No doubt he was a genius and one of the great founders but there are some warts that go along with him.
While he was part of the genius behind the Declaration, he was purposely kept as ambassador to France, keeping him and his egalitarian, democratic ideas away from the creation of our Constitution and Republic.
“At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington” and as SoS he and his supporters did everything possible to undermine the Washington administration. They even secretly bought a newspaper through which they channeled vindictive propaganda pieces excoriating Washington’s policies and the man personally.
Following that approach to his political rivals “At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of the Democratic-Republican Party”, a party that while it had the name Republican in it was in no way shape or form Republican in thought or action. The Democratic-Republican party was later rechartered as the Democrat Party of the United States; that traitorous entity that has done so much over the years to undermine our constitutional republic.
He was a genius and overall a patriot, but his actions in some cases were not in keeping with the tenents of our Constitution with which he did not agree and was probably frustrated with because he had no real part in the formulation.
THe Louisianna Purchase was probably unconstitutional. Nobody objected at the time.
A good summary of some of the problematic issues of an otherwise great man. I remember reading a comment that David McCullough made after his biography of Adams was published. He said that he had started out to do a joint biography of Adams and Jefferson but after a few months he realized that Adams was the “essential” man and that Jefferson was integral but mush more peripheral.
I liked Conor Cruise O’Brien’s study of Jefferson’s problematic side “The Long Affair” as well as the other biographies I read on him.
In reading O’Brien, people must understand that he is an earlier version of Chris Hitchens — his bio of Bruke was his turning point like Hitchens had with Clinton.
He was born the same year as my father and passed away at 91 the same year as my dad — he lived a long enough life to be two or threee different people.