Thomas Jefferson on 50th Anniversary of Independence

[jbg]

Sometimes you read something that just makes your eyes water. The founders of our country, of great and diverse politics and personal backgrounds, managed to fashion a Rube Goldberg-machine into probably the greatest experiment in human history.

Thomas Jefferson wrote this piece eight days before his death and the death of his co-founder of America, sometimes close friend and sometimes bitter foe, John Adams. Together they, numerous other leaders, and many colonials, some as young as 15 years, with their toil and in many cases blood wrested the United States away from a great and relatively benficient British Empire, to start something even greater.

Please don't take my word for it. Read below (link to source, Library of Congress website).

Thomas Jefferson to Roger Weightman

Monticello June 24. 26

Respected Sir

The kind invitation I receive from you on the part of the citizens of the city of Washington, to be present with them at their celebration of the 50th. anniversary of American independance; as one of the surviving signers of an instrument pregnant with our own, and the fate of the world, is most flattering to myself, and heightened by the honorable accompaniment proposed for the comfort of such a journey. it adds sensibly to the sufferings of sickness, to be deprived by it of a personal participation in the rejoicings of that day. but acquiescence is a duty, under circumstances not placed among those we are permitted to controul. I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made.

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. that 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.

I will ask permission here to express the pleasure with which I should have met my ancient neighbors of the City of Washington and of it's vicinities, with whom I passed so many years of a pleasing social intercourse; an intercourse which so much relieved the anxieties of the public cares, and left impressions so deeply engraved in my affections, as never to be forgotten. with my regret that ill health forbids me the gratification of an acceptance, be pleased to receive for yourself, and those for whom you write, the assurance of my highest respect and friendly attachments.

Th. Jefferson

[August1991]

That a Jefferson-Hemings relationship could be neither refuted nor substantiated was challenged in 1998 by the results of DNA tests conducted by Dr. Eugene Foster and a team of geneticists. The study - which tested Y-chromosomal DNA samples from male-line descendants of Field Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson's uncle), John Carr (grandfather of Jefferson's Carr nephews), Eston Hemings, and Thomas C. Woodson - indicated a genetic link between the Jefferson and Hemings descendants. The results of the study established that an individual carrying the male Jefferson Y chromosome fathered Eston Hemings (born 1808), the last known child born to Sally Hemings. There were approximately 25 adult male Jeffersons who carried this chromosome living in Virginia at that time, and a few of them are known to have visited Monticello. The study's authors, however, said "the simplest and most probable" conclusion was that Thomas Jefferson had fathered Eston Hemings.

monticello.org

It's bit much to read Jefferson write of "bursting chains". His florid prose should not be confused with his accomplishments.

[jbg]

monticello.org

Maybe artificial insemination?

It's bit much to read Jefferson write of "bursting chains". His florid prose should not be confused with his accomplishments.

I may not admire everything that he did but his life was full of accomplishments. To my knowlege, these include:

1. Having a major hand in organizing the Continental Congress;
   
2. Writing a major portion of the US Declaration of Independence;
   
3. Serving ably as an early ambassador to France;
   
4. Serving ably as Washington's first Secretary of State, the highest rank in the Cabinet;
   
5. Serving loyally as Vice-President to John Adams, a President he opposed, and at that point had a venomous relationship with;
   
6. Doubling the size of the US through the Louisiana Purchase (which, despite its name, included most of the US west of the Mississippi River to the Continental Divide, except for present day Texas, New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma and Colorado) or, in other words, all of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and much of Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana; and
   
7. Refusing to surrender to and fighting the Barbary Pirates.
   

He indirectly played a major role in ensuring the addition of the Bill of Rights to our Constitution, an achievement which is sparing us such lovefests as Human Rights Commission v. Maclean's Magazine, Levant, Steyn etc.

Is that enough?