writing just a century ago, and a few years after jefferson’s death, one of his earliest biographers said that it had been that statesman’s fate “to be at once loved and praised by his friends, and more hated and reviled by his adversaries than any of his compatriots.” the fact that much the same could be said of the writing about him today merely shows that the man is still alive in so far as his influence is both felt and feared. so is his great antagonist hamilton. these two exponents of contrasted philosophies of government, though dead, yet live and are in the thick of the fight today. the issues for which they fought with all their strength are not yet settled. indeed these issues have broadened and deepened until one in especial has become perhaps the most burning of all in a bewildered and angry world, the question whether the people can govern themselves or must be governed.
although a political philosopher, jefferson never set forth his views in any formal treatise, as did john adams in his voluminous works or hamilton in the federalist. probably the most widely read man of his time in america, jefferson had a broader range of interests—political, religious, economic, agricultural, aesthetic and scientific—than did any other of the leaders. his curiosity was insatiable, but in spite of what has so frequently been asserted, usually by his enemies, although sometimes by his friends, he was not a mere theorist. he kept his feet on the ground. it was the practical application of ideas and their practical effects which appealed most to him and not the ideas in themselves as viewed by a philosopher. even when he could not use the touchstone of experiment in such matters as his belief in the common man or religious freedom, he was never a doctrinaire. he not only believed but said over and over that government and institutions had to be suited to a people of any given time and place and could not be true or good everywhere and always.
we do not look to jefferson for a theory of government or of the state. to a great extent the things he had to say about government, and the things for which he strove in his active political life, were based on the america of his day and the slowly developing agricultural one which he envisaged in the future, writing as he did, before the machine age. what gave jefferson his profound importance in his own day, as it does now, was his view of human life. he was, and still is, the greatest and most influential american exponent of both liberalism and americanism.
liberalism is rather an attitude than a program. it is less a solution of governmental problems than it is a way of looking at them. it is based on the doctrine of live and let live. the liberal is willing to take risks feared by both conservatives and socialists. not being a fool, he realizes, as do the others, that society must have a structure; but he is more concerned with the freedom and fullness of the life of the citizen within that structure than with the structure itself.
it may also be noted that even in his native virginia, jefferson antagonized many of the most important interests and families by what was considered his undermining of a social order. his struggle to break down entail and primogeniture, to free religion from the fetters of a state church, and his well-known opposition to slavery, have not even yet been forgiven by many virginians who feel that the downfall of the, in many ways, charming and delightful society of the eighteenth century was due to one whom they consider a renegade from his own order. as we shall see later, when jefferson was involved in financial difficulties in his old age, the citizens of his own state, unlike many elsewhere, did not offer him the slightest aid.
europe, in the early days of our country, was filled with restraints and barriers. jefferson felt that the america of his day offered a unique opportunity in the annals of mankind to try out the great experiment of self-government on an unprecedented scale. his americanism, written in part into the declaration of independence, which he preached throughout life by word and act, grew out of his personal experience of america itself. in so far as those qualities of the american people which we group under the word “americanism” have been fostered by any one man, in addition to the natural forces of the american environment, jefferson is beyond question that man.
the struggle going on almost everywhere today, in our own country no less than in some of those others which have already lost their liberties, is the struggle between the conception of a strong centralized state controlling the lives of the citizens for the sake of economics and national power, and the conception of personal liberty affording the greatest possible scope for the individual to live his life as he wills. the old questions which jefferson and hamilton fought over were who is to rule, why are they to rule, what is the object of their rule? these are now being fought out again, as they always have been, but with increasing bitterness among vast masses of populations. that is why both men are living today and why it is worth while to consider again the life particularly of the one who laid more stress upon freedom and toleration for the individual than on the strength of national power.
james truslow adams
from “the living jefferson,” 1936
