Thomas Jefferson Biographay

I finished a book on Thomas Jefferson- after reading John Adams biography I saw Jefferson as a man who was into appearances was fickle in his opinions. This book helped me see another side of Jefferson and help me understand why he did some of the things he did.

A few things that Jefferson was accomplished at…

Speaking, writing, the law, farming, gardening, playing the violin, a voracious reader with thousands of books in his personal library, a natural philosopher, inventor, architect (designed the University of Virginia), created the plan for public education from elementary school through college (he did this during his retirement), An amazing problem solver and thinker.

Jefferson was a champion of states rights. This is one of the main arguments he and Adams had. Adams was a Federalist and believed in a strong federal government. Jefferson wanted decisions to be made as local as possible with states having the authority to make decisions on many issues that the federal government presides over today.

Jefferson believed in a “natural” aristocracy- an aristocracy of merit and ideas. Adams on the other hand still believed in an “artificial” aristocracy like England had. An aristocracy of money and family name.

“Throughout his life, one of Jefferson’s most cherished notions has been the creation of independent farmers, at once self-sufficient and mutually dependent. No other mode of living was as conductive to true democracy or the health of the state and the individual than an existence based on the soil. Jefferson took every opportunity to contrast the virtues of rural life with the vices of the city, the pleasant advantages of farming versus the cruel hardships of manufacturing.” He later stated that he had come to realize the importance of manufacturing on America remaining free and promoted the growth of manufacturing.

“Jefferson was always far less interested in the building than the planning. Build something and it is over and done; its tense is past. Create an idea, however and it is always becoming.

America is a land of contrasts…
1- A huge central government built by a people who inherently distrust big central governments
2- A massive military-industrial war machine raised in the name of peace.
3- Defenders of freedom of religion rushing to embrace federal subsidy of sectarian private schools.

Jefferson had many contrasts as well…
1- A lawyer who distrusted the law.
2- A man of peaceful rationality who relished revolution.
3- A lover of scholarly solitude who enacted his thoughts upon a nation and broadcast his philosophy to the world.
4- A hater of slavery that kept slaves.
5- A lover of ageless liberty who never quite saw beyond the racism of his day.
6- A radical modernist most comfortable among the heroes and architecture of ancient Greece and Rome.
7- An advocate of a presidency subordinated to the legislature who nevertheless assumed executive powers that even his high handed Federalist predecessors shied away from.

Fact is that these contrasts may be what made Jefferson MOST American.

A very interesting book that I am glad I read…