Thomas Jefferson as Philosopher
Morality, Slavery, Political Philosophy
The ideas generated by Thomas Jefferson are quintessentially of the American spirit. In them can be found the pinnacle of the American enlightenment. A certain amount of Jefferson’s revolutionary idealism made its way into the various facets of the United States while other ideals were defeated by opposing solutions.
Although Thomas Jefferson has not written any strictly philosophical texts, he has written plenty of his thoughts on a great multitude of topics throughout his lifetime. It is undeniable that Jefferson was one of the world’s key figures of the enlightenment. Many continue to take the time to study Jefferson’s ideas on democracy, religion, society, and much more.
This article is to act as a concise introduction to the ideas which could be called Jeffersonian. These conclusions are based directly on the written works of Jefferson as well as his legal actions. Recommendations for further research and reading are at the end of the paper.
Religion and Morality
Like a select few of the United States’ other founding fathers (Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Etc.), Jefferson is known to have held deism as true. Deism is the religious assumption that the world was created by a supreme being but this creator does not interfere with our universe.
This strong belief in a deist theology did not stop Jefferson from identifying as a Christian. In order for his beliefs to be consistent though, he stripped the Bible of all instances of miracles and other non-rational elements including Christ’s resurrection. His 1820 book, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (now commonly referred to as the Jefferson Bible), was created by cutting and pasting, with razor and glue, sections of the New Testament. As seen through the title of this work, Jefferson truly did appreciate the ethics demonstrated in Christian thought, specifically the lessons taught directly by Christ. The Jefferson Bible portrays Christ as only a great moral reformer of Judaism.
Jefferson’s Socinianistic-like thought is the inevitable conclusion of the story of Protestantism. His faith though, even in a deistic god, proved not to be unbreakable. His religious scepticism had no obvious limit. In a 1787 letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, Jefferson wrote:
“Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty & singularity of opinion… shake off all the fears & servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”
Morality, for Jefferson, came from a God-given “moral sense”. To him, this was not a rational sense, but an instinctual one — like that of the five senses. This may be surprising considering his strong adherence to empiricism. He believed that with time and throughout history, morality has primarily increased. Understandably, history has allowed certain parts of the world to undergo various stages of stagnation.
In the early 19th century, Jefferson acknowledged that Europe was currently in one of these eras of stagnation while the United States showed potential for moral progress. A letter written to John Adams from 1816 read the following:
“We are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priest and kings, as she can.”
Race and Slavery
In Notes on the State of Virginia (1781), Jefferson compares the characteristics of Africans with their European counterpart. He described Africans as inferior to white Europeans in regard to selective aspects (intelligence and creativity) but he also concluded it was possible for Africans to have advantages over Europeans; among other things, Jefferson mentions music. He also concluded that Africans and Europeans shared the same capacity for traits such as integrity and memory.
There is no doubt that by modern standards, Jefferson’s views are considered racist. It would be foolish to forget though that these views were guided by the time’s leading science. Almost any naturalist, scientist, or scholar at the time held certain people (namely Africans and Native Americans) to be inferior to white Europeans.
An undoubtedly absurd thing to forget to mention when discussing Jefferson’s views on slavery is the fact that Jefferson acquired over 600 slaves, over the 83 years of his life. Another thing to consider is the relatively unknown details of the relationship between Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemmings. These important details of Jefferson’s biography are not to be minimalized in the reader’s own conclusions on the morality of Mr. Jefferson. More so than any other topic, Jefferson’s philosophy on slavery strays away from abstraction and into the very way he lived his life and enacted laws.
It is most likely that Jefferson would attempt to explain, if not excuse his ownership of a great number of individuals by mentioning 1) that his lifestyle, culture, and slaves were inherited to him (what power did he have to change the solidified ways of colonial Virginia?) and 2) the massive debt he collected by the end of his life made the ownership of slaves a financial necessity.
It is true that it was monetarily necessary for Jefferson to keep his slaves to manage Monticello’s expenditure but it is also true that Jefferson chose to partake in an unnecessarily extravagant and expensive lifestyle. Among other things, Jefferson enjoyed spending his finances on fine French wine, ice cream, macaroni and cheese, French fries, elaborate furniture, art pieces, and expensive construction projects. Jefferson also inherited massive debt from his father-in-law as well as a friend. It is no surprise then that his family, in order to pay his massive debt was financially obligated to sell 130 slaves, furniture, and even Monticello itself.
Even with his shortcomings, he still believed emancipation was the next step for slaves. Ultimately, Jefferson theorized that the emancipation of the United State’s slave population could not be done on a micro-level. It would take top-down policy to eradicate the use of slaves in the nation. In his letters, major works, and actions can be found his firm belief in emancipation. Consider the following timeline:
- During his days of legal work, he took on many court cases to defend the freedom of African-Americans while he never defended slave-ownership in court.
- In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence (1776), Jefferson blamed the atrocities of the Atlantic slave trade and domestic slavery in the British colonies on King George III.
- In 1778 he banned slave importation in Virginia.
- A plan to gradually free slaves was drafted by Jefferson in 1779.
- Jefferson proposed a bill in 1784 to ban slavery in any new territories acquired by the new nation. His proposition failed in congress by a single vote.
- In Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), Jefferson proposed another plan for gradual emancipation.
- As president, Jefferson banned the United States' involvement in the international slave trade on March 2, 1807.
- In 1824, he created a final and quixotic plan to gradually end slavery in the United States.
The emancipation plan of 1779 was one of concern of racial division post-liberation. Jefferson believed that releasing formerly enslaved people with no place to go and little acceptance from the European-American majority would bring them only misery. African-Americans could live free from discrimination if they returned to Africa, Jefferson Argued. This was a proposition which already existed and continued to gain momentum throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
The 1824 plan detailed a national plan to gradually eradicate slavery in the United States by purchasing enslaved children and educating and training them as freemen so that, eventually, the last generation of slaves would die off. Still, though his plan suggested an independent state for those of African ethnicity. This time, the Caribbean island of Hispaniola which consisted of a predominantly African population and which so recently the Haitian Revolution took place.
Jeffersonian Republicanism
The ideological battle between Republicanism and Federalism during the Early Republic has been made famous by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton and American High Schools everywhere. The Democratic-Republican Party was founded by Jefferson and James Madison. This duo also started the National Gazette, a newspaper with the intention of countering the Gazette of the United States which praised Federalism and its pioneer, Alexander Hamilton.
The origins of the concept of a Republic are, of course, rooted in Ancient Greece and Rome. In this fundamental sense, Republicanism is a political ideology that treats governance as a public matter and ordinarily features a form of democracy as a central component. Jeffersonian Republicanism though, pursues a higher and multifaceted ideal; it is a manifestation of the core tenets of Jefferson’s political philosophy. Jefferson’s ideal is undoubtedly shaped by the essence of the Age of Enlightenment — a humanism that aimed at maximizing liberty and potential.
Jefferson severely emphasized the inherent populism of Republicanism. He believed that the will of the people must always be obeyed by the government. For this to be possible, he concluded a government must leave room for generational and scientific dynamism. In this way, political conservativism is a hindrance to the American populous because this would prohibit the current populous from being represented in law. He explains his views on constitutional stagnation in a 1787 letter to C.F.W. Malone:
“No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. … Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.”
If the masses ever grew unrepresented by their government, Jefferson proposed revolution. Revolution, to him, was a human right, something that made it into his Declaration of Independence.
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles, & organizing it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness”
Jefferson’s wish for a republic to evolve with its people, as well as his wish for a right to revolution, perhaps suggests a belief in political subjectivity, if not, it suggests that there is still an objective way of governance that could eventually be reached. This explains his view of republicanism as a great experiment. He did not know if representational government worked, he only knew that representational government did not work. Because he believed the American Republic was only a great experiment and the continuation of the Anglo-Saxon development of egalitarianism and liberalism, Jefferson wanted to avoid creating a static system that would trap the American people in a potentially failed foundation.
The southern tradition of resenting certain aspects of the north was strong in Jefferson. In this way, he was a true Virginian. The features of the industrious northern states resembled the dregs plaguing Europe at the time: mainly the elitism remained in the new English world. Bankers, industrialists, manufactures, and mercantilists were among those who would not exist in Jefferson’s ideal country.
Jefferson wanted to abolish the systems that created such a powerful and undeserving elite. These artificial aristocrats have gained their elite status through either birth or wealth and therefore held little virtue and little talent. Jefferson believed in and prefered a natural aristocracy, one that formed out of natural hierarchy, one that gained their nobility only through their own intelligence, creativity, and virtue.
This belief in a natural aristocracy in no way diminishes his belief in radical populism. During his presidential campaign, he made clear his respect for the yeoman farmer. As a plantation owner, Jefferson was a naturalist and farmer at heart and wanted agriculture to be the soul of the new country. Ultimately, Jefferson had a grand Agrarian Ideal for the United States. This which would grant the citizen the right to land and therefore a right to have the potential to live outside the complex economic net that started to develop in the Hamiltonian age of mercantilism and industry.
Preferential to an economically prosperous country was a virtuous nation to Jefferson. He wanted industry, a new form of tyranny, to stay in the Old World with the old form of tyranny. Factories, artificial aristocrats, and corruption were to remain in Europe while those in the New World embraced the noblest occupation. Jefferson’s Agrarian Ideal truly was the opposite of Alexander Hamilton’s vision of the United States. Jefferson cared little about the economic success of the nation and wished for the United States to become an egalitarian realm of the Enlightenment.
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