Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Connecticut maintained property requirements for voting until the 1840s. In 1770, more than half of the White men in Jefferson’s Virginia did not own any land or slaves. Thomas Jefferson referred to poor Whites as “rubbish” but nevertheless believed that some small percentage among their children could be “geniuses.” Jefferson supported public schools: the talented ones could be identified, encouraged, and grow up to generate wealth for the nation. Benjamin Franklin, in the 1700s, called poor Whites in the Pennsylvania backcountry “refuse” and hoped that the forces of nature would weed out malingerers. Many settlers in the 1600s were regarded as “waste people” in their native England many others were indentured servants.
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