Thomas Jefferson and his legacy in American history

¶ … Thomas Jefferson

Personal Profile

contirbutions to the founding of the nation

Religious Freedom

Declaration of Independence

OPINION OF SLAVERY AND RACE RELTIONS

Thomas Jefferson has undoubtedly made significant contributions to the founding of the United States. Regarded as one of America's most predominant political figures, Jefferson has been lauded for several milestones during his career. Jefferson is perhaps most well-known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and as the staunchest supporter of the separation of church and state. Several of Jefferson's writings are focused around religious and individual freedom as the American way of life. Among Jefferson's other well-known accomplishments include, serving as the first secretary of state, the second vice-president, the third president and as the politician responsible for the Louisiana Purchase.

Although Jefferson is strongly connected with the theology of personal and individual freedom, much has been made of his dependence on slavery and his conviction that American society remains a white male dominated one. Jefferson continues to be a paradoxical figure in American history having come under much scrutiny especially in the world of scholarly research. The discrepancies between his liberal writing and his practical personal life with relation to race and society has been widely studied and written about. To most however, both domestically and abroad, Jefferson remains an icon of democracy and a heroic symbol associated with the foundation of the United States. This paper will outline and discuss the contributions that Jefferson had made to the founding of the nation and will explore his views and opinions on slavery and race relations.

PERSONAL PROFILE

In order to understand Jefferson's contributions and his opinions regarding slavery it is important to discuss his personal background. By understanding Thomas Jefferson the person, we are better able to understand his contributions to the forming of the nation and his impact on slavery and race relations. Jefferson's impact on the forming of the nation is vast and it is with good reason that his accomplishments are considered to be nothing less than extraordinary for a man once called the "Apostle of Freedom" by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Considered by historian Dumas, as being a member of the "trinity of American immortals, along with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln" Jefferson's contributions to the founding of the nation are nothing short of remarkable. Described by many as truly a learned person, Jefferson's interests and intellect has been a focus of much historical research. Modern scholars' fascination with Jefferson the man, have produced countless works of Jefferson's personal and professional contributions.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Albermarle County, Virginia in 1743. Jefferson grew up on the family plantation named Shadwell where he would later build his home famously known as Monticello. He was the third child born and one of eight siblings with one younger brother and six sisters. His father, Peter Jefferson, was an accomplished farmer and his mother was a descendent of one of the most predominant families in Virginia.

Jefferson was raised in a family life dependent on slave labor, having grown up on a plantation with at least 60 slaves. There are countless accounts of one of Jefferson's first memories as a child was as a three-year-old child being carried around the plantation on a pillow by a slave and as Dumas points out in 1794, Jefferson owned 150 (1932, p. 207). This area of Jefferson's hypercritic-like lifestyle has been studied extensively which will be explored later in this paper.

It is from his father that Jefferson may have inherited his passion for politics and the hunger for success. Peter Jefferson was colonel of Albemarle County and served as a member of the House of Burgesses. Jefferson's father instilled in his son the value of hard work and as Dumas elaborates, "he was no landless pioneer but an enterprising young planter," (Dumas, 1948, p. 4). Peter Jefferson died when Jefferson was only 14 years old, leaving the family with abundant financial resources and a high family status in the community.

Always a conscientious student, Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg when he was 17 years old and excelled in the field of law. According to many accounts, Jefferson was a disciplined and obsessive student who reportedly spent 15 hours a day studying. Dumas' writing highlight this trait and credit much of Jefferson's success to discipline.

Self-imposed, rather than external, discipline shaped his education from his youth onward ... The first period of his amazing life differed in many ways from the important and exacting era of public service which followed, but the habit of study persisted. Drafting state papers brought him no such joy as the free pursuit of knowledge, and he could not approach all public problems with the zeal of the explorer; but in all his tasks he could and did manifest the seriousness and the industry of the scholar (Dumas, 1948, pp. 55-56).

During the college years, there were two main influences on Jefferson's life significant to note. William Small, a teacher of math and science, and George Wythe the leading legal scholar in Virginia were the two people who impacted Jefferson's formidable years the most. It is from them that Jefferson developed a deep appreciation of mentors, a concept that later Jefferson would apply as a foundation of the University of Virginia. Small instilled in Jefferson the idea of thinking with a free-mind and was often included of Jefferson's writings.

It was my great good fortune and what probably fixed the destinies of my life that Dr. William Small was then professor of mathematics, a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication, correct and gentlemanly manners, and an enlarged and liberal mind. He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me and made me his daily companion when not engaged in school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expanse of science and of the system of things in which we are placed (Adams-Jefferson Letters).

Jefferson practiced law and represented clients, most of who were involved in land disputes, well but grew a reputation for being shy and an indifferent speaker. Although not known for his fight-like-a-tiger spirit publicly or in the courtroom, Jefferson was well-known as an exceptional law scholar and brilliant thinker and author. His reputation of being highly educated with great potential and the ability to think freely preceded him and his opinions were often welcomed.

Cunningham explains that although accomplished in many areas of study, Jefferson was driven mainly by his desire for freedoms granted by the laws of nature. "Despite Jefferson's diverse interests and accomplishments, certain basic tenets motivated his life and shaped his actions in whatever challenges he faced. Of these, none was stronger than his belief in 'the sufficiency of reason for the care of human affairs.' As a man of the Enlightenment who believed in the application of reason to society as well as to nature, Jefferson throughout his life pursued the use of reason as the means by which mankind could obtain a more perfect society" (Cunningham, 1987, p. 6).

Although his contributions to the foundation of institutions such as the separation of church and state and religious freedom and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence are the central focus of the accomplishments in this paper, it is important to note the other areas that he made a significant impact. Historians argue that Jefferson is responsible for more than the Declaration of Independence when it comes to laying the foundation of the nation. Basic social institutions enjoyed today, such as the public school system, can trace its roots back to Jefferson. Jefferson was more advanced than his contemporaries in the areas of women's rights, the formation of public schools and a prison system.

According to Mailer (2000), Jefferson tried to enhance equality among Virginians in many ways. Mailer cites Jefferson's article on "Rights Private and Public" as evidence that he supported poor and property-less people 50 acres of land and provided that females have equal rights with men in areas of inheritance and property (29). Jefferson also proposed a free public school system in Virginia that provided three years of tuition free instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic as well as languages and history. It is important to note that Jefferson proposed this idea of public schooling for free males and females who resided in Virginia.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

The issue of religious freedom and the idea of the separation of church and state have been the focus of much study and debate by historians and philosophers. Central to these debates are the Jefferson's contributions to the issue and because of this, a great deal of attention has been placed on his ideas, writings and speeches. Religious freedom and the separation of church and state are two of the building blocks that the United States was founded upon. Historians agree that Jefferson served as a trailblazer and made significant contributions in the areas of the separation of church and state and religious freedom.

Regarded as a mind shaped by the Enlightenment, Jefferson is often grouped in with great thinkers such as Newton, Bacon and Locke who all developed a radical approach to social, political and religious ideals. Although not in agreement on all issues, one central theme emerged from Jefferson and these men, the world must be governed by the laws of nature. According to Jefferson, to do so, the mind must be free of religious intolerance, censorship, tyranny of the church, and the state.

Among Jefferson's most significant contributions to religious freedom were made while serving in the Virginia legislator and as governor. During this time, Jefferson authored several key pieces of legislation citing the need for reform and outlining the critical issue of religious freedom. The model for the rest of the states to follow was made in Virginia and for which Jefferson is largely responsible.

Jefferson's insistence that the citizens of Virginia enjoy full equality in the exercise of religious freedom and the disestablishment of the Church of England was a battle he fought diligently for over ten years. The Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia, a historic piece of legislation was authored by Jefferson in 1779 although it would not be passed by the Virginia Assembly until 1786 when Jefferson was in France. In the bill's text, Jefferson defines the issue of religious freedom and outlined the need for this "natural law."

It is accepted by many historians, Dumas for example, that Jefferson's ideas were widely circulated throughout the Americas and Europe and that this statue encouraged religious freedoms in other states and served as the foundation for the First Amendment's religion clause several years later. According to Dumas, in Jefferson's draft of the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia, religious benefits were not limited to only Protestants or Christian groups, but were extended to cover all. Jefferson's draft was also designed to withstand time and included a clause that no assembly could pass an irrevocable law and included a declaration that the rights outlined were "of natural rights of mankind." These are concepts that were light years ahead of their time, and as Dumas points out were not widely accepted during Jefferson's time (1948, p. 278).

Jefferson's views of religious freedom have contributed more than the practical applications of legislation and as Boorstin argues, Jefferson contributed much in the arena of philosophical thought on religion, morality and the natural rights of men. According to Jefferson, the essence of religion and religious freedom is not theology or denominational affiliation, but morality; not what men think but how they acted.

It is this ideology that provides the basis for religious freedom in Jefferson's opinion. Boorstin points out that in his Virginia Act, Jefferson listed the first item of prerogatives of a religiously free man "the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whole morals he would make his pattern'" (1948, pp. 155-156).

By taking a man's relation to nature rather than his personal conscience or his relation to God or to those around him, Boorstin argues that Jefferson shaped the way society viewed religion and through this theoretical argument, offered a new way to understand tolerance of other religions. Jefferson had "provided a framework for political thought which qualified them to build a strong New World in an age when vigorous men could hardly have ignored such an opportunity. Yet at the same time they built a traditional framework in which their intellectual disciples and descendants were to de unwittingly confined" (Boorstin, 1948, p.166).

Jefferson believed religion reinforces morality and moral obligation, would make popular government orderly and stable. Keber argues that Jefferson's paradoxical idea that religious faith; equaling morality was a necessary ingredient in a social order that forbade the establishment became widespread and eventually persisted as a mainstay of political thought. (Kerber, 1970, p.208)

Additionally, Jefferson's ideas of religious freedom have contributed to more than just the right of America's citizens to worship as they wish without government interference as historians argue was his original intent. Jefferson is so critical to the development of the institution for the separation between church and state that his writings have been used as a guide for consultation and interpretation. The far-reaching implications of Jefferson's influence in this area can be seen in practical legal use even in the twenty-first century. The Supreme Court has relied heavily on the interpretation of Thomas Jefferson's writings as a basis for its conclusion in several landmark decisions.

For example, in 1947, the Supreme Court decided in Everson v. Board of Education that the Establishment Clause was intended to erect a rigid wall of separation between religion and government. The court cited, Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in which he indicated that the American people, in ratifying the Establishment Clause, were "building a wall of separation between church and state" (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptist Association, 1802).

Dreisbach contends that the Supreme Court's "reliance on Jefferson's view is so extensive that his pronouncements have become a virtual rule of Constitutional law. The Court has assumed not only that Jefferson's views have some relevance to the proper interpretation of the First Amendment, but also that Jefferson's statements regarding the 'separation' of church and state connoted a rigid barrier between government and religion" (Dreisbach, 2002, 3). The results of this reliance on Jefferson have been significant. In many cases, the Court has struck down various practices of the state governments on the basis that it has encroached on the prohibited "entanglement" between government and religion.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Most accounts of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia are written as if it were a play. The setting and characters are described in detail, defining the tone for the unfolding of historic events. According to Meltzer, "a heavy heat blanketed the town when he arrived. Jefferson moved away from the center in search of cooler air, renting a bedroom and parlor on the second floor of a new brick house at 7th and Market streets. Word reached him that Virginia wanted her delegates to propose to Congress that the colonies declare themselves to be free and independent states" (1991, p. 57). Wills describes the scene as each delegate arrived in town. "The Virginians clattered into Philadelphia with the glitter, almost, of Magi. Tall outdoorsmen, they came riding splendid horses and attended by liveried slaves" (Wills, 1978, p. 3).

Maybe this is because the drafting of the Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most significant documents in the history of the United States ... thus making the delegates and its chief drafter, a historic icon, worthy of such dramatic prose. It is difficult to deny the impact Jefferson's words made on the founding of the nation when a discussion of the Second Continental Congress invokes such an emotional response.

Jefferson's talents as a writer played a critical role in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. Dumas argues that Jefferson was a natural choice despite his age, to serve at the Convention. Although only 32 years old, Jefferson's reputation as a freethinker and brilliant writer made him the best statesman to serve as the Declaration's chief draftsman. "His voice was uncertain but his pen was known to be potent and there could be no doubt that his mind was prepared" (Dumas, 1948, pp. 220).

In the 17 days between when the committee was appointed to when they reported to Congress, Jefferson made his draft. He did not consult any books or pamphlets, although Dumas contends, that he felt entirely free to do so. Jefferson's mind and purpose were clear that the Declaration was not designed to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent ... It was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give that expression the proper tone and spirit for by the occasion (Letters to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825).

According to Dumas (1948) Jefferson did draw from his previous writings when drafting the Declaration and suggests that he may have also been influenced by the Declaration of Rights, mainly drafted by George Mason, but contends that the ideas were already in Jefferson's mind and the documents reflects this (221). Jefferson reportedly was never more meticulous than when he worked on the draft and as Dumas offers, Jefferson was a "ready writer but he could also be a fastidious one, and he never weighted his phrases more carefully than now" (1948, p. 221). These facts also aid in crediting not only the authorship of the document to Jefferson but as Mailer argues, the ideas and principles behind it as well although he himself never made that claim (2000, p. 25).

Jefferson contributed one of the greatest declarations of liberty in the history of the world in just a few days. From this first draft, we are given 55 words that are generally regarded as a staple in American culture and history.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.

Although the Congress debated the drafts provided by Jefferson line by line, this passage was untouched and which over generations has become a lyrical sediment of American History.

SLAVERY AND RACE RELATIONS

The name Thomas Jefferson is synonymous with the founding of the nation, but it is also closely associated with slavery and the protection of the institution. Jefferson has become the embodiment of the deepest contradiction in the political and social life of the United States. Widely criticized regarding his stance on slavery and his views on race relations, many have found it difficult to herald American liberty with Jefferson and those who arrived at it on the backs of slaves.

And as such, much debate has focused around Jefferson's apparent hypocrisy of denouncing slavery while owning several hundred throughout his life and historians continue to offer contrasting arguments on Jefferson and slavery. Jefferson's well-publicized affair with slave Sally Hemings, that produced two children, has also been written about and has placed a black mark on Jefferson's legacy and reputation.

In the period between 1770 and the late 1790's Jefferson often publicly denounced slavery even while maintaining a plantation run exclusively by slave labor. Jefferson authored several works that described slavery as a violation of humanity. In his 1781 draft of the Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson reflected on the subject of slavery:

There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it

The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller claves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be leaded who, permitting one half of the citizens to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these onto enemies, destroys the morals of one part and the amor patriae of the other ... (Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781)

Franklin and Moss (2000) point out several instances where Jefferson fought for the freedom of slaves. In 1770, Jefferson argued in court for the freedom of a third-generation mulatto citing that 'we are all born free' and that slavery was contrary to nature, his efforts failed (p. 83). Dumas also points out that Jefferson tried to link the political rights of Americans with the personal rights of slaves while drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776 but was overruled by the Continental Congress. In the same year, while revising Virginia's laws, Jefferson worked on the emancipation of all slaved born after 1800 with the freed slaves to be educated at the public's expense. And additionally, Jefferson tried in 1785 to introduce a clause into the Western Ordinance barring slavery from the territory after 1800. All these measures failed.

Ellis (2000), on the other hand, argues that many of Jefferson's actions serve as examples of a man with what he refers to as intense political racism. In the natural rights section of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson asserted his belief in the capacity of people to govern themselves and their right to pursue happiness "unfettered by institutions of any kind." But as Ellis points out, Jefferson's convictions about personal freedom are dependent upon the assumption that slave labor would produce the requisite abundance, class conflict would be avoided and blacks would forever be excluded from becoming true citizens. This intense political racism, Ellis argues, is tied to the intensity of his white racism, citing that you cannot have one without the other unless you distort the historical Jefferson. And this is also true of Jefferson's personal life, "which was so dependent for its own pursuit of happiness of slave labor, as well as a larger vision fir American society as a whole" (pp. 166-167).

Despite his ideals and efforts, Elkins and McKintrick argue that Jefferson was an example of one who lacks the ability to change class effectively or to even understand the basic conditions of its survival. There are minds Elkins et al. argue who can free themselves from aspects of social structure, which block their views, but Jefferson was not one of them. Elkins et al. agree that Jefferson was a man of truly radical ideas but offer that Jefferson may have been what his political enemies would have called a "closet philosopher" which was another way of saying that these "radical" ideas were not radically prosecuted, and in many cases not prosecuted at all. (Elkins, et al., 1993, pp. 198-199).

Dumas paint a different picture of Jefferson and his personal feeling of slavery and his opinion on race relations. Jefferson, Dumas contends, believed that slavery should be abolished in America but until then, it would be irresponsible for him to free his slaves into a society unprepared and unwilling to accept them as free citizens. "To have emancipated the whole body of his slaves, depriving himself thereby of his entire labor force and a large part of his property while turning them loose in an inhospitable world, would have been neither practicable nor kind" (Dumas, 1962, p. 208).

Jefferson also reportedly attempted to study race relations by applying the scientific method to the racism that was commonplace in Virginia during his time. Although recognizing the great advantages of opportunity and education available to whites, in Notes Jefferson offered a list of abilities and talents for which he judges blacks to be superior, equal, or inferior to whites. As Davis outlines, Jefferson wrote that "comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason and imagination, it appears to me that they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior ... In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time" (Davis, 2001, p. 146).

In Notes Jefferson admitted that slavery had robbed blacks of "all" but maintained that Nature had created a hierarchy among the various races and that certain inferiorities blacks are lacking have nothing to do with enslavement. Blacks, he contended, were most likely not able to achieve great intellect especially in the subjects of math, science, and literature.

Jefferson published that more research should be conducted in this area and that these statements were merely his thoughts and subject to change. He was more opinionated in private letters, in a letter written in 1807 to a British diplomat, Jefferson stated that he considered blacks "to be as inferior to the rest of mankind as the mule is to the horse, and as made to carry burdens." It is widely noted by Mailer and Franklin that when Jefferson wrote about the "inferiorities of blacks" he was cutting the legs out from underneath his own appeals for emancipation.

These writing and others, historians argue, are key when attempting to understand the paradoxical views Jefferson spoke about throughout his career. Jefferson's public views regarding slavery also changed around the late 1790's and he ceased to advocate on the side of emancipation.

Jefferson and his politics have arguably had one of largest impacts on the protection of the institution of slavery in United States history -- the protection and extension of slavery through the three-fifths clause in the Constitution. Wills observes that although "everyone recognizes that Jefferson depended on slaves for his economic existence, fewer have reflected that he depended on them for his political existence" (Wills, 2003, p. xiii) citing that this very clause won Jefferson the presidential election in 1800.