Reply #72: To the Jefferson fans: please explain. [View All]

Please understand that I'm NOT criticizing his phenomenal genius as a political writer and philosopher nor his astounding gifts as a polymath. In fact I use one of his most stirring phrases, culled from a lifetime of stirring phrases, as my signature line. But I'm interested in knowing what you think he did as president that wins him the title of "greatest ever" in your book. I ask because I'm familiar with the arguments for Washington, Lincoln, and FDR, but not those for Jefferson, and I'd like to know more.

I'm aware of two things that can go in the balance for him: foremost, of course, the Louisiana Purchase, without which I think it could be easily argued the future wealth and greatness of America would never have been achieved (I'm speaking now from the Eurocentric point of view, not the dispossessed one). Second, his suppression of the Barbary Pirates.

I'm aware of one major blot against his claim in the Embargo Act of 1807. For what it may be worth, here's a vivid letter from an angry working man:

"Dear Sir,
I wish you would take this embargo off as soon as you possibly can, for damn my eyes if I can live as it is. I shall certainly cut my throat, and if I do you will lose one of the best seamen that ever sailed. I have a wife and four young ones to support and it goes damn'd hard with me now. If I don't cut my throat I will go join the English and fight against you. I hope, honored Sir, you will forgive the abrupt manner in which this is wrote as I'm damn'd mad. But still if ever I catch you over there, take care of your honored neck.
Your
T. Selby
No. 9 Pine St. If you want to see him, you damn'd rascal."

From To His Excellency Thomas Jefferson: Letters to a President by Jack McLaughlin (w.W. Norton & Co., 1991)

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