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In his ''Memoirs'', Jefferson wrote that Congress struck out his clause of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence which dealt directly with slavery, because of "complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia", who did not make any attempts whatsoever to restrain the importation of slaves like the other colonies did.<ref name=memoir>[https://books.google.com/books?id=QQZFhE-bdZEC&pg=PA16 Memoirs Corespondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson Late, President of the United States: Now First Published the Original Manuscripts]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=6u5EAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA251 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society]</ref>

In his ''Memoirs'', Jefferson wrote that Congress struck out his clause of the first draft of the Declaration of Independence which dealt directly with slavery, because of "complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia", who did not make any attempts whatsoever to restrain the importation of slaves like the other colonies did.<ref name=memoir>[https://books.google.com/books?id=QQZFhE-bdZEC&pg=PA16 Memoirs Corespondence and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson Late, President of the United States: Now First Published the Original Manuscripts]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=6u5EAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA251 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society]</ref>

Over the years, claims of hypocrisy have been thrown Jefferson's way over the issue of slavery, but none other than President [[John Quincy Adams]] pointed out the logical consistency of Jefferson's views.(Quincy Adams was a life-long, die-hard [[abolitionist]].)  Adams said:

Over the years, claims of hypocrisy have been thrown Jefferson's way over the issue of slavery, but none other than President [[John Quincy Adams]] pointed out the logical consistency of Jefferson's views.(Quincy Adams was a lifelong, die-hard [[abolitionist]].)  Adams said:

<blockquote>The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself. No charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the Memoir of His Life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=A3hRAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA50 An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport, at Their Request, on the Sixty-first Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1837]</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself. No charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the Memoir of His Life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=A3hRAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA50 An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the Town of Newburyport, at Their Request, on the Sixty-first Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1837]</ref></blockquote>