Annette Gordon-Reed: Thomas Jefferson is still relevant today
[Annette Gordon-Reed won the 2008 National Book Award for "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family." A law professor at New York Law School and a history professor at Rutgers University, she will speak at the dedication of a new visitors center Wednesday at Monticello.]
Does the legacy of Thomas Jefferson speak to Americans today? Or perhaps we should ask about Jefferson's legacies, for there are many. His fingerprints are everywhere.
Politics, government, race, slavery -- our third president's life and words touch on so many aspects of the nation's journey from rebellious colony to world superpower that it is impossible to understand the country's history without dealing with him in some fashion.
Even today, Jefferson's name is regularly invoked in the news -- the latest example being writers harking back to the forceful action he took against the Barbary pirates 200 years ago.
His soaring language in the Declaration of Independence -- "all men are created equal" and pronouncement of the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" -- galvanized many during his lifetime. Those words have resonated across the years with diverse groups of Americans seeking to gain full citizenship in the United States. Working-class whites, blacks, women, immigrants, gays -- all have turned to the Declaration as a form of promise, a credo for the nation to live up to.
It is particularly interesting to ponder Jefferson's legacies at this moment in American history. The election of the country's first African-American president has brought an intense focus on America's past, specifically the history of relations between the races. Again, it is not possible to consider that history in any serious way without thinking of Jefferson.
The great and often remarked-upon paradox is that the man who wrote about the equality of all mankind, and who wrote insightfully and forcefully about the evils of slavery, was also a lifelong slave owner in a racially based slave system. He was not alone in this, of course. Some of the most prominent founders -- including four of the first five presidents -- owned slaves, too. All these men, at various points in their lives, claimed to abhor the institution that provided their sustenance.
Jefferson tends to be held to a higher standard on this question largely because he, not George Washington, James Madison or James Monroe, wrote the Declaration of Independence. And, as hard as it may be for some to believe now, he early on developed a reputation as a dangerous radical.
There was his attitude toward religion. Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and, to the consternation of many, insisted upon the separation of church and state. There is no doubt that he would enthusiastically endorse President Obama's statement on his recent trip to Turkey that "one of the great strengths of the United States" is that it does not consider itself "a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
And, of course, there was his politics. Jefferson was, in the eyes of many, a "leveler" bent on destroying all social distinctions; a move that his detractors felt would eventually lead to the breakdown of racial barriers.
Indeed, during the period leading up to the American Civil War, later generations of white Southerners emphatically repudiated Jefferson's Declaration and, in some cases, the man himself. They knew that whether he truly believed those words or not, the ideas embodied in the Declaration mattered greatly....
Read entire article at CNN
Does the legacy of Thomas Jefferson speak to Americans today? Or perhaps we should ask about Jefferson's legacies, for there are many. His fingerprints are everywhere.
Politics, government, race, slavery -- our third president's life and words touch on so many aspects of the nation's journey from rebellious colony to world superpower that it is impossible to understand the country's history without dealing with him in some fashion.
Even today, Jefferson's name is regularly invoked in the news -- the latest example being writers harking back to the forceful action he took against the Barbary pirates 200 years ago.
His soaring language in the Declaration of Independence -- "all men are created equal" and pronouncement of the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" -- galvanized many during his lifetime. Those words have resonated across the years with diverse groups of Americans seeking to gain full citizenship in the United States. Working-class whites, blacks, women, immigrants, gays -- all have turned to the Declaration as a form of promise, a credo for the nation to live up to.
It is particularly interesting to ponder Jefferson's legacies at this moment in American history. The election of the country's first African-American president has brought an intense focus on America's past, specifically the history of relations between the races. Again, it is not possible to consider that history in any serious way without thinking of Jefferson.
The great and often remarked-upon paradox is that the man who wrote about the equality of all mankind, and who wrote insightfully and forcefully about the evils of slavery, was also a lifelong slave owner in a racially based slave system. He was not alone in this, of course. Some of the most prominent founders -- including four of the first five presidents -- owned slaves, too. All these men, at various points in their lives, claimed to abhor the institution that provided their sustenance.
Jefferson tends to be held to a higher standard on this question largely because he, not George Washington, James Madison or James Monroe, wrote the Declaration of Independence. And, as hard as it may be for some to believe now, he early on developed a reputation as a dangerous radical.
There was his attitude toward religion. Jefferson did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and, to the consternation of many, insisted upon the separation of church and state. There is no doubt that he would enthusiastically endorse President Obama's statement on his recent trip to Turkey that "one of the great strengths of the United States" is that it does not consider itself "a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
And, of course, there was his politics. Jefferson was, in the eyes of many, a "leveler" bent on destroying all social distinctions; a move that his detractors felt would eventually lead to the breakdown of racial barriers.
Indeed, during the period leading up to the American Civil War, later generations of white Southerners emphatically repudiated Jefferson's Declaration and, in some cases, the man himself. They knew that whether he truly believed those words or not, the ideas embodied in the Declaration mattered greatly....