Happy Birthday to Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the most perplexing character for students studying Early America.

Jefferson is a bundle of so many contradictions, the prolific author Joseph Ellis’ biography of the man was aptly titled American Sphinx (perhaps not the best biography available, but at least aptly titled).  For students studying Early America, Jefferson presents a unique challenge.  He was once particularly easy to laud and celebrate, but our modern morality has made him equally easy to dismiss and denigrate.  Certainly, there were aspects of Jefferson’s life and character that make him monstrous and I reject the idea that Jefferson should “be judged by the standards of his time.”  We must judge right and wrong by our own lights and not by those of the past.

Yet, Jefferson is complex precisely because his monstrous actions can prevent us from seeing the fundamental and fascinating contributions Jefferson made to the American republic.  Particularly as students reckon with the long term story of America’s political development, it is impossible not to see the long-standing principles of Jeffersonian Republicanism echoing throughout the story of American political history.  Jefferson’s admirable belief in civil liberties and his theories of government provide an important counterweight to the fundamentally elitist perspectives of the currently celebrated in vogue federalists like Alexander Hamilton.

Students tend to come to Jefferson in 2018, wrongly or rightly, with their picture fundamentally shaped by the braggadocious and ultimately venal Jefferson they have come to know from repeated listening to Hamilton.  Certainly, that Jefferson exists, but it is also hard not to be taken in by Jefferson’s insistence on walking to his inauguration, his strange habit of greeting visitors to the White House in a house coat and slippers and all the other personality quirks that made the man unique.

Jefferson’s political and moral contributions from the Declaration of Independence to the foundation of an important American political tradition stand beside the monstrous traffic in human beings that was the source of his political and economic power.  To ask students to see and interrogate this is part of what teaching American history is about.

Jefferson’s life provides an interesting entry point into a number of aspects of life in the Chesapeake of his time.  Jefferson’s insistence on liberty and his grasping at the chains of slavery are the prototypical example of Ed Morgan’s “American Paradox” (the emergence of a love of liberty in a slave society).  Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings illustrates the complex and multifarious nature of slavery and the family as they existed in an intertwined way in the “Old South.”  Jefferson’s time as president presiding over the damaging embargo, the Louisiana Purchase and the expiration of the Alien and Sedition Acts present students the chance to think about the extent and limits of ideology in governing a nation.

Cyber Summit Planned Sept. 18

Mark your calendar for a one-day Cyber Summit on Tuesday, Sept. 18, where The Patuxent Partnership will converge with speakers, exhibitors, and attendees from government, industry, and academia on cyber challenges and opportunities for national security

Join TPP Sept. 18, 2018, for a full day of expert speakers and panelists who are actively shaping the future of cybersecurity as it relates to…

Did you know we offer Saturday programs at the Brookline Village branch?