Interesting insights into the American Founding Father.
Big thanks to Bob Derham who sent me this yesterday. I’m sure many Americans know this as they know their own mother. But for this recent resident of the USA I found it fascinating.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States.
Born: April 13, 1743, Albemarle County
Died: July 4, 1826, Charlottesville
Presidential term: March 4, 1801 – March 4, 1809
Party: Democratic-Republican Party
Education: College of William and Mary (1760–1762), University of Toronto Mississauga
Thomas Jefferson was a remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.
At 5, began studying under his cousin’s tutor.
At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.
At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.
At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.
At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.
At 23, started his own law practice.
At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
At 31, wrote the widely circulated Summary View of the Rights of British America and retired from his law practice.
At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.
At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence .
At 33, took three years to revise Virginia ‘s legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.
At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia, succeeding Patrick Henry.
At 40, served in Congress for two years.
At 41, was the American minister to France , and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.
At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.
At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.
At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions, and became the active head of Republican Party.
At 57, was elected the third president of the United States.
At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase , doubling the nation’s size.
At 61, was elected to a second term as President.
At 65, retired to Monticello .
At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.
At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia , and served as its first president.
At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. Jefferson really knew his stuff.
John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement:
“This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
Quotations by Thomas Jefferson
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
And finally Thomas Jefferson said in 1802: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property – until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
A voice from the past to lead us in the future.
Learning from Dogs 
I remember being very impressed by the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC when I visited in 1991.
He was, undoubtedly, a very intelligent man but, in common with everyone else, he was a very long way from being perfect:
1. The Louisiana Purchase was completely illegal (as France did not have the right to sell) and Jefferson was therefore very lucky that Spain did not have the ability (or a leader like Margaret Thatcher) to launch a campaign to take back its territory.
2. His views on gun ownership do not sit well alongside the events in Connecticut yesterday. As with the right to use a passing river as a source of water, laundry room, and toilet, the right of every free man to bear arms is OK on the frontier of a wilderness but, in our modern world, it leads to high numbers of premature deaths.
That said, his comments regarding banking institutions (etc) were indeed remarkably prescient.
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Thanks Martin. Not sure I can add anything to your conclusions other than to agree. Paul
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Went on to view the BBC News website after my earlier reply and saw the terrible item on the school shooting. How utterly despicable.
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Obama’s emotional statement on the shooting yesterday was quite remarkable. However, with anti gun control people warning of more crime not less, I think it unlikely anything will change.
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I see that BBC North America Editor Mark Mardell’s report echoes that feeling, as this extract explains:
Mardell’s article concludes, thus:
Well, after the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, of a congresswoman, in which 13 people were injured and six killed, he [Pres. Obama] also said: “We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.”
Nothing happened, and as far as I remember, there were not even any tentative proposals to bring about any change.
But since then, there has been an election. Mr Obama now shows signs of pushing the issues he really believes in with a greater vigour and confidence.
To seize gun control as such an issue would indeed be bold, and very difficult. We will have to see if his emotional speech is ever turned into action.
Paul
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President Obama also “showed signs” of taking climate change seriously; and yet he is continuing with the fossil fuel lobby’s “burn them all because they are there” strategy. I think we can therefore be pretty sure there will be no change to US gun laws.
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Obama is not Prime Minister, just president. He cannot legislate. The Tea Party legislates (Paul Ryan, etc.)
A plutocracy is not a civil society. Thus, to have a plutocracy, one needs, first, to have a society that is not civil.
Through its control of mass media, and unending repetition, the plutocrats have made the citizens of the USA believe half a dozen absurdities, about gun ownership. The result is exactly what the plutocrats wanted: a society where everybody is afraid of everybody, and where the most basic human right, the right to life, is violated.
More subtle, the half dozen absurdities have made people deeply stupid. They blurt:”We have to defend ourselves!” it sounds good, so they believe in it. However, it contradicts the statistics and observations. Nver mind! They believe in it! so what they learn is that reasons are irrelevant, what their masters told them is more important..
Thus, symbollically, Civil and Human Rights, and reason itself, are exhibited as secondary to what they have been told to believe, by big money, and have been taught to believe most other Americans believe. That is also, per se an important meta knowledge that the plutocrats want their commoners to believe.
Conclusion: A guns totting society is scared, divided, prone to violence against itself, stupid, and without class consciousness, as it is too worried dodging bullets. What a better place to establish plutocracy, which is vigilantism writ enormous, for the benefit of the few?
PA
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