the wolf by the ears: thomas jefferson and slaveryby john chester miller

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North Carolina Office of Archives and History The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery by John Chester Miller Review by: C. W. Harper The North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 55, No. 3 (July, 1978), p. 354 Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23535251 . Accessed: 17/06/2014 14:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . North Carolina Office of Archives and History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The North Carolina Historical Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:56:27 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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North Carolina Office of Archives and History

The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery by John Chester MillerReview by: C. W. HarperThe North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 55, No. 3 (July, 1978), p. 354Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23535251 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 14:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

North Carolina Office of Archives and History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The North Carolina Historical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:56:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

354 Book Reviews

The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery. By John Chester Miller. (New York: Free Press, 1977. Frontispiece, preface, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Pp. xii, 319. $12.95.)

John Chester Miller, professor emeritus of history at Stanford University,

presents this volume as an addition to the endless debate revolving around the

paradox that the author of the Declaration of Independence was one of the

largest slaveholders of his time. Nonetheless, a comprehensive, definitive

analysis of such aspects of Jefferson's personality, conduct, and ideas which im

pinge upon the subject of slavery did not exist before this publication.

Miller, a prolific writer on the American Revolutionary and Federalist eras, is

eminently familiar with the historical record. He traces the development of Jef

ferson's attitudes toward slavery over the full course of his lifetime, relating this aspect of his thinking to his views on agrarianism, property rights, the

social character of American democracy, and North-South political conflicts.

Miller argues the possibility that Jefferson sought to accomplish by stealth

what he could not hope to do openly—to make the Declaration a charter of

freedom for slaves. With compassion and understanding he reminds one that Jef

ferson felt that emancipation and expatriation were feasible. Yet, the Virginian encountered powerful social and economic undercurrents which prohibited ef

forts to bring about this reform. In spite of his real and abiding abhorrence of

slavery, Jefferson was too much the political pragmatist, too intent upon achiev

ing lofty but realizable goals, and too much the product of his background as a

Virginia slaveholder to grapple with man's tyranny over man with the same fer vor he displayed in contending against British tyranny. Miller's Jefferson

emerges with greater luster if he is judged by his words rather than by his acts.

Miller lays to rest the political smear, recently revived, that Sally Hemings was Jefferson's mistress. He reveals the ambivalencies, limitations, and

strengths of Jefferson and affirms the "Jeffersonian tradition" in American

democracy. This is an excellent work, well written and scholarly—a must for the student

of Jefferson and slavery.

C. W. Harper North Carolina State University

C. W. Harper

A Sacred Circle: The Dilemma of the Intellectual in the Old South. By Drew Gilpin Faust. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Preface, epilogue, manuscript collections cited, notes, index. Pp. xii, 189. $11.00.)

This valuable study is about five archconservatives, and arch-egotists, too, of the Old South who corresponded with each other in "a sacred circle" of agree ment generally in their criticism of the South. These men all felt alienated from their society and rejected by it. Were they at fault for their belief that they were not appreciated, or was southern society at fault? To this reviewer, both were to blame.

The author, using modern psychological insights, has done an excellent job in

seeking to explain the characters of these men on the basis of their unhappy, ill

adjusted childhoods. They were left motherless at an early age, and at a forma

ra® NORTH CAROLINA HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.228 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:56:27 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions