Notes on the State of Virginia

Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) is a book written by the American statesman, philosopher, and planter Thomas Jefferson. He completed the first version in 1781 and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783. It originated in Jefferson's responses to questions about Virginia posed to each of the thirteen states in 1780 by François Barbé-Marbois, the secretary of the French delegation in Philadelphia, the temporary capital of the Continental Congress. Notes on the State of Virginia is both a compilation of data by Jefferson about the state's natural resources and economy and his vigorous argument about the nature of the good society, which he believed to be incarnated by Virginia. He expressed his beliefs in the separation of church and state, constitutional government, checks and balances, and individual liberty. He also wrote extensively about slavery, his dislike of miscegenation, justifications of white supremacy, and his belief that Whites and Black Americans could not co-exist in a society in which Blacks were free. It was the only full-length book that Jefferson published during his lifetime. He first had it published anonymously in Paris by Philippe Denis Pierres in 1785 while Jefferson serving the U.S. government as a trade representative. A French translation by Abbé Morellet appeared in 1787. In London, John Stockdale published it in 1787 after Jefferson had come to terms for a limited print run and other arrangements. Notes was anonymously published in Paris in a limited private edition of 200 copies in 1785. A French translation by Abbé Morellet appeared in 1787 (though with an imprint date of 1786). Its first public edition, issued by John Stockdale in London, began to be sold in 1787. It was the only full-length book by Jefferson published that was during his lifetime though he issued a Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, generally known as Jefferson's Manual, in 1801.