Chamblee54

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom” Thomas Jefferson. So says an unsightly graphic on /r/QuotesPorn. As the reader(s) of this blog know, I am fond of debunking quotes. Quotes about “honesty” are particularly appealing to those who enjoy quotation pedantry.
The quote is real. Mr. Jefferson wrote a letter to Nathaniel Macon on January 12, 1819. This was a reply to a letter Mr. Macon sent January 4, 1819. The exchange is included in The papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement series, published by Princeton University Press in 2004. The Library of Congress has a photograph of the Jefferson letter.
The letter to Mr. Macon began with a delightful quote. “Dear Sir The problem you had wished to propose to me was one which I could not have solved; for I know nothing of the facts. I read no newspaper now but Ritchie’s, and in that chiefly the advertisements, for they contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.”
Sally’s babydaddy was a man of many words. In 1784, he wrote Notes on the State of Virginia. “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.” … The circumstance of superior beauty, is thought worthy attention in the propagation of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals; why not in that of man? Besides those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites. . . . They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.