Let's Bust a Recap : Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

Well, I read two full presidential biographies this year. And I've decided that will be the goal from now on. Because if I don't read more than one a year on a pretty regular basis, there's a good chance I'll never get through the presidents. Because I'm old. *sob* Let's not get sidetracked about this. On to the recap.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power was written by Jon Meacham in 2012, and so far, it comes in 3rd place out of the 4 presidential biographies I've read with John Adams by David McCullough taking 1st place, His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis taking 2nd, and TR by Brands in dead last. 

I was a little bit disappointed in this biography because it seemed to focus more on Jefferson's character and personality than on his actual life and accomplishments. To be fair, the author did say in his notes that he did not set out to write a comprehensive work of Jefferson's life and times because "too much happened to him and around him for a single volume to do justice to the immensity of scholarship about the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries." I get that. But his notes were at the very end of the book, and I didn't read them until after I was finished. C'est la vie. It wasn't bad, just wasn't what I was expecting.

Jefferson himself was a master-manipulator. Many of his political ideas and goals were carried out by other people through the power of his suggestion. He managed much of his work through letter writing, and a common ploy he utilized seemed to be giving his exact plan or opinion as what must be done but then saying he, of course, would never dream of interfering in whatever circumstance he was writing about because it wasn't his place. Smart. Usually, his ideas really were good so that tactic was very effective. 

He was a philosophical idealist, but a practical politician. He certainly had a talent for stimulating the nation with his visionary and romantic words, but then adapting those hypothetical ideals to real-life practice making smart compromises to achieve his ends. For instance, his entire platform as a Republican was limited government, but he unilaterally made the Louisiana Purchase without the support of Congress, much less that of the people. But guess what: the Louisiana Purchase was truly one of the best acquisitions our country has ever made so Jefferson has been praised for it even to this day. And rightly so. For roughly three cents an acre, he more than doubled the physical size of the United States and effectually bought more security from potential European encroachment. 

He was a southern gentleman and polite to his very core. Even people who were vehemently opposed to him politically-speaking couldn't help but like him after meeting him in person. He was a brilliant conversationalist, and he was good at making others feel important and respected, a talent he certainly employed in getting people to do what he wanted. 

Although after reading this biography I would concede that Thomas Jefferson was a good politician and even an excellent president, he's still an enigma to me and I'm not sure we would have been friends. He truly loved his family, and it's tragic how much of that family he lost while alive. But he also had no problem pursuing married women or apparently carrying on a decades-long sexual liaison with his young (30 years younger than him to be exact) slave, Sally Hemings, which produced several children. Granted, he seemed to be devotedly faithful to his wife while she lived, but before he married her and after she died, he was totally a scoundrel with the ladies. He also rejected the divinity of Jesus while still respecting him as a great moral teacher and cherry-picking the Scriptures for what suited his agenda. While he was a true champion for religious freedom, he also used religion as a political tool to gain power. He loved science and architecture, and he was passionate about education, founding the University of Virginia after serving as president, an institution that endures today. He thought slavery was morally wrong, but was a slave-owner all his life, and, although he did think slavery would eventually be eradicated, he couldn't envision a society in which blacks and whites could live together freely and he did not free his own slaves (except, interestingly, the children of Sally Hemings). He was extremely sensitive to criticism, a trait he shared with George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt, and he expanded the presidency more than Washington or Adams did before him. While I don't really appreciate the power he exerted once he gained the presidency, it's a little more forgivable in him since the presidency was really still being defined while he was occupying it and also because he made good choices. One thing that Meacham made a point of in this biography and something I've learned and come to appreciate about our founding fathers since beginning this journey of reading through the American presidents is that they seriously feared the failure of the American experiment. While it's easy to look back now and criticize them for choices they made, they truly believed that America could quickly collapse and return to a monarchy, and they were making essential decisions through that perspective. The presidency has never been an easy job, but it was possibly an even heavier and more burdensome role then than it is now.

All of us as human beings are complex, but Jefferson was dizzyingly so. If you're looking for a good biography of him, I wouldn't necessarily discourage you from this one, but I might encourage you to look for one even better. I would have liked something a bit more chronological and straightforward that spent a little more effort focusing on some of the major events that happened in his life such as the Embargo of 1807 and the Burr conspiracy (among others). I'm very interested in reading a good biography of Aaron Burr after reading this biography of Jefferson. 

Ultimately, I think Jefferson really tried to do the best he could as a politician even though his methods weren't always praiseworthy. I sincerely hope he placed his faith in Jesus before his death. He did believe in an afterlife and was sure he would be reunited with his loved ones which is very sad if he ended his life condemned. I'm having a hard time wrapping up this recap because of how interesting and discussable Jefferson and the times in which he lived are. So.....the end.

Have you read a good biography on Thomas Jefferson or any of the founding fathers? What do you think of him? Would you have liked living in Revolutionary times? Who from the Revolutionary period are you most interested in learning about? Hamilton? Burr? Marshall? Lafayette?