USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Jefferson felt powerless to change the situation and summed it up near the end of his life as “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.” Despite his wish to end slavery, Jefferson never personally freed his slaves.

Detailed explanation-2: -Jefferson wrote that maintaining slavery was like holding “a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”17 He thought that his cherished federal union, the world’s first democratic experiment, would be destroyed by slavery.

Detailed explanation-3: -So holding a wolf by its ears is a no-win situation. The wolf in Jefferson’s quotation is slavery. He knew that slavery is unjust, but to let go of it would cause tremendous problems.

Detailed explanation-4: -Thomas Jefferson, a spokesman for democracy, was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).

Detailed explanation-5: -"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. . . .” “it is the great parent of science & of virtue: and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free."