3. Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
R. B. Bernstein
American Sphinx
Joseph J. Ellis

Again I find myself a few months behind with my post. I guess that's how blogs tend to work, at least for those of us who are still ashamed of using them. So the specifics are less fresh in my mind, but maybe this will reveal what really stuck with me from my readings on Jefferson.

The first book I read was a short overview of Jefferson, and I found it something of a tease - a parade of dates and names without much insight into the feel and character of the time, or the man. So I found Ellis' book (the same author as His Excellency: George Washington, which I'd read earlier.) It's explicitly focused on his character, and not meant to be an exhaustive accounting of the events of his life.

One big question, of course, is how do we judge Jefferson's ownership of slaves? This question is asked about Washington, too, but it always seems more potent with Jefferson, because of his now scientifically-established sexual relationship with Sally Hemmings. (Obviously slave owners' rape and abuse of their slaves was not new with Jefferson - but the general understanding is that he and Hemmings had some sort of long term, love relationship.)

There's the 'everybody else was doing it, so cut him some slack' argument, and the 'the man who wrote "all men are created equal" so famously in the Declaration of Independence ought to be held to a higher standard before being held up as an American demigod' argument.
I tend toward the second one, but after having contextualized the beginning of our country a bit in this project, I've gained some appreciation for the radical (if not just) nature of the ideas of the privileged men who created our founding documents and practices.

I think hero worship can only lead to bad places. What I appreciate about this project is how it is humanizing the 'big names' of history for me. (I just read tonight that James Madison was 5'4" and 100 lbs. Not much of a historical heavyweight.) And in the process I'm finding grace for some of them.

The interesting thing is, each of the 'founding fathers' had some great ideas and some ridiculous ones. Jefferson can arguably be called the inventor, or at least author, of religious freedom in the United States - something we take for granted today, or worse, a concept some Christians seem happy to sacrifice in the name of evangelism. What Jefferson articulated, and what I appreciate about it, is that we are free to choose: God or no God. Presbyterian or Anglican. Orthodox or heretic. And that the government should have no role whatsoever in choosing for us.

He also had an inexplicable sense, like many of his contemporaries, that the native inhabitants of the western lands of the continent (like their counterparts in the east, who'd already been decimated or bought) were nothing more than a naive savage race in need of civilizing. Jefferson had an odd way of appreciating a people group while simultaneously dehumanizing them and negating their inherent value, apart from their relationship to him.

Which brings us back to slavery. Should we hold people accountable for their unjust actions, even if it was the standard practice at that point in history? Absolutely. Because the fact is, slavery has come and gone throughout history - and it will come again. (I read recently about undocumented Latin American workers being locked inside railroad cars and working for no pay on factory farms in Florida.) Europe, even in Jefferson's time, had largely outlawed slavery, although many Europeans were happy to continue profiting from the North American slave trade.

A thread running through the political rhetoric of the period (some stirring and inspiring, some just embarrassing) is a lack of clarity and a fear about what would happen if the issue of slavery was actually debated and discussed honestly. Everyone in power knew it was morally reprehensible. They just couldn't see how to stop it without hurting their economy or their political unity, and by extension their way of life.

So here's the modern parallel, and I don't think it's too big a stretch to draw it:

Global climate change is a moral issue. The lifestyle of a relative few of us is dramatically changing the planet for all of us. The fear of damaging our economy has prevented our current president from acknowledging the issue in any substantive manner. (Whether addressing climate change in a serious way would actually hurt, and not actually help our economy is by no means a given.)

Is it wrong for me to want a president who is human, who I can expect will make mistakes, but will actually admit that they are not infallible? And who will then turn around and go the right direction? Why is that so far fetched?

I think people who prefer a projection of 'strength' over honesty are helping our country along the road to ruin.

2. John Adams

John Adams
David McCullough

I don't really want to to write about John Adams right now. I read this biography about 4 months ago, so I don't have the immediate recall of the issues and ideas I'd like to have to write anything resembling a 'book report', but I can say that the experience of reading about Adams, and perhaps more so, the times he lived in, had a deep effect on me.

David McCullough is an excellent historical writer. He makes you feel like you're reading newspapers and listening to lectures, not plowing through a list of dates and inevitable progressions of events. It reminds me of a general idea I gleaned from A People's History - that nothing that occurs in human history is inevitable (with the notable exception of our self destruction, it would seem) - that every moment is a choice. There may be very few people with any power to make a choice, or there may be millions, but there's always an opportunity to choose a path. That's not a moral judgement, simply a recognition that we can't hide behind the choices our predecessors have made, blaming them for the future we create. While our experience is of course shaped by the past, it doesn't predetermine what we choose to do with the present.

I like Adams. Rather, I respect him for his consistency and tenacity. He loved freedom. He deserves to be thought of well. He made some striking errors in judgement, and they were rightfully resisted and overcome. But he did it not in a spirit of arrogance, but out of a genuine desire and effort to serve the republic. I wonder how I will recall the work of George W. Bush when I'm an old man. I'll probably have more grace for him. I will have forgotten my youth somewhat. And I will have forgotten the details of his crimes, assuming their not written down very often. We seem to do that, not 'dwell' on the bad acts of former leaders, so as not to be divisive. Which I think is a major cop out, and succeeds in teaching our kids that only poor, unknown people do truly bad things. When poor people do evil it's a crime - when rich people do evil it's a difference of opinion. (Killing one person is a sin and a capital crime - killing 10,000 is debatable political policy.)

On to Jefferson...

1. George Washington

His Excellency: George Washington
Joseph J. Ellis

I've had a lot of things in mind for what this blog would be, but the more I think about it, the less I care to create some sort of archive of my own academic research - and the more I just want to write about what comes to mind as I read these biographies.

I finished this book a few weeks ago and it's settled a bit, leaving a general impression that Washington was a human being, a product of his time, and in some ways, perhaps begrudgingly, a self-aware maker of history. It seems that many of the characters of the revolution knew they were making history as their lives happened, and that one day school kids would read books about them, probably painting them in a more positive light than they always deserve.

But Ellis's book is helpful and modern in that it doesn't dodge the hard questions about Washington - the most common one being, why did he own slaves? It was fascinating to read Washington's own words on the topic - I was surprised to see what a debated issue it was at the time, as my history books certainly never mentioned anyone taking issue with it until the Civil War. The obvious question begged by the whole 'all men are created equal' line is: even the ones you keep in servitude? And it seems that a lot of people did have a problem with that - but all manner of excuses, cowardice, genuine concern, and inaction kept the status quo in place. Not unlike Lincoln's words that he would abolish slavery to save the Union, or not free a single slave to save it, Washington and the leaders of the time seemed to think the whole experiment would fall apart if the issue of slavery was debated among the new states.

I think there's an argument to be made that that was a fatal flaw for the new country - that if they had debated it, and outlawed the practice, we'd be a very different country now. Perhaps we'd look back on the evils of slavery in the pre-Republic era, noting that true democracy swept the colonies and a new world order was born. Perhaps the other big moral issue on Washington's mind, Indian policy, would have been picked up and discussed in that context, and the continuing genocide that ensued could have been derailed.

But sadly, the nobility of England was traded for the landed aristocracy of the new United States, and the rhetoric of 1776 was not extended to the people at large.

There was a historian in the Ken Burns Civil War documentary who said she grew tired of hearing people say that past leaders shouldn't be judged by the moral standards of our time - that holding Americans accountable for the evils of slavery while 'everybody was doing it' is naive or unfair. I'm uninterested in that argument, too. Why is that Jesus of Nazareth practiced social justice 1700 years earlier, and we applaud him for it, but it's appropriate for our forefathers to willfully disregard that ethic in the practice of their new republic?

I liked the book. I liked Washington. A whole lot better than the boring, preachy, Greek god Washington I learned about in school, who seemed to know from his childhood that he was destined to be the President of a country that hadn't happened yet.

More than anything, I'm seeing the truth of the notion that history never has to happen any which way whatever. It's entirely up to the people living it to make it what it will be. Slavery wasn't abolished in the new republic because people chose to keep it. The revolution was not a sure thing for the Americans: it could have ended in total destruction of the new democracy and a mass hanging for treason. Our capital could be named Greene City, if Washington had died on any of the numerous occasions he should have, and Nathaniel Greene had risen to prominence.

Likewise, we don't have to have 20% of our children living in poverty. We don't have to spend a third of our tax money on making war. We have a choice. I love that the state of Washington is using a little known Constitutional caveat to work on impeaching Bush, and that the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress are both pissed that they're being circumvented.

I'm running out of steam now, but glad to get another post up. I'm into John Adams now, and liking the book.