 | David F. Ericson, Louisa Bertch Green - Political Science - 1999 - 284 pages
...consequentialist grounds. Jefferson memorably expressed this position in the wake of the Missouri crisis: "We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither...nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."'6 Consequentialistn Proslavery consequentialist arguments seemed themselves... | |
 | David Brion Davis - History - 1999 - 577 pages
...revolution with himself as the target would be just."8 Or as Jefferson himself put it so memorably in 1820, "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one 6See pages 270-71. 7J. Philmore [pseud.}, TwoDialogues on theMan-Trade (London, 1760), pp. 54, 57.... | |
 | Russell Hardin - Constitutional history - 2003 - 404 pages
...the rule of one slave state for every free state. In one of his most widely quoted images, he said 'We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go'.52 The moral issue was particularly divisive because it had profound economic implications. Slaves... | |
 | Russell Lowell Riley, Russell Lynn Riley - Biography & Autobiography - 1999 - 404 pages
...beyond the short-term settlement to omens of an intractable problem, and fearfully acknowledged, "[W] e have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go."1 For over forty years after Jefferson wrote that sentence, his successors in the Executive Mansion... | |
 | David Brion Davis, Steven Mintz - History - 1998 - 607 pages
...taking effective steps against slavery. In 1820 he had expressed this thought in more famous wording: "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither...nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." In the very year that Jefferson wrote this letter he also presented... | |
 | Peter Dennis Bathory, Nancy Lynn Schwartz - Family & Relationships - 2001 - 340 pages
...John Holmes, 22 April 1820, where Jefferson, commenting on the general problem of slavery, observes: "[W]e have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither...nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale and selfpreservation in the other." 40. Jefferson to Adams, 22 January 1821, 569-70. Politics and Friendship:... | |
 | John E. Ferling - Biography & Autobiography - 2002 - 430 pages
...Not long after writing Coles, Jefferson wrote another acquaintance that "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 in the other." Thus Jefferson refused to take a stand. He admonished Coles to abandon... | |
 | Thomas G. West - History - 1997 - 244 pages
...property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle which would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected;...gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be. If the slaves were to be freed, they must live elsewhere. In his Notes on Virginia, Jefferson explained... | |
 | David J Eicher - History - 2002 - 992 pages
...political war on the issue in his time was not worth the consequences. "As it is," wrote Jefferson, "we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go." Yet just as the economic realities that might have led to the decline of slavery unfolded in Jefferson's... | |
 | Paul Finkelman - History - 316 pages
...labors."71 In his most famous statement on the subject, Jefferson wrote, "[W]e 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 in the other."72 Historians have traditionally read this declaration as an indication... | |
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The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle 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, I think it might... 
