Thomas Jefferson; The Ugly Side Of Greatness

OF course, this look at some of the dark side of Thomas Jefferson would be nothing if there wasn't at least a small tribute to his greatness. And there was plenty of greatness from this man to make him immortal.

Did I say immortal? Yes I did. Through the mimicking of his/hers ideals and beliefs a person remains immortal. In the case of Jefferson, we can look to the libertarian movement in America as one example of the carrying on of his teachings. In general, Jefferson believed in a government that was non-intrusive and regionally based as opposed to a federal system.

Today, the libertarian party, which bases its platform on some of the same standards is the third largest political party in America, thus contributing to the immortality of Jefferson and his ideals.

But Jefferson was much more. He was the principal author of the Declaration Of Independence and served two full terms as president. His list of achievements is voluminous and taught to every American child. The best summation of how great a man Thomas Jefferson was came from President John F. Kennedy as he welcomed a group of forty-nine Nobel Peace Award recipients to a White House dinner:

I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

Yes, undoubtedly Thomas Jefferson ranks as one of the great men in American history, but he had a dark side to his existence as well.

It is well documented that the political campaign of 1800 for the office of President was the dirtiest ever conducted by both sides. The campaign pitted for the first and only time in American history the Vice President against the President for the position.

Both sides ended up in a smear campaign that look ridiculous some 210 years later, as history plays it out, but politics at that time required that opponents not get involved. Jefferson violated that covenant by hiring a "hack" writer to produce pamphlets attacking Adams' character in vile and ugly manners. Jefferson also played the puppetmaster to the Republican party, although he went to great lengths to hide his intentions for the the office. While putting on the front that he wasn't running for office, Jefferson attacked Adams on two fronts.

The French revolution was underway and Jefferson had made statements through second parties that he believed the French Revolution was the American Revolution on European soil. Basically he was saying that America should side with the French was in direct contrast to Adams' stance of neutrality. What this was accomplishing was twofold. He was swaying the largely agriarian populace in favor of the republican view versus the federalist view by casting the light of a possible monarchist style of Government that Washington and then Adams were employing.

This tactic provided a natural road for the second front. It looked as if republican sentiment was winning the day in every state, and by the time that Napoleon had squashed the French Revolution, Jefferson could back off of his support for the revolution.

Jefferson's dirty politics so hurt Adams, that the friendship of the two who was severely bruised for more than a decade, and never really fully recovered. Only one of the greatest correspondence swaps in history gave any spark to the fact that the two were trying to mend the fence.

Eleven years after the election, the two began writing letters back and forth. These weren't letters of quaint pleasantries. Some were debates. Some were reminiscences. Only one was even close to being apologetic. That letter came from Jefferson in 1815 and was ambiguous in expressing Jefferson' conciliatory tone. He just didn't want to fully own up to his wrong doing between the one time dearest of friends.

From 1800 on they never laid eyes on each other again. Both men died hours apart on July 4th, 1826.

...In this way our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us a citizens or the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them, and that all our liberalities to them proceed from motives of pure humanity only. Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time, the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.

~ The remainder of the excerpt of the letter from Jefferson To Harrison

Publicly, Jefferson sought assimilation of the aboriginal Americans into the European culture that was prevalent in the new nation. He wanted the Indians to forgo their own culture and take up the life of Christianity and yeoman agriculture.

Most certainly Jefferson was intelligent enough to know that by the time of his letter to Harrison, the Eastern tribes already practiced agriculture, and were growing at least eighty percent of their food stuff. In fact, hunting and gathering had been fading as a way of life for the native Americans for quite some time prior to the birth of America.

But, as can be seen in the letter to Harrison and other similar correspondences, Jefferson was after something all together different, and he really didn't care if what he sought meant genocide of entire Indian nations. He wanted their land for expansion of the Nation's territory. It is absolutely clear that he would first attempt to acquire these treaty lands through underhanded political practices, but he doesn't back away from setting examples by wholesale slaughter of tribes and nations of those who resisted.

Certainly, these ways to obtain his goals do not appear to be the actions of the man who wrote these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

Thomas Jefferson proved he had a dark side of his personality. And perhaps the real dark side was the way he approached leadership. He had a knack for manipulation of events and facts to reach his goals. By using this talent he could appear to be invisible until the exact moment where he could swoop in and claim a glorious victory. He was a politician's politician.

In both instances cited above, Thomas Jefferson toyed with the emotions of the masses. During his bid for presidency, he cast a light on Adams that falsely portrayed Adams as seeking a monarchy. Jefferson's influence and the memories of the recent revolution played against his friend and Jefferson was able to play his way into the White House. Jefferson once again played the masses with his 'assimilation of the Indians' policy. The famed Indian wars were still fresh in the minds of the population and he knew he could get a consensus no matter what method he proposed.

Why should I care about this facet of Thomas Jefferson? I need to know that great men are just men. Not Gods. Not some super human creation that happens every once in a great while. I need to that they too were flawed, just like me.

Having this kind of knowledge may kill the awe or remove the mystery, but at least I can understand the person as a whole. And I find comfort in that.

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