The Jefferson You Never Knew

Jon Meacham’s excellent best seller on Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power, is great reading for you aficionados, like me, of non-fiction historical novels. I must say, Meacham, in spite of his political liberal bias (he is a regular on MSNBC and NBC), does not let that get in the way or taint his historical perspective. His previous 2008 book on Andrew Jackson, American Lion was equally spellbinding.

In this book you will learn more about Jefferson then his well known role in the American Revolution and authorship of the Declaration of Independence which he wrote in his twenties. You will learn about his personal life, his tenure in the Virginia statehouse, his term as Governor of Virginia, his years in Paris as our French Ambassador for President Washington, his feuds with John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, and his two terms as our 3^rd President from 1800-1808. It also reflects on the years after his realm of power at this beloved Monticello home, his lasting influence on his successors, James Madison and James Monroe, and where he died at the age of 84 on the 4^th of July 1826, on the very same day that his reconciled 90-year old writing companion, John Adams, passed away.

It was unknown to me that the two things that he considered most troublesome to our unity as a country during his presidency, was the subject of slavery and the strong desire of the opposing party, the Federalists, to establish a monarchist government similar to what existed in Great Britain, even after our independence was declared and our Constitution established. The movement was led by the strong northern states, which were anti-slavery and kept a cloud of succession over Jefferson’s head many years before our Civil War in 1860.

The conundrum for Jefferson was the slavery question, which he pondered most of his life. He conceded it was immoral, but concluded that it could only be solved by “expatriation” not “amalgamation”, the mixing of races. Even though he fathered at least seven children with his black slave, Sally Hemings, after he became a widower at a relatively young age. He never remarried, after his wife, Patsy, died after mothering 6 children and was pregnant most of her married life with Jefferson. All of Jefferson’s children with Patsy died before adulthood, except for Polly who survived him and gave him several grandchildren. All of his slaves were freed in his will and Polly freed Sally Hemings several years later. Most of Sally’s children went on to successful lives. Their children passed for white and most people never knew that Jefferson was their father. With all his power and intellect he never faced up to the slavery question, but said that it would have to be solved by future generations. If he had, maybe we would not have had a civil war.

Jefferson was the most intellectual of our Presidents and widely knowledgeable about history, music, books, wine, foods, the arts, science, and the environment. He was very tall for his day, well built, athletic, handsome, and appealing to both men and women with his gracious manners and quiet demeanor. He was not a great public speaker, but obviously a superb writer and conceptual thinker. He presided over the Louisiana Purchase from the French and the Lewis & Clark expedition which established our ultimate Pacific border. He really was the Father of the Republicanism and after you read this book you will have an even greater respect for him and his critical role in our history. 

The 4th One from Obama-Ugh!

I hate State of the Union speeches because the whole event is so phony, at least the way we do it these days. Remember, I made a pledge not to attack Mr. Obama anymore, so this is a critique of the speech and the policy he professed. It is not personal!

Even though Obama has a new speech writer (formerly Ted Kennedy’s), it seems I’ve heard this song before. More programs that he tries to justify, more government involvement in the economy, more spending, more fuzzy math as he tries to cherry-pick data to make things seem better than they actually are ( for the low information voter). We than reach the crescendo, as he introduces guests who are “great” Americans, such as parents of victims of gun violence, and a 101 year-old black lady who had to stand in line for hours to vote for him (there were many old white people who had the same experience). Frankly, the poor lady was put in that spotlight and didn’t look like she was mentally or physically prepared to make an intelligent choice at the polls.

I heard a long list of new programs that the General Accounting Office said, after the speech, would cost about $100 billion. There were programs for our “eroding” infrastructure that the Stimulus Bill was supposed to fix for $800 billion, a new “Fix it First” program for bridges, an “Energy Security Thrust” to cut energy waste in half by insulating old homes, a new rating system for colleges based on value and affordability that is supposed to get them to cut tuitions, universal day care subsidies for all, because every dollar we spend on day care we get $7 back (according to a study by Head Start) . What he didn’t tell you was that a recent study by Health & Human Services totally refutes this notion and found that vocabulary and social development gains for at-risk children in pre-kindergarten programs were largely lost by the third grade.

Than Mr. Obama proceeded to tell us the progress “he” made, such as a gain of 6.1 million private sector jobs, but he didn’t tell you when he started counting, he ignored the 5 million lost prior to February 2010. On his watch, the gain is actually a paltry 1.2 million if you include both private and public jobs. That’s what I call cherry- picking!

Glad to hear that he is now for more natural gas permits and drilling and reforming the tax code. The Republicans were pushing that long before the fiscal cliff debate but he had to tax the rich first. Glad to know that China “is going all out on green energy” and we need to follow their lead, even though they’re currently the worst polluter on the planet. Glad to hear that he is for comprehensive immigration reform and his program sounds just like Rubio’s, and that all those gun victims deserve a vote on gun legislation, even though it will do nothing to reduce gun violence.

Oh yes, the troops are coming home and Al-Qaida is fractured, except for some splinter groups in North Africa and other parts of the world, and that situation is “evolving”. Yes, Mr. President. They just murdered our Libyan ambassador and three others, killed about 89 people and 3 Americans at a BP gas facility in North Africa, and are now active in Syria. Looks to me like the franchise is still going strong.

No mention about the North Korean nuclear missile test aimed squarely at our West Coast, or the fact that he is working with Putin to reduce our nuclear capability, while rouge nations like North Korea, Iran, and China are increasing theirs. Remember, now that he’s re-elected he has more “flexibility”. Also, he said that this sequestration idea to reduce our defense spending is a bad idea. I thought that was your idea Sir, remember? Glad you feel the deficit is “under control” and that you will be cutting it by $1.6 trillion over the next 3 years, however, the General Account Office said that is wrong, and it will be only 1/5 that amount. Fuzzier math! Boy, am I glad State of the Union speeches are forgotten about one week after they’re delivered.