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Thomas Jefferson’s Complicated Friends

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Quakers, Business and Corporate Responsibility

Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

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Abstract

Scholar Maurice Jackson has written about prominent Quakers like abolitionist Anthony Benezet as having embraced European and American ideals of natural rights and that the Quaker examples of abolition and charity in the eighteenth century were examples of enlightened leadership. Jacquelyn C. Miller noted that even non-Quakers like Benjamin Franklin sought to identify with “Quaker philosophy” and embrace some of the leading Quaker values as exemplifying liberal capitalism and incorporating enlightenment ideas. Within Quaker enlightenment can also be found the instinct to protest publicly as well as the ability to raise controversial issues by not pushing their confrontation in an aggressive manner. But this paper looks at the issue of whether Quaker relationships with their ethical consequences with former US President, primary author of the US Declaration of Independence, and founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, in personal interactions, writing, and/or employment, did go far enough given in business and personal ethics some Quakers worked with Jefferson to oversee or supply products for Jefferson’s slave plantation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Maurice Jackson, “‘What Shall be Done for the Negroes’ Anthony Benezet’s Legacy” in Maurice Jackson and Susan Kozel (eds.) Quakers and their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754–1808, First Edition Paperback (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017), 60–61.

  2. 2.

    Jacquelyn C. Miller, “Franklin and Friends, Benjamin Franklin’s Ties to Quakers and Quakerism,” Pennsylvania History Vol 57, No. 4 (October 1990): 318–319, 320, 325.

  3. 3.

    “To Thomas Jefferson from Gerard T. Hopkins, 9 November 1807,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed November 15, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-6752. Sue Kozel would like to thank Peter Onuf for his strong encouragement and critical editing eye on Jefferson research. She also thanks Onuf and Annette Gordon-Reed for challenging her ideas on Quakers and Jefferson during the 2012 Institute for Constitutional History Seminar at the New York Historical Society. She thanks Maurice Jackson for his continued support. She thanks the editors of this volume for the opportunity to publish first this new scholarship and in particular Nic Burton for his advocacy.

  4. 4.

    “To Thomas Jefferson from Gerard T. Hopkins, 9 November 1807.”

  5. 5.

    “From Thomas Jefferson to Gerard T. Hopkins, 13 November 1807,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-6776 Jefferson wrote, “Whatever may have been the circumstances which influenced our forefathers to permit the introduction of personal bondage into any part of these states, & to participate in the wrongs committed on an unoffending quarter of the globe, we may rejoice that such circumstances, & such a sense of them, exist no longer.”

  6. 6.

    A brilliant summary of abolitionist petitions is presented by Gary Nash in his writings on Quaker Warner Mifflin. Gary B. Nash, “Warner Mifflin (1745–1798): The Remarkable Life of an Unflinching Abolitionist,” in Maurice Jackson and Susan Kozel (eds.), Quakers and their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754–1808 (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017 paperback), 14–22. Edward Needles, A Historical Memoir of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Abolition of Slavery (Philadelphia: Merrihew and Thompson, 1848), 6 (Wistar becomes President), 39, 59, 73. Google ebook. No reference to Thomas Jefferson. Accessed November 26, 2017, https://books.google.com/books?id=QnITAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=jefferson&f=false

  7. 7.

    “American Slavery, Congressional Records,” African American Heritage, National Archives. Accessed November 1, 2017, https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/slavery-records-congress.html, Walter B. Hill, “Living with the Hydra: The Documentation of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Federal Records,” Prologue, Selected Articles Vol 32, No. 4 (Winter 2004): 1. Accessed October 15, 2017. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2000/winter/hydra-slave-trade-documentation-1.html, Transcript, “Memorial of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, 3 February 1790. Birth of a Nation: The First Federal Congress1789–1791. Accessed October 16, 2017, https://www2.gwu.edu/~ffcp/exhibit/p11/p11_5text.html, https://www2.gwu.edu/~ffcp/exhibit/p11/p11_4.html. “Benjamin Franklin Petitions to Congress,” The Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives. Accessed October 1, 2017, https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/franklin“Abolition Timeline,” The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. Accessed October 1, 2017, https://glc.yale.edu/abolitionism-timeline “Anti-Slavery Timeline,” Teach US History.org. Accessed November 1, 2017, http://www.teachushistory.org/second-great-awakening-age-reform/articles/anti-slavery-timeline

  8. 8.

    Section X, The constitution of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery : and the Relief of Free Negroes , unlawfully held in bondage . Begun in the year 1774 , and enlarged on the twenty-third of April , 1787 . To which are added , The Acts of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania , for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery (Philadelphia, Joseph James, 1787), 12. Accessed October 1, 2017, http://triptych.brynmawr.edu/cdm/ref/collection/HC_QuakSlav/id/1059

  9. 9.

    See critical debates in abolitionist circles in Maurice Jackson and Susan Kozel, Ed., Quakers and their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754–1808 First Edition Paperback (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017), 1–8. The introduction provides an overview of the history of abolition societies and the role of Quakers within these groups that had Quaker and non-Quaker members. Susan Kozel, “In Pursuit of Natural Rights and Liberty—The Brothers Waln in Greater Philadelphia and the Atlantic World,” in Maurice Jackson and Sue Kozel, eds. Quakers and their Allies in the Abolitionist Cause, 1754–1808 First Edition Paperback (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2017), 125–140. Quaker Richard Waln wrote a Quaker elder regarding how a young African American man was helped against his will and deprived of his “natural right to liberty.” Letter from Richard Waln to John Gaunt of Friends of Egg Harbor Monthly Meeting, November 14, 1788, HSP Richard Waln papers, 1651, Box 1, Bound Book Waln Letters 1766–1794.

  10. 10.

    William Tilghman, An eulogium in commemoration of Doctor Caspar Wistar, late president of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge: delivered before the Society, pursuant to their appointment, in the German Lutheran Church in Fourth Street, in the city of Philadelphia, on the 11th day of March, 1818 (Philadelphia: E. Earle, 1818), 35. Digital Collections, US National Library of Medicine. Accessed October 26, 2017, https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-2575016R-bk

  11. 11.

    Mike King, Quakernomics, An Ethical Capitalism (London: Anthem Press, 2014), 5–6. Definition of Quakernomics as an economic and commerce-related practice.

  12. 12.

    King, Quakernomics, 5–6. Includes a discussion of the Quaker Business Method. See page 254 for his key quote on “ethical capitalism.” In the text, I have interpreted some of King’s foundational ideas, and here I will note the “voluntarist” aspect is among the most complicated and challenging. Paternalism, at root, has a way of pushing people to modify behaviors, and I disagree with King on the voluntary aspects. See the article by Gerald Dworkin, “Paternalism” as part of the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy. Accessed February 25, 2017, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/

  13. 13.

    Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination, (New York: Liveright Publishing Company, 2016), xx. Jefferson called himself a Patriarch as quoted by Gordon-Reed and Onuf, xii–xxi.

  14. 14.

    Verna M. Cavey, “Fighting Among Friends, the Quaker Separation of 1827,” in Social Conflicts and Collective Identities, Patricia C. Coy and Lynn. M. Woehrie, ed. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 142–143.

  15. 15.

    “To Thomas Jefferson from Joseph Bringhurst, 8 July 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0520. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 679–680.]. Accessed November 15, 2017.

  16. 16.

    An Inventory of the Collection of Bringhurst Family Correspondence, 1780–1941, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore. Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/ead/m046brin.xml. Accessed Oct. 18, 2017. This paper will sort out the controversies using footnotes from the Jefferson Papers and comparing the records interpreted by other scholars and authors.

  17. 17.

    “To Thomas Jefferson from Joseph Bringhurst, 8 July 1803,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified November 26, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0520. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 40, 4 March–10 July 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013, pp. 679–680.] An inventory of the Collection of the Bringhurst Family Correspondence, 1790–1941, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. This Joseph Bringhurst is the son of James, and Joseph was a member of the American Philosophical Society. Centennial Anniversary of the Pennsylvania Society, for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race (Philadelphia: Grant, Faires & Rodgers, Printers, 1875), 55, 57, 42. Accessed November 26, 2017,https://archive.org/details/centennialannive00lcpenn

  18. 18.

    Gary B. Nash, Warner Mifflin, Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 176.

  19. 19.

    Seal of the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Abolition, c. 1800.

  20. 20.

    Letter from Richard Waln to John Gaunt of Friends of Egg Harbor Monthly Meeting, November 14, 1788, HSP Richard Waln papers, 1651, Box 1, Bound Book Waln Letters 1766–1794.

  21. 21.

    King, Quakernomics, An Ethical Capitalism , 39–40, 55, 68, 77, 254.

  22. 22.

    Jay Worrall, The Friendly Virginians, America’s First Quakers (Athens, GA: Iberia Publishing Co., 1994)175–177. A brilliant dissertation focuses on the mindful ways that Pleasants persistently advocate for abolition. William Fernandez Hardin. LITIGATING THE LASH: QUAKER EMANCIPATOR ROBERT PLEASANTS, THE LAWOF SLAVERY, AND THE MEANING OF MANUMISSION IN REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL VIRGINIA, Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in History, May, 2013. Nashville, Tennessee. Accessed Sep. 20, 2017, https://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu//available/etd-03292013-113550/unrestricted/HardinWF.pdf. See pages 92–100 for discussion regarding the emancipation debates in Virginia during the Revolution. There was division over whether white and newly freed blacks could live in the same community. Pleasants did not want emancipation that required removal from Virginia. Pleasants had wanted free public schools for blacks. 206. A. Glen Crothers, Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth, The Society of Friends in Northern Virginia, 1730–1865 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2012), 108–109,188, 133. Pleasants would disagree with Virginia Friends and join with Methodists to form the Virginia Abolition Society in 1790, according to Crothers.

  23. 23.

    King, Quakernomics, 6.

  24. 24.

    “Property,” Plantations and Slavery, Monticello.org. Accessed November 1, 2017, https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/property. The website discusses how Jefferson inherited initially 145 slaves from his father-in-law, and then through slave breeding and other purchases the number grew to over 600 slaves during the course of his lifetime.

  25. 25.

    Mark D. McGarvie, “‘In perfect accordance with his character’: Thomas Jefferson, Slavery, and the Law” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol 95, Issue 2 (1999) 142. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/imh/article/view/11739/17186

  26. 26.

    Peter S. Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 2000), 151. “From Thomas Jefferson to St. George Tucker, 28 August 1797,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed November 1, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0405. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 29, 1 March 1796 –31 December 1797, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002, pp. 519–520.]

  27. 27.

    St. George Tucker, A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of It, in the State of Virginia (Philadelphia, Matthew Carey, 1796), 76, See full book at https://archive.org/stream/dissertationonsla00tuck#page/76/mode/2up

    Tucker quotes Jefferson’s comments in Notes on Virginia. Page 89 Tucker uses Jefferson’s language that Africans are inferior and therefore should not have equal citizenship with whites. Tucker argues that emancipated Blacks do not want or are not always capable of full rights on Page 90. Accessed November 20, 2017,

    https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/media_player?mets_filename=evm00000591mets.xml. Tucker’s proposal felt like the Black Codes of Mississippi 1865 that would deny free blacks rights to weapons, right to serve on juries, or right to marry whites, for example.

  28. 28.

    Onuf, Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood, 149–150.

  29. 29.

    McGarvie made this argument by quoting Drew G. McCoy’s analysis of conflicts between Jefferson and his neighbor and ardent abolitionist Edward Coles in an exchange of letters. See McCoy’s Last of the Fathers. Drew G. McCoy, Last of the Fathers, James Madison and the Republic Legacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 312–313.

  30. 30.

    Thomas Jefferson, “Jefferson’s Opinion on the Proposal for Manufacture of Woolen Textiles in Virginia”, 3 Dec. 1790, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017. Accessed November 25, 2017, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-01-18-02-0088

  31. 31.

    Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII: Manners, Teaching American History. Accessed November 1, 2017, http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/notes-on-the-state-of-virginia-query-xviii-manners/. Here are the key quotes: “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other….The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities.”

  32. 32.

    “Sally Hemings” The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. Accessed October 28, 2017, https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/sally-hemings See also the encyclopedia’s article on James Callender. Accessed October 28, 2017, https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/james-callender. Also, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation accepts the DNA testing that says that he is the father of Sally Hemings’ children. Appendix Thomas Jefferson Foundation, “Appendix H: Sally Hemings and Her Children,” Report of the Research Committee and Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. 2000. Accessed October 28, 2017, https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/appendix-h-sally-hemings-and-her-children

  33. 33.

    Gordon-Reed and Onuf, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination, xx.

  34. 34.

    Gordon-Reed and Onuf, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination 161, 247, 263.

  35. 35.

    Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson and the Art of Power (New York: Random House, 2012), 40.

  36. 36.

    Gordon-Reed and Onuf, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination 141–142.

  37. 37.

    Jefferson on slaves selling goods—Cinder Lucia.

  38. 38.

    Gordon-Reed and Onuf, “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs” Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination 5, 104. No reference in the Meacham Text. No reference in, Francis P. Cogliano, Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006). Reference to Quaker’s loyalty to “Mother-Country,” meaning England in Peter S. Onuf, The Mind of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, The University of Virginia Press, 2012), 168. No Reference. Brian Steele, Thomas Jefferson and American Nationhood Cambridge Studies on the American South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

  39. 39.

    Worrall, The Friendly Virginians, America’s First Quakers, 272–273.

  40. 40.

    Peter Onuf to Sue Kozel, February 9, 2013, email. This email quotes a draft letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Baldwin dated January 19, 1810, in which Jefferson denounces the example of a Quaker “as essential an Englishman” and are devoted to the “Mother-society,” which means England. Jefferson acknowledged good patriots are among the Quakers but does not name them, other than attacking Mr. Pemberton.

  41. 41.

    Primary Resource, “Life of Isaac Jefferson of Petersburg, Virginia, Blacksmith” by Isaac Jefferson (1847), Encyclopedia Virginia, Chapter 12, Page 11. Accessed May 25, 2016, https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Life_of_Isaac_Jefferson_of_Petersburg_Virginia_Blacksmith_by_Isaac_Jefferson_1847. A reference to “old Bringhouse,” the way he referred to Bringhurst. Page 13 mentions Jim Bringhouse. James Adam Bear, Jr. Jefferson at Monticello: Memoirs of a Monticello Slave (Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 1967) 13–17. Information From Ebook Preview Amazon. Accessed November 30, 2017, https://www.amazon.com/Jefferson-Monticello-Recollections-Slave-Overseer/dp/0813900220

    See Bear, 13–16 for discussions of descriptions of “Old Bringhouse,” how Isaac described the old Tinsmith who taught him his trade and came to Monticello. Lucia Stanton believes this is John Bringhouse. I believe this is John Bringhurst. Email from Lucia Stanton to Sue Kozel, May 30, 2016.

  42. 42.

    James Bringhurst Papers. Accessed November 15, 2017 https://catalog.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/find/Record/.b2685341/Details#tabnav, “Part III. Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge, Compiled by One of the Secretaries, from the Manuscript Minutes of Its Meetings from 1744–1838” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 22, No. 119 (Jul., 1885), pp. 171. Accessed January 2, 2018, https://www.jstor.org/stable/i240332

  43. 43.

    An Inventory of the Collection of Bringhurst Family Correspondence, 1780–1941, MSS046, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore. Accessed November 1, 2017, http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/ead/m046brin.xml

  44. 44.

    James Bringhurst to Thomas Jefferson, January 3, 1805. -01-03, 1805. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Accessed November 25, 2017 https://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib014203/

  45. 45.

    Thomas Jefferson to James Bringhurst, January 9, 1805. -01-09, 1805. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Accessed November 25, 2017, https://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib014226/

  46. 46.

    Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to James Bringhurst, January 9, 1805. The Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 1. General Correspondence. 1606–1827. Library of Congress. Available online via the Library of Congress American Memory project. Accessed November 10, 2017, https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.032_0183_0184/?sp=1

  47. 47.

    “From Thomas Jefferson to John Bringhurst, 26 July 1793,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed November 15, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-26-02-0506. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 26, 11 May–31 August 1793, ed. John Catanzariti. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, pp. 569–570.] See notes for references to John Bringhurst.

  48. 48.

    “To Thomas Jefferson from John Bringhurst, [11 September 1793],” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-27-02-0085. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 27, 1 September–31 December 1793, ed. John Catanzariti. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, p. 88.].

  49. 49.

    Email from Lucia Stanton to Sue Kozel, May 30, 2016.

  50. 50.

    Lucia C. Stanton, “those Who Labor for My Happiness”: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Jeffersonian America (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012), 127. See Bear, 13–16 for discussions of descriptions of Old Bringhouse, how Isaac described the old Tinsmith who taught him his trade and came to Monticello.

  51. 51.

    See Bear, 13–16 for discussions of descriptions of “Old Bringhouse,” how Isaac described the old Tinsmith who taught him his trade and came to Monticello. Stanton believes this is John Bringhouse.

  52. 52.

    “Memorandum Books, 1797,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed December 18, 2017 http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/02-02-02-0007. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series, Jefferson’s Memorandum Books, vol. 2, ed. James A Bear, Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, pp. 951–976.], See entry for Dec. 17 and the purchase of a pistol. See also this exchange from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson discussing Bringhurst’s visit. “To Thomas Jefferson from James Madison, 2 August 1797,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0387. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 29, 1 March 1796 – 31 December 1797, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 488.]

  53. 53.

    “Thomas Jefferson’s Conversation with Washington, 13 December 1792,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 29, 2017. Accessed November 25, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-11-02-0306. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 11, 16 August 1792 – 15 January 1793, ed. Christine Sternberg Patrick. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002, pp. 510–511.]

  54. 54.

    An inventory of the Bringhurst Correspondence. http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/friends/ead/m046brin.xml

  55. 55.

    “Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Bringhurst.” 15 Jan. 1791. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017). Accessed November 25, 2017, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-01-18-02-0167 Main Series, Volume 18 (4 November 1790–24 January 1791), 493. See the editor’s note.

  56. 56.

    The Quaker Peace Testimony. Accessed August 26, 2017, http://www.quaker.org/minnfm/peace/. See the extensive discussion and thoughtful links on non-violence. Accessed January 2, 2018, http://www.pym.org/publications/pym-pamphlets/quaker-peace-testimony/

  57. 57.

    The letter count comes from reviewing the entries for Wistar in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Digital Edition, edited by James P. McClure and Jefferson Looney. Rotunda.upress.virginia.edu

  58. 58.

    “To Thomas Jefferson from R.M. Patterson, Secretary APS, January 20, 1815,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017. Accessed November 26, 2017, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-03-08-02-0169

    Retirement Series, Volume 8 (1 October 1814–31 August 1815), 202.

  59. 59.

    Tilghman, An eulogium in commemoration of Doctor Caspar Wistar,… 35.

  60. 60.

    Tilghman, An eulogium in commemoration of Doctor Caspar Wistar… 34.

  61. 61.

    “To Thomas Jefferson from Caspar Wistar, 15 January 1805,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified December 28, 2016. Accessed January 2, 2017, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-1003

  62. 62.

    “Anti-Slavery Timeline,” Digital History. Accessed November 26, 2017, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3538

  63. 63.

    George William Van Cleve, A Slaveholder’s Union: Slavery, Politics, and the Constitution in the Early American Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 6, 10, 188.

  64. 64.

    Van Cleve, A Slaveholder’s Union: Slavery, Politics, and the Constitution in the Early American Republic, 217.

  65. 65.

    “Letter to Lewis Meriwether from Thomas Jefferson, April 27, 1803,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017. Accessed November 26, 2017, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-01-40-02-0204], Main Series, Volume 40 (4 March–10 July 1803), 277.

  66. 66.

    Edmund Raymond Turner, “The Abolition of Slavery in Pennsylvania,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Vol 36, No. 2 (1912), 141, JSTOR. Accessed November 26, 2017,

    http://www.jstor.org/stable/20085586

  67. 67.

    From John Vaughn to Thomas Jefferson, 22 January 1818 Evg 9. o’clock, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017. Accessed November 26, 2017, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-03-12-02-0317 Retirement Series, Volume 12 (1 September 1817–21 April 1818), 387.

  68. 68.

    “Caspar Wistar, (1761–1818) Historical Marker,” Historical Markers, ExplorePA.org. Accessed November 20, 2017, http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-181

  69. 69.

    “To Caspar Wistar from Thomas Jefferson, Feb. 28, 1803,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017. Accessed November 27 2017,

    http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-01-39-02-0510

    Main Series, Volume 39 (13 November 1802–3 March 1803), 601. Neither Benjamin Rush nor Caspar Wistar had been told by Jefferson that he was communicating with each one about the expedition. “To Benjamin Rush from Thomas Jefferson, Feb. 28, 1803,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017. Accessed November 26, 2017, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-01-39-02-0507 Main Series, Volume 39 (13 November 1802–3 March 1803) 598.

  70. 70.

    “From Philip Thornton to Thomas Jefferson, November 19th, 1814,” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition, ed. James P. McClure and J. Jefferson Looney. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–2017. Accessed November 26, 2017, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/TSJN-03-08-02-0078

    Retirement Series, Volume 8 (1 October 1814–31 August 1815), 96. In the editor’s note is reference a 28, November 1808 letter from Wistar to Jefferson at the Library of Congress, where Wistar writes in four pages about Thornton’s character. See https://www.loc.gov/search/?q=Caspar+Wistar+to+TJ%2C+28+Nov.+1808+&fa=segmentof%3Amtj1.042_1086_1089%2F&st=gallery

  71. 71.

    Tilghman, An eulogium in commemoration of Doctor Caspar Wistar …, 42.

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  1. Kean University, Union, NJ, USA

    Sue Kozel

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  1. Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK

    Nicholas Burton

  2. Centre of Markets, Enterprise & Ethics, Oxford, UK

    Richard Turnbull

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Kozel, S. (2019). Thomas Jefferson’s Complicated Friends. In: Burton, N., Turnbull, R. (eds) Quakers, Business and Corporate Responsibility. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04034-5_9

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