• Jefferson's Changing Audiences:A Reevaluation of Notes on the State of Virginia
• Cara J. Rogers (bio)

In the summer of 1831 Nat Turner led one of the largest slave revolts in American history, prompting citizens of Virginia to engage in an unprecedented public debate regarding emancipation. During the ensuing winter, both pro- and antislavery legislators responded to the outcry by invoking Thomas Jefferson in order to justify their preferred legislative response (or lack thereof). Supporters of slavery in the General Assembly contended that the recently deceased third president might have spoken about wishing for slavery's end when he was a young man, but those early musings had been nothing more than the "daydream" of a "patriot and … philanthropist." Moreover, they argued that Jefferson had quickly abandoned that dream, for if he had actually been committed to emancipation he would have freed all of his own slaves at the time of his death. And since Jefferson himself had failed, who were they to attempt the impossible? After all, "When Hercules died, there was no man left to lift his club."¹

To counter the proslavery side, a newly elected delegate from Albemarle County rose: Thomas Jefferson's oldest grandson, Thomas [End Page 171] Jefferson Randolph. It was the almost forty-year-old Randolph whose gradual emancipation proposal had helped stoke the fires of debate, and although he hated to speak in public almost as much as his grandfather had, Randolph now felt compelled to remind his colleagues that "Mr. Jefferson's" commitment to emancipation had been more than an early musing. Jefferson had in fact set forth a detailed emancipation and colonization plan, publicly available for many years in his frequently reprinted book Notes on the State of Virginia. Randolph had been inspired by his grandfather's plan; and although his own emancipation proposal differed in several respects, other delegates were wrong to imply that Thomas Jefferson would not have supported Randolph's ideas. In fact, Randolph declared with certainty that if Jefferson were alive in 1832, he would have urged the delegates to vote for emancipation. The older statesman had never deviated from the antislavery sentiments that he had outlined in his book some fifty years earlier, Randolph insisted, and, more important, Jefferson had never stopped hoping that future generations of Virginians would succeed where his own had failed.²

Even when Jefferson's book was first published, the depth of his commitment to ending slavery had been called into question. Critics of the Notes in the 1790s as well as in recent years have pointed out that sections of the text are inconsistent—particularly when it comes to Jefferson's discussions of the nature of racial differences. While Jefferson sought to raise the reputation of Native Americans, combating European criticisms of their culture, strength, and ingenuity, his words concerning African Americans combined, as Winthrop D. Jordan puts it, "a heartfelt hostility to slavery and a deep conviction," itself "inconsistently expressed," with the contention that "Negroes were inferior to white men." These seeming contradictions were the manifestation, Jordan concludes, of Jefferson's own confused psychology—a confusion that reflected the unconscious fears of white Virginians.³

Jefferson may indeed have been deeply confused by his feelings regarding the African-descended people around him—particularly after [End Page 172] 1787, when Sally Hemings arrived in Paris—but careful study of the manuscript of Notes on the State of Virginia, only recently made available to scholars, reveals that many of the seeming inconsistencies in that text were not simply the manifestations of a tortured psyche. Instead, they are evidence of Jefferson's deliberate attempt to strengthen his antislavery views while still engaging with contemporary European scientific and philosophical work into the nature of race.⁴

This article reevaluates the Notes, situating it within the context of Jefferson's five-year-long composition process and examining the ways in which he revised as, over time, he imagined three very different audiences for his work: the French diplomats who first prompted his inquiries; the transatlantic members of the American Philosophical Society (APS) who encouraged him to expand the scope of his research; and the Virginians who he hoped might one...

• 杰斐逊的观众不断变化：对弗吉尼亚州笔记的重新评估
• 卡拉·J·罗杰斯（Cara J.Rogers）（生物）

我n的夏天1831ñ特纳率领的最大的奴隶之一美国历史上的起义，促使弗吉尼亚州公民参与有关解放的前所未有的公开辩论。在随后的冬天，亲奴隶制和反奴隶制立法者都通过呼吁托马斯·杰斐逊（Thomas Jefferson）来回应抗议，以证明他们偏爱的立法回应（或缺乏回应）。大会中奴隶制的支持者争辩说，这位刚去世的第三任总统可能曾经说过希望在他年轻时结束奴隶制，但是这些早期的沉思只不过是“爱国者和慈善家”的“白日梦”。 ” 此外，他们认为杰斐逊已迅速放弃了这个梦想，因为如果他真的致力于解放，他将在死后释放所有自己的奴隶。既然杰斐逊本人失败了，他们是谁来尝试不可能的事情？毕竟，“当大力神死后，没有人离开他的俱乐部。”^1个

To counter the proslavery side, a newly elected delegate from Albemarle County rose: Thomas Jefferson's oldest grandson, Thomas [End Page 171] Jefferson Randolph. 差不多40岁的伦道夫（Randolph）的逐步解放提议助长了辩论的烈火，尽管他不愿像祖父一样在公开场合讲话，但伦道夫现在感到不得不提醒他的同事“杰斐逊对解放的承诺不仅仅是早期的沉思。杰斐逊实际上已经制定了详细的解放和殖民计划，并在其经常重印的著作《弗吉尼亚州笔记》中公开提供了许多年。。伦道夫受到了祖父的计划的启发。尽管他自己的解放提案在几个方面有所不同，但其他代表错误地暗示托马斯·杰斐逊不会支持伦道夫的思想。实际上，兰道夫肯定地宣布，如果杰斐逊在1832年还活着，他将敦促代表们投票赞成解放。伦道夫坚称，这位年长的政治家从未偏离他五十年前在书中概述的反奴隶制情绪，更重要的是，杰斐逊从未停止过希望后代弗吉尼亚人在他自己失败的地方能够成功。^2个

甚至当杰斐逊的书首次出版时，他对结束奴隶制的承诺的深度也受到质疑。笔记的批评者在1790年代以及最近几年，人们都指出，案文的各个部分是不一致的，尤其是在涉及杰斐逊关于种族差异性质的讨论时。杰斐逊（Jefferson）试图提高美洲原住民的声誉，反对欧洲对其文化，实力和独创性的批评，但正如温思罗普·D·乔丹（Winthrop D. Jordan）所说的那样，他对非裔美国人的言论结合在一起，“对奴隶制的衷心敌意和深刻信念”自己“前后矛盾地表达”，并提出“黑人比白人逊色”的论点。乔丹总结说，这些看似矛盾是杰斐逊自己困惑的心理学的表现，这种困惑反映了对弗吉尼亚白种人的无意识恐惧。³

杰斐逊对周围的非洲人的感情确实感到非常困惑-特别是在[完第172页] 1787年，萨利·海明斯到达巴黎之后-但仔细研究《弗吉尼亚州手稿》后，最近提供给学者的研究表明，该文本中许多看似不一致的地方不仅是心理折磨的表现。取而代之的是，它们证明了杰斐逊在加强欧洲反奴隶制观点的同时仍在努力地与当代欧洲科学和哲学著作融为一体，以此来体现种族性质。⁴

本文对《笔记》进行了重新评估，将其置于杰斐逊长达五年的撰写过程中，并考察了他的修改方式，随着时间的推移，他想到了三种截然不同的听众：法国外交官首先提出了他的建议。查询；美国哲学学会（APS）的跨大西洋成员鼓励他扩大研究范围；和他希望可以的弗吉尼亚人...