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Few books about a dead white male have inspired such
controversy, at least in some quarters, as The Long
Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution,
1785-1800,
by Conor Cruise O'Brien (who is not, to my
knowledge, in any way related to the Sue O'Brien who edits
these pages). It put Jefferson back in American discourse,
a process that was enhanced last month with the PBS
documentary.
I yield to no one in my admiration of Thomas Jefferson, but I will freely concede he had flaws, including several that O'Brien somehow missed in his dissection:
1) Jefferson apparently invented the American political doctrine of NIMBYism -- Not In My Back Yard. Today it takes the form of people who want electricity in their homes but not power plants near their homes, paved streets but not gravel pits, etc.
Our third president applied this hypocrisy to cities. Though a rustic farmer in some pursuits, he was also a man of urbane tastes; he liked the literature, music and drama that comes from urban zones.
He decided that Europe had cities enough to serve these needs, even for North America, and thus no metropolitan areas were needed to profane his pristine continent. In other words, cities were fine, but not in his backyard.
2) His rationalist beliefs got in the way of reality.
Upon hearing that two Massachusetts academics had seen and
found a meteorite, he remarked that I would sooner
believe that two Yankee professors would lie, than that
rocks would fall from the sky.
3) He inflicted the grid system upon the land, so that we have essentially rectangular, and geographically senseless, polities like Colorado and Wyoming.
None of this bothers O'Brien. He charges that Jefferson was too enthusiastic for the French Revolution and blinded himself to its excesses for far too long.
And so what? Jefferson was an idealist, and idealists,
in their enthusiasm, often fail to notice flaws in the
objects of their adoration. Think of Charles Lindbergh's
praise of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, or of Lincoln
Steffens' visit to Lenin's Soviet Union and announcement
that I have been over into the future, and it
works.
O'Brien makes much of Jefferson writing that he would
have seen half the earth desolated
rather than see the
French Revolution fail, and suggests that Jefferson's
favorite modern leader would be a maniac like Pol Pot.
But when Jefferson became president in 1801, did he round up the Federalists and begin mass executions? No, he was conciliatory, and moved to repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts, laws which did provide for jailing of political opponents, which the Federalists had passed.
So in the musings of a private letter, O'Brien finds the linchpin of Jefferson's political philosophy -- something so vital to Jefferson that he never acted on it.
O'Brien also faults Jefferson for being a racist and a white-supremacist. So was every president of the United States until well into this century.
If slaves were freed, Jefferson wanted them deported to a colony somewhere else, like Liberia. That was also Abraham Lincoln's goal until the Civil War was almost over.
O'Brien concludes that as America becomes more
multi-cultural, Jefferson's place in the American Civil
Religion
will diminish, and eventually he will be
admired only by racist right-wing militia groups.
O'Brien thinks it was significant that Timothy McVeigh,
when arrested two years ago on charges of blowing up a
federal office building in Oklahoma City, was wearing a
T-shirt that quoted Jefferson: The tree of liberty must
be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots
and tyrants.
And when Jefferson wrote that in 1787, the tree of
liberty had just been refreshed
by 4,435 American
battle deaths in the Revolutionary War -- it's something we
Americans celebrate every year on July 4.
Bloody revolution, hypocrisy, racism, misguided idealism -- they're all part of Thomas Jefferson. They're also part of our national heritage, and O'Brien's book will not change any of that.
But I must confess that the main inspiration that I find from Jefferson is that he was always over-extended financially and died in bankruptcy.
The wealthy men of his time and their apologists -- Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, etc. -- may have managed their fiscal affairs better, like good responsible modern Republicans.
But it is Jefferson who lives on, a source of controversy two centuries later, thanks to the power of his writing.
As an impecunious writer on the fringes of civilization, I find solace and inspiration in the career of Tom Jefferson of Gouchland County.
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