“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 nei…