Thomas Jefferson: Author of America by Christopher Hitchens - Page 2

It is a well known fact that Jefferson's original draft contained a strong condemnation of slavery—a paragraph that was excised in committee. In theory, Jefferson understood the horrors of slavery and often worked toward ending that peculiar institution. In practice, of course, the third president of the republic was a slaveholder himself who never once freed any of his slaves—that is, except for the children of Sally Hemmings, and then only because he was their father.

Hitchens does not shy away from the Hemmings question like so many other biographers, and he does not attempt to explain away or justify Jefferson's attitudes toward slavery. His inconsistencies on this question, rather, are essential to any understanding of the man.

Jefferson is depicted as a brilliant but stubborn man—prone to false modesty, incapable of forgetting a slight and adept at turning animosity to his advantage. He is, of course, best remembered as an icon (though Jefferson would detest the word) of the Enlightenment; author of American democracy and inspiration to the philosophes of 1789. Hitchens shows how Jefferson, as George Washington's Secretary of State, used his ties with Jacobin France as a buffer against his enemies Alexander Hamilton and John Adams whom he felt were too close to the Crown, but ended up like one of the "starry-eyed fellow travelers" who were undeterred by Stalin's show trials and refused to disbelieve in the god that failed.

Jefferson's career belies F. Scott Fitzgerald's oft-repeated line that there are no second acts in American lives. He was able to weather this storm, as he had the disaster of the Virginia governorship before it, biding his time and waiting for the advantage to swing back his way. Jefferson's political saga suggests a new definition of genius: the ability to make opportunity appear to be destiny.

His moment to rise again came in the 1800 presidential election, in which, Hitchens wistfully notes, the "electors were offered a choice between the president of the American Philosophical Society and the founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences." Jefferson won a very tightly contested race with Aaron Burr, and in doing so, irrevocably changed the course of American history.

Article Author: Pete Blackwell

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

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