History promote such a polarization of Public Opinion. Well he has supporters that organize festivals in his honor, they praised him in speeches and song. His detractors portrayed him as a dilettante and a demagogue. Doublefaced and dangerously radical. An atheist, hostile to christianity. Characterizing his believes as unamerican, they target with the extremism of the french revolution. His allies call him the formerly anonymous author of the declaration of independence. His bifurcated image took shape because of his own creation. And because of factors out of his control. America positives about jefferson reflected their views of america. Robert s mcdonald is a professor of history at the United States military academy where he has taught since 1998. He is a graduate of the university of virginia and the university of North Carolina at chapel hill where he earned his phd. A special on Thomas Jefferson and the early republic, he has published several journals and other essays. The author and editor of several books on jefferson and excluding including founding west point, light and liberty, Thomas Jefferson and the power of knowledge and confounding father, Thomas Jefferson, image in his own time. He will be happy to sign copies after the election. We are happy to have him. He currently lives in caldwell on hudson, new york. With his wife christine and their children jefferson and grace. Please welcome robert mcdonald. Thank you also much for coming. I like to stand before you as the objective historian without a dog in this fight. I just do admit that i have a warm feeling for Thomas Jefferson. As he pointed out, my son is named jefferson. My wife and i actually met at monticello. She was employed as a research associate. We started working on a project together and started to date. I decided i wanted to propose marriage on Jefferson Hospira that. That is april 13. The only problem is that the year that we got engaged, 2001, april 13 fell on a friday. I am not a particularly superstitious person but i thought maybe that was not a good gamble to take. I propose marriage on saturday, april 13, we did get married. A couple of years after that, our son was born and as you know, we named him jefferson and two years and one week after that, our daughter was born and we came this close to naming her after jeffersons best friend madison. But we thought, even for us, that was a bit much. So we named our daughter grace. It really is great to be at the Virginia Historical society. I want to thank you again for being here. I want to apologize that you have had to stare at the cover of this book. I want to make it very clear to all of you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your vision. Will you is blurry by design. Perhaps there was a glitch in the transition of the file. As it became clear to me that this was the intention of the person who designed the book cover, i began to really appreciate her work. What she is trying to communicate is a fact that americans to rate difference of deposit lifetime had collective double vision as far as Thomas Jefferson. Some people thought that Thomas Jefferson was fantastic. The glass was overflowing. Not half full. Other people thought that the glass was entirely empty. I have to say that in researching this book, ive been working on display along time. If you buy a copy, you will see in the knowledge is athat i have been working on the before a long time. I have been not working on it for even longer. During that. Of time, i learned a lot. It helps me to appreciate why people thoroughly also highly about Thomas Jefferson and why he has a many detractors and why he was in many respects a controversial figure in every lightning rod. For all sorts of different arguments about america and its place in the world. When you think about Thomas Jefferson, you could see him in the way that his allies saw him. That his friend saw him, that his admirers saw him. John beckley was one of his chief political allies. He described jefferson as the door of our god and the friend and benefactor of the whole human race. Jefferson as president received fan mail from all corners of the United States. Including a package from a woman in kentucky named elise with. There was a note describing them as all at this point, good and godly. There were children and in his honor. Shortly after his inauguration, in Newport Rhode island, the was a jefferson possible festival. There is the other side of Thomas Jefferson. There are the detractors. There are the people who for various reasons saw Thomas Jefferson as someone who not only wasnt a Good American but was fundamentally unamerican. This often as less of a key factor in the American Revolution. He was in a message to the french. They saw him as a french revolutionary. The five as an individual who subscribes to all the excesses of the french revolution. To his credit, we have to say that jefferson was there as people were talking about liberty, eternity and a quality. It was only after he left that people came up with slogans like chop off their heads. The radicalism of the french revolution is something that very much struck fear into the hearts of many jeffersons opponents. In the 1790s, for example, the political discord within the United States reached a fever pitch. The president of yale, a man named Timothy Dwight gave a sermon where he predicted that if Thomas Jefferson were ever to become president , the bible would be cast into a bonfire and our children would be terrified into singing hymns. Dwight added that all of our wives and daughters are going to be made the victims of legal prostitution. You have people describing Thomas Jefferson as a coward. You have people describing Thomas Jefferson as a atheist. You have people describing him as an anarchist. You have none other than Martha Washington herself in the final years of her life describing Thomas Jefferson as one of the most testable of mankind. Most detestable of mankind. In researching this book, as i mentioned, i spent a lot of time learning things. I would love to tell you about all of them. Unfortunately, you dont have more than 20 years to spend with me tonight. I have to keep my list somewhat brief. One of the most exciting and thing is that we all think we know this about Thomas Jefferson. The thing that you would hope all sculptures of a know about him. All schoolchildren know about him. For a good 20 years, unknown about Thomas Jefferson. Im referring of course to his authorship of the decoration of the declaration of independence. He was 33 years old from virginia at the Continental Congress. He had performed favorably several different committees. He had gained a certain degree of renown among l. A. Circles in america. As the author of the review of the right of Virgin America he of the rights of british america and was well thought off. There was nothing about Thomas Jefferson that any american members of the public in philadelphia knew. He was a pretty obscure figure. Jefferson was selected to be among the fivemember committee that was tasked with drafting the declaration of independence. We know the basic story. He was on this committee with the man who was perhaps the most famous american. Benjamin franklin of pennsylvania. He was on the committee with one of the strongest proponents of the cause of independence, john adams of massachusetts. He served alongside Roger Sherman of connecticut and Roger Livingston of new york. To jefferson, it seemed pretty clear who should draft the declaration. It should be john adams and jefferson said as much to john adams. But according to jefferson was jefferson, adams said i will be three reasons why you should do it. Reason number one, you are a virginian. A virginian must be at the head of this business. Adams understood that because the war for independence had begun in massachusetts, because it was massachusetts where the british had first deployed troops, it was massachusetts who had in response to the Boston Tea Party and targeted the colony of massachusetts with what had known as the intolerable acts. In massachusetts, that was where the british had said this all troops. End their it was in massachusetts that you had to battle a bunker hill. It was a massachusetts that you saw the blood of americans spilled. It was in massachusetts that people from the bay colony had rallied to the fight, joined by other new englanders. In this Continental Congress, it was going to be truly continental, we need to bring on board people from other colonies. It was important to bring on board the delegates from the southern colonies and what better way to do that than to make Thomas Jefferson the person who was responsible for the declaration . That was reason number one. Reason number two, he said john adams was obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. He said that because in some ways he wasnt noxious. He was obnoxious. In some ways, he was suspected because as a delegate from massachusetts his colonies had much to gain. If the other colonies should declare them independent states and declare with massachusetts. He was unpopular because he was suspected. The fact that adams said things like that, he said i hope it makes a popular with us. I just love the selfdeprecation and humility. Adams then said, speaking of humility, reason number three, you can write 10 times better than i can. So Thomas Jefferson picked up his pen and he drafted the declaration. He did not import anything original as far as warning or sentiment. What he wanted to do was capture the American Mind. To express the American Mind in a tone and tenor fitting for the occasion. When finally, the declaration of independence was ratified by the Continental Congress on july 4, 1776. When finally, it was printed in newspapers. Of course, we know that the signing of the declaration did not occur until several weeks later in august of 1776. Then Thomas Jefferson attached his name alongside all the other delegates of the Continental Congress. There is nothing that alerted the public to the fact that jefferson made this contribution. There was really nothing that could cause the public to wonder who had made this contribution. The past really is a foreign country. The 18thcentury really did have a different political culture. Political writings often appeared anonymously. Or with a pseudonym attached. When you think about it, benjamin franklin, for example, wrote under a number of fictive identities. He was poor richard, he was richard saunders. The trio of hamilton and madison and jay authored the federalist papers. Hamilton himself that is interesting. That is interesting because they want one identity to bring cohesiveness to their project. In the 1790s, when hamilton was arguing against Thomas Jefferson at the jeffersonian republicans, hamilton would write using multiple different pseudonyms to create the sense that there were many people opposing Thomas Jefferson. And that there was a great degree of consensus among them. Pseudonyms were very common. Writing things anonymously was very common. Things that made possible the declaration of independence that prepared the American Mind to accept independence was tom paines common sense. When it appeared in 1776, nobody knew that it was toms pain common sense. It appeared without his name on the corner. The cover. In the second one, thomas payne address this. He said that his identity was wholly unnecessary to the public. It was an unnecessary necessary for them to know who wrote it. He is unconnected with any party and under no sort of employees influence public or private but the influence of reason and principle. The culture of political writing was an outgrowth of the fact that in the 18th century, we were in the midst of being enlightened. The enlightenment emphasized that what should cause an argument to have authority is not the identity of its author. But instead, the logic of the argument. Instead, it should be based on the soundness of the arguments. The soundness of the evidence in the arguments. Who wrote the argument was in material. We live in a different world. I bet that if any of you try to write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper and ask that your name be withheld, that would probably be in violation to your local newspapers letters to the editor policy. Nowadays, people think that if you dont have that, then you dont know. Nowadays people think, if you have the courage to stand behind her argument, what good could the argument be . There is a very different view in the 18th century. It is not surprising that no one really asked. It is the person that drafted the declaration of independence. We know the fact that jeffersons name was not connected with the declaration, more than just a function of just conforming with the 18thcentury political culture. It is an important function as far as regarding jefferson safety. Benjamin franklin said to all of the other people in the congress, as they all went up to sign the document, he said, we must all hang together, but most assuredly we will all hang separately. This was an act of treason. What would jefferson gain by attaching his name . What with the declaration gain, if Thomas Jefferson, this young man from virginia was put forth as the person responsible for the words of the declaration of independence . The more interesting question is not, why jeffersons aim was not attached to the declaration, why he was not famous as the draftsman of the declaration, but instead how did he become famous as the person responsible for the words of the declaration of independence . If that is an interesting story when i first figured out jefferson was not known as the author of the declaration of independence. 1776, 1777, 1770 eight, looking at fourth of july celebrations, none of which mentioned him. No one mentioned him in a 1 or 1782. In 1783 there was a sermon delivered in connecticut by the predecessor of yale president. He wrote that it was Thomas Jefferson of virginia who poured the soul of the continent into the monumental declaration of independence. I thought that was interesting. It made me wonder how was it that he heard that Thomas Jefferson was the person who drafted the declaration of independence . I was able to go to yale and look in their archives, they have a copy of ezra stiles diary. Stiles recorded in his diary that he died in company with dined in company with John Langston of new hampshire. John langsdon had been a member of the Continental Congress. Langston told stiles this is what happens when you hear things transmitted by word of mouth. Clearly, stiles clarified jeffersons last name. That is how the word got passed along. It is interesting, we know that langston is not a first hand source. He was not a member of the Continental Congress in the summer of 1776. He arrived a couple months later. He mustve heard it from other people who were members of the congress. Stiles announcement was a significant one because it was the first one. You do not see a flurry of mentions of Thomas Jeffersons connection to the declaration of independence years following 17 83. As he was preparing to embark for france as a diplomat there, it mentioned that jefferson was the person who penned the declaration of independence. If you look at the remainder of the 1780s and the 1790s, Thomas Jefferson remains utterly obscure is the author of the declaration of independence. Maybe ironically, what makes jefferson eventually famous as the person who is connected with the declaration of independence, is not the declaration, but instead the constitution. The constitution, which jefferson was not present to be a part of the debating of or the ratification of, he was in france by this point. The constitution, which made possible the government, that went into effect with the inauguration of George Washington as president and john adams as Vice President. And Thomas Jefferson as the first secretary of state. And Alexander Hamilton as americas first secretary of the treasury. The constitution was something that, almost before the ink was dry on the document, the bulls people started to disagree with what it actually meant. How it actually should be interpreted. There were two political factions that emerged. On one side, there was the faction that was led by Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, the secretary of treasury, wanted to interpret the constitution broadly. He thought the point of the constitution was to expand the powers of the central government. The articles o