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Like other great leaders, Jefferson had his inconsistencies. |
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Written by Byron Williams
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Monday, 25 April 2011 |
 The recent commemorations of the Civil War origin 150 years ago overshadowed the 268th birthday of Thomas Jefferson.
For all of the recent calls in our political discourse to return to what the Founders intended, we have no better example as to why such claims are at best the nave musings of those who have not bothered to actually read about any of the Founders.
Attempts to portray the Founders of this nation as a harmonious lot overcome by divinely inspired groupthink does their memory, and the nation at present, a great disservice. Perhaps no one destroys this myth like Jefferson.
Like the image cast for most individuals who achieve greatness, the real Jefferson was a conglomerate of contradictions. A disciple of the Enlightenment, Jefferson, the principle writer of the Declaration of Independence, stands alone as the most mysterious and complex of the Founders.
He was an ardent defender of individual liberty, but he owned slaves; he was a fiscal conservative who personally lived deeply in debt; he eschewed conflict, but was a behind the scenes bare-knuckle politician; and he possessed an avid distrust of government power, who, as president, would engage in unprecedented abuses of power.
Jefferson is simply too enigmatic to be placed in anyone's singular philosophical box
Jefferson the slave owner, the man who had a 37-year affair that bore several children with a woman he owned, Sally Hemmings, inauspiciously begins his career as a lawyer representing black clients, often pro bono, challenging the Colony of Virginia's laws on indentured servitude.
In 1770, Jefferson represented Samuel Howell, a runaway slave, who sued for his freedom. Howell's grandmother was white, but the laws mandated that mixed-race decedents be indentured until age 31. Though Jefferson lost the case, he wrote in defending Howell:
"All men are born free. And everyone comes into the world with a right to their own person and using it at his own will."
In his defense of Howell, the 27-year-old Jefferson publicly tried out for the first time the novel concept that "all men are created equal." At a time when the world, particularly Europe, took inequality as a given, Jefferson's words are radical and groundbreaking.
There would be other key moments in Jefferson's life and career that would be accompanied by an apparent hypocrisy that makes him unable to fully match his ideals with his practices.
Jefferson, known for his disdain of conflict, hired journalists to write pieces that undermined his political rivals. During the presidential election of 1800, Jefferson is one of the sponsors of James Callendar's "The Prospect Before Us," a 183-page hit piece against Jefferson's main rival for the presidency, incumbent John Adams.
For writing "The Prospect Before Us," Callendar was sentenced to nine months imprisonment under the Alien and Sedition Act. Once released, Callendar appeals to President Jefferson to make him postmaster of Richmond, the request is denied.
Feeling spurned by Jefferson, Callendar becomes the first to write publicly about Jefferson's affair with Sally Hemmings.
Jefferson, always distrustful of government power, ran for president, in part, because he feared the Federalists under Adams were becoming too powerful.
But Jefferson was clearly far more comfortable with the use of federal power when he was president of the United States than writing about any potential abuses from his Monticello plantation.
It has been argued by historians that the first Barbary War (1801-1805) under Jefferson's leadership was this country's initial state-sponsored coup d'état.
The Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the country, must be considered an unconstitutional act because there was nothing in the Constitution that granted Jefferson the authority to acquire 828,000 square miles from France with a mere stroke of his pen.
But these obvious inconsistencies do not reduce the greatness of Jefferson.
Too often in our discourse the subtext to greatness is erroneously perfection. For this, Jefferson stands in a long line that includes the names Lincoln, Roosevelt, King, Kennedy, and Reagan.
Jefferson's hypocrisy is our hypocrisy. He was no more capable of consistency between word and deed than we are today. Therefore, attempts to portray Jefferson as perfect do his legacy a disservice.
Moreover, those who cite Jefferson as a way to validate their 21st century ideals engage in what I define as "cheap Jefferson." It is Jefferson without any context.
Jefferson was an imperfect individual, whose hypocrisies were glaring. But he also gave posterity the eternal gift of a perfect idea -- an idea that continues to hold the nation together in spite of our attempts to tear it asunder.
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