The name of Thomas Jefferson sounded as the most appropriate to those who, immediately after September 11, took the initiative to create an association gathering and rallying all the people who, while they were students or at a particular moment in their professional lives, had been guests of the International Visitors Program..
Who was Thomas Jefferson? There is no easy answer to that question and each period of his life seems to offer its own answer.
Here are a few chronological landmarks concerning a very active life entirely devoted to the service of the nation.
T.J. was born in Virginia on April 13th 1743 in a family of planters and died on the very day the young Republic of America was commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Constitution on July 4th 1826.
Thomas Jefferson. studied at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg and became a lawyer before embarking on a political career which led him to become the 3rd American President.
As a member of the House of Burgesses in Virginia, he soon became an opponent to the British Crown. A mover and shaper of events he played an important role in the group who, in 1776, wrote The Declaration of Independence. As Governor of Virginia, he had the difficult role to fight against the English and became a member of Congress in 1779.
The period 1784-1789 saw him succeed Benjamin Franklin as Minister to France. Franklin had managed to remind France that the United States had become independent from the British crown; Jefferson's difficult task consisted in showing that this new country ought to be regarded as independent both from a political and commercial point of view. The task was not easy in a Europe dominated by England and France and at a period when the Bostonian traders still favoured their commercial links with the English.
During these five years, Jefferson travelled in France but was particularly happy to live in Paris, ‘the vaunted city of Europe'. While Franklin had stayed in the village of Passy, Jefferson moved closer to the centre of town in the Hotel du Comte de Langeac (now 92 Avenue des Champs Elysées). The puritan may have had his reserves concerning some aspects of Parisian life, but the man of the Enlightenment admired the artists ( Houdon was later commissioned to make a statue of George Washington), engaged in debates with the Scientists (disputes about the size of animals in the new world with Buffon) and regularly attended the ‘Salons' of Mme d'Helvétius. A widower since 1782, Jefferson never remarried, which does not mean that he was indifferent to the ladies he may have encountered. In Paris he met on different occasions Maria Cosway, the charming wife of a British artist. When his daughter Polly came to join him, she was accompanied by a beautiful and mysterious young slave- Sally Hemings whose role in the Jefferson family has become the centre of a long lasting controversy among contemporary historians since the 1950s. He finally witnessed with sympathy the beginning of the French Revolution before going back to Philadelphia where Washington appointed him Secretary of State.
Thomas Jefferson became vice-president under J. Adams's term which meant in those days that he had to preside over the Senate. In 1800 he became the third President of the United States. He was the first occupant of the White House in Washington. He supervised the construction of the Federal Capital led by the French architect L' Enfant.
When in March 1808 he handed power over to Madison, Jefferson had gone through harsh political struggles. The new republic had been marked by political unrest, but he could be particularly proud of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and of the Lewis and Clarke expedition that explored the West and drew the map of what became before the end of the century the first world power.
1808 saw him at last in Monticello, the family home he had designed, and for the following 18 years he remained there as the ‘sage of Monticello'. He welcomed the leaders of the world, built the University of Virginia and had to face serious financial difficulties. The great agrarian ideal which had opposed Jefferson to the federalist Hamilton and his New England allies was now seriously challenged by the new industrial and commercial forces. The Southern States which had opposed fiercely that evolution would not resist long.
Jefferson wished when he wrote his epitaph to be remembered for three things:
- The Declaration of Independence
- The Virginia Constitution
- The creation of the University of Virginia
The Jeffersonian myth has thrived along these lines though every generation has re-assessed the contents. In the 20th century Jefferson entered the pantheon of the democrats but his silence on the issue of slavery has led several historians to question the Jeffersonian heritage. Whatever the reservations he remains one of the great founders of the American Republic.
His vision of the West, which was constant throughout his life, was at the origin of that expansion policy defined later as Manifest Destiny.
His foreign policy which aimed at liberating the US from the tumults of Europe inspired the Monroe doctrine and a form of isolationism which for many years was the trade mark of American politics.
Jefferson the legislator asserted the pre-eminence of State over Central government in the name of liberty and democracy. A democracy based on reason and education.
Jefferson's agrarian vision, resting on the fact that the city, industry and money had corrupted Europe and that America should be protected from those evils by developing agriculture on those immense territories, has not resisted time. However, the American citizen who escapes from the city to suburbia, goes on holiday in ‘National Parks' and sends his children to summer camps in the wilderness still participates in that ideal of rural purity.
Here is, to conclude, a portrait of the young Jefferson who, â€could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play a violin.†Unless you prefer what President Kennedy said when he received at the White House the American Nobel laureates: (you are) “ the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.â€
|
