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Notes on the State of Virginia

Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) is a book written by the American statesman, philosopher, and planter Thomas Jefferson. He completed the first version in 1781 and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783. It originated in Jefferson's responses to questions about Virginia, part of a series of questions posed to each of the thirteen states in 1780 by François Barbé-Marbois, the secretary of the French delegation in Philadelphia, the temporary capital of the Continental Congress.

Notes on the State of Virginia is both a compilation of data by Jefferson about the state's natural resources and economy and his vigorous argument about the nature of the good society, which he believed to be incarnated by Virginia. He expressed his beliefs in the separation of church and state, constitutional government, checks and balances, and individual liberty. He also wrote extensively about slavery, his dislike of miscegenation, justifications of white supremacy, and his belief that Whites and Black Americans could not co-exist in a society in which Blacks were free.


It was the only full-length book that Jefferson published during his lifetime. He first had it published anonymously in Paris by Philippe Denis Pierres in 1785 while Jefferson serving the U.S. government as a trade representative. A French translation by Abbé Morellet appeared in 1787. In London, John Stockdale published it in 1787 after Jefferson had come to terms for a limited print run and other arrangements.

Publication[edit]

Notes was anonymously published in Paris in a limited private edition of 200 copies in 1785. A French translation by Abbé Morellet appeared in 1787 (though with an imprint date of 1786). Its first public edition, issued by John Stockdale in London, began to be sold in 1787.[1] It was the only full-length book by Jefferson published that was during his lifetime though he issued a Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, generally known as Jefferson's Manual, in 1801.[2]


Notes includes some of Jefferson's most memorable statements of belief in political, legal, and constitutional principles like the separation of church and state, constitutional government, checks and balances, and individual liberty.

Naturalism[edit]

Jefferson meticulously documented, to his abilities, the natural resources of Virginia and fiercely opposed the proposition of the French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, whose authoritative Histoire Naturelle stated that nature, plant life, animal life, and human life degenerate in the New World in contrast with their state in the Old World.[3]


Jefferson noted the 1648 work of scientists Georg Marcgraf and Willem Piso, whose work on natural history in Dutch Brazil resulted in the Historia Naturalis Brasiliae and argued that the honeybee was not native to North America.[4]

Navy[edit]

Jefferson included discussion on America's potential naval capacity because of its extensive natural resources. The section would be used by the Federalist William Loughton Smith to embarrass Republican anti-navalists during debate in 1796 over whether to continue the construction of the original six frigates of the United States Navy. Smith claimed that others believed that commerce required a navy to protect it, and he read a lengthy extract from Jefferson's Notes to prove that the country could support a much larger navy than the Federalists wanted to build. That occasioned Republican accusations that Smith had taken Jefferson out of context or claims that Jefferson was mistaken in his understanding.[14]

R. B. Bernstein, Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003; pbk, 2005)  978-0-19-518130-2

ISBN

—— (2004). The Revolution of Ideas. Oxford University Press, 251 pages.  9780195143683., Book

ISBN

Robert A. Ferguson, Law and Letters in American Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984)  978-0-674-51466-9

ISBN

Dustin Gish and Daniel Klinghard. Thomas Jefferson and the Science of Republican Government: A Political Biography of Notes on the State of Virginia (Cambridge UP, 2017). x, 341 pp.

Peter Kolchin, American Slavery, 1619-1877, New York: Hill and Wang, 1993; pbk, 1994

The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. The Modern Library, 1944.

Thomas Jefferson: Writings: Autobiography / Notes on the State of Virginia / Public and Private Papers / Addresses / Letters (1984,  978-0-940450-16-5) Library of America edition.

ISBN

David Tucker, Enlightened Republicanism: A Study of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia (Lexington Books, 2008)  978-0-7391-1792-7

ISBN

1830, electronic text, Documents of the American South, University of North Carolina

David Walker, Appeal

Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library.

Notes on the State of Virginia

The Online Library of Liberty.

PDF version

Digital facsimile of the manuscript copy for 1785 edition; Massachusetts Historical Society.

Notes on the State of Virginia