JeffersonJustice & Power, session ix

Topics in This Session

i. Introduction

ii.Early Years

iii.Declaration of Independence; June, 1776

iv.Later Life

v.Criticism

Introduction

The vicious campaign of 1800 had divided the second and third presidents. In 1812, at the persistent urging of their mutual friend Benjamin Rush, the two reconciled. Their correspondence was a great consolation to both in their twilight years. As the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approached, both old men reflected on this joint endeavor of their youth. Both struggled to hang on to life until the great day. Jefferson asked at 8 pm July 3rd “Is it the 4th yet?”“Almost.”He passed away at 10 minutes before 1 pm the next day , at age 83, a few hours before John Adams, whose last words were “Jefferson survives.”

The Fiftieth Anniversary--1824

HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON

AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

He had made directions for his funeral: no invitations, no celebration or parade. He wished to be buried at Monticello. He wrote his own epitaph which includes no reference to his presidency:

Jefferson’s grave at Monticello

Early Years

Early Years

II. Early Years1. family and society2. William and Mary College, 1760-62

a. Geo. Wythe and “reading for the law”b. bar, 1767

3. House of Burgesses, 17694. A Summary of the View of the Rights of British America, 1774

1743-third of ten children, born on the western frontier of Virginia

his father was a planter, surveyor, and speculator

1752-having been home schooled, at age nine,Thomas began studies at the local school of a Scottish Presbyterian minister. Latin, Greek, French, equestrianism, nature

1758-1760-boarded nearby with Rev. James Maury. Studied history, science, and the classics

1762-age sixteen, went east to attend the College of William and Mary at the colonial capital, Williamsburg

II.2.a. & b. Williamsburg

college

GeorgeWythehouse

governor’s palace

Houseof

Burgesses

1781 map

College of William & MaryThe Wren Building-front

College of William & MaryThe Wren Building-rear

The Governor’s Palace

George Wythe HouseJefferson’s law professor

House of BurgessesWilliamsburg

House of BurgessesInterior

II.4. A Summary of the View of the Rights of British America, 1774

while still a young lawyer in Williamsburg Jefferson published this pamphlet which made the legal argument for Independence

June, 1776-age 32, sent as a Virginia delegate to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia

John Adams picked this young man to be part of the committee to draft the Declaration largely on the reputation which his “Summary…” had earned for him throughout the colonies

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

With five simple words in the Declaration of Independence---”all men are created equal”---Thomas Jefferson undid Aristotle’s ancient formula, which had governed human affairs until 1776: “From the hour of their birth, some men are marked out for subjection, others for rule.” In his original draft of the Declaration, in soaring, damning, fiery prose, Jefferson denounced the slave trade as an “execrable commerce...this assemblage of horrors,” a “cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberties.” As historian John Chester Miller put it, “The inclusion of Jefferson’s strictures on slavery and the slave trade would have committed the United States to the abolition of slavery.”

Henry Wiencek, “Master of Monticello,” in Smithsonian, October 2012, p. 40

III. Declaration of Independence; June, 17761. composition and publication2. content

a. prologueb. philosophy - memorize (“We...happiness”)c. indictmentd. conclusion

3. significance4. criticism

III.1. composition and publication

June 11th-Congress appoints the 5-man committee to draft a declaration

in the next 17 days Jefferson produces a draft with input from Franklin and Adams

famously, Franklin changed “We hold these truths to be sacred and un-deniable” to read “...self-evident”

July 2-4th-Congress first voted to declare, then spent 3 days debating the text. The most important concession to the slave interests was the toning down of Jefferson’s attack on the “peculiar institution”

This idealized depiction of (left to right) Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson working on the Declaration (Jean Leon Gerome

Ferris, 1900) was widely reprinted

III. Declaration of Independence; June, 17761. composition and publication2. content

a. prologueb. philosophy - memorize (“We...happiness”)c. indictmentd. conclusion

3. significance

When in the course of human events...

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

----That to secure these rights Governments are instituted among Men,

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed

Justice occurs when the governedconsent to the powers which they

assign to government.

----That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends it is the Right of the People to alter

or abolish it.

The history of the present king of Great Britain...

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the

Supreme Judge of the world ...

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and

our sacred Honor.

A non-partisan appreciation for the Declaration emerged in the years following the War of 1812, thanks to a growing American nationalism and a renewed interest in the history of the Revolution. In 1817, Congress commissioned John Trumbull's famous painting of the signers, which was exhibited to large crowds before being installed in the Capitol. The earliest commemorative printings of the Declaration also appeared at this time, offering many Americans their first view of the signed document. Collective biographies of the signers were first published in the 1820s, giving birth to what Garry Wills called the "cult of the signers". In the years that followed, many stories about the writing and signing of the document would be published for the first time.

Wikipedia

The five-man committee

Adams

Sherman

Livingston

JeffersonFranklin

French leaders were directly influenced by the text of the Declaration of Independence itself. The Manifesto of the Province of Flanders (1790) was the first foreign derivation of the Declaration; others include the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence (1811), the Liberian Declaration of Independence (1847), the declarations of secession by the Confederate States of America (1860–61), and the Vietnam Declaration of Independence (1945). These declarations echoed the United States Declaration of Independence in announcing the independence of a new state, without necessarily endorsing the political philosophy of the original.Some other countries that used the Declaration as inspiration or directly copied sections from it is the Haitian declaration of 1 January 1804 from the Haitian Revolution, the United Provinces of New Granada in 1811, the Argentine Declaration of Independence in 1816, the Chilean Declaration of Independence in 1818, Costa Rica in 1821, El Salvador in 1821, Guatemala in 1821, Honduras in (1821), Mexico in 1821, Nicaragua in 1821, Peru in 1821, Bolivian War of Independence in 1825, Uruguay in 1825, Ecuador in 1830, Colombia in 1831, Paraguay in 1842, Dominican Republic in 1844, Texas Declaration of Independence in March 1836, California Republic in November 1836, Hungarian Declaration of Independence in 1849, Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand in 1835, Czechoslovak declaration of independence from 1918 drafted in Washington D.C. with Gutzon Borglum among the drafters, Southern Rhodesia in 11 November 1965.

Wikipedia

Later Life

Later Life

IV. Later Life1. contributions to Virginia2. separation of church and state

a. Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 1786b. First Amendment, 1791

3. personal learning and education policy4. national service

Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) -- Jefferson completed the first edition in 1781, and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783. Notes on the State of Virginia originated in Jefferson's responding to questions about Virginia, posed to him in 1780 by the Secretary of the French delegation in Philadelphia, the temporary capital of the united colonies.

Often dubbed the most important American book published before 1800, 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 and often eloquent argument about the nature of the good society, which he believed was incarnated by Virginia. He expressed his beliefs in the separation of church and state, constitutional government, checks and balances, and individual liberty. He wrote extensively about slavery, the problems of miscegenation, and his belief that whites and blacks could not live together in a free society.

Wikipedia

Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth... Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely.

Notes on the State of Virginia

People mistakenly believe this is a phrase from the First Amendment or some other document with the force of law. It is, instead, contained in a letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut in 1802.

IV. 2. separation of church and state

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.

IV. 2. a. Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, 1786

As the established state church, the Anglican Church received tax support and no one could hold office who was not an Anglican. The Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist churches did not receive tax support. As Jefferson wrote in his Notes on Virginia, pre-Revolutionary colonial law held that "if a person brought up a Christian denies the being of a God, or the Trinity ...he is punishable on the first offense by incapacity to hold any office ...; on the second by a disability to sue, to take any gift or legacy ..., and by three year' imprisonment." Prospective officer-holders were required to swear that they did not believe in the central Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.

In 1779 Jefferson proposed "The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom," which was adopted in 1786. Its goal was complete separation of church and state; it declared the opinions of men to be beyond the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. He asserted that the mind is not subject to coercion, that civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions, and that the opinions of men are not the concern of civil government. This became one of the American charters of freedom. This elevated declaration of the freedom of the mind was hailed in Europe as "an example of legislative wisdom and liberality never before known."

Wikipedia

The Bill of Rights, 1791(the first ten amendments to the Constitution)

Amendment I -- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

IV.4. national service

1775-1776--Second Continental Congress

1783-1785--Confederation Congress

1785-1789--Minister to France

1790-1793--Secretary of State to George Washington

1797-1801--VicePresident to John Adams

1801-1809--President

IV.3. personal learning and education policy

at a state dinner JFK once quipped to his guests that this was the most brilliant gathering of intellect at the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone

after his formal education Jefferson became an auto-didact

a half dozen languages-learned Gaelic to translate Ossian

architecture

agronomy

mechanical inventions

natural history &c., &c., &c…..

University of Virginia

University of Virginia

Walnut Hills High SchoolCincinnati, Ohio

Criticism

Criticism

dedicated April 13, 1943the two hundredth anniversary

Excerptfrom the

Declaration

It’s hard to argue with this demigod of American Civil Religion. But are “these truths” really “self-evident”? Is the doctrine of natural law still a useful concept?Do the “unalienable rights” come from Nature? Nature’s God (their Creator)?And the compact/contract theory? with its implied right to rebellion?Or was Wilson right?

It’s hard to argue with this demigod of American Civil Religion. But are “these truths” really “self-evident”? Is the doctrine of natural law still a useful concept?Do the “unalienable rights” come from Nature? Nature’s God (their Creator)?And the compact/contract theory? with its implied right to rebellion?Or was Wilson right?

in Hillsdale College, “Constitution 201”, September 17, 2012

It’s hard to argue with this demigod of American Civil Religion. But are “these truths” really “self-evident”? Is the doctrine of natural law still a useful concept?Do the “unalienable rights” come from Nature? Nature’s God (their Creator)?And the compact/contract theory? with its implied right to rebellion?Or was Wilson right?

in Hillsdale College, “Constitution 201”, September 10, 2012

Thomas Nelson, 2012

this book by Hillsdale College president Arnn addresses why today’s Progressives dismiss the philosophy of the Declaration

why for them the Founders’ philosophy and the Constitution are obsolete 18th century obstacles to progress

how the well-intentioned democratic idealism of the early 20th century Progressives led them to prefer the administrative bureaucratic state to the checks and balances of the 18th century Constitution

Why should [they] regard the Constitution as odious in principle, an albatross when it is effective, and for the most part happily irrelevant? …. The answer has to do with a change in our understanding of rights and what it takes to protect them. These regulatory agencies are designed to accommodate an evolutionary standard of rights favored in the academic world for generations now. In this understanding, the Constitution is severed from the Declaration, and both are compromised. The Declaration proclaims rights that are inadequate, and the standards by which it proclaims them are obsolete. This being so, the Constitution is simply destroyed. Its arrangements are outmoded and rightly ignored. Its purposes are rejected, and we are left with nothing except the tide of history (characterized by supporters of the administrative state as “progress”) to guide us. In modern America this tide has all the force of bureaucracy behind it.

Arnn, pp.18-19

By 1792 Jefferson had gone from “all men are created equal” to an uneasy accommodation with slavery at Monticello. He wrote about the profitability of slavery as an investment which returned a 4% per annum return because of the “natural increase” of his more than 200 slaves. He was trapped between his self-indulgent spendthrift lifestyle and his philosophical moral insight.

In 1800, the mudslinging of the Federalist press against Jefferson’s challenge to Adams’ reelection makes 2012’s campaign look like a Platonic dialogue in comparison. Jefferson

Last Word

(cont.)

In 1800, the mudslinging of the Federalist press against Jefferson’s challenge to Adams’ reelection makes 2012’s campaign look like a Platonic dialogue in comparison. Jefferson had written about the evils of miscegenation. He was accused in the press and in pamphlets of keeping his slave Sally Hemings as a concubine and siring children upon her.

But, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (Jn, 8, 7 KJV). Rather, let us examine Jefferson’s eloquent thought which has inspired so much political good. Let us not commit Aristotle’s fallacy of argumentum ad hominem (the argument against the man). It is the philosophy, not the personal failings of its author which we examine critically.

Last Word (concluded)

Our democratic revolution led in two ways to an even more tumultuous one in France a decade later. The French military aid which enabled us to win our independence bankrupted the Bourbon monarchy. And the revolutionary idealism brought back by officers like Lafayette offered an alternative to divine right absolutism.

But that’s another story...