Documentary, Thomas Jefferson - Part 1-Ken Burns American Lives PBS
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00:00:00There's an interesting story that takes place in the 18-teens.
00:00:15There is a clergyman who stops at Ford's Tavern in Virginia,
00:00:20which is on the road between Monticello and Poplar Forest.
00:00:24And he encounters a man he terms a respectable stranger.
00:00:32And he engages in a conversation at some length with this stranger.
00:00:36First, they talk about mechanical operations,
00:00:38and he's certain that the man is an engineer of some sort.
00:00:42Then they move on to matters of agriculture,
00:00:45and he thinks this is, in his words, a large farmer.
00:00:49Finally, they talk about religion,
00:00:50and he's certain that the man is a clergyman like himself.
00:00:54The hour gets late, and they go to bed,
00:00:58and the next morning he arises and speaks with the innkeeper
00:01:02and asks for this stranger he had seen the night before.
00:01:06And he describes him, and the innkeeper says,
00:01:09Why don't you know that was Thomas Jefferson?
00:01:10Why don't you know that was Thomas Jefferson?
00:01:13And he says,
00:01:15Why don't you know that was Thomas Jefferson?
00:01:49He is the greatest enigma among major figures in American history. I think we're attracted
00:02:09to him in part because of his mysterious character. If he were a monument, he would
00:02:15be the Sphinx. If he were a painting, he would be the Mona Lisa. If he were a character in
00:02:23a play, he would be Hamlet.
00:02:27He was a farmer, a violinist, a writer, a surveyor, a scientist, a lover of fine wines, and
00:02:49a restless architect who could never quite bring himself to finish his own house. He
00:02:57was a reluctant politician with a voice so soft he could barely make himself heard from
00:03:03the podium. But he helped to found America's first political party. He denounced the moral
00:03:11bankruptcy he saw in Europe, but delighted in the gilded salons of Paris. He was a statesman
00:03:20who was twice elected president of the United States, but did not think his presidency worth
00:03:26listing among the achievements on his gravestone. He was a lifelong champion of small government,
00:03:33who took it upon himself to more than double the size of his country. He endured the loss of nearly
00:03:46everything he held dear, but somehow never lost his faith in the future. He distilled a century of
00:03:56enlightenment thinking into one remarkable sentence, which began,
00:04:02we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Yet he owned more than 200
00:04:11human beings, and never saw fit to free them.
00:04:17Thomas Jefferson was a shadow man, said John Adams. His character was like the
00:04:25great rivers, whose bottoms we cannot see and make no noise. He remained a puzzle even to those who
00:04:34thought they knew him best, embodied contradictions common to the country, whose independence it
00:04:41fell to him to proclaim, and words whose precise meaning Americans have debated ever since.
00:04:55He gave us our creed. A lot of nations emerge from the mists of history, and their basic identity
00:05:09is tribal. It's rooted in groups. Ours is rooted in a great ascent, an ascent to certain propositions.
00:05:16We are, as Lincoln said, Lincoln being the greatest student of Jefferson of them all. We are a nation dedicated to a proposition.
00:05:22Jefferson wrote the proposition.
00:05:29He is the conceiving spirit of this country. Somehow, at 33 years old, here he was, and he could write the declaration. And they knew it. They somehow knew that here was a person who couldn't speak very well, but they knew he could write, and they assigned him that task.
00:05:51And he accepted it. Jefferson is important because he wrote in imperishable language some of the most important truths about culture and about freedom and civilization. The Declaration of Independence has been quoted back at tyrants by every insurgency movement since Thomas Jefferson. So we have to know about Jefferson, because he's the man who found the language to express the greatest aspirations that humanity has.
00:06:10He said the right words at the right time, and they were never forgotten, and they were never forgotten. Jefferson is American scripture. You must have him on your side if you're going to have a government
00:06:40the people.
00:06:48Unfortunately, and tragically, I would say that, in a sense, Thomas Jefferson personifies the United States and its history.
00:06:59He was a man who claimed, you see, to be a man of the Enlightenment. He was a scientist, a humanist. He knew what he was saying when he said all men are created equal. And it simply can't be reconciled with the institution of slavery.
00:07:21When you start to explore the life and achievement of Jefferson, you find that there is a gap between his vision, and the beautiful articulation of that vision on the one hand.
00:07:42And then his actual achievement as a human being on the other. Was he a contemptible hypocrite, as some believe? Or were there simply inconsistencies between his life and his vision, as others like to believe? Or is there some way of understanding this which preserves the integrity of Jefferson?
00:08:04How can we see through these paradoxes, and inconsistencies, and even hypocrisies, and get at the man?
00:08:17Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For none of us, no, not one, is perfect.
00:08:41And were we to love none who had imperfections, this world would be a desert for our love.
00:08:49Thomas Jefferson
00:08:51He was born in Albemarle County, on the edge of the Virginia wilderness, on April 13, 1743.
00:09:13His earliest memory was of being carried on a pillow at the age of two, by one of his father's slaves.
00:09:25His mother, Jane Randolph, was an aristocrat, a member of one of Virginia's most prominent families.
00:09:34But his father, Peter Jefferson, was a self-made man, industrious, and fiercely independent.
00:09:44He told his son stories of the frontier, introduced him to Indians,
00:09:50took him walking in the deep, uncharted woods that stretched away beyond the western horizon,
00:09:58gave him a love of liberty.
00:10:06By the time he was six, Jefferson was pouring through the books in his father's library.
00:10:12Soon he had mastered Greek and Latin, and taught himself the violin.
00:10:18But in August 1757, when he was just 14, his father died suddenly.
00:10:30When I recollect that at 14 years of age the whole care and direction of myself was thrown on myself entirely,
00:10:38without a relative or friend qualified to advise or guide me,
00:10:42and recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time,
00:10:48I am astonished that I did not turn off with some of them
00:10:52and become as worthless to society as they were.
00:10:56A year after his father's death, Jefferson was sent away to a one-room schoolhouse,
00:11:06to acquire the kind of classical education his father had thought essential.
00:11:12There he met a young man named Dabney Carr, who soon became his closest friend.
00:11:18On weekends, the two rode their horses to the top of what they called Tom's Mountain,
00:11:26on his father's land overlooking the tiny village of Charlottesville.
00:11:32They would study together in the shade of a great oak tree they both loved,
00:11:37and Jefferson began to talk of someday building a home there.
00:11:42The two boys promised that if one should die before the other,
00:11:47the one who still lived would bury his friend on the mountain.
00:11:59At 16, Jefferson, attended by his personal slave Jupiter,
00:12:04went on to the College of William and Mary at Williamsburg,
00:12:08the colonial capital of Virginia.
00:12:11At first, Jefferson was overwhelmed by the attractions
00:12:16of the town.
00:12:18From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse racers,
00:12:24card players, fox hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men.
00:12:32And many a time I asked myself, which of these kinds of reputations should I prefer?
00:12:38That of a horse jockey, a fox hunter, an orator, or the honest advocate of my country's rights?
00:12:48He went to the horse races and to the bulls, and he danced, and he was involved with a lot of the girls,
00:12:54and he had a good time.
00:12:56When he went home that summer, he realized how much time he had wasted.
00:13:00And then Dabney Carr went back with him, and at that point, he resolved that he would study.
00:13:07Now he stood apart in his devotion to his schoolwork.
00:13:12I was a hard student until I entered the business of life, he remembered.
00:13:18He was said to be at his books, fifteen hours out of every twenty-four.
00:13:29Jefferson's shy charm and unusual seriousness prompted one of his professors to introduce him to George Wythe,
00:13:36the colony's leading attorney, who agreed to take Jefferson on and to teach him the law.
00:13:45He was my second father, Jefferson wrote later, my faithful and beloved mentor,
00:13:51and Wythe, for his part, proudly showed off his prized student to the men who ruled Virginia.
00:14:01By this time, it was the brilliance and open-mindedness of this young Thomas Jefferson
00:14:08that inspired the governor to invite him to the palace once a week for dinner, conversation, and music.
00:14:20At that table, this young boy was exposed to the thought currents in Europe,
00:14:26what was then called the Enlightenment.
00:14:28And later on, he said that he realized that that dining room table was truly his university.
00:14:40In Williamsburg, as a student, Jefferson was soaking up all the learning he could get.
00:14:46The Enlightenment for Thomas Jefferson was a spirit of intellectual optimism.
00:14:52The Enlightenment thinkers saw the good in the human spirit,
00:14:58and Jefferson was most intoxicated by the idea that human beings possessed the potential to do remarkable good,
00:15:10and that a government could be created which would tap into this spirit,
00:15:15tap into this impulse to do good.
00:15:18Jefferson eventually earned his living at the law,
00:15:24but politics began to take more and more of his time.
00:15:28As he traveled throughout the colony, his chess set and violin in his saddlebags,
00:15:35he saw that his world was very little like the world the Enlightenment philosophers had envisioned.
00:15:41John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton preached a freedom of the mind,
00:15:49but in the British colonies, each citizen was expected to obey without complaint
00:15:55the dictates of a far-off parliament.
00:15:59At 27, Jefferson moved to the hill, which he and Dabney Carr had named Tom's Mountain when they were boys.
00:16:09He renamed it Monticello, Italian for Little Mountain, and began to build himself a house.
00:16:21I have lately removed to the mountain.
00:16:25I have here but one room, which serves me for parlor and kitchen and hall.
00:16:31I may add for bedchamber and study, too.
00:16:34I have hopes, however, of getting more elbow room this summer.
00:16:40He first built a modest brick cottage, but soon began to draw up far more ambitious plans.
00:16:48They were based on the works of the Italian Renaissance master, Palladio,
00:16:57and inspired by the classical forms of ancient Greece and Rome.
00:17:03No detail would escape his imagination.
00:17:06No detail would escape his imagination.
00:17:33Early in 1771, Jefferson began to court Martha Wales Skelton, the young widow of a fellow lawyer.
00:17:44No portrait of her has ever been found, but she was said to be beautiful, graceful, fond of music.
00:17:53He called her Patty.
00:17:57They were married at her father's house on New Year's Day, 1772.
00:18:03She was 23.
00:18:05He was 28.
00:18:08Two weeks later, the newlyweds rode through the snow to start their new life together at Monticello.
00:18:16The cottage was cold and dark, and Martha was said to have shivered at the horrible dreariness of such a house.
00:18:26But Jefferson rummaged around and found a half bottle of wine behind some books on a shelf,
00:18:33and they started their married life together in a tiny 18-by-18-foot cottage clinging to the edge of his mountain.
00:18:46In every scheme of happiness, she is placed in the foreground of the picture as the principal figure.
00:18:53Take that away, and it is no picture for me.
00:18:59The first child Martha, whom they called Patty, was born at Monticello the following fall.
00:19:12The interesting thing about Thomas Jefferson's life is that this man who comes down to us in history as the embodiment of American optimism,
00:19:24the promise of a bright future for this then young country.
00:19:29In his own life, he was bound to lose everything he loved.
00:19:33In May of 1773, Jefferson's friend Dabney Carr died of bilious fever.
00:19:44True to his word, Jefferson saw to it that he was laid to rest at Monticello.
00:19:51As he would all his life, he sought escape from sadness and the certainty of numbers and making lists.
00:20:01He dulled his grief by calculating the length of time it would take for his slaves to prepare the graveyard for his friend's coffin.
00:20:12Two hands grubbed the graveyard eighty feet square, one-seventh of an acre, in three and a half hours,
00:20:22so that one would have done it in seven hours and would grub an acre in forty-nine hours, equaling four days.
00:20:31Two weeks later, Martha's father died, leaving Jefferson crushing debts to British creditors,
00:20:41thousands of acres of land, and 135 more slaves.
00:20:48Mr. Jefferson was a tall, straight-bodied man as ever you see, right square-shouldered.
00:20:58Nary man in this town walked so straight as my old master.
00:21:02Neither built man as ever was seen in Virginia, I reckon, or anyplace.
00:21:07A straight-up man, long face, high nose.
00:21:11Isaac.
00:21:14Jefferson sold off most of the land he inherited, but he kept the slaves,
00:21:20including a woman said to be his late father-in-law's mistress, Betty Hemmings,
00:21:26and the two small children she had borne him, James and Sally.
00:21:32Thomas Jefferson was now the second largest slaveholder in Albemarle County,
00:21:39and he set his slaves to work, building his estate.
00:21:45Monticello House was pulled down in part and built up again some six or seven times.
00:21:53There was forty years at work upon that house before Mr. Jefferson stopped building.
00:22:01Over the years, he would completely redesign Monticello,
00:22:05but it would always be both home and safe haven
00:22:08from the political storms that soon began to break around him.
00:22:20The colonists of Virginia are haughty and jealous of their liberties,
00:22:24impatient of restraint,
00:22:26and can scarcely bear the thought of being controlled by a foreign power.
00:22:31Andrew Burnaby.
00:22:36In 1765, Britain had passed the Stamp Act,
00:22:40which imposed on American colonists a special tax on printed matter.
00:22:45Many Virginians, Jefferson included,
00:22:48were incensed that a distant parliament could,
00:22:51without so much as consulting them,
00:22:53demand money from their pockets.
00:22:56Protests erupted from New Hampshire to Georgia.
00:23:02There came a time when English liberty no longer felt the same as it had.
00:23:08By the 1760s and 1770s, there was something new in the air.
00:23:15They felt that they were being enslaved.
00:23:17They used the term enslavement to describe what parliament was inflicting upon
00:23:23these people who had grown up with a certain view of English liberty.
00:23:28And if English liberty could no longer be preserved,
00:23:33then what was their recourse?
00:23:35In 1769, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed a resolution
00:23:41pledging to boycott British goods rather than pay a new tax.
00:23:47The first man to sign was the richest man in the colony,
00:23:52a tall, austere veteran of the French and Indian War,
00:23:56George Washington.
00:23:59Thomas Jefferson, the newest member of the House of Burgesses,
00:24:02was the 16th to sign.
00:24:05And over the coming years, as patriotic feelings continued to rise,
00:24:10so did his influence.
00:24:12The shy and bookish student of philosophy
00:24:15was becoming a revolutionary.
00:24:20When Massachusetts patriots defied the crown
00:24:23by dumping tea into Boston Harbor,
00:24:26the British government tried to starve the city into submission
00:24:30with its warships.
00:24:32Jefferson helped persuade his fellow Burgesses
00:24:35to declare a day of prayer and fasting
00:24:38to show Virginia's solidarity with the people of Boston.
00:24:43Its effect, he said, was like a shock of electricity.
00:24:50In 1774, as the colonists prepared for the first time
00:24:55to meet together in Philadelphia
00:24:57at what they called a Continental Congress,
00:25:00Jefferson wrote a summary view of the rights of British America.
00:25:06He boldly argued that since the association between crown and colonies
00:25:12was purely voluntary,
00:25:14Parliament had no inherent authority over Americans.
00:25:18Are Americans to live at the imperious breath of a body of men
00:25:23whom they never saw, in whom they never confided,
00:25:27and over whom they have no powers of punishment or removal?
00:25:33Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day.
00:25:39But a series of oppressions too plainly prove
00:25:44a deliberate, systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.
00:25:51The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.
00:25:56The hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.
00:26:01Jefferson's essay was widely read in both England and America,
00:26:09and he was aware of the traditional penalty paid
00:26:13by those whom the crown considered traitors.
00:26:16You are to be hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead.
00:26:23For while you are still living, your bodies are to be taken down,
00:26:27your bowels torn out, and burned before your faces.
00:26:32Your heads then cut off, and your bodies divided into four quarters,
00:26:37to be then at the King's disposal.
00:26:40And may the Almighty God have mercy on your souls.
00:26:46On June 11th, 1775, Jefferson set out from Monticello for Philadelphia.
00:26:54He had been chosen as a delegate to the Continental Congress.
00:26:59By then, Americans had fought British soldiers at Lexington and Concord,
00:27:06and George Washington had left Philadelphia
00:27:09and was on his way to take command of the rebel forces.
00:27:13The American Revolution had begun.
00:27:36Philadelphia, June 22nd, 1775.
00:27:40Yesterday, the famous Mr. Jefferson, a delegate from Virginia, arrived.
00:27:46He looks like a very sensible, spirited, fine fellow.
00:27:50And by the pamphlet which he wrote last summer, he certainly is one.
00:27:55Samuel Ward.
00:27:56In 1775, kings still ruled in France and England, a tsarina in St. Petersburg, a sultan in Constantinople,
00:28:12a divinely invested emperor in Peking, and a shogun in Japan.
00:28:17But in June 1775, a small group of merchants, planters, and lawyers met in Philadelphia to see whether they might govern themselves.
00:28:30Thomas Jefferson of Virginia rented himself a room and began to circulate among the other delegates.
00:28:40Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York, Roger Sherman of Connecticut,
00:28:47and a short, opinionated delegate from Massachusetts, John Adams, who would become Jefferson's friend, then his enemy, and then his friend again.
00:29:01Adams was as valuable as Jefferson was reticent.
00:29:05But he took to the young Virginian right away and thought him tough as a lignum knot.
00:29:15During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.
00:29:22Though a silent member of Congress, he was so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon committees,
00:29:30that he soon seized upon my heart.
00:29:35John Adams.
00:29:37Jefferson is 33 years old.
00:29:40He's one of the youngest members of the Continental Congress of the United States.
00:29:44He's a provincial from Virginia. He has scarcely ever been out of his home state.
00:29:48He is a shy man. He has perhaps a slight speech impediment, and he has a high-pitched and weak voice,
00:29:54and is not given to asserting himself in any way.
00:29:56He's considered a brilliant committee man, but he has no presence in the Continental Congress.
00:30:02He's not comfortable talking in public. He's not a great orator.
00:30:07In fact, he's, even as a lawyer, not very good at making oral presentations to juries.
00:30:12He's much more comfortable crafting language in private, where he has control.
00:30:18Over the next two years, Jefferson would serve quietly on 34 different committees.
00:30:24He was a master at drafting legislation, had what Adams called a happy talent of composition,
00:30:33and impressed everyone with his hard work.
00:30:37But he was privately suffering.
00:30:40I have never received the script of a pen from any mortal in Virginia since I left it,
00:30:50nor been able by any inquiries I could make to hear of my family.
00:30:55The suspense under which I am is too terrible to be endured.
00:31:00If anything has happened, for God's sake let me know it.
00:31:08In September 1775, his second daughter Jane had died at 17 months,
00:31:16leaving his wife so frail and grief-stricken that she could not even write to him.
00:31:22He was living in a three-mile-an-hour world.
00:31:29It would have taken him better than a week to travel the distance from Philadelphia to Virginia.
00:31:35And so, of necessity, Martha was alone a great deal of the time and suffered.
00:31:44She often went into states of depression because she wanted him with her,
00:31:50and of course, because she was losing these dear pledges, as Jefferson called them, one after the other.
00:31:57On March 31st, 1776, Jefferson's own mother died.
00:32:06Migraine headaches paralyzed him for weeks.
00:32:11Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the deity to be the lot of any one of his creatures in this world.
00:32:20The most fortunate of us frequently meet with calamities which may greatly afflict us.
00:32:25And to fortify our minds against the attacks of these misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives.
00:32:36On June 7th, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution that declared that these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be, free and independent states.
00:33:01Congress scheduled a vote on Lee's resolution for early July, hoping it would convince France to join their struggle against England, the mightiest power on earth.
00:33:15They established a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence, to which all 13 colonists could subscribe.
00:33:23Benjamin Franklin was asked to write the first draft, and refused.
00:33:32He made it a policy, he said, not to write documents subject to editing by others.
00:33:39Jefferson and Adams were assigned the task.
00:33:42Both Jefferson and Adams were committed to a republic, but they had very different styles.
00:33:50Jefferson was bland and careful and aphoristic and high-flown.
00:33:56His rhetoric always soared towards aspiration and to human dignity.
00:34:01Adams was earthy and anecdotal and pugnacious.
00:34:05Jefferson says, I think you ought to do it.
00:34:09And Adams says, no, three reasons. You must do it.
00:34:12First, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian must be at the head of this business.
00:34:18Second, I, John Adams, am disliked and obnoxious.
00:34:21And if I write it, it will lack credibility.
00:34:24And third, you are ten times better a writer than I am.
00:34:27Not to find out new principles or new arguments never before thought of,
00:34:43not merely to say things which had never been said before,
00:34:48but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject
00:34:54in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent,
00:35:00and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.
00:35:09Alone in a rented room, Jefferson went to work.
00:35:14I would love to be there when he was writing the Declaration of Independence.
00:35:18He was in a little house on Market Street, writing on this wonderful desk.
00:35:28His servant, Bob Hemmings, was with him.
00:35:32He would serve him tea while he was working.
00:35:35He would play his violin periodically.
00:35:38And he would write, without any notes.
00:35:53I would love to see him struggling for exactly the right word, the right phrase,
00:35:59trying to match the sound and the sense of each of the words, the cadences.
00:36:03Thinking through the ideas that he'd been studying, of John Locke, of Montesquieu,
00:36:10all the reading that he had done over the years.
00:36:12And as he struggled over each word, writing, crossing out, interlining as he said.
00:36:26He said.
00:36:31And then, as a page got too messy, copying it fair.
00:36:42It took him only a few days.
00:36:44The document, he said, was simply intended to be an expression of the American mind.
00:36:57He was able, somehow, to pick up on all the waves of thought that were going through,
00:37:04from Paris to London, from the coffee houses to Boston.
00:37:09And all these ideas were coming in and coming in.
00:37:14What is a good country?
00:37:16What is a good way to live?
00:37:18What is a republic?
00:37:19Should we have a republic?
00:37:20What is a monarchy?
00:37:21What is a colonist?
00:37:22What are the relations between master and slave,
00:37:25the relationship between owner and the owned?
00:37:28And he took all of this and, in two or three sentences, hurled it at the world.
00:37:40And it still goes round.
00:37:42It still inspires.
00:37:44And it is still the essence of whatever spirit we still have
00:37:50and that we once had indeed.
00:37:52When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people
00:38:03to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
00:38:08and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station
00:38:14to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them,
00:38:18a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires
00:38:24that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
00:38:31We hold these truths to be self-evident.
00:38:36That all men are created equal.
00:38:39that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
00:38:51That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
00:38:57and the pursuit of happiness.
00:38:59piano plays softly
00:39:29the words of American history.
00:39:32Those are the words that all Americans at some very, very important level believe in.
00:39:38They are the essential words of the American creed.
00:39:42And part of Jefferson's genius was to articulate at a sufficiently abstract level
00:39:49these principles, these truths that we all want to believe in.
00:39:54The level is sufficiently abstract so that we don't have to notice
00:39:58that these truths are at some level unattainable
00:40:02and at another level mutually exclusive.
00:40:05Perfect freedom doesn't lead to perfect equality.
00:40:08It usually leads to inequality.
00:40:10But Jefferson's genius is to assert them at a level of abstraction
00:40:14where they have a kind of rhapsodic inspirational quality.
00:40:19And we all agree not to notice, not to notice that they are unattainable
00:40:26and not to notice that they are mutually exclusive or contradictory.
00:40:31They are in some sense nice representations of Jefferson's personality,
00:40:35wishing to be above it all and concealing the contradictions.
00:40:41On July 2nd, Congress unanimously approved the central clause of Jefferson's declaration,
00:40:55proclaiming American independence.
00:40:59And for the support of this declaration,
00:41:02we mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
00:41:12Two days later, July 4th, 1776,
00:41:1712 of the 13 states approved the entire document.
00:41:22New York would take a few more days to make up its mind.
00:41:28It was read on the streets of Philadelphia.
00:41:35It will be the most memorable epoca in the history of America.
00:41:40I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations
00:41:45as the great anniversary festival.
00:41:49It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance
00:41:53by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.
00:41:57It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade,
00:42:00with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires,
00:42:06and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.
00:42:11From this time forward, forevermore.
00:42:16John Adams.
00:42:22Well, we have a civil religion in this country,
00:42:24and he provided a catechism.
00:42:27I mean, every religion ought to have a catechism.
00:42:29Here are what we believe.
00:42:31Want to be an American? Here's what you believe.
00:42:33No one knows how you become French.
00:42:36No one knows where Germany comes from.
00:42:39It sort of emerges from the myths.
00:42:41We know when we started.
00:42:42We know the afternoon.
00:42:43July 4th, 1776.
00:42:45And we know how to become an American.
00:42:46You come here and you assent.
00:42:48Then you're an American.
00:42:49Just as American as anybody whose family's been here
00:42:52for ten generations.
00:42:53You're in, you're it.
00:42:54That's what an American is.
00:42:56He said that here in this place, the happiness of the human race
00:43:03may advance to an indefinite, though not to an infinite degree.
00:43:09He expressed his optimism and yet his refusal to be a utopian.
00:43:14And I think that what distinguishes our kind of society
00:43:19and the Jeffersonian view of our society from others
00:43:23is that it is not ideological.
00:43:26It's not stuck in the prison of some dogma,
00:43:30but rather is constantly responding to the changes in the world.
00:43:35And Jefferson was the apostle of that experience.
00:43:41When you stop and think to yourself,
00:43:43do you really believe all men are created equal,
00:43:47or all people, let us say, are created equal,
00:43:50you have trouble believing it,
00:43:53but you don't ever wish it hadn't been written.
00:43:56If the equality clause will trouble us a thousand years, as Frost said,
00:44:02if it'll trouble us,
00:44:03then the pursuit of happiness will mystify us forever.
00:44:07And I like the trouble, and I like the mystery.
00:44:09Jefferson's own feelings about that momentous day are unknown.
00:44:17He noted in his account book only
00:44:20that the temperature at 6 a.m. was 68 degrees
00:44:23and rose to 76 before falling again,
00:44:27and that he bought seven pairs of gloves to take back to Monticello.
00:44:32At the time that Jefferson was in Philadelphia writing the declaration,
00:44:42Martha was at home in Virginia suffering from the recent loss of a baby.
00:44:48They lost a son.
00:44:50They lost another daughter.
00:44:52And it was at that time that Jefferson wrote to John Page
00:44:57that it is with great difficulty, great pain, that I can stay here.
00:45:02He was frantic to see her.
00:45:06He was, he told a friend, under a sacred obligation to go home.
00:45:11It would be many years before the American people knew
00:45:17that Thomas Jefferson had written the most important document in their history.
00:45:22I thought they were beautiful words.
00:45:52When I first heard them,
00:45:56I was thinking of what assurances they gave me
00:46:02that I was equal to others
00:46:07and that no one could take that away from me.
00:46:11It reinforced what I was being told at home,
00:46:18that no man anywhere was any better than I was.
00:46:26In 1776, when Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence
00:46:32proclaimed that all men were created equal,
00:46:37539,000 Americans, one-fifth of the population,
00:46:43were owned by other Americans.
00:46:45Jefferson had, in his first draft,
00:46:49blamed the English king
00:46:51for encouraging and sustaining the slave trade.
00:46:54But all mention of it was dropped from his text
00:46:58when slave-owning patriots objected.
00:47:01The new nation had simply sidestepped the issue.
00:47:05When Jefferson was a young man,
00:47:11he spoke about emancipation.
00:47:13And he did, in the course of his life,
00:47:15propose more than a dozen pieces of legislation
00:47:18that would have enabled immediate or gradual emancipation
00:47:22of all of the slaves, at least of Virginia.
00:47:24None of those proposals was accepted.
00:47:27In fact, most of them were overwhelmingly defeated or ignored.
00:47:29And from time to time, Jefferson was denounced
00:47:33for his emancipationist views.
00:47:37And so he learned a lesson.
00:47:38He realized that if he went to the wall
00:47:41as an absolutist on the issue of slavery,
00:47:44that he would lose his credibility on other fronts
00:47:46that were equally important to him.
00:47:48And so, in a sense, from the middle of his life,
00:47:50he began to temporize.
00:47:51And he began to talk about the next generation.
00:47:53And he postponed slavery,
00:47:54as America postponed the issue of slavery.
00:48:00And Jefferson is right at the heart
00:48:02of this national paradox.
00:48:04The dog is coming, the dog is coming,
00:48:07and they've got to go, they've got to go.
00:48:09He loves you.
00:48:24As others fought the revolution
00:48:38that Jefferson's eloquence had helped spark,
00:48:41he returned to Virginia.
00:48:44There, he fought another, quieter revolution.
00:48:47As a member of the new House of Delegates,
00:48:52he would help draft 126 bills
00:48:56aimed at overturning aristocratic rule
00:48:59and smoothing the way for individuals
00:49:02to rise on the basis of virtue and ability.
00:49:06He called for public schools,
00:49:10streamlined the legal system,
00:49:12and overturned the law
00:49:14which had favored eldest sons
00:49:16in inheriting property.
00:49:17But he was most proud of his bill
00:49:26for establishing religious freedom in Virginia,
00:49:30which declared that government
00:49:32had no right to favor any faith.
00:49:37Throughout America,
00:49:39citizens were taxed
00:49:41to support the state's official church.
00:49:43In New England, Quakers, Catholics, and Jews
00:49:47were forbidden from holding any public office.
00:49:52And in Jefferson's own Virginia,
00:49:55heresy was a capital offense.
00:49:59Our rulers can have authority
00:50:01over such natural rights only
00:50:03as we have submitted to them.
00:50:06The rights of conscience we never submitted,
00:50:09we could not submit.
00:50:10I have ever thought religion
00:50:13a concern purely between our God
00:50:16and our consciences,
00:50:18for which we were accountable to Him
00:50:20and not to the priests.
00:50:23For it is in our lives
00:50:25and not from our words
00:50:27that our religion must be read.
00:50:30But this does not satisfy the priesthood.
00:50:33They must have a positive,
00:50:35a declared assent
00:50:37to all their interested absurdities.
00:50:41My opinion is
00:50:42that there would never have been an infidel
00:50:44if there had never been a priest.
00:50:50Separation of church and state
00:50:51had not occurred in our culture,
00:50:52in our whole history.
00:50:54That had simply never occurred before.
00:50:56The most revolutionary thing
00:50:57about the revolution
00:50:58as it worked out into a new government
00:51:01was that one step,
00:51:03the separation of church and state.
00:51:04It essentially says
00:51:09that inside each of us,
00:51:10inside me, inside you,
00:51:12there is this kernel or core
00:51:15of something sacred,
00:51:18something that cannot be violated,
00:51:22something that cannot be coerced
00:51:24or tampered with by the state,
00:51:27by the government,
00:51:28by institutions of any sort.
00:51:30and that is our essence.
00:51:34And that essence
00:51:36is extremely powerful.
00:51:39If we can protect that essence
00:51:41and allow it to voluntarily
00:51:43express itself into the world,
00:51:45it's the single most powerful force
00:51:48in human history.
00:51:51Jefferson wrote the bill,
00:51:53but he could not get it passed
00:51:54in the House of Delegates.
00:51:56It would be ten years
00:51:58before Virginia actually adopted it.
00:52:02And it was his friend
00:52:04and closest political lieutenant,
00:52:07James Madison,
00:52:08who led the fight
00:52:09to win final passage.
00:52:12To understand Jefferson,
00:52:13you need to know
00:52:14that he was a collector of protégés.
00:52:16He could never have achieved
00:52:17what he did without able-bodied men
00:52:19who yielded their own characters to his.
00:52:22They seemed to recognize
00:52:23that there was some type
00:52:24of greatness in Jefferson
00:52:25that simply deserved that support.
00:52:29I think it's fair to say
00:52:30that Madison was a great man
00:52:31who yielded himself
00:52:33to an even greater man.
00:52:39In 1779,
00:52:42Jefferson was elected
00:52:43War Governor of Virginia.
00:52:46His tenure soon proved a nightmare.
00:52:49He was powerless to halt inflation,
00:52:52had trouble recruiting militiamen,
00:52:55failed to respond fast enough
00:52:57when British troops invaded Virginia,
00:53:00and was forced to abandon
00:53:02the new capital of Richmond
00:53:04to the enemy.
00:53:07And in June 1781,
00:53:11enemy forces briefly occupied
00:53:13Monticello itself.
00:53:14The British searched the house,
00:53:23but didn't disturb none of the furniture.
00:53:25But they plundered the wine cellar.
00:53:28The bottles,
00:53:28they broke their necks off
00:53:29with their swords,
00:53:31drank some,
00:53:31threw the balance away.
00:53:34The British say
00:53:34they didn't want anybody
00:53:35but the governor.
00:53:37Didn't want to hurt him,
00:53:38only wanted to put
00:53:39a pair of silver handcuffs on him.
00:53:43Jefferson and his family
00:53:45narrowly escaped,
00:53:47but some members
00:53:48of the legislature
00:53:49now accused him
00:53:50of cowardice.
00:53:53A resolution was introduced
00:53:54to investigate his conduct,
00:53:56and it was suggested
00:53:57that he was cowardly.
00:53:59The British tried to capture him
00:54:00at Monticello,
00:54:01and there's no question about it,
00:54:03he didn't hang around
00:54:03to be captured.
00:54:05But I think that that's common sense
00:54:07and not cowardice.
00:54:09The House of Delegates
00:54:11eventually exonerated him,
00:54:13but Jefferson,
00:54:14no longer governor,
00:54:16remained at Monticello,
00:54:17out of public life.
00:54:20The accusations,
00:54:22he told his friend,
00:54:23James Monroe,
00:54:24inflicted a wound on my spirit
00:54:27which will only be cured
00:54:28by the all-healing grave.
00:54:34Jefferson was an incredibly
00:54:35sensitive man.
00:54:37thin-skinned,
00:54:38vulnerable,
00:54:39fragile in character.
00:54:41He didn't really have the temperament
00:54:43to be a political figure.
00:54:45His greatest desire
00:54:46was harmony
00:54:46and to be loved,
00:54:48and he couldn't stand
00:54:49not to be loved.
00:54:52I have taken
00:54:53my final leave of politics,
00:54:56have retired to my farm,
00:54:58my family,
00:54:59and books,
00:55:01from which I think
00:55:02nothing will evermore
00:55:03separate me.
00:55:04May 20th,
00:55:151782.
00:55:18Dear Mr. Madison,
00:55:21Mrs. Jefferson
00:55:22has added another daughter
00:55:24to our family.
00:55:26She has ever since
00:55:27and still continues
00:55:28very dangerously ill.
00:55:30Patty Jefferson
00:55:34was dying.
00:55:38His wife had borne him
00:55:40six children
00:55:40in ten years
00:55:41and had already
00:55:43lost three of them.
00:55:45She had frequently
00:55:47been ill,
00:55:48and the birth
00:55:48of this last daughter,
00:55:50Lucy Elizabeth,
00:55:51had proved too much.
00:55:53As a nurse,
00:55:56no female ever had
00:55:57more tenderness
00:55:58or anxiety.
00:56:01He nursed
00:56:02my poor mother,
00:56:03sitting up with her
00:56:04and administering
00:56:05her medicines
00:56:05and drink.
00:56:07For four months
00:56:08that she lingered,
00:56:09he was never
00:56:10out of calling.
00:56:12Patsy Jefferson.
00:56:16Thomas and Patty Jefferson
00:56:18had read
00:56:19Lawrence Stern's novel
00:56:20Tristram Shandy.
00:56:23This was a novel
00:56:24about the workings
00:56:25of the human heart.
00:56:27And as Patty Jefferson
00:56:29lay dying
00:56:30in September
00:56:31of 1782,
00:56:35the two Jeffersons
00:56:36sat at her bed
00:56:37and they wrote out
00:56:40together this quotation
00:56:42from Tristram Shandy.
00:56:45And it started out
00:56:47in Patty Jefferson's
00:56:48handwriting,
00:56:49a little four-by-four
00:56:50inch piece of paper.
00:56:52And on this script
00:56:52of paper,
00:56:53Patty Jefferson began,
00:56:56Time Wastes Too Fast.
00:57:00Time wastes too fast.
00:57:03Every letter I trace
00:57:04tells me with what
00:57:05rapidity life
00:57:06follows my pen.
00:57:09The days and hours
00:57:10of it are flying
00:57:11over our heads
00:57:12like clouds
00:57:13of a windy day.
00:57:15Never to return more.
00:57:18Everything presses on.
00:57:19At this moment,
00:57:22orchestrating it
00:57:23as a deathbed
00:57:25adieu
00:57:25of two lovers
00:57:26about to part,
00:57:28Jefferson picks up
00:57:29his own pen
00:57:29and continues the quote.
00:57:32And every time
00:57:33I kiss thy hand
00:57:34to bid adieu,
00:57:34and every time
00:57:38I kiss thy hand
00:57:39to bid adieu,
00:57:42every absence
00:57:43which follows it
00:57:44are preludes
00:57:46to that eternal
00:57:47separation
00:57:48which we are
00:57:50shortly to make.
00:57:53Jefferson kept
00:57:54this little piece
00:57:55of paper
00:57:55in the most
00:57:57private drawer,
00:57:58in the secret
00:57:58compartment of the drawer
00:57:59beside his bed.
00:58:00and it was folded
00:58:03and unfolded
00:58:03countless times
00:58:04over the years
00:58:05and in it
00:58:06was a lock
00:58:07of his late wife's hair
00:58:08and a lock
00:58:10of the hair
00:58:10of one of their
00:58:11infant children
00:58:12who had died.
00:58:14And this was
00:58:15the real Thomas Jefferson,
00:58:16the man of sentiment,
00:58:18who loved deeply,
00:58:21who felt deeply.
00:58:22Mr. Jefferson
00:58:28sat by her
00:58:29and she gave him
00:58:32directions about
00:58:32a good many things
00:58:33that she wanted done.
00:58:35When she came
00:58:36to the children,
00:58:37she wept,
00:58:38could not speak
00:58:38for some time.
00:58:41Finally,
00:58:42she told him
00:58:42she could not die happy
00:58:43if she thought
00:58:44her children were ever
00:58:45to have a stepmother
00:58:46brought in over them.
00:58:50Holding her hand
00:58:51in his,
00:58:53Mr. Jefferson
00:58:53promised her solemnly
00:58:55that he would
00:58:55never marry again.
00:59:01And he never did.
00:59:04Edmund Bacon,
00:59:06overseer.
00:59:10When she finally
00:59:12did close her eyes,
00:59:16he fainted
00:59:17and he was carried
00:59:18out of the room
00:59:19insensible.
00:59:27Patty Jefferson died
00:59:28on September 6,
00:59:301782.
00:59:33For three weeks,
00:59:35he did not
00:59:36leave his room.
00:59:39He couldn't talk.
00:59:43For a man
00:59:44for whom control
00:59:45was important,
00:59:46this was the one
00:59:47time in his life
00:59:48when he completely
00:59:49lost control.
00:59:52It was at this time
00:59:54that a bond
00:59:56began to form
00:59:57between Jefferson
00:59:58and his daughter,
00:59:59Martha,
01:00:00who they called
01:00:02Patsy.
01:00:03And Patsy
01:00:03was the only one,
01:00:05apparently,
01:00:05who could get
01:00:05through to him.
01:00:06He walked almost
01:00:09incessantly night
01:00:10and day,
01:00:12only lying down
01:00:13when nature
01:00:14was completely
01:00:14exhausted
01:00:15on a pallet
01:00:16that had been
01:00:17brought in
01:00:17during his long
01:00:18fainting fit.
01:00:21When at last
01:00:22he left his room,
01:00:24he rode out,
01:00:25and from that time
01:00:26he was incessantly
01:00:27on horseback,
01:00:29rambling about
01:00:29the mountain
01:00:30in the least
01:00:30frequented roads
01:00:31and just as
01:00:33often through
01:00:33the woods.
01:00:35In those
01:00:36melancholy rambles,
01:00:38I was his
01:00:39constant companion,
01:00:41a solitary witness
01:00:42to many
01:00:43a violent
01:00:44burst of grief.
01:00:46Patsy Jefferson.
01:00:47North America
01:00:59is become
01:01:00a new
01:01:00primary planet
01:01:01in the system
01:01:02of the world,
01:01:03which,
01:01:04while it takes
01:01:05its own course
01:01:06in its own orbit,
01:01:08must have effect
01:01:09on the orbit
01:01:09of every other planet
01:01:11and shift
01:01:13the common
01:01:13center of gravity
01:01:14of the whole
01:01:15European world.
01:01:17It is earth-born
01:01:19and like a giant
01:01:20ready to run
01:01:21its course.
01:01:24Thomas Pauno.
01:01:27In 1784,
01:01:29the year after
01:01:30America officially
01:01:31won her independence,
01:01:33Thomas Jefferson's
01:01:34Notes on the State
01:01:35of Virginia
01:01:36went to press.
01:01:38It was the only
01:01:39book he would
01:01:40ever write.
01:01:42In it,
01:01:43he spelled out
01:01:44his vision
01:01:44of an American future,
01:01:45an agrarian paradise
01:01:47in which power
01:01:49would rest
01:01:49with those
01:01:50who worked
01:01:50the land.
01:01:52His treatise
01:01:53was a wide-ranging
01:01:54discourse on
01:01:55politics,
01:01:56economics,
01:01:57agriculture,
01:01:58commerce,
01:01:59and manufacturing,
01:02:00and a ringing
01:02:03defense
01:02:03of the region
01:02:04he called
01:02:05his country
01:02:06against criticism
01:02:07by some
01:02:08foreign observers
01:02:09who belittled
01:02:10everything in America,
01:02:12from the size
01:02:13of her animals
01:02:14to the intelligence
01:02:15of her leaders.
01:02:18In his book,
01:02:19he also
01:02:20wrestled
01:02:21with the question
01:02:22of race.
01:02:22I advance
01:02:28it, therefore,
01:02:28as a suspicion
01:02:29only
01:02:30that the blacks,
01:02:32whether originally
01:02:33a distinct race
01:02:34or made distinct
01:02:35by time
01:02:36and circumstances,
01:02:38are inferior
01:02:39to the whites
01:02:39in the endowments
01:02:41both of body
01:02:42and mind.
01:02:43This unfortunate
01:02:45difference of color
01:02:46and perhaps
01:02:47of faculty
01:02:48is a powerful
01:02:50obstacle
01:02:50to the emancipation
01:02:52of these people.
01:02:55He says
01:02:56that blacks
01:02:57are not as smart
01:02:58as whites,
01:02:58that they have
01:02:59no skills
01:02:59in poetry
01:03:00and music.
01:03:01He says
01:03:02that they
01:03:03can never
01:03:04accomplish
01:03:04what whites
01:03:05can accomplish.
01:03:06He compares
01:03:06Roman slaves
01:03:07to black slaves
01:03:08and says
01:03:08Roman slaves
01:03:09did all these
01:03:09wonderful things,
01:03:10but that's
01:03:10because they
01:03:10were white.
01:03:14Besides those
01:03:15of color,
01:03:16figure,
01:03:16and hair,
01:03:18there are
01:03:18other physical
01:03:19distinctions
01:03:19proving a difference
01:03:21of race.
01:03:23They have
01:03:23less hair
01:03:24on their face
01:03:25and body.
01:03:26They secrete
01:03:27less by the kidneys
01:03:28and more by the glands
01:03:30of the skin,
01:03:31which gives them
01:03:32a very strong
01:03:33and disagreeable odor.
01:03:34we don't like it.
01:03:40It doesn't make us
01:03:41happy to think
01:03:42that the man
01:03:43who is heralded
01:03:45for his love
01:03:46of equality
01:03:47and liberty,
01:03:50who believed
01:03:52in the promise
01:03:52of America,
01:03:53perhaps more than
01:03:54any of his generation,
01:03:56that within
01:03:58Jeffersonian optimism,
01:04:00there could exist
01:04:01this dark side.
01:04:06Jefferson knew
01:04:08what he was doing.
01:04:11And the transgressions
01:04:13that he committed
01:04:14were transgressions
01:04:15of the mind
01:04:17as well as the heart.
01:04:18And that makes it
01:04:20less easy
01:04:22to understand
01:04:24how a man
01:04:25of such gigantic
01:04:26intellectual powers
01:04:28and so forth
01:04:28could fritter away
01:04:31his time
01:04:31speculating about
01:04:33how blacks smell
01:04:34or how they reason
01:04:36and that sort of thing.
01:04:40Mr. Jefferson bowed
01:04:41to everybody he meet,
01:04:43talked with his arms folded,
01:04:45gave the boys
01:04:47in the nail factory
01:04:48a pound of meat a week,
01:04:49a dozen herrings,
01:04:51a quarter molasses,
01:04:52and a peck of meal.
01:04:54Give them that work
01:04:55the best
01:04:56a suit of red or blue.
01:04:58Encourage them
01:04:59mightily.
01:05:01Isaac.
01:05:04The comfortable life
01:05:06Jefferson led
01:05:07at Monticello,
01:05:08like the lives
01:05:09led by all
01:05:10his fellow planters,
01:05:12depended entirely
01:05:13on the labor
01:05:14of slaves.
01:05:18They built
01:05:19and rebuilt
01:05:20his great house,
01:05:23tended his garden,
01:05:24cooked his food,
01:05:26waited at his table,
01:05:28drew his bath.
01:05:33He considered himself
01:05:35a good slaveholder.
01:05:37He treated the men
01:05:39and women
01:05:40and children
01:05:40he called
01:05:41my people
01:05:42and my family,
01:05:43courteously
01:05:44for the most part.
01:05:46And he ordered
01:05:47his overseer
01:05:48not to whip them
01:05:49except in extremities,
01:05:52preferring to rely upon
01:05:53what he called
01:05:54the stimulus of character
01:05:57to make them work.
01:05:59But he also hired
01:06:01his slaves
01:06:01out to neighboring
01:06:02planters
01:06:03and bought and sold
01:06:04them freely,
01:06:06being careful,
01:06:07as he said,
01:06:07to keep the transactions
01:06:09private.
01:06:10Because I do not,
01:06:12while in public life,
01:06:13like to have my name
01:06:15annexed in the public papers
01:06:16to the sale
01:06:17of slave property.
01:06:21What is going on
01:06:23inside his head
01:06:25as he walks
01:06:26among these
01:06:27African Americans
01:06:28and thinks about
01:06:31their future
01:06:32and the future
01:06:33of the nation?
01:06:34It is a mystery.
01:06:38It is a mystery.
01:06:40And how can we get
01:06:42those different persona
01:06:44inside Thomas Jefferson
01:06:46to talk back to us
01:06:47together?
01:06:54The fact that
01:06:55Thomas Jefferson
01:06:56didn't lose much sleep
01:06:57over the slavery issue
01:06:58reflects in part
01:06:59his other concerns,
01:07:01that he was able
01:07:02to rationalize
01:07:03that this was one
01:07:04of those things
01:07:04he wouldn't be able
01:07:05to accomplish.
01:07:07He wouldn't be able
01:07:08to change
01:07:09the way Southerners
01:07:10felt about
01:07:12their economic system.
01:07:15But that he didn't
01:07:16do more.
01:07:19That he didn't write
01:07:21more vigorously
01:07:22in opposition to slavery.
01:07:26That he felt
01:07:27that blacks were
01:07:28by nature inferior.
01:07:32There's no answer
01:07:33for that.
01:07:36One of the defenses
01:07:37of Jefferson
01:07:37is always,
01:07:38well, he was just
01:07:39a Virginia planter
01:07:40and we can't expect
01:07:40anything else from him.
01:07:42He's just like his neighbors.
01:07:45And I think the point
01:07:46to be made is
01:07:46that he was not
01:07:47just like his neighbors.
01:07:48We don't build monuments
01:07:49to people who are
01:07:50just like their neighbors.
01:07:51We don't put them
01:07:51on the nickel.
01:07:52We don't make them icons.
01:07:54Jefferson was a very
01:07:55special man
01:07:56and we can expect
01:07:58more from him.
01:08:00And so we compare him
01:08:01to the best
01:08:01of his generation.
01:08:02We compare him
01:08:03to Washington
01:08:03who freed his slaves,
01:08:04to his cousin
01:08:05John Randolph
01:08:06of Roanoke
01:08:07who freed his slaves,
01:08:08to his neighbor
01:08:09Edward Coles,
01:08:10to the thousands
01:08:12of individual
01:08:13small Virginians
01:08:14who freed their slaves.
01:08:15The free black population
01:08:17in Virginia
01:08:17grows from 2,000
01:08:19to over 30,000
01:08:20in a space
01:08:21of about 30 years.
01:08:24A lot of Virginians
01:08:25are freeing their slaves.
01:08:27Where's the master
01:08:28of Monticello?
01:08:29Why isn't he there?
01:08:33The whole commerce
01:08:34between master and slave
01:08:36is a perpetual exercise
01:08:37of the most boisterous passions.
01:08:42The most unremitting
01:08:44despotism on the one part
01:08:45and degrading submissions
01:08:47on the other.
01:08:50Indeed,
01:08:50I tremble for my country
01:08:53when I reflect
01:08:54that God is just,
01:08:56that his justice
01:08:58cannot sleep forever.
01:09:01Thomas Jefferson.
01:09:04In Notes on Virginia,
01:09:05in a really interesting passage,
01:09:07he says,
01:09:08the man must be a prodigy
01:09:10whose manners and morals
01:09:11are not corrupted
01:09:12by this institution.
01:09:14and Jefferson saw
01:09:16that once you're
01:09:17in that institution,
01:09:19it will drag you down morally
01:09:20and you cannot,
01:09:22you cannot escape
01:09:22these dilemmas.
01:09:29I'm a forgiving man,
01:09:30therefore I forgive him
01:09:31for what he did.
01:09:34But I remember
01:09:35that what he did
01:09:36was a transgression
01:09:38against mankind.
01:09:40I'm a forgiving man,
01:09:41I'm a forgiving man,
01:09:42I am a forgiving man,
01:09:42and I am a forgiving man.
01:09:43What have I done?
01:09:46We had a lovely passage
01:10:01in a beautiful new ship
01:10:02that had made only one voyage before.
01:10:06There were only six passengers, all of whom Papa knew, and a fine sunshine all the way,
01:10:14with the sea as calm as a river.
01:10:17Patsy Jefferson.
01:10:20In the spring of 1784, Thomas Jefferson and his eldest daughter Patsy sailed for Europe.
01:10:28His two other surviving girls, Polly and the baby Lucy, were left in the care of relatives.
01:10:36Jefferson had been named to represent the new United States in France.
01:10:42Their arrival was not auspicious.
01:10:46The man carrying their baggage cheated them.
01:10:49Crowds gathered to stare at James Hemmings, their black manservant.
01:10:54No one understood Jefferson's bookish French.
01:10:58At first, Jefferson disliked Paris.
01:11:02He was shocked by the high price of everything.
01:11:04He disapproved of the emphasis Parisians put on fashion, and was appalled at how the poor lived.
01:11:15Jefferson was in France, in the Salon culture, on the eve of the French Revolution.
01:11:20He was witnessing a kind of stirring that was reminiscent of America in the 1770s.
01:11:30And so he was, of course, sought after by many of the notables of Europe to give his perception of these political doings.
01:11:41I was much an enemy to monarchy before I came to Europe.
01:11:47I am 10,000 times more so since I have seen what they are.
01:11:53Under pretense of governing, they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep.
01:12:03Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind.
01:12:08For I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe,
01:12:13and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
01:12:17Jefferson may have scorned the monarchies of the old world,
01:12:26but he was soon scouring the continent for anything he thought might improve life in the new.
01:12:33A portable copying device, phosphoretic matches, apricots, wine grapes, olive trees,
01:12:41and the device to make pasta.
01:12:44He haunted bookstores and sent a set of encyclopedias to his friend James Madison
01:12:50because he thought they would be useful in writing a constitution for the United States.
01:12:57And he would soon plunge himself $4,000 further in debt,
01:13:02striving to hold up his end in the elegant Parisian society that both disgusted and drew him.
01:13:11Jefferson was a provincial from America.
01:13:13He called himself a savage from the woods of America.
01:13:17And suddenly he was lowered as if from a hot air balloon
01:13:20into the glittering world of late aristocratic France.
01:13:25And it overwhelmed him.
01:13:26He was intoxicated by its beauty and its decadence and its intrigue,
01:13:31its flirtation, its architecture, its music, its dance, its literature, its science.
01:13:36He knew he shouldn't love it, but he was overwhelmed by it,
01:13:42and it was an awakening for Jefferson.
01:13:43So, ask the traveled inhabitant of any nation,
01:13:55in what country on earth would you rather live?
01:14:00Certainly in my own, where are all my friends, my relations,
01:14:04and the earliest and sweetest affections and recollections of my life.
01:14:07Which would be your second choice?
01:14:12France.
01:14:18And he charmed the city.
01:14:21He hosted lavish dinners,
01:14:23was presented at the court of Louis XVI,
01:14:26and was a favorite in diplomatic circles.
01:14:29All the while negotiating complicated commercial treaties
01:14:34meant to relieve America's trade deficit
01:14:37and keep the high seas safe from pirates.
01:14:43But on January 26, 1785,
01:14:48Jefferson learned of still another death in the family.
01:14:53His youngest daughter, three-year-old Lucy Elizabeth,
01:14:56had died back in Virginia.
01:15:00Only two of his six children now survived.
01:15:04Patsy, whom he had placed in a French convent school,
01:15:08and six-year-old Polly,
01:15:10still in the care of relatives in Virginia.
01:15:14He could not bear the thought of being apart from her any longer.
01:15:18Dear Papa,
01:15:22I hope you will send me a doll.
01:15:25I am very sorry that you have sent for me.
01:15:28I don't want to go to France.
01:15:30I had rather stay with Aunt Epps,
01:15:33your most happy and dutiful daughter,
01:15:36Polly Jefferson.
01:15:40My dear Polly,
01:15:41I wish so much to see you
01:15:44that I have desired your uncle and aunt to send you to me.
01:15:48Your sister and myself cannot live without you.
01:15:53And after a while,
01:15:55we will carry you back again to see your friends in Virginia.
01:16:00Adieu, my dear child.
01:16:02Yours affectionately,
01:16:04Thomas Jefferson.
01:16:05It would take nearly two years
01:16:11before the little girl,
01:16:13who barely remembered her father,
01:16:15arrived.
01:16:17She was accompanied aboard ship
01:16:19by one of Jefferson's slaves,
01:16:2214-year-old Sally Hemings.
01:16:24In 1786,
01:16:35as France edged closer to revolution,
01:16:38Jefferson was introduced
01:16:39to a beautiful, graceful,
01:16:4227-year-old artist from England
01:16:44named Maria Cosway.
01:16:47He was 43 years old
01:16:49and suddenly in love.
01:16:54Jefferson met Maria Cosway
01:16:56at a time in Paris
01:16:58when he was perhaps most susceptible
01:17:00to a romantic attachment.
01:17:04He was a lonely widower.
01:17:07Martha had been gone four and a half years
01:17:09and he met the beautiful
01:17:11and talented Maria Cosway
01:17:13and she literally swept him off his feet.
01:17:18She was blonde,
01:17:20petite,
01:17:21learned in languages,
01:17:22adept in music,
01:17:23a conversationalist,
01:17:25to flirt.
01:17:27And somehow Jefferson
01:17:28was swept into her orbit
01:17:29and he became intoxicated
01:17:31for the last time in his life.
01:17:35And she was married
01:17:36and Maria was a devout Catholic
01:17:40so that Jefferson
01:17:42had to have realized
01:17:43that this relationship
01:17:44could go nowhere.
01:17:46But he fell deeply in love with her
01:17:49and they had a beautiful,
01:17:52beautiful month together
01:17:54with what he called
01:17:56their charming coterie.
01:17:58They visited one another's homes,
01:18:01walked along the Seine,
01:18:03took long carriage rides together
01:18:05through the French countryside.
01:18:07They went to a play together.
01:18:10They picnicked together.
01:18:14Something was coming back to him,
01:18:16something that Maria Cosway
01:18:17inspired in him.
01:18:18But it produced a crisis for Jefferson.
01:18:24He had, since the death of his wife,
01:18:27lived primarily in the head
01:18:29and suddenly the heart
01:18:31came streaming out
01:18:33with an urgency
01:18:34that he was surprised by.
01:18:37So when she left,
01:18:39he wrote a dialogue
01:18:40attempting to make sense of this.
01:18:42Madam,
01:18:45seated by my fireside,
01:18:47solitary and sad,
01:18:50the following dialogue
01:18:51took place between my head
01:18:53and my heart.
01:18:59Head,
01:19:00well, friend,
01:19:01you seem to be in a pretty trim.
01:19:05Heart,
01:19:06I am indeed the most wretched
01:19:08of all earthly beings,
01:19:10overwhelmed by grief.
01:19:15Head,
01:19:16this is one of the scrapes
01:19:18into which you are ever leading us.
01:19:21You must learn to look forward
01:19:22before you take a step
01:19:24which may interest our peace.
01:19:29Heart,
01:19:30let the gloomy monk
01:19:31sequestered from the world
01:19:33seek unsocial pleasures
01:19:35in the bottom of his cell.
01:19:38Had they ever felt
01:19:39the solid pleasure
01:19:40of one generous spasm
01:19:41of the heart,
01:19:43they would exchange for it
01:19:44all the frigid speculations
01:19:46of their lives.
01:19:51Head,
01:19:52do not bite at the bait
01:19:54of pleasure
01:19:54till you know
01:19:55there is no hook beneath it.
01:19:58The art of life
01:19:59is the art of avoiding pain.
01:20:03Heart,
01:20:04leave me to decide
01:20:06when and where friendships
01:20:07are to be contracted.
01:20:09We have no rose
01:20:11without its thorn,
01:20:13no pleasure
01:20:13without alloy.
01:20:20Head,
01:20:21those which depend
01:20:23on ourselves
01:20:24are the only pleasures
01:20:25a wise man
01:20:25will count on,
01:20:27for nothing is ours
01:20:29which another
01:20:30may deprive us of.
01:20:31After Mrs. Causeway
01:20:39returned to England,
01:20:41Jefferson reasserted
01:20:42the head
01:20:42and I think lived
01:20:43in the head
01:20:43for the rest of his life.
01:20:45I think
01:20:46the emotional life,
01:20:48the life of
01:20:49human commitment
01:20:50had been so full
01:20:52of grief for Jefferson
01:20:53with respect to his wife,
01:20:54his children,
01:20:55his best friend,
01:20:57that he finally felt
01:20:59that human relations
01:21:00were too painful
01:21:02and that it was
01:21:03simply better
01:21:04to live in a world
01:21:04of abstraction
01:21:05and ideas
01:21:06and architecture
01:21:07and not in a world
01:21:08of the flesh.
01:21:10Well, I think
01:21:11the head absorbed
01:21:12the heart
01:21:13and perhaps
01:21:14it's his great resonance
01:21:16today
01:21:16that along
01:21:18with a first-rate cortex
01:21:20the heart is beating
01:21:22within his mind.
01:21:29Was ever such a prize won
01:21:37with so little
01:21:38innocent blood?
01:21:40Rather than it should
01:21:41have failed,
01:21:42I would have seen
01:21:43half the earth desolated.
01:21:45Were there but an Adam
01:21:47and an Eve left
01:21:48in every country
01:21:49and left free,
01:21:52it would be better
01:21:53than it now is.
01:21:54In the summer
01:21:57of 1789,
01:22:00the French Revolution
01:22:01began.
01:22:03And when the people
01:22:05of Paris
01:22:05finally rose up
01:22:07against their king
01:22:08and the city streets
01:22:10ran with blood,
01:22:12events which horrified
01:22:13much of America,
01:22:16Jefferson would remain
01:22:17true to the
01:22:18revolutionary spirit.
01:22:21And when Jefferson
01:22:22heard that poor
01:22:23Massachusetts farmers
01:22:25had taken up arms
01:22:26against their creditors,
01:22:28frightening his old friend
01:22:30John Adams,
01:22:31he sided with the rebels.
01:22:35God forbid we should
01:22:36ever be 20 years
01:22:38without such a rebellion.
01:22:40What country can preserve
01:22:42its liberties
01:22:42if their rulers
01:22:43are not warned
01:22:44from time to time
01:22:45that their people
01:22:46preserve the spirit
01:22:47of resistance?
01:22:49Let them take arms.
01:22:52What signify
01:22:53a few lives lost
01:22:54in a century or two?
01:22:56The tree of liberty
01:22:57must be refreshed
01:22:59from time to time
01:23:00with the blood
01:23:01of patriots
01:23:02and tyrants.
01:23:04It is its natural manure.
01:23:12In October 1789,
01:23:15as the French Revolution
01:23:17intensified,
01:23:19Jefferson,
01:23:19his two daughters
01:23:20and their slaves
01:23:21sailed at last
01:23:23for home.
01:23:26He took with him
01:23:2738 boxes of books,
01:23:30hampers of wine,
01:23:31statuary,
01:23:33and food unobtainable
01:23:35in America,
01:23:37Parmesan cheese,
01:23:39raisins,
01:23:40and macaroni.
01:23:4386 more crates
01:23:45would follow
01:23:46on another ship.
01:23:48As usual,
01:23:49he had spent
01:23:50beyond his means.
01:23:56We reached Monticello
01:23:58on the 23rd of December.
01:24:00The Negroes collected
01:24:01in crowds
01:24:02around our carriage
01:24:03and almost drew it
01:24:04up the mountain
01:24:05by hand.
01:24:07Then the door
01:24:08of the carriage
01:24:08was opened.
01:24:10They received him
01:24:10in their arms
01:24:11and bore him
01:24:12to the house.
01:24:14It seemed impossible
01:24:15to satisfy their anxiety
01:24:17to touch and kiss
01:24:18the very earth
01:24:19which bore him.
01:24:22Patsy Jefferson.
01:24:28The master of Monticello
01:24:30had been looking forward
01:24:31to putting his affairs
01:24:32in order,
01:24:33then returning to Paris.
01:24:36But on the road
01:24:37from Norfolk,
01:24:38he had already been handed
01:24:39an urgent letter
01:24:41from George Washington.
01:24:43The country
01:24:44he had helped create
01:24:45was calling on him again.
01:24:52Jefferson is the enigma
01:24:54of American history.
01:24:55From revolutionary ideals
01:24:57to the reality
01:24:58of republic.
01:24:59Thomas Jefferson
01:25:00embodied a belief
01:25:01in the promise
01:25:02of America's future.
01:25:03He expanded
01:25:04America's frontier
01:25:05and changed
01:25:06higher learning forever.
01:25:08Jefferson loved
01:25:09the notion of discovery.
01:25:10But a shadow of scandal
01:25:12haunts his legacy.
01:25:13The historians
01:25:14really didn't know
01:25:15Jefferson
01:25:15as well as they think.
01:25:17The Founding Fathers
01:25:18final chapter.
01:25:19Next time
01:25:20on Thomas Jefferson.
01:25:21The Founding Fathers
01:25:38The Founding Fathers
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