This Country Has a Long Way To Go But We Will Get there

Author Gordon-Reed of The Hemingses of Monticello gives insight into a founding father thoughts about establishing a country like no other before with individual rights and freedom.

The phrases that follow — odd punctuation and all — ring with passion as Jefferson defined the impact of that long-ago choice.

“may it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which Monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. The form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.

“All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others, for ourselves let the annual return of this day, forever refresh our recollections of these rights and an undiminished devotion to them.”

It may seem naive today, Gordon-Reed said, but Jefferson had faith that every generation would be a little better than the one before. He and his peers had put their lives on the line to make the big break with the past, and what they started would not be stopped.

“He was born into a world that accepted monarchy and all that went along with it — social hierarchy, wars brought on by disputes between royals, established churches that ran everyday people’s lives. He thought he and the American Revolutionaries had created something ‘new under the sun’,” she said.

While the more famous letter speaks to Jefferson’s faith in “the enduring value of the American experiment with democracy,” J. J. Looney (another author The Papers Of TJ) wrote in announcing the discovery, the later note speaks to something else: “the private Jefferson who to the last could not deny himself imported luxury goods for which he could not pay.”

The very last — of which only a copy in someone else’s hand survives — was coordinating delivery of a shipment of wine from France.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Seems like Thomas had a spending habit like so many Americans today…he too could not curb. If only he could have lived to know Gary Vaynerchuk, he could have had the best wine in the world for a price his pocketbook could afford!