“We Have the Wolf By the Ear, and We Can Neither Hold Him Nor Safely Let Him Go.”

Thomas Jefferson’s Dilemma Over Ending Slavery

sylvia duckworth / Resting wolf at Highland Wildlife Park, Kincraig

The biographer Suetonius attributed the expression "holding a wolf by the ears" to the Roman emperor Tiberius. It describes a situation with no favorable outcome and danger on every side. Tiberius feared plots against him in the Senate and a mutiny from Roman legions in Germania, who didn’t receive their promised bonuses. Tiberius lived in fear of being poisoned, and it’s an open question whether he was.

“The cause of his hesitation was fear of the dangers which threatened him on every hand, and often led him to say that he was ‘holding a wolf by the ears.’” — Tiberius

Thomas Jefferson used the expression twice in letters after his presidency. Once, in a letter to John Holmes dated April 22, 1820. Jefferson discussed slavery and the Missouri Compromise (admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state to keep the balance in Congress between slave and free states).

“We have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” — Thomas Jefferson

The second time was in a letter to Lydia Howard Huntley on July 18, 1824, lamenting what to do with Native Americans after the government had broken several treaties, festering hatred and desire for revenge.

“I see not how we are to disengage ourselves from that deplorable entanglement, we have the wolf by the ears and feel the danger of either holding or letting him loose.” — Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson was suffering from chronic illness, and both letters were penned with consideration of his inevitable departure. He had removed himself from the public sphere, and entering the debate on the Missouri Compromise was his last attempt to impose himself on the nation.

The question of what to do about slavery (and Native Americans) confounded Jefferson. There are many attempts by historians to explain how much Jefferson hated slavery while continuing to own over 600 in his lifetime. Jefferson literally couldn’t afford to end slavery because enslaved people were the only significant assets he had left. He’d spent too much on books and the University of Virginia and guaranteeing loans for friends who had gone bad. Jefferson needed the expansion of slavery to continue the demand for enslaved people continue to rise.

By 1820, Virginia's leading export was slaves, surpassing tobacco, which had been overfarmed by not rotating crops. Jefferson’s Monticello was now growing wheat, which was less labor intensive, and his nailery was shut down due to the market being flooded with cheap nails from abroad. Jefferson needed slavery to expand so he could stay afloat. That was one of the dangers of letting go of slavery, for him it meant financial ruin.

Another danger was the same one he foresaw about merging Native Americans into the population. Black men had been beaten, witnessed their women raped, and forced to breed with themselves or others, often to see those children sold for the profit of their owners. Jefferson wrote to George Washington about the profitability of Black women bearing a child every two years.

“I allow nothing for losses by death, but, on the contrary, shall presently take credit four percent. Per annum, for their increase over and above, keeping up their numbers. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm; what she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption.” — Thomas Jefferson

What worried Jefferson was that Black people given freedom and guns would take the opportunity to seek revenge on the white population. He favored granting freedom to Black people and exporting them after maturity.

“I have seen no proposition so expedient . . . as that of emancipation of those [slaves] born after a given day, and of their education and expatriation at a proper age,” — Thomas Jefferson, 1814

Abraham Lincoln reached a similar conclusion and conducted a trial on Cow Island near Haiti, which met with dismal failure. Jefferson decided that sending the former slaves to Africa would be best. Lincoln was debating between Central America and Liberia.

White America, then and arguably now, lived in fear of its Black population. Jefferson lived through the Haitian Revolution and did his best to punish Haiti for daring to obtain its freedom from France. He negotiated with Napoleon’s government when they bailed out of America, resulting in the Louisiana Purchase. That gave Jefferson more places to sell slaves with the expanding cotton market in Texas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere in the new territory. Jefferson knew he was grabbing the wolf by the ear, but his personal finances were entangled in slavery. He couldn’t afford to do otherwise.

America is still grasping the ears of its Black population, holding on for fear of what might happen if it let go. Holding the ears takes the form of voter suppression, eliminating affirmative action and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, and reducing immigration from what the former president calls “shithole countries.” It means the over-policing of minority communities while bestowing qualified immunity on the modern slave patrols. Letting go might result in reparations, not for having descended from slaves but for everything that came after, including the Black Codes, Jim Crow, and excluding Black people from the VA and FHA loans that created the middle class.

The dilemma that perplexed Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln has faced every American President since the Civil War. The issue has expanded beyond Black people to include Puerto Ricans who were thrown paper towels after a natural disaster and saw their home called a floating island of garbage without apology. Legal immigrants of color are treated harshly, and there are promises to kick them out. Colleges and universities are being pushed to return to less diverse, unequal, and exclusive practices. Can the hold on the wolves' ears continue to be held, or will the wolves ultimately break free as demographics make America browner than ever?