Thomas Jefferson

On Monday, February 18, we celebrate President’s Day, to honor all the past presidents who have served the United States. Thomas Jefferson, who was our nation’s third president, would surely have appreciated such a holiday, since he knew that being president was often a difficult and thankless job, with many responsibilities. Jefferson had a vision of how the presidency should work. He wrote:

“Permit me first to explain the principles which I had laid down for my own observance. In a government like ours it is the duty of the Chief Magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires, to endeavor, by all honorable means, to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people. This alone, in any case where the energy of the nation is required, can produce an [sic] union of the powers of the whole, and point them in a single direction, as if all constituted but one body & one mind, and this alone can render a weaker nation unconquerable by a stronger one. Towards acquiring the confidence of the people the very first measure is to satisfy them of his disinterestedness, & that he is directing their affairs with a single eye to their good, & not to build up fortunes for himself & family: & especially that the officers appointed because they are the fittest men, not because they are his relations. So prone are they to suspicion that where a President appoints a relation of his own, however worthy, they will believe that favor & not merit, was the motive. I therefore laid it down as a law of conduct for myself never to give an appointment to a relation.”

Even following strict rules regarding nepotism and other forms of corruption did not necessarily protect a president safe against public disapproval. Jefferson knew it was almost impossible for a person to emerge from the presidency with as much respect as he had when he entered office. Jefferson wrote:

“No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it.”

Although he owned slaves himself, Thomas Jefferson hoped that over time, the United States would find a way to abolish the system of slavery without destroying the economy of the South, which, in his day, relied heavily on slave labor. Jefferson had high hopes for the future of the African-American people. In 1791, he wrote to Benjamin Banneker:

“No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, & that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition of both their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit.”

Jefferson, however, did not believe that black people could be raised to equal status with whites if they continued to live in America. Instead, he urged that they be recolonized to Africa, where he believed they would be better able to enjoy their freedom. He wrote:

“It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the State [instead of colonizing them]? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites, ten thousand recollections by the blacks of the injuries they have sustained, new provocations, the real distinctions which nature has made, and many other circumstances will divide us into parties and produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race.”

Fortunately, Jefferson was wrong—there has been no extermination of either the black or white race. This is not to say that there haven’t been racial tensions and at times racial violence, which has often been extreme. However, through education and events such as Black History Month, which we recognize every February, the United States has made great strides since Jefferson’s day in ensuring the equality of the races and helping all people, regardless of their race, to reach the potential that Jefferson envisioned for them.

On February 7, 1788, Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Commissioners of the Treasury from Paris, discussing public credit:

“Tho’ much an enemy to the system of borrowing, yet I feel strongly the necessity of preserving the power to borrow.”

On January 31, 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Joseph C. Cabell:

“I have always thought that where the line of demarcation between the powers of the general & the state governments was doubtfully or indistinctly drawn, it would be prudent and praise-worthy in both parties never to approach it but under the most urgent necessity.”

On January 24, 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams from Monticello:

“All bigotries hang to one another.”