*
Lee told Congress
that black people lacked the intellectual capacity of white people 
and “...could not vote intelligently...”
and that granting them suffrage
would “...excite unfriendly feelings between the two races...”
Lee explained that
“...the negroes have neither the intelligence
nor the other qualifications which are necessary
to make them safe depositories of political power....”
.
.
Thomas Jefferson said the same thing to his good friend, a French aristocrat (of course) with whom he exchanged letters often about the new country and his ideas.
I wrote a Kindle book which includes this type of hypocrisy I saw in Jefferson at every turn or so it seemed. Eventually, I took to finding it in his natal chart.
["Edgar Cayce on Past Lives:" by D.M.Hoover] The chapter on Thomas Jefferson included info on Banneker.
The letters he wrote had to do with Benjamin Banneker a truly remarkable man who had lived in the little town of"Oella" and was befriended by his 2 neighbors, brothers who had started the local Grain mill in nearby Ellicott City (named for the Ellicott brothers) Banneker (also spelled Baneker) was really more of a quiet self-contained type of person, although he took readily to the Elicott Brothers friendship which became lifelong.
Eventually, they loaned him books and various materials they had from their interest in Quaker religion which was Banneker's growing up - and together, they all attended a Mennonite Church , taking him with them to their meetings in the church. Banneker was very intelligent, needless to say (see Wiki):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Banneker
I think Harriet Beecher Stowe, her brother and family members as well as many others who helped create the Underground RR up north were also Mennonites. The northern church helped Banneker get published (his Ephemeris)
In 1788,
George Ellicott, the son of Andrew Ellicott, loaned Bannker equipment to begin a more formal study of astronomy. During the following year, Banneker sent George his work calculating a
solar eclipse.
[
In 1790, Banneker prepared an
ephemeris for 1791, which he hoped would be placed within a published almanac. However, he was unable to find a printer that was willing to publish and distribute the work.
To make a long story short - (which is always hard for me,
) ...I will mention that as a Sun Scorpio (perhaps impelling him), Banneker did drink and because liquor is a downer too - had periods of depression he fought often.
Perhaps not helped by the letters to Jefferson, offering his services for building the new roads (from D.C. Alexandria Va to Ellicott City?) along with the Elicott Brothers who were surveyors.
Eventually, Banneker (whose work was more the surveying of the heavens which helped to lay the streets) ......
note: There is also the Railroad Baltimore & Ohio which runs through Ellicott City.
Bottom line of my post has to do with the hypocrisy of Jefferson when meeting with and introducing Banneker's unique (at that time) work he did to those who helped finance this country. First he praised him as "different" from other Negroes, and then he took it back - saying in effect the "knowledge" came from the Ellicott Brothers which simply wasn't so.
He did of course mention that Banneker was a "free negroe" and not from a slave family. His parents had land and his grandmother was from Scotland, a white woman who taught him to read.
