ledge. The other consists of the ill-tempered and rude men
in society, who have taken up a passion for politics. (Good humor and
politeness never introduce into mixt society a question on which they
foresee there will be a difference of opinion.) From both of those
classes of disputants, my dear Jefferson, keep aloof as you would from
the infected subjects of yellow fever or pestilence. Consider
yourself, when with them, as among the patients of Bedlam, needing
medical more than moral counsel. Be a listener only, keep within
yourself, and endeavor to establish with yourself the habit of
silence, especially on politics. In the fevered state of our country
no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery
zealots to rights, either in fact or principle. They are determined as
to the facts they will believe, and the opinions on which they will
act. Get by them, therefore, as you would by an angry bull; it is not
for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal.

III

OF BLACKS AND WHITES IN THE SOUTH[35]

It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks
into the state, and thus save the expense of supplying by importation
of white settlers the vacancies they will leave? Deep-rooted
prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand recollections, by
the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the
real distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances
will divide us into parties, and produce convulsions which will
probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other
race. To these objections, which are political, may be added others,
which are physical and moral.

[Footnote 35: From Query No. 14 of the "Notes on the State of
Virginia," which, says Jefferson in an "advertisement," "were written
in Virginia in the year 1781 and somewhat corrected and enlarged in
the winter of 1782, in answer to queries proposed to the author by a
foreigner of distinction then residing among us."]

The first difference which strikes us is that of color. Whether the
black of the negro resides in the reticular membrane between the skin
and the scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds
from the color of the blood, the color of the bile, or from that of
some other secretion, the difference is fixt in nature, and is as real
as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this
difference of no importance? Is it