Father. Copies of which he will be happy to sign for you after the lecture. He recently accepted an invitation to serve on the Editorial Advisory Board of our own virginia magazine of history and biography. 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 give a warm welcome to robert mcdonald. [applause] professor mcdonald. Thank you all so much for coming. Blown my cover somewhat. I would like to stand before you as the objective historian without a dog in this fight. I 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. [applause] where 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 jeffersons lif birthday which is april 13. The only problem is that the year that we got engaged, 2001, april 13 fell on a friday. [laughter] i am not a particularly superstitious person but i thought maybe that was not a good gamble to take. So, i proposed marriage on saturday, april 14, but the following year, 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. [laughter] so we named our daughter grace. Anyway 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. It is blurry by design. I firsto would net when saw it, i was a little taken aback myself. I thought perhaps this was a printers error. Perhaps there was a glitch in the transmission 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 the fact that americans during jeffersons lifetime had collected double vision 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 this book a long time. It is almost embarrassing how long i have been working on it. If you buy a copy, you will see i have been working on for a long time. I have been not working on it for even longer. That explains why it took so long. During that time, i learned a lot. It helped me to appreciate why people thought so highly about Thomas Jefferson and why he has so many detractors and why he was in many respects a controversial figure and 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 orer 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 jar pecans as well a note describing jefferson as all that is good and godlike. Jefferson was extolled by people of the likes of daniel webster. There were children named in jeffersons honor. Shortly after his inauguration, in newport, rhode island, there was a jeffersonian festival. One couple held aloft their newborn twins. One of whom was named Thomas Jefferson. One, perhaps to his later chagrin, was named ehrenberg. R. Aaron bur there is the other side to Thomas Jefferson. There are the detractors. There are the people who for various reasons saw Thomas Jefferson as someone who not only was not a Good American but someone who was in their eyes fundamentally unamerican. They saw him wes as a chief actor in the American Revolution. He cut 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. To his credit, we have to say that jefferson was there as people were coming up with slogans like liberty, fraternity, and equality. It was only after he left that people came up with slogans like chop off their heads. But the radicalism of the french revolution is something that very much struck fear into the hearts of many of jeffersons opponents. In the 1790s, for example, the political discord within the United States reached a fever pitch. The president of yale a man dwight gave ay , 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 heretical hymns. And he added, that all of our wives and daughters will 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 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 detestable of mankind. In researching this book, as i mentioned, i spent a lot of time learning a lot of things. I would love to tell you about all of them. Unfortunately, you dont have more than 20 years to spend with me tonight. So i have to keep my list , somewhat brief. The first things i discovered about Thomas Jefferson that in some ways was the most exciting and surprising is that we all think we know about Thomas Jefferson, the thing you would hope all schoolchildren would know about Thomas Jefferson was that for a good 20 years, unknown about Thomas Jefferson. Im referring of course to jeffersons authorship of the decoration of independence. Was a jefferson 33yearold delegate from virginia at the Continental Congress. He had performed capably on several different committees. He had gained a certain degree of renown among elite circles in america as the author of the review of the rights of british america. He was well thought of by his peers at the Continental Congress. Other than being six feet tall and a man with red hair, there was nothing about Thomas Jefferson that would have stood out. He was a pretty obscure figure. And yet jefferson was selected , to be among the fivemember committee that was tasked with drafting the declaration of independence. We know the basic story. Jefferson 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. Two jefferson, it seemed pretty clear who should draft the declaration of independence. 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. And a 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 deployed troops, it was massachusetts who where in response to the Boston Tea Party the british targeted the colony of massachusetts with what had known as the intolerable acts. Because in massachusetts, that was where the british had sent their soldiers out. 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. Congress wasnental going to be truly continental, we needed 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 according to john adams, he said i am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. And you are very much otherwise. Adams perhaps said that because in some ways maybe he was kind of 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 join with massachusetts. Perhaps he was unpopular because he was suspected. The fact that adams said things like that, 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 would later say he did not aim for anything original as far as wording or sentiment. What he wanted to do was capture the American Mind. And 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, Thomas Jeffersons name was not attached to it. There are only two names attached. That of the president and secretary of congress. Of course, we know that the signing of the declaration did not occur until several weeks later in august of 1776. And then Thomas Jefferson attached his name on the document alongside all the other delegates of the Continental Congress. There is nothing that alerted the public to the fact that jefferson made this contribution. And there was really nothing that would cause the public to wonder who had made this contribution. In many respects the old saying is true, 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. Hamilton and madison and jay assumed one identity to bring cohesiveness to their project. In the 1790s, when hamilton was arguing against Thomas Jefferson and 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. So, pseudonyms were very common. Writing things anonymously was very common. In fact, one of the things that made possible the declaration of independence, that prepared the American Mind to accept independence was Thomas Paines common sense. Ofn it appeared in january 1776, nobody knew it was tom and pains common sense because it appeared without his name on the cover. In the second edition of common sense he addressed the question of who the author of this production is. Wasaid his identity unnecessary for the public to know who wrote common sense because the object for attention is the doctrine itself and not the man. It may not be unnecessary to say he is unconnected with any party and under no sort of employees 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 the enlightenment. The enlightenment emphasized that what should cause an argument to have authority is not the identity of its author. It not the identity of the author, but the logic of the argument. If any of you try to write a letter to have local this paper and ask for the name to be withheld, that would probably be letters ton of the the editor policy and people think, if you do not have the courage to stand behind the argument, what good could the argument the. It was not surprising that nobody asked who put pen to paper. We know that jefferson did not have his name attached. Important function to guard his safety. Franklin said they must all hang together or they 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. 1770 6, 17 77, 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 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 may be 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 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 started to disagree with what it actually meant. How it actually should be interpreted. Very weak, 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 of the confederation had proven inadequate. You have people opposing this interpretation of the constitution. This notion that it has wrought powers. Broad powers. The leader of that group was James Madison. Madison, the father of the constitution, believed the constitution should be strictly interpreted. That when it says the National Government could do something, the National Government could do something. When it did not say the National Government could do something, that power should be reserved