I believe I mentioned previously
that with these essays I try not to judge the people I'm studying, or hold the
version of them whose words I'm reading accountable for the deeds of their
later self. I believed I also violated this principle on a previous occasion
when Jefferson was my subject, so I do hope you’ll forgive me if I do it again
here. In my defence, it’s rather hard to resist when Jefferson is the one under
the microscope. Few public figures in American history have managed to say one
thing and do another with such charisma and panache. And Jefferson’s First Inaugural
Address is positively riddled with examples of high-minded sentiments that were
later disregarded, twisted or glossed-over during the man’s two terms as
president. That being said, I want to make it clear (or perhaps I just
desperately want you to believe me) that I don’t engage in this exercise
because I think Jefferson was a hypocrite, or because I disagree with him on a
philosophical or political level. Really, I just want whoever deigns to read
the words I write to come away with a more nuanced understanding of the
American Founding Fathers and the age that they lived in than media and popular
culture might otherwise impart. Jefferson was not the demi-god or saint that he
is so often made out to be. He was, at bottom, an American politician; fiercely
intelligent, extraordinarily eloquent, yes, but also as flawed, petty, and
short-sighted as any of us in our less noble moments. Hopefully the words that
follow will help nurture an understanding of the man that goes beyond the
myth-making and tries to take in all there is to see.
To begin, I’d like to look at how
Jefferson’s evolving relationship with political power changed the way he
thought about authority, its proper exercise and its limits. It will be
remembered (hopefully) that in 1798, while serving as the Vice-President of the
United States, Jefferson was also one of the leading lights of the opposition
Republicans. While occupying these two seemingly contradictory stations he
wrote a series of complaints or resolutions that where intended to outline his
and his followers’ objections to the recently-implemented Alien & Sedition
Acts. While these resolutions, subsequently adopted by the legislature of
Kentucky, relied on a host of legal and moral principles in order to make their
case, the central, repeated point that Jefferson seemed eager to get across was
that, “whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts
are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” This seemed to imply that under
the government organized by the United States Constitution the rule of law was
not absolute, but rather was contingent on an objective evaluation of the law’s
conformity with said Constitution. Judging from the tone he employed Jefferson
seemed keen to spur his countrymen to resist any such unauthoritative acts, and
argued that persistence by the general government in enforcing said acts would
drive the states into active resistance, or as he put it, “revolution and
blood.” While in the same resolutions he also called for the issue at hand to be
taken up by the federal Congress at the earliest possible opportunity, calls
for an orthodox legal remedy seemed significantly outnumbered by tacit or
explicit endorsements of radical resistance.
I reiterate all of this because,
by 1801 and his first inauguration Jefferson seemed to have modified his
approach somewhat to the relationship between law, government, and the people.
Having just passed through a period of political tension which saw mass
protests and calls for armed resistance, the newly-declared president seemed
eager for his fellow citizens to settle themselves and embrace the favourable
outcome. The contest for chief executive, “being now decided by the voice of
the nation,” he wrote in the second paragraph of his First Inaugural, “all will,
of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common
efforts for the common good.” Evidently, the will of the people as expressed
during a presidential election possessed greater legitimacy than the will of
the people as expressed through their representative in Congress. After all,
the Alien & Sedition Acts had been drafted and approved by a Federalist majority
in Congress. Granted said laws were almost certainly unconstitutional and
surely would have been ruled as such had the procedure then been in place to
appeal them to the Supreme Court, but then I don’t think that’s really what
Jefferson was saying. In fact, it’s rather difficult to determine exactly what
he was trying to say in 1801.
Whereas in 1798 he seemed quite
clearly to endorse resistance to laws that are seen to violate the
Constitution, in his First Inaugural he appeared far more equivocal. For
instance, further on in the second paragraph Jefferson qualified his call for compliance
with the law by stating that, “though the will of the majority is in all cases
to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possesses their equal rights, which equal law
must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” In itself, this is hardly a
strange or objectionable statement; a president who claims to call himself a
“republican” speaks of the limits of majority rule and cautions against the
abuse of minority rights. However, in the fourth paragraph of his First Inaugural
Jefferson claimed as one of the essential principles of his government,
“absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of
republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and
immediate parent of despotism.” Specifically, it’s the use of the word
“absolute” that strikes me as particularly troubling. In one paragraph
Jefferson is quick to caution against blind obedience to the law of the
majority and attempts to remind his fellow citizens of their moral obligation
to the rights of the minority; two paragraphs later he seems to imply that
total obedience to the rule of law is an essential commandment of the
republican faith, and that resistance against it would only lead to tyranny and
bloodshed. This would seem to be an intractable inconsistency, though Jefferson
probably didn't see it as such. Likely as not he wished to make it clear to his
long-time supporters and allies that though he had not completely abandoned his
principles, now that he was president his government was to be respected and
its laws obeyed in spite of what he might have said or wrote in the past. Certainly
he was trying to have his cake and eat it too, but this is far from the most
egregious contradiction that Jefferson’s First Inaugural has to offer.
The tone that seems to dominate
the Sage of Monticello’s first public address as president might easily be
described as magnanimous. The country having recently passed through a period
of intense partisan conflict, followed by a highly controversial presidential
election, Jefferson’s chief desire appeared to be a speedy reconciliation. To
that end he famously stated in the second paragraph of his First Inaugural, “We
have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all
Republicans, we are all Federalists.” His faction having just trounced the
Federalists in the elections of 1800, Jefferson doubtless felt comfortable
offering this rhetorical olive branch on behalf of his fellow Republicans to
their political rivals. Similarly, though in a more abstract form, he called
for a general spirit of understanding and acceptance in American political
life. “Having banished from our land,” he also wrote in the second paragraph,
“that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we
have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic,
as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.” It’s possible
that Jefferson was reflecting on his own attempt to institute religious freedom
in Virginia when he wrote this, about which he remained justly proud for the
rest of his life. That he seemed to believe it possible to bring about a
similar environment of political toleration in America is perhaps a testament
to his idealism and ambition, particularly as it came from one of the leaders
of the previous decade’s feuding factions. In the fourth paragraph of his First
Inaugural Jefferson seemed to be trying to bring these sentiments home to his
audience when he plainly stated that, “Equal justice to all men, of whatever
persuasion, religious or political,” was one of the fundamental principles of
American republicanism. Again, I don’t believe that anyone would have disagreed
with him in 1801. As it turned out, they didn't have to.
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