this is where the U.S. ILE braintrust tells me more about THOMAS JEFFERSON

He got it on with his slave(s).

brownie points for the first ilxor to do a photoshop "tuomas jefferson" mashup.

tied with aaron burr in the election of 1790something? or 80something. in the electoral college. ELECTORAL COLLEGE, YOU ARE STILL A FAULTY SYSTEM.

WRITER... INVENTOR... JUNGLE FEVER-HAVER...

didn't you get the memo? we don't say "jungle fever" anymore. It's rude.

There's a TJSA cover band? 4real?

what do we say? xpost

Anti-apartheid love-maker.

He's on the nickel! Used to be a straight up left profile of the full head, then for a year it was a right profile turned slightly to the viewer, and zoomed in on the face, then it was turned almost all the way to the viewer and a full head shot again.

Also, the two dollar bill (but nobody uses those.)

Yeah those are just queer.

Had it in for the Judiciary. And Burr. Vindictive dude.

dude invented the dumbwaiter!

The man designed and built his own house!

/Hank Hill

Total enlightenment type. Hated mysticism of any stripe. Rewrote the new testament to eliminate all mention of miracles, but admired Christ's philosophy greatly.

That's interesting Oily.

wrote smutty novels under the pen name "Chastity Blossom"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

he had wooden teeth!

he had an ox named Babe!

His assassin was named Lincoln, and he was killed in a town named Kennedy.

sanskrit is full of beans.

Jefferson did, however, hand Muhammed Ali his first boxing defeat after Ali had regained the heavyweight championship for the first time in 1971.

Ali, however, claimed that during the fight he was suffering from a debilitating case of Jungle Fever.

Thom Hartmann's What Would Thomas Jefferson Do is worthwhile reading, and James Burke has a new book coming out next week that'll cover this.

Thomas Jefferson also invented Louisiana

all joking aside, jefferson was awesome and despite his flaws easily the finest political thinker america has ever produced.

that said, be wary of running out and grabbing the first thomas jefferson book you find on the shelves; i've yet to find a bio that i thought was readable. (well, i'm guessing hitchens' book is at least readable, but i've never picked it up.)

the best collection of his writing is "jefferson: political writings," one of those fancy-looking cambridge blue books. jefferson never wrote a systematic work on politics, so you have to excavate his thought by trolling through a bunch of letters and miscellaneous writings - this one does it for you.

wow I'd never heard that about the bible - v. interesting

Hitchens' bio is pretty good, but the best is Joseph Ellis' American Sphinx, which does a superb job of analyzing the man's bewildering contradictions.

There's a great lapidary sketch in Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton bio.

The most entertaining portrait of all is in Gore Vidal's Burr, in which is titular hero has a ball making fun of his amateurish French, violin playing, but praises his cooking and duplicity.

Burr is one of those books I've been meaning to read since high school and never gotten around to... must... add... to... reading... list

Also, the correspondence b/w Jefferson and Adams during their autumnal years is deeply moving: two old friends who to the end disagree on the Revolution and its influence, but still trying to impress each other with how much Lucretius they can read in the original Latin (Adams wins).

is the jefferson/adams correspondence collected in book form?

long gore vidal interview about jefferson: http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/archives/interviews/Vidal.htm

My library has a real old hardcover. The Portable Jefferson and Adams have generous selections.

didn't he found or design or endow the University of Virginia?

he was a redhead (any other us presidents ginger?)

yeah, he founded it and this is cool (from wiki)

"An even more controversial direction was taken for the new university based on a daring vision of higher education, completely separated from religious doctrine. One of the largest construction projects in North America up to that time, the new Grounds were centered upon a library (then housed in the Rotunda) rather than a church—further distinguishing it from peer universities of the United States, most of which were still primarily functioning as seminaries for one particular religion or another.[7] Jefferson even went so far as to ban the teaching of Theology altogether. In a letter to Thomas Cooper in October 1814, Jefferson stated, "a professorship of theology should have no place in our institution" and, true to form, the University never had a Divinity school or department, and was established independent of any religious sect. Replacing the then-standard specialization in Religion, the University undertook groundbreaking specializations in more "scientific" subjects such as Astronomy and Botany. "

What's the deal with him getting this huge hunk of cheese, like so big it could only fit on a flat-bed trailer? And like, the cheese was so big that Thomas Jefferson couldn't eat all of it himself, no, even though he was a Founding Father. So they took that huge hunk of cheese on the flat-bed trailer, like, all around the country, you know. And like all of these people in these little frontier towns got to sample a piece of the same hunk of cheese that Thomas Jefferson snacked on during his inauguration.

Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote a book denouncing Thomas Jefferson, so he is probably an alright kind of guy.

cheese=democracy

READ BURR!!!

Also, Adams & Jefferson died on the same day -- July 4, 1826.

Democracy is not for the lactose intolerant!

We are alumni of the same college.

When the Library of Congress was burned in the war of 1812, Jefferson sold his personal library to the country to re-establish it. Jefferson's library was about twice the size of what the LoC had been when it burned.

there is a great show on public radio where a jefferson scholar answers questions from listeners AS jefferson

(he is pissed things went the way of hamilton)

played by Ken (White Shadow) Howard in 1776

he was a flexitarian

His second term was not so hot. He was a better political thinker than a politician. His book on Virginia, while dry at times, is great at other times.

"He was a better political thinker than a politician."

Examples please? Dude built the Dem-Rep party, put the smack down on his enemies, and practically transformed the U.S. into a one-party nation.

http://www.girsberger.com/bilder/buero/buero-drehstuehle/pronto/animation/pronto_vorne.jpg

the idea that jefferson wasn't such a good president (compared to who??) is an oddly widespread one. he smashed the hamilton/adams federalist oligarchy and ended the alien-sedition acts. that's good enough for me.

There was no "Hamilton/Adams oligarchy." Adams despised Hamilton, and deserves credit for not going to war with France (when his vice-president, one Thomas Jefferson, the former Francophile, was by this point urging him to do).

When the Library of Congress was burned in the war of 1812, Jefferson sold his personal library to the country to re-establish it. Jefferson's library was about twice the size of what the LoC had been when it burned

Before we applaud his nobility, let's remember that he was always in debt.

As most book collectors are :)

Speaking of which, Alfred, we are intent on moving directly across from Elliott Bay Books in September. It's hard to imagine a more dangerous place for a Seattle book-o-phile.

my sympathies!

the big block o'cheese was andrew jackson

That Vidal interview linked above is great.

Andy Jackson invited the general public in to trash the White House, with punch being spilled on the nice carpet. Thomas Jefferson was the big cheese.

i know only the west wing.

well adams was president when the alien and sedition acts were passed, tho i suppose he did later rebuke them. the hamilton/washington federalist oligarchy would've been more accurate, probably - jefferson's pseudo-autobiography "anas" has amusingly mean evaluations of both.

smoked madd ganjjj, total reefer madness.

Re Hamilton/Washington federalist oligarchy: could the federal government have acted in any other manner? To have ignored the need for a federal assumption of debts (opposed by Jefferson), a national bank (ditto), and maintained strict neutrality in European affairs would have destroyed the country.

Immense Francophile. Lived in Paris and entertained the ladies with wine and the like.

He was great at architecture, but yeah, he got it on with his slave(s).

When the Library of Congress was burned in the war of 1812, Jefferson sold his personal library to the country to re-establish it. Jefferson's library was about twice the size of what the LoC had been when it burned.

-- Jaq, Thursday, June 28, 2007 9:10 AM

Before we applaud his nobility, let's remember that he was always in debt.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, June 28, 2007

Jefferson, disguised as Bristisher, actually burned it down so he could get out of debt </Loose Change>

copy of Burr purchased! Was not aware it was such a heavily fictionalized account, for some reason I thought it was more of a straight bio

that's Mr Veedle's style.

cue fisting w/lard

Was he really a bastard to his wife and kids, or was that just a joke?

It's a pretty accurate rendition of Burr's personality, Shakey -- by all accounts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnR-HfcisFo

TAKE THAT KING GEORGE

Re-reading bits of Burr, at Shakey's instigation. Vidal's conception of Jefferson as the master politican of the age squares with what Henry Adams wrote: against his own instincts he centralized power in Washington in ways that Washington and Adams never could, all while pretending to be an ardent democrat who greeted ministers in the White House in torn stockings and that morning's eggs smeared on his shirt.

Have you read Adams' Histories, Alfred? I've always been curious but daunted. Closest I came was Garry Wills' book on them.

Is it *Burr* that quotes Tallyrand as saying if he had to pick a prime minister, he'd choose Jefferson?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnR-HfcisFo

-- Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved, Monday, July 2, 2007 9:57 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

^^^^^megaroffles

Have you read Adams' Histories, Alfred? I've always been curious but daunted. Closest I came was Garry Wills' book on them.

I read Wills' book, which was odd: a study of a history. Good study of Adams' form, though.

A (highly) condensed portion of the History is available in a lovely New York Review of Books edition called The Jeffersonian Transoformation, published last year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/opinion/the-real-thomas-jefferson.html

damn, he went in

pols as creepy hypocrites a pretty safe bet. TJ's better ideas > his life/actions.

new bio did not get a very good review in Times last Sunday.

I have recently finished reading 600 pages by Henry Adams on the history of the first Jeffereson administration. The standout message I got from it was how shrewd TJ was in assessing the real strength of the USA in a global context.

On its face, the USA would have seemed to most observors to be extremely weak. It had a tiny army, an equally tiny navy, a large debt, limited tax revenue, and a central government that was so stripped of power that it could barely be seen through a microscope. But Jefferson saw that the USA had a stranglehold on Europe, because so much of the wealth of England, France and Spain was based in their colonies in the western hemisphere and he could play the big powers against one another like a fiddle.

He was one smart man who could think shrewdly in very large contexts of time and space. That much is plain.

Ah! I see that the linked column concerns itself entirely with Jefferson's slave-owning and his racist views on blacks, as contrasted with his writing the Declaration of Independence and extolling freedom at every opportunity. In this regard he was a huge hypocrite. Obviously.

This massive hypocrisy seems to be the single item that contemporary Americans think is worth their attention about Jefferson, but once you grasp that he was blind and wrong-headed about slavery, and you have congratulated yourself on being his superior in this area, then you're done thinking about it. All it means is that Jefferson was a child of his culture and he caught a bad case of blind, staggering hypocrisy from it. I hear there was a lot that going around at the time. He didn't invent it.

It seems to me that, while it would be stupid and hypocritical to overlook his slave-owning, or to excuse it as not-so-bad-really, that it actually says very little about Jefferson as an individual, so much as it says volumes about societies based on a slave economy and how reluctant elites are to examine the sources of their wealth in the light of their professed morality. That's not just Thomas Jefferson's problem, but a class issue he was unable to rise above.

can't believe that OMIGOD DIDN'TYAKNOW hit pieces on TJ still have currency in 2012.

Aimless otm. There's this bit from Adams' histories:

If Jefferson appeared ill at case in the position of a popular leader, he seemed equally awkward in the intellectual restraints of his own political principles. His mind shared little in common with the provincialism on which the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were founded. His instincts led him to widen rather than to narrow the bounds of every intellectual exercise; and if vested with political authority, he could no more resist the temptation to stretch his powers than he could abstain from using his mind on any subject merely because he might be drawn upon ground supposed to be dangerous.

btw the Meacham book looks about as subtle as a Newseek cover story. The best recent book on Jeff is Madison and Jefferson, an exhaustive analysis of their political philosophies.

i don't think it's fair to so easily dismiss that as a "hit piece;" i'm a fan of his writings too, and as JD says upthread he may be our most substantial political thinker, but that doesn't mean we need to gloss over his personal failures. his legacy deserves to be haunted by his shortcomings

His personal failures: he owned people and made them work very hard, fed them as cheaply and crudely as possible, clothed and housed them equally crudely, whipped them if they failed to follow orders, and did little for them beyond the minimum required to keep them alive and able to work. This was a nasty, ugly, brutal business that he bears a direct responsibility for.

Unglossy enough?

k3vin, no one has denied this! We're saying that I can imagine the smirk as these writers tap away thinking, "Wait till these rubes learn that the author of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves and was a monster to them!" I mean, my students graduate knowing about Sally Hemmings before Notes on Virginia (just like, incidentally, they know FDR was monstrous to Japanese-Americans before they know a thing about the New Deal).

the spate of books on the Founders and Framers published in the wake of David McCullough and Joseph Ellis have made the point, over and over, that these were not Nice Men.

Of course it does, what a hypocrite! However, I've always been interested in Jefferson the architect, how much of his creativity came from black people? It's a way of learning black people's history, too.

this is a good piece on the controversy (from the authors of the book alfred mentions):
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/03/the_thomas_jefferson_wars/

i'm sure that NYT op-ed guy got a kick out of calling TJ 'creepy' but the piece is severely overstated -- saying that jefferson had 'pro-slavery views,' with no qualification, or that he had no 'moral qualms' about it, just isn't accurate. it's equally odd to hold him more responsible than the other founders for perpetuating slavery. TJ's failures and contradictions will trouble us forever, but it's not possible to get rid of those contradictions by trying to turn him into an evil SOB with no shadings.

Oh, and also a master compromiser (which he was decidedly not).

otm

These characterizations of the sensitive politico serve to reframe the Jefferson biography as a Bob Woodward-style, inside-the-White-House intimate drama. Making Jefferson recognizable to us as a practitioner of political hardball allows the biographer to go on Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” and delight the host with comparisons to whatever is happening in Washington this week.

Meacham, a Sunday and weekday talk show guest of unusual ponderousness, has said as much in recent days.

an evil SOB with no shadings

lol

how can you hate a guy who made his own French fried ice cream and wore slippers to dinner

one of corey robin's latest posts: 'thomas jefferson: american fascist?'

From his last post:

Thanks to some provocative comments from my friend Nikhil Singh, and a spirited critique of my post from someone at Crooked Timber, it occurred to me that we may really be missing the significance of Jefferson if we think of him solely in the context of slavery (and I may have contributed to that). As both scholars and defenders of Jefferson have pointed out, Jefferson was not a fan of slavery. He had grave moral doubts about the institution, which he expressed in Notes on the State of Virginia and elsewhere, even if he almost never acted on them. Especially in his earlier years, he thought emancipation was inevitable (though that belief got somewhat more strained as time went on).

But if we shift our lens of analysis from slavery to post-slavery, Jefferson’s writings on race, which I explored at length yesterday, assume a far more illuminating—and ominous—cast. For what Jefferson is clearly trying to grapple with, in a way that few other theorists of his time are, is: what in the world are we (whites) going to do with these people (blacks) once they are free? How can we share this land with creatures that are so obviously inferior and subordinate and other? And the solutions he comes up—not just colonization but actual deportation (or extermination through race war)—reflect his orientation to the future, not to an institution that he doesn’t believe will exist much longer, but to a post-emancipation situation.

Jefferson’s haunting obsession, in other words, is black freedom, not black slavery—and indeed he spent quite a bit of time drawing up legislative codes in Virginia that would have imposed major liabilities and restrictions upon the movement and freedom of free blacks.

TNC excerpts a beautiful passage, rescuing Jefferson the prose writer and complicating this slaveholder's legacy.