Thomas Jefferson - a true Patriot...

[liberal N proud]

THOMAS JEFFERSON
At 5, began studying under his cousins tutor.

At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.

At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.

At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.

At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.

At 23, started his own law practice.

At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.

At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America " and retired from his law practice.

At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.

At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence .

At 33, took three years to revise Virginia ’s legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.

At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.

At 40, served in Congress for two years.

At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben
Franklin and John Adams.

At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.

At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.

At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.

At 57, was elected the third president of the United States .

At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation’s size.

At 61, was elected to a second term as President.

At 65, retired to Monticello .

At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.

At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.

At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe .
>>> Thomas Jefferson

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
>>> Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive
the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

1. A man who owned *and raped* slaves? No, thanks! n/t

[Hoyt]

2. You beat me to the exact same comment. All that good stuff just doesn't make up for owning others.

How did Jefferson and his confederates pen all those phrases exalting "liberty" when they treated people like that?

[atreides1]

3. How?

The same way that people talk about family values...and yet have no vlaues at all!

[Hoyt]

5. Good point.

[atreides1]

4. And when does it end?

We tend to always place our current morals and values on people from another time, instead of just accepting that what happened then can never be changed. All we can do is to make sure that it never happens again, ever!

Was Jefferson perfect, no he wasn't, but who is?

[Hippo_Tron]

8. There were plenty of people who didn't own slaves even in Jefferson's day

The bottom line is that hero worship generally gets you into trouble, because people who did great things also generally did pretty awful things as well.

It might be better to note that while Thomas Jefferson was a deeply flawed man, some of his teachings are incredibly relevant today and that we could learn a lot from them.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

10. Was that my point? Are you now going to make excuses for Hitler, Mussolini?

You know they made the trains run on time, right?

Or, do you agree with Michele Bachmann's assessment that "the Founders worked tirelessly to end slavery?"

You can have your hero and let me express my own sentiment.

[These Eyes]

11. You beat me to it as well!

I'm sure that someone will find a reason to overlook this piece of history.

[Mimosa]

6. "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."

WOW. And imagine what harm can be done by banks ad standing armies together.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. You mean like we have today? nt

[Hippo_Tron]

9. You certainly picked some Jefferson quotes that would tend to support right wing ideals

Aside from the one about banking institutions, lets see what we have here...

1) Europe bashing

2) Sounds like he was concerned about those lazy Welfare Queens who are unwilling to work...

3) This one's anti-war, I'll give that to you...

4) Sounds like he was concerned about "big government" actually being used to help take care of people who needed it...

5) Calvin Coolidge said something similar, "The government that is best is one that governs least". Worked out pretty well for him...

6 and 7) I'll skip this because gun control is more or less a dead cause.

8 and 9) I think the Michigan Militia generally feels that way

10) Sounds like the argument I hear all of the time against taxpayer funded abortion. More importantly, though, how the fuck could government function if taxpayers didn't have to pay for things they don't like? Congress has like a 15% approval rating. Should they not have to fund congress?

[apnu]

14. This is from an email getting passed around in right-wing circles.

I've already had this hit my inbox a few times.

*yawn*

[Hippo_Tron]

15. I was a bit unfair on the OP, considering that much of this is taken out of context by the right

Odds are that when Jefferson was making statements about the government re-distributing wealth, he wasn't thinking about a social welfare state. He was thinking about money being taken from the workers and farmers and going to things that help the elites. Still, the statements are out of context and the intention of the e-mail is to support a libertarian ideology.

Jefferson's actual vision of the country was somewhat of an egalitarian utopia, where everybody has their own land. Of course, that's only if you were white, though. If you were black or Native American, you were pretty much disposable in Jefferson's vision. Aside from that, he was adamantly against industry and if his vision had been implemented we would've progressed at a much slower pace technologically than we did.

Jefferson was a brilliant man and there's definitely some fundamentally important lessons that we could learn from his teachings. But pretending that following him 100% would've created some perfect world is just absurd.

[apnu]

16. I agree, by and large with your points.

I like Jefferson immensely, complicated and checkered though he is. Well said.

I was just pointing out why that email is floating around. I see it as GOP bating the Democrats. Since we're "The Party of Jefferson" Never mind that his party was the Democratic-Republican Party (or maybe it was the other way around). Both modern political parties have tried to trace their roots back to this in one way or another. The Republican party, in the "Party of Lincoln" sense took its name from Jefferson's party as an answer to the corrupt Southern Democrats of the day.

Today's Republicans, IMO, are no different than the Southern Democrats of the early and mid 1800's, and this email is just attempting to needle Democrats by trying to paint Jefferson in some modern conservative light.

[Hippo_Tron]

17. Today's GOP is somewhat different than the antebellum Southern Democrats

Remember that ever since Andrew Jackson, the Democrats were the party of the people. Substantively this meant little and was more of an identity thing. Jackson did indeed fight to get rid of the Bank of the United States in order to loosen the money supply, which was good if you were a poor farmer in debt. Like Jefferson, he also had no problem slaughtering Native Americans in order to take more land, which is again good for poor white people.

But that was about the extent of Jackson's populist policy. He didn't really do jack shit for the urban poor in the north who were crucial to his 1828 victory. Despite the popular myth that Jackson won because of anger over the "corrupt bargain", the real reason he won is that by 1828, Martin Van Buren had refined machine politics and could mobilize people in the north for Jackson (mostly by bribing them).

The elites of Jackson's time were mostly members of the Whig Party and today the elites are mostly Republican. So it's hard to compare the current GOP to antebellum Democrats. The Whigs were more socially progressive on things like slavery, though, and so the current Republicans were more like Jackson and the Democrats in that regard.

The time when the Democrats were probably most like today's Republicans was during the post-reconstruction but pre William Jennings Bryan era. This was the era of the "Bourbon Democrats" who were pro big business.

It's also hard to make a lot of these comparisons because the left-right dichotomy that we have today didn't really exist back then. The political left is a product of Marxism and although the Democratic Party's ideology isn't even remotely in the neighborhood of Marxism (despite what Glenn Beck says), you can't have a center-left without a left. Karl Marx wasn't even conceived during the Jefferson Administration and was a teenager during the Jackson Administration.

[apnu]

18. Fascinating. Are you a history professor?

Your depth of knowledge and analysis has blown me away. Thank you for the information.

[Hippo_Tron]

22. No, but I had the good fortune of being educated by some great ones, though...

The first one was actually my high school US History teacher. His depth of knowledge of US History (particularly political history) went far far beyond what was in our textbook. I think I was the only one in the class who cared, though. Most people were just concerned about what we would be tested on.

[Cherchez la Femme]

20. Yep, it's very teabaggy

[Ter]

12. Greatest president ever

A true patriot, wish he were alive today.

[Phx_Dem]

13. Owned slaves. n/t

[mikekohr]

19. Jefferson wrote that the United States should, "...now to pursue them [Indians] to extermination

1808

THOMAS JEFFERSON: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."

In 1808, a delegation of Cherokee people, pleaded with President Jefferson to make them citizens, so that they could be granted protection from renegade whites, that were robbing their farms, and business', and killing their people. Jefferson, the father of our democracy, denied their request. 1).

Jefferson wrote that the United States should, "...now to pursue them to extermination, or to drive them to new seats beyond our reach." http://www.eyapaha.org

As President, Jefferson suggested that Indian Chiefs be encouraged to go into debt to government trading houses so that the debt could be then paid for by forcing the Indians to cede their lands to the United States. 64).

Located on Jefferson's slave plantation of Monticello, were burial mounds that contained the remains of thousands of Native People. Jefferson disinterred many of these bodies to satisfy his curiosity in anthropology. The descendants of these unearthed dead however, were less than satisfied with this behavior.

Jefferson defended his looting of Indian graves with the words, "The dead have no rights." 64).

http://www.brotherhooddays.com/HEROES.html#THOMAS JEFFERSON

[Cherchez la Femme]

21. Jefferson had some great quotes, positive forward thinking

wise, philosophical, intelligent, just

but meant just for Caucasian males.

It's to us to stand on his shoulders and include the whole of humanity within his philosophy.