Thomas Jefferson: Where Are The Jeffersons Of Today?

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At the same time, this cultivated natural aristocrat became the founder most trusting of ordinary people. All human beings, he said, rich and poor, white and black, had "implanted in [their] breasts" a "moral instinct" and a sympathetic "love of others." "State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor," said Jefferson; the ploughman will decide it as well, and often better, "because he has not been led astray by artificial rules." This idea lay behind Jefferson's belief in the natural harmony of society and his advocacy of minimal government. Government, especially monarchical government, was the source of evil in society. Get rid of its power to create distinctions and monopolies, said Jefferson, and people would be able to come together naturally in social equality and benevolence.

But as historians have been telling us over the past four decades, Jefferson was a deeply flawed human being. Not only was he sometimes deceitful and duplicitous, but he was also a racist slaveholder who never freed most of his slaves. Certainly, however, we should be able to admit these flaws in this timebound 18th century figure without denigrating the democratic ideals he set forth.

Although we quite sensibly renew our belief in these ideals by periodically reinvoking Jefferson's words, we ought always to remember that his statements, along with the Constitution and the other institutions the founders created, have been expanded and developed by more than two centuries of historical experience, an experience that is the real wellspring of our democracy. It's time we realize that our founding is not the source of our political and constitutional achievement. We owe our success to the common sense of the American people throughout our entire history, and our continued success will depend upon that virtue and not simply upon the creative moment of the founding.