This work is referencing Thomas Jefferson’s often quoted commentary on the peculiar institution of slavery
“But as it is, 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.” (Jefferson discussing the Missouri question and slavery to John Holmes April 22, 1820. Ford, Paul Leicester, ed. The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 12. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905, p. 159.)
And the work of Cheryl Derricotte becomes even more compelling when she provides some striking details: “My mother’s maiden name was Jefferson and my maternal side of the family came from Virginia. We always wondered if we came from Monticello, Jefferson’s primary plantation. He often said that slavery needed to end but did not take its dissolution on at a federal level. He believed in individual plantation reform and at Monticello, he moved away from tobacco and did not seek out cotton.
Rather, he planted wheat and trained many of his slaves as skilled laborers to build out his property and neighboring shops.
