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Authentic Historical Figures

The founders were a rare breed. But the future is up to all of us.

No modern, developed nation idolizes its founders in quite the way America does. If other nations have founders at all, they are usually mythical characters, like Romulus and Remus or King Arthur, obscured in the mists of a distant past. Our founders are authentic historical figures about whom we know a great deal. Yet many of us insist on turning these real human beings into larger-than-life heroes against whom we tend to measure ourselves. They seem to be giants. So we wonder: Why don't we have Thomas Jeffersons today, and if we did, what would they have to say?

In fact, these 18th century figures were extraordinary men, products of a peculiar moment in our history when the forces of aristocracy and democracy were nicely balanced. Although almost all of them were men of relatively modest origins, they were unabashed elitists who had a contempt for electioneering and popular politics. They rejected blood and family as sources of status, however, and were eager to establish themselves by principles that could be acquired through learning and education. They struggled to internalize the new, Enlightened Man-made standards that had come to define what Jefferson called the "natural aristocracy" politeness, sociability, compassion, virtue, disinterestedness and an aversion to corruption and court like behavior.

Natural Aristocrats American political thought since its earliest days has been ambiguous or conflicted about the existence and character of a "natural aristocracy" of governing talent. If the ghosts of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are watching the storm over Sarah Palin, they must surely be revisiting their famous dialogue about America's governing class. Adams's widely misunderstood argument that there should perhaps be an explicit recognition and provision for an aristocratic class finds its reprise in the snobbery that greeted Palin's arrival on the scene. It's not just that she didn't go to Harvard; she's never been on Meet the Press; she hasn't participated in Aspen Institute seminars or attended the World Economic Forum. She hasn't been brought into the slipstream of the establishment by which we unofficially certify our highest leaders. The issue is not whether the establishment would let such a person as Palin cross the bar into the certified political class, but whether regular citizens of this republic have the skill and ability to control the levers of government without having first joined the certified political class. But this begs an even more troublesome question: If we implicitly think uncertified citizens are unfit for the highest offices, why do we trust those same citizens to select our highest officers through free elections? In his reply to Adams, Jefferson expressed more confidence that political virtue and capacity for government were not the special province of a recognized aristocratic class, but that aristoi could be found among citizens of all kinds: "It would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society." Jefferson, moreover, trusted ordinary citizens to recognize political virtue in their fellow citizens: "Leave to the citizens the free election and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the really good and wise." Today's establishment doubts this. The establishment is affronted by the idea that an ordinary hockey mom - a mere citizen - might be just as capable of running the country as a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations. This closed-shop attitude is exactly what both Jefferson and Adams set themselves against; they wanted a republic where talent and public spirit would find easy access to the establishment.

Of these 18th century heroes, Jefferson has been the most important. No one has been more identified with our democratic heritage. Even into our own time, politicians want to get right with the third President. William Jefferson Clinton began his Administration by invoking the memory of Jefferson in his Inaugural Address. Ronald Reagan repeatedly called on Jefferson in order to justify his attempts to reduce the size of the Federal Government, urging us all to "pluck a flower from Thomas Jefferson's life and wear it in our soul forever."

Like the other revolutionaries, Jefferson was eager to prove himself by the latest, most enlightened values. His father Peter Jefferson was a wealthy Virginia planter and surveyor. But his father was not a refined and liberally educated gentleman. He did not read Latin, he did not know French, he did not play the violin, and as far as we know, he never once questioned the idea of a religious establishment or the owning of slaves. Jefferson aimed to be very different from his father. No founder worked harder at being civilized. Even by 1782, as an admiring French visitor observed, Jefferson, "without having quitted his own country;" had become "an American who ... is a musician, draftsman, astronomer, natural philosopher, jurist and a statesman."

At the same time, this cultivated natural aristocrat became the founder most trusting of ordinary people. All human beings, he said, rich and pool; 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.

The Patriot Act Of The 18th Century

Nations sometimes lose their bearings when confronted by an enemy. In a state of crisis or even panic, they implement measures that are later viewed as regrettable. From 1798 to 1800, the French were considered terrorists, pirating ships and making things uncomfortable for the fledgling American republic. The Federalist Party led a backlash against the French, and Thomas Jefferson and his Republican Party were seen as Francophiles. The XYZ Affair-a scandal centering on the fact that some French officials demanded bribes from American diplomats-brought reiations between France and the U.S. to the breaking point. The Federalist Administration of President John Adams considered such solicitations to be grave insults. There were cultural differences as well. In the view of Abigail Adams, Frenchwomen were risqué at best.

The reaction to the threat from France came in the form of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were championed by the Federalists, passed by Congress and signed by Adams in 1798. The Alien Act required immigrants to reside in the U.S. for 14 years instead of 5 to qualify for citizenship. The act also gave the President the legal right to expel those the government considered "dangerous." The Sedition Act punished "false, scandalous and malicious" writings against the government with fines and imprisonment. Most of those arrested under the Sedition Act were Republican editors, and instead of sending boatloads of aliens back to France, it resulted in no one's deportation. In a foreshadowing of the climate that inspired today's USA Patriot Act, at the turn of the century 200 years ago, it was common practice to question the patriotism of citizens, immigrants and the political opposition.

Jefferson, who was Vice President at the time, drafted his position in secret and wrote it into the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. James Madison, in collaboration with Jefferson, subsequently authored the Virginia Resolutions. In the second and fourth of the Kentucky Resolutions, Jefferson cited the 10th Amendment, which gives the states powers not delegated to the government by the Constitution, to declare the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional. Jefferson feared that a strong central government might put an end to slavery. Jefferson's fight against the Alien and Sedition Acts is often placed in the context of free speech, but it had unintended consequences beyond that. The Kentucky Resolutions were among the first to defend states' rights, and Jefferson had even threatened secession. Similar ideas helped spark the Civil War.

After Jefferson defeated Adams and was elected President in 1800, the Alien and Sedition Acts were allowed to expire. Adams, looking to distance himself from the mess, blamed the whole idea on Alexander Hamilton - who by then had been murdered by Aaron Burr.

The expiration of the acts did not end challenges to the First Amendment or the tendency on the part of some Presidents to behave like monarchs, sometimes with the cooperation of Congress. The Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited "false statements" that might "impede military success." During World War II, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to use sedition charges to suppress black newspapers, claiming they undermined the war effort with reports of racial dissension and demands for civil rights. It took Chief Justice Earl Warren's Supreme Court on March 9, 1964, in The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, to finally declare unconstitutional the Sedition Act of the Adams Administration. Though the act had expired under Jefferson's Administration, the court's action buried that particular threat to free speech once and for all - or so people hoped. Writing for the majority, Justice William Brennan held that L.B. Sullivan, an Alabama official, had not been libeled in a New York Times ad that had been paid for by civil rights proponents. Brennan supported his arguments by citing Jefferson.

Gordon S. Wood. The Radicalism of the American Revolution won a Pulitzer. Where Are The Jeffersons Of Today? Time. July 5, 2004.

Ronald Reagan: An American Hero : His Voice, His Values, His Vision This is the story of Reagan's trials and triumphs, his character, vision and values. It's also the love story of a man for his wife, his country, and the world. Over 500 archival and color images, with never-before-published photos from Nancy Reagan's private collection and Reagan's Presidential Library and Museum.

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