 Thaddeus Stevens, congressman from Pennsylvania, argued that it was not enough to free the slaves and give them the right of suffrage; but that in addition they should be given land confiscated from the rebels. Charles Summer, senator from Massachusetts eventually came to agree with him, but surprisingly the radical ex-slave Frederick Douglass did not. Peter C. Myers (2008) speculated that Douglass’s “moderation” at this point was a reflection of “what was politically possible,” and of his concern that benevolent missions organized by whites might encourage dependence in the freedmen and prevent them from developing and exercising the virtues of a free people. Douglass’ proposed instead a federal corporation that would purchase tracts of land and then resell or lease them on favorable terms to the freedmen, urging that this arrangement was “more fully consistent with the principle of self-reliance” and give “greater societal recognition of the freed people’s virtue in providing for themselves.” Myers suggested that Douglass was following Jefferson in emphasizing the corrupting effects of dependence. But while Jefferson had indeed identified dependence as a crucial corrupter, it “begets subservience and venality, suffocates virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition” (Jefferson 1785a [1954: 165]) he declared, he was equally clear that legislators must protect the independence of the small yeoman farmer “the most precious part of the state” from the usurpation of the powerful (Jefferson 1785b [2006: 154]). In other words, Stevens had proposed his scheme for the freed people for exactly the reasons Jefferson proposed legislation for protecting the white yeomen. Years later Douglass evidently saw the error of his moderation. Myers cites his comment in 1882 that had the counsels of Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and ‘leading stalwart Republicans’ prevailed, “the terrible evils from which we now suffer would have been averted”, and “the Negro to-day”, would be “tilling his soil in comparative independence” (Myers 2008: 239, quoting Douglass 1882, Appendix A, 440–441). The theme continues to the present day.