1785

 

__________ 

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” 

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia.

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JEFFERSON has no illusions about the curse of slavery. He knows it’s unjust. He doesn’t know what to do about it.

*

 

JOHN ADAMS is presented at the court of St. James. George III tells him:

 

    I wish you to believe (and I want what I say to be repeated to your compatriots in America) that I have done nothing during the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do by the duty which I owed my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the separation. But a separation having been made and having become unavoidable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power. (Van Loon, 124/234-235)