Benjamin Banneker: Letter to Thomas Jefferson

Essential Quotes

“We have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments.”

“I apprehend you will embrace every opportunity, to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions, which so generally prevails with respect to us.”

“Sir, I have long been convinced, that if your love for yourselves, and for those inestimable laws, which preserved to you the rights of human nature, was founded on sincerity, you could not but be solicitous, that every individual, of whatever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof.”

“This, Sir, was a time [the Revolutionary War] when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and … the horrors of its condition.… Your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly held forth this true and invaluable doctrine … ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

“Neither shall I presume to prescribe methods by which [my brethren] may be relieved, otherwise than by recommending to you and all others, to wean yourselves from those narrow prejudices which you have imbibed with respect to them, and … ‘put your soul in their souls’ stead.’”