Was Thomas Jefferson a hate America liberal who believed in class warfare or a great American?

Question

"We are all the more reconciled to the tax on importations, because it falls exclusively on the rich, and with the equal partition of intestate's estates, constitutes the best agrarian law.. Our revenues once liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., and the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spare a cent from his earnings."
--Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1811. ME 13:41
http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff13.txt

EXCELLENT PERSONAL LETTER OF THOMAS JEFFERSON ON THE INEQUALITY SEEN DURING HIS TIME

"As soon as I had got clear of the town I fell in with a poor woman walking at the same rate with myself and going the same course. Wishing to know the condition of the laboring poor I entered into conversation with her... She told me she was a day laborer at 8 sous or 4d. sterling the day: that she had two children to maintain, and to pay a rent of 30 livres for her house (which would consume the hire of 75 days), that often she could no employment and of course was without bread. As we had walked together near a mile and she had so far served me as a guide, I gave her, on parting, 24 sous. She burst into tears of a gratitude which I could perceive was unfeigned because she was unable to utter a word.

She had probably never before received so great an aid. This little attendrissement, with the solitude of my walk, led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe."

"The property of this country is absolutely concentred in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards... I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on."

--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, October 28,1785. ME 19:17, Papers 8:682
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=967

MS,

Take a chill pill. I was using sarcasm. Jefferson believed in taxing only the rich. By that definition, cons would label him anti-American looking for class warfare.

Answer 1

jefferson CLEARLY would be considered a liberal in today's light. but so would nixon, to some extent

times change, and in all fairness, it is difficult to compare attitudes from so very long ago, when we were, after all, an agrarian society

jefferson was a well educated individual, who believed in personal liberty, who came to deeply dislike slavery, and nevertheless was a very wealthy slaveowner. i think this is an excellent example of how a person can be very many different things to so many different people - why some of us truly despise mr. bush (like me), and others truly love him

Answer 2

What kind of stupid question is that? Jefferson was *the* mind behind the founding of this nation! He wrote the Declaration of Independence. He mentored the Father of the Constitution, Madison. He was our Minister to France post-Revolution, succeeding Dr. Franklin, and later First Secretary of State before he became President. He caused our westward expansion with the Lousiana Purchase. He was an inventor and intellect, including the swivel chair and dumbwaiter. He was one of the most well-read people of the time, fluent in English and French, and he donated his library to Virginia to found the University of Virginia, and he wrote the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom, and was governor of that commonwealth. He was dedicated to his nation, personal faults or not, and that is undisputed. Without Jefferson there *is* no America!

Answer 3

Those quotes have nothing to do with liberal philosophy one way or the other -- liberal philosophy and the liberal agenda is about civil liberties and freedom from govt restriction.

Those are issues about whether a large govt or a small govt is better -- and how involved the govt should be in economic matters -- and if anything, liberal philosophy opposes govt involvement in economics, since laissez faire (free market) is part of the liberal philosophy.

Jefferson believed in community social programs -- which is why he promoted a central govt -- as opposed to promoting confederacy or anarchy.

Answer 4

All we have to go on is the history books. We weren't there when he was alive. We weren't there when he was President. And the way of life that was lived when he was President is far removed from the way of life that we are living now, so we will never truly know what kind of person Thomas Jefferson was.

Answer 5

I don't know, I believe he was a great American. But its too late to ask him now.

Answer 6

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to pursue these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's foundation on such principles and organizing it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, which evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Government to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent shall be obtained; and when so suspended he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissoved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time , after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States; for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent; For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury; For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences; For abolishing the free System of English laws in a nieghboring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies; For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty scarcely paralled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear arms against this country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, The merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, faces and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Relief in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus masked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British Brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrentable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity and we have conjoined them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, In Peace, Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the Name and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be totally dissoved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with affirm reliance on the protection of Devine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor.