10.] Franklin considered the idea of the natural inferiority of the Negro as a silly excuse.

He conceded that most of the blacks were improvident and poor, but believed that their condition was not due to deficient understanding but to their lack of education.

He was very much impressed with their achievements in music.[1] So disgusting was this notion of inferiority to Abbe Gregoire of Paris that he wrote an interesting essay on "Negro Literature" to prove that people of color have unusual intellectual power.[2] He sent copies of this pamphlet to leading men where slavery existed.

Another writer discussing Jefferson's equivocal position on this question said that one would have thought that "modern philosophy himself" would not have the face to expect that the wretch, who is driven out to labor at the dawn of day, and who toils until evening with a whip over his head, ought to be a poet.

Benezet, who had actually taught Negroes, declared "with truth and sincerity" that he had found among them as great variety of talents as among a like number of white persons.