What Did Lincoln Really Think of Jefferson?

New York Times ^ | 07/05/2015 | By ALLEN C. GUELZO

[SeekAndFind]

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — “Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson.” That is not exactly what we expect to hear about the president who spoke of “malice toward none,” referring to the president who wrote that “all men are created equal.”

Presidents have never been immune from criticism by other presidents. But Jefferson and Lincoln? These two stare down at us from Mount Rushmore as heroic, stainless and serene, and any suggestion of disharmony seems somehow a criticism of America itself. Still, Lincoln seems not to have gotten that message.

“Mr. Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson as a man,” wrote William Henry Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner of 14 years — and “as a politician.” Especially after Lincoln read Theodore F. Dwight’s sensational, slash-all biography of Jefferson in 1839, Herndon believed “Mr. Lincoln never liked Jefferson’s moral character after that reading.”

True enough, Thomas Jefferson had not been easy to love, even in his own time. No one denied that Jefferson was a brilliant writer, a wide reader and a cultured talker. But his contemporaries also found him “a man of sublimated and paradoxical imagination” and “one of the most artful, intriguing, industrious and double-faced politicians in all America.”

Lincoln, who was born less than a month before Jefferson left the presidency in 1809, had his own reasons for loathing Jefferson “as a man.” Lincoln was well aware of Jefferson’s “repulsive” liaison with his slave, Sally Hemings, while “continually puling about liberty, equality and the degrading curse of slavery.” But he was just as disenchanted with Jefferson’s economic policies.

Jefferson believed that the only real wealth was land and that the only true occupation of virtuous and independent citizens in a republic was farming. “Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people,” Jefferson wrote.

[Pelham]

+1

[DiogenesLamp]

The disparity of forces obviously didn’t make any difference to the insurrectionists when they started the war.

They blew up some rocks. The Union army of 35,000 men invaded and tried to conquer their Capitol city. Yeah, it was those rock destroyers that started it.

[DiogenesLamp]

Well, other than the fact that they were in rebellion against the duly constituted government, and were trying to rip away nearly half of the republic's territory, and had raised a substantial army to attack the legitimate government.

For a guy that can't get more than the word "slavery" out of the Declaration of Independence, I do not see any point in once more directing your attention to the primary purpose of that document. I fear a higher level of understanding is simply beyond you.

[EternalVigilance]

Well, maybe your heroes shouldn’t have opened up fire on a federal installation and launched an aggressive war against their own legitimate government, because they feared that a Republican president might slightly impinge on their beloved “right” to enslave other men, for their own financial, material gain. Then all that bad stuff wouldn’t have happened to them.

[EternalVigilance]

Your constant personal attacks throughout this thread are juvenile. You think they somehow buttress your case, but really they just make you look silly.

[DiogenesLamp]

You've gone back around the circle.

Considering how you constantly get cause and effect reversed, I doubt you can tell when something is going in a circle.

So once again, Why did Brig. General Irvin McDowell lead 35,000 men into South Carolina? What was his marching orders again? Anytime. Just let me know when you've got the answer to that question.

[Pelham]

The rumor about Jefferson and Sally Hemings was started by James Callender, a political hatchet man whom Jefferson had hired, but who later turned on Jefferson. Hemings was the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife and looked something like her, a fact that Callender knew added plausibility to his gossip.

[DiogenesLamp]

Well, maybe your heroes

They aren't my heroes. My family didn't arrive in this country till the beginning of the 20th century. They also didn't settle in a Southern state.

I just objectively note that the southern states had a right to leave, as espoused by the founding document of this nation. If we had a God given right to leave the English Union, *THEY* had a God given right to leave the US Union.

So why did General Irvin McDowell lead his army into South Carolina? What was his reasons for doing that? Was he just out for a stroll or something?

[EternalVigilance]

I don’t remember McDowell ever making it out of Northern Virginia.

And I’m not interested in tracking down the obscurities of the war at your bidding so you can make another meaningless point. Thanks.

[DiogenesLamp]

Your constant personal attacks throughout this thread are juvenile. You think they somehow buttress your case, but really they just make you look silly.

Good, cause that's exactly how I feel when I argue with a simpleton who can't keep cause and effect in the proper sequence. Who's history (what little of it he has) is all over the place, and with huge gaps missing in it, but who cannot stop giving us all his morally superior prattle about how much he hates anything and everything connected with slavery, except when the Union did it or condoned it.

When they do it, it's no longer a great moral outrage.

[rockrr]

If we had a God given right to leave the English Union, *THEY* had a God given right to leave the US Union.

Yes they did. One of two ways - either negotiated with their partners or by waging war in which case all bets are off. They chose war.

[EternalVigilance]

My family on my mom’s side primarily came out of Tidewater Virginia. In fact, they go back in several lines to the first ancient planters of the Virginia Colony.

The South had no right to break up the Union without the consent of the whole body of the people of the United States.

Lacking that consent, all that was left them was force. They tried that, and failed. End of the story.

[EternalVigilance]

that's exactly how I feel when I argue with a simpleton

You just can't help yourself.

[EternalVigilance]

Re your post #390: You don’t argue honestly. You put words in others mouths and then argue against your own fictions.

[DiogenesLamp]

I don’t remember McDowell ever making it out of Northern Virginia. And I’m not interested in tracking down the obscurities of the war at your bidding so you can make another meaningless point. Thanks.

Obscurity? The very first invasion by the Union forces? Why, I think you'd be chomping at the bit to inform me that his orders from Lincoln were "Go down to the South and Abolish Slavery!"

Yes people, the Grand Old Army of the Republic was sent to South Carolina to free the slaves! That was it's sole task. That was what it was instructed to do by the right and righteous government of our awe inspiring Republic!

McDowell was doing the Lord's work, because after four score and seven years of existence, the President woke up one day and declared that slavery shall be abolished, and so he sent his General to the south to utterly wipe out the institution of slavery. Ain't that right rockrr?

Why they should teach that in history! Irving McDowell was the right arm of the lord, saying "Let my People go!"

It was his one and only purpose in crossing that border, he was sent to free the slaves!

Why i'm surprised that a man such as yourself, who cares so greatly and deeply about the issue of slavery, that he thinks the lives of 600,000 men and the costs of billions of dollars of wealth and a legacy of Fedzilla, were a fair trade for abolishing the wickedness that is slavery, but is somehow unaware that the First Army to strike a blow for freedom was commanded by Brig. General Irvin McDowell, with 35,000 good soldiers at his back!

You are slipping. I would think you would know the name of the great Liberator, that Saint of a man who attempted to strike the chains off of the legs of all those bound people.

So now you know, and I want you to go around telling EVERYBODY that the First man (apart from John Brown) to march into the South to Liberate the slaves, was General Irvin McDowell! Hip hip Horaah! Hip hip Horaah! Hip hip Horaah!

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes they did. One of two ways - either negotiated with their partners or by waging war in which case all bets are off. They chose war.

No, they gave Lincoln an excuse for War. Lincoln simply manipulated the poor fools into doing something stupid. He was quite good at it you know.

Clever man, he. Too clever by half, it would appear.

[DiogenesLamp]

The South had no right to break up the Union without the consent of the whole body of the people of the United States.

You really can't read more than five words in the Declaration of Independence, can you? Did we get the consent from the English Union? Did we?

OMG. There is simply no reaching you.

[Pelham]

+1

[DiogenesLamp]

You just can't help yourself.

Am a bit of a masochist, so it would appear.

[rockrr]

No, they just gave themselves an excuse to wage war. Lincoln was duty bound to defend his country. I’m not surprised that you have no concept of duty or honor.