Saddled with peter radcliffe. Peter is a great friend to this foundation and a personal friend as well and one of the great scholars of Thomas Jefferson. Kevin is also a jd from the university of texas school of law. Hes written five books ive got another book, virginias American Revolution to the republic, 1776, 21840, that is published in 2007 in James Madison and the making of america published. It is a topic ive played that is not than britain. The president s Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and james monroe. Kevin will speak today on his most recent book, Thomas Jefferson revolutionary at revolutionary struggle remake america. Please join me in welcoming someone. [applause] he was a very significant legislature. He was developing in five chapters on major themes in his statesmanship, this contention of his radical mass and his success as a radical statesmen. But to a minute calling jefferson a radical . Start with the true wisdom of historians from an dukes dont immigrate. Another way to understand that. If you expect to become the queen, you are not at to decide a restaurant in australia. Jefferson did something that was like the latter. When Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 virginia in the piedmont in what was then more or less the western boundary of euroamerican expansion in north america. He was born more or less a prince. His father was by far the most important influential man in his whole county. Andrew jefferson of whom thomas was very proud throughout his life had authority in his county that rested on four bases. The first was a tie between virginia and the United Kingdom. Most particularly, the Common Ground had a monarchy. Sackett was the second was the feudal Land Holdings that kept very few people on earth a large share of todays virginia. Historian named holly brewer who then was at North CarolinaState University calculated 20 years ago that in 1776 when he was drafting the independents. He was held by 85 families. 85 people on two thirds of todays state and for people who arent from virginia, a little bit of that is fair, the state in which i live in connecticut has eight counties. The more or less 300 square miles that were on fight each of those 85 families in virginia and 1776, 300 square miles would be about half of todays connecticut counties. So in other words, that is the kind of landholding that would have 16 people owning the most native connecticut. Jeffersons father was one of these people. The landholding concentration from which Peter Jefferson who benefited was perpetuated by english legal doctrines to virginia in the 17th century. The doctrine said essentially they would inherit the entirety of one of these days. Regardless how many offspring, besides that, there is also the legal. Read which said that the current holder could not alienate. Imagine yourself one of these princes. You own 300 square miles of virginia. You think well, i could do with 280 square miles. I would like to have the palace. You could not sell a 20 square miles because the doctrine of intel that you could not alienate that land figures and is entitled to it after you. So what this meant was generation after generation youre going to have the same few families controlling the entire landscape, physical and metaphorical of virginia. Or so monarchy, second base land tenure is in the landholding those concentrated in those few hands. The third goal work of the social and political as bad as the Peter Jefferson was the established church, the church of england which of course was the church of virginia from the very first year that there was colonial virginia 1619. Virginia has gone about the business immediately is thinking search is going to be our church. If you are Peter Jefferson, you knew thomas could assume that you are going to be a member of the burgess says. The colonial north america was never an anglican bishop. In theory this is an Episcopal Church in this. It was a landowners church, and virginia who controlled the local committees that ran the local parishes and peter jeff senn was foremost in all tomorrow. Thomas could expect that one day he would be a comet to and there came a time when he was. The fourth bulwark of the jefferson families that is of course was slavery, which meant that the same few land barons who were possessors also as many people were at the top of the demographic latter as well. Not Thomas Jefferson, what does this have to do with him being a radical . Thomas jefferson took substantial steps to undermine or eliminate each of those of his class. So first off, we think of him primarily as the president , but next is chief author of the declaration of independence. That was about severing the ties between goodenow state of of virginia and english monarchy. This came as a surprise, the fact that people like jefferson and in places like virginia supported this, came as a surprise to people in the United Kingdom precisely because they thought if you were a slave owner in north america, if you or somebody like Thomas Jefferson, you were reminded of the monarchy. After all, what was slavery about . It was about application of white male forest and the chief source of white male forest in support of slavery in virginia was the king of england. So you show back to suffer this tie, i think has to be considered a radical step. Secondly, what about these land tenure is. 1776, as soon as it was possible, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Virginia Legislature adopted abolishing the entail. In fact, jefferson substitute for this sad that all children would inherit equally. Children, not male children, children would inherit equally. This was radical. In 1776, we have 85 families who want to thirds of virginia. By the time Thomas Jefferson, the author of this statute 50 years later in 1826, these landholdings have begun to be broken not an impact msn mobile plantation seeds, some of the foremost temptation houses in virginia have been abandoned by them. This was not a sad development from the perspective of someone like Thomas Jefferson because hed nail that you could not have a truly Republican Society with two thirds of the states. What kind of a republic can you have . You cant have any kind of political equality where you have such an admirable concentration of economic power in so few hands and jefferson was the one who was primarily responsible for the elimination of the feudal land tenure is in virginia. Thirdly, when it comes to the church of england, the Episcopal Church after the revolution, still known as the Episcopal Church there, the Episcopalian Church of jefferson was the one who took the lead in the mood to abolish the state status of the church of england beginning in 1777. He was the leading member of the count of advertisers and the committee of the legislature that was charged with the task of writing proposals for changes to virginias colonial law and case law. Jefferson wrote the bill for establishing religious freedom. The bill was on a frankly very aggressively antiestablishment preamble that began by saying god at the base of my demand for a end through the entirety of the preamble, jefferson laid the groundwork of his religion policy on the most radical reformation understanding of his or her Church State Relations in western europe and the affect of official church is on peoples faith in their proper days. So he also contended that government really couldnt worst people to be christian anyway. All you can do is make them hypocrites are liars. What you mean by that . He meant the match and in 1780 massachusetts adopted by today is the oldest operative written constitution and the world. It was written chiefly by john adams and did include the provision that the governor of massachusetts had to swear his religious belief. Well, from jeffersons point of view, imagine this. Some fellow as he let the governor of massachusetts and they come to him and says youve been a lack it. You have to search your religious belief. Is he going to say about that to be governor, but i dont really have that or is he going to say i swear. Great. So jeffersons point was government by telling you what you had to say about religion couldnt actually make you a subscriber to that religion. It could make you a hypocrite, make you a liar. Would be absurd to people that you are a hypocrite or a buyerfor much of this is undesirable in dallas. Jefferson said later in life that the most difficult political conflict in which he had ever been involved with the establishment of the official church in virginia. It involves them in a longrunning quarrel with some of his best friend and close political allies, john page, jordan with who was an episcopalian, not really thrilled with the establishment and so on. Push this idea anyway, ultimately he was not the fellow that got through the house of delegates by that time. Instead, that was his friend madison. Madison realized what an emotional investment jefferson had in this idea of religious freedom. When it was passed in the senate sent word to jefferson that time was in france and said that he fans did they had to rest forever in the idea of making laws of the mind of man and jefferson wrote that but other europeans are quite admiring of this new american policy. Jefferson was trying to be chief tie. He liked for people in europe to know what the americans were doing and he liked them to be envious. A lot of people were envious of this week, which seemed to be common sense, too. Jefferson was the fellow who made it the case that being a member and out samarra county was not going to be so significant as it had been before. Not to say that it is possible to religion, but possible to this one lead status. Finally ,com,com ma fourthly on the question of slavery, jefferson today is often scored a somebody who couldve done more more on the question of slavery and i suppose it is true of anyone that he could earn more, that he wasnt completely successful in his own time. I think the ledger has two sides in this regard. On one side, yes, jefferson inherited slaves. He was a spin bread and that ultimately could find them to be in option which was horrible to suffer. All of this should be remembered in connection with jefferson and slavery. On the other hand, jefferson laid out in significant moral argument against slavery. He was the president to argue in 180671806 but in 1807, should pass a law for the importation of slaves in north america that would be effective on the earliest date allowed by the u. S. Constitution. So congress did bar slaves in 18 away. He was an important factor for his role was an important factor in the adoption of the scored mens, which banned slavery from the midwest. There is a complication there. We will come back to that. There were other things that jefferson did in regards laboring to make his record in this regard at worst minutes. It was next. So in public he would say that he was opposed to slavery, couldnt justify it and took steps against it in private. He did continue to benefit from it and we dont want to ignore that. The point is my point, not everybodys point, but my point in this connection is that by the time people like jefferson passed from this world, slavery already has been a sum of their opponents in virginia recognized, put on the train to extinction. But i think its a very important thing for jefferson to a gun. You dont hear Queen Elizabeth arguing. So i think that if you take these four crops of jefferson social and political as bad as, it is perfectly fair to say that he was a radical statesman indeed. I want to take up some of these questions in a bit more detail. So after having introduced this topic by talking about his book the main areas in which jefferson can consider to be a radical kind of ignores the question of some of the major changes he was responsible for. I think if you want to evaluate jeffersons record is legislature, you have to think of some of them, too. For example, he was the fellow that had the idea that america should have a decibel current date. Every day was and american money, you are benefiting from jeffersons conception. This idea of eventually would sweep the world and it wasnt in the 1980s but finally the United Kingdom adopted decimal currency. So today we take for granted of course that would be true. It wasnt true and jefferson time. Jefferson was a fellow also had the idea that architecture, public architecture is served a didactic purpose. He had the idea that virginia is public architecture and architecture in general is a lead status for people who live in those gigantic houses and it gave a mistaken message about with the Colonial Government ought to be structured and so on and he thought it would be right for classical architecture to be substituted for the kinds of buildings that virginians had dug for themselves and the colonial period. And so, he had biased his fellow Virginia Political leaders that they have to follow the greek and roman examples. When he was in france, he saw an ancient roman copy of a temple he quite admired and ultimately that became the model for the capital, the virginia capitol in richmond. He also played a role in initiating the habit of americans using classical models for their federal architecture as well. Of course kind of left aside the fact that when they say the capital of richmond, we dont want to forget that having richmond be the capital was also jeffersons idea. So the motivation is interesting. One reason one justification offered at the time was from a Military Point of view, it is exposed a future military conflict should happen to be with the british. But on the other hand, he also was somebody who i the ongoing strength of the tidewater acoustical episcopal aristocracy would be weakened one way to do that would be to move the capital away from williamsburg or jefferson is responsible for doing not. There are numerous such examples that might offer a jefferson ongoing widely affect being often overlooked successes as legislators. Now that to what i was saying before. My book takes up five areas that jeffersons statesmanship that ran through his career. First chapter, which is also the longest chapter is about the history we now know as federalism. We might call it decentralized government for more localized government or in catholic theology they call it principled a subsidiary. Jefferson wouldve known that term. If he had, he wouldnt have used it. But the thing is, jefferson first came to continental attention in 1774 as the author of what he hoped would be instructions for virginias delicate for the first continental congress, what became the pamphlet of review for the rights of british america. But he argued in what he have to be instructions for virginias congressman was bad the colony of virginia and the colonies generally were tied politically and constitutionally to the United Kingdom only through the Common Ground. That is, his argument or maybe you should pay his assertion was the parliament in westminster was a foreign body that was foreign to our constitution been unknown to our laws. There is an assertion there that the colonies have been their own constitution. This is not the british theory. The idea that the parliament is foreign to the north american colonies constitution and laws also not british theory. Instead, they were living with sir williams contention that there was one common father and of the British Empire that was parliament was westminster. So jefferson as well, we have this Common Ground and common crime has saved you functions for all the different parts of the empire that no part can perform for itself, such as productive diplomatic relations on its behalf, conduct deemed military operations on the empires we have good when it comes to local issues, then the local legislatures, whether in the bahamas or connecticut or westminster, they are responsible for the local inhabitants, not for say people in virginia. So, jefferson begins his career as a noted politician in north america with this argument, essentially for decentralized government or federalism, the idea that there is a Common Center with a few enumerated powers. This is an idea to which he would combat over and over. In fact, if you look at the very last letter he ever wrote his best friend in the world and close political ally, James Madison in 1885 comment it had a paragraph where he famously says, take care of me when dad. A very sad kind of memorialization of the fact that hes always loved madison and he thought that his friendship was one of the best parts. The rest of the letter before that was about this idea that we virginians must resist the revivified Federalist Party program being pushed by president John Quincy Adams and right back to the old argument 1774. Most government authorities in the hands of the virginians and we are not going to tolerate having the federal government legislate for us in areas over which we have not conceded they should have any of our day. The idea of this that jefferson had her state out in 1774 under the british rule in north america remained consistent but under the articles of confederation under the u. S. Constitution, jeffersons point of view, all of these external not outside virginia, they are external. Of these external authorities have inside virginia or virginias convenience. Sue if he famously said also in the declaration of the independence, if the people decide the Foreign Government, called the u. S. Governmen