Author Robert Mcdonald explains why Thomas Jefferson was a polarizing figure and described how his actions and writings led him to be revered by his contemporaries and led him to be portrayed as radical and unamerican. This talk was hosted by the Virginia Historical society and is about one hour and 15 minutes. Fathers, the founding Thomas Jefferson stood out as the most controversial and con town in. Loved and hated, revered and reviled, during his lifetime, he served as a lightning rod for dispute and even today, serves as a lightning rod for dispute. Few major figures in American History provost such a polarization of Public Opinion. While jeffersons supporters organize festivals in his honor, where they praise him in speeches and song, his detractors portray him as a dilettante and demagogue, doublefaced and dangerously radical. And atheist hostile to christianity, characterizing his. Elief as unamerican they tarred him with the extremism of the french revolution, yet his allies cheered his contributions to the American Revolution, unmasking him as the anonymous author of the words that help to define america in the declaration of independence. Image tookgated shape as a product of his own creation and in response to factors beyond his control. In the first 50 years of independence, america posses of jefferson revealed much about their conflicting views of the purpose and promise of america. Is professoronald of history at the united takes military academy, where he has taught since 1998. Hes a graduate of the university of her junior, Oxford University and the university of North Carolina at chapel hill where he earned his phd. A specialist on Thomas Jefferson and the early republic, he has published many essays and is the author and editor of several books on jefferson, including Thomas Jeffersons military academy, founding west point white and pretty, Thomas Jefferson and the power of knowledge, and come founding father, Thomas Jeffersons image in his own time, copies of which youll be happy to sign after the lecture. He recently accepted an invitation to serve on the serve board and lives in cornwell on hudson with jefferson and grace. Please give a warm welcome to Robert Mcdonald. [applause] thank you also much for coming and being here tonight. Thank you, andy for your wonderful introduction, but he has blown my cover somewhat. I would like to stand before you as the objective historian without a dog in this fight, but i have to admit i have a warm feeling for Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson andd the story thickens. My wife and i met at monticello. [laughter] where she was employed as a research associate. We started working on a project andther and started to date i decided i wanted to propose marriage on jeffersons birthday. Which is april 13. The only problem was the year we got engaged, 2001, april 13 fell on a friday. Im not a particularly superstitious person, but i thought maybe that was not a good gamble to take, so i propose on saturday, april 14, but the following year, we did get married on april 13 and a couple of years after that, our son was born and we named him jefferson. Then two years and one week after that, our daughter was warned and we came this close to naming her after jeffersons best friend, madison. But we thought even for us that was a bit much. [laughter] so we named our daughter grace. To be at the Virginia Historical society and i want to thank you for being here. Yount to apologize that have had to stare at the cover of this book and make it clear to all of you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your vision. It is blurry by design and i have two admit that when i first saw it, i was a little taken back myself. I thought it was perhaps a printers era printers error or a glitch in the transmission of the file, but as it became clear to me that this was in fact the intention of the person who designed the book cover, i began to appreciate her work. What shes trying to communicate is the fact that americans during jeffersons lifetime had collective double vision as far as Thomas Jefferson. Some people thought Thomas Jefferson was fantastic. They thought forget the glass being more than half full, the glass was overflowing. Other people thought the glass was entirely empty. In researching this book, and i worked on this book for a long time. Its almost embarrassing how long i have been working on it. Acknowledgments, i mention i have been working on the book for a long time, but ive been not working on it for even longer. But during that time, i really did learn a lot and it helped me appreciate not only why people thought so highly of Thomas Jefferson, but why he had so many detractors and why he was in many respects a controversial figure and a real 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 his allies saw him, his friends saw him, his admirers saw him. One of his chief legal allies dooribed jefferson as the of our god and a 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 containing a jar as a noteas well describing Thomas Jefferson as all that good and godlike. Extolled the likes of people like Daniel Webster and the marquis to lafayette. There were children named in jeffersons honor. Inauguration his in newport, rhode island, there was a jeffersonian festival. One couple held aloft their newborn twins. One of them was named Thomas Jefferson, the other one, perhaps to his later chagrin was named ehrenberg. Aaron burr. [laughter] andthere are the detractors the people who for various jefferson ashomas someone who was not only a good american, but someone who was in many respects, fundamentally unamerican. As a chiefm less actor in the American Revolution, but because he spent time as our ambassador to france in the opening days of the french revolution, they saw him as a french revolutionary. They saw him as an individual who ascribed to all the excesses of the french revolution. Say jefferson was there as people were coming up with slogans like liberty, fraternity and equality. It was not until after he left that people came up with slogans like chop off their heads. But the radicalism of the french revolution is something that ofuck fear into the hearts many of jeffersons opponents. Thehe 1790s, for example, political discord in the United States reached a fever pitch. The president of yale, a man named timothy dwight, gave a sermon where he predicted of Thomas Jefferson wherever to become president , the bible would be cast into a bonfire and our children would be terrified into singing a reticle hymns. And, all of our wives and daughters would be made the victims of legal prostitution. You have people describing Thomas Jefferson as a coward. You have people describing Thomas Jefferson as an atheist. You have people describing Thomas Jefferson 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 detestable of mankind. In researching this book, i spent a lot of times learning a lot of things and i would love to tell you about all of them. Unfortunately, you dont have more than 20 years to spend with me tonight. Somewhat keep my list brief, but one of the first thing i discovered that was in some ways one of the most exciting and surprising is the things we all think we know about Thomas Jefferson, the things you would hope all children know about Thomas Jefferson was for a good 20 years unknown about Thomas Jefferson. I am referring of course to Thomas Jeffersons authorship of the declaration of independence. Was a jefferson 33yearold delegate from virginia from the Continental Congress and performed capably on several different committees. He had gained a certain degree of renowned among elite circles in america as the author of the review of the rights of british america. By hiswell thought of peers in the Continental Congress, but other than being six feet tall and a man with red hair, there was really nothing that toomas jefferson any members of the public in philadelphia, there was nothing about it that would stood out. And yet, jefferson was selected to be among the fivemember drafting tasked with the declaration of independence. We know the basic story jefferson was on this committee with the man who is known to all, the man who was 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. Rogerved alongside sherman as well as Robert Livingston of new york. Two jefferson, it seemed clear who should draft the declaration of independence. It should be john adams and he said as much to john adams. Said no, it should be you and jefferson said why me . Adamss that i will give you three reasons reason number and a you are a Virginian Virginian ought to 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 played troops. Because it was massachusetts where in response to the boston tea party, the british had targeted the colony of massachusetts with what had come to be known as the intolerable acts. Because in massachusetts, that was where the british said send their soldiers out through lexington to conquer. In massachusetts, he had the batter uncle the battle of underhill and saw the blood of americans built. It was in massachusetts were people rallied for the fight joined by other new englanders. If this Continental Congress is continental,ruly we needed to bring on board people from other colonies, and it was important to bring on the delegates from the southern colonies and what better way to do that than to make Thomas Jefferson the person responsible for the declaration. That was reason number one. Reason number two, according to john adams. Adams, i cant john amped up noxious, suspected and unpopular and you are very much otherwise. Adams, perhaps said that because in some ways, he was kind of noxious. Suspectedys, he was because as a delegate from massachusetts, his colony, soon to be a state, had much to gain if the other colonies should declare themselves independent states and join with massachusetts. And perhaps he was unpopular because he was suspected. The fact that adams says things like that, i just love the self deprecation antimelody. Says, reason number three, you can write 10 times better than i can. Pen andas jeffersons drafted the declaration. He would later say he didnt aim for anything original as far as wording or sentiment. To do is capture the American Mind and express the American Mind in a town and 10 are fitting for the occasion. Declaration ofe independence was ratified by the Continental Congress on july 4, 1776, when it was printed newspapers, his name was not attached to it. There are only two names attached to the declaration of independence, that of the president , Jan John Hancock and charlestown can. Of course, we know the signing of the declaration did not occur until several weeks later, in august of 1776. Attachedmas jefferson his name to the document alongside all the other delegates of the Continental Congress. Nothing that alerted the public to the fact that jefferson made this contribution and nothing that would cause the public to wonder who had made this contribution. Respects, the old saying is true, the past is a foreign country and the 18thcentury really did have a different political culture. Political writings often times appeared anonymously or with a pseudonym attached. When you think about it, Benjamin Franklin wrote under a number of sick of identities. He was poor richard, silence do good, richard saunders. The trio of hamilton, madison and jay authored the federalist tapirs as googly us. And that is interesting. They assumed one identity to bring cohesiveness to their project. In the 1790s, when hamilton was arguing against Thomas Jefferson, hamilton would write using multiple different pseudonyms to create the sense that there were many people opposing Thomas Jefferson and there was a great agree of consensus among them. Pseudonyms were common. Writing things anonymously was very common. Things that made possible the declaration of independence and prepared the American Mind to accept independence was tom paines common sense. Is when iting appeared in january of 1776, nobody knew it was tom paines common sense because it appeared without his name on the cover. In the second edition, he addressed the question he said his identity was holy unnecessary for the public. It was not necessary for the public to know who wrote common sense. It may not be unnecessary to say he is unconnected with any party and under no influence , public or private, but 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 the enlightenment. Alignment emphasized that what should cause an argument to have authority is not the activity of its author, but, instead, the logic of the argument. Instead, it should be based on the soundness of the argument, the founders of the evidence in the argument. Who wrote the argument was immaterial. We live in a very different world. Right aat if any of you letter to the editor of your local newspaper and ask that your name the withheld, that would probably be in violation of the law letters to the editor policy. Nowadays, people think if you do not have the courage to attach your name to it, what good could be argument being. There was a very different view in the 18th century. It was not surprising that no one asked you put pen to paper and drafted the declaration. Thatow also that the fact jeffersons name was not see with the declaration served more than function of conformity with political culture. Regardinga function jeffersons political safety. It was Benjamin Franklin who as they all went up to find that argument, he said, we must all hang together. 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, 1778, 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 yell president. 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 to 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 John Langston of new hampshire. John links didnt 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 1783. 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 178