What were Thomas Jefferson’s views on the
institution of slavery?

Jefferson’s 1785 Notes on the State of Virginia denounces the institution of Slavery by stating that the violation of God’s gift of freedom brings down His wrath, as He is a just God, although longsuffering, that Almighty God has no personal attribute which would condone the slavery of human beings – and that He may intervene by Supernatural interference:

Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situations among possible events: that it may become probable by Supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. – But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one’s mind. I think a change already perceptible since the origin of the present (American) revolution. The spirit of the matter is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust; his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for total emancipation, and that this is disposed in the order of event, to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation…

From the above document, we conclude that Jefferson believed in Almighty God’s Supernatural attributes.

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Source: Library of Congress, Rare Book Collection.