weakness too well to assume infallibility; and he who knows most, knows best how little he knows. The vine and the fig-tree must withdraw, and the briar and bramble assume their places. But this is not the spirit of our law. It expects not impossibilities. It has consecrated the principle that its servants are not answerable for honest error of judgment.
He who has done this duty honestly, and according to his best skill and judgment, stands acquitted before God and man. If indeed a judge goes against law so grossly, so palpably as no imputable degree of folly can account for, and nothing but corruption, malice or wilful wrong can explain, and especially if circumstances prove such motives, he may be punished for the corruption, the malice, the wilful wrong; but not for the error: nor is he liable to action by the party grieved. And our form of government constituting its respective functionaries judges of the law which is to guide their decisions, places all within the same reason, under the safeguard of the same rule.