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Show 829 Back From Greece Clay Jenkinson talks about his recent trip to the Mediterranean
Show 828 Needs and Wants
A TJH classic show from January 2005. Mister Jefferson talks about items he could not live without.
Show 827 Greece
Clay talks about his latest cultural tour - EXPLORATIONS with CLAY JENKINSON The Mediterranean & More . . . Athens to Rome
(yes - that's him on the camel) You can read his weekly column (7/11/10) to find out more about the trip
Show 826 2nd and 4th
President Jefferson talks about the 4th of July (one of the only 2 holidays he celebrated) and the significance of the 2nd of July, which John Adams thought should be recognized as the actual day of American independence.
Show 825 - Where we Are
Many listeners are concerned with the disappearance of new episodes - Clay explains why this has happened.
Show 824 Listener Questions, December 2003
A vintage episode of the Thomas Jefferson Hour first broadcast in December 2003 with original TJH host William Crystal and Clay Jenkinson featuring listener questions about banks, capitalism and equality.
Show 823 Update
Clay Jenkinson talks about progress on his next documentary "Charisma of Competence".
Show 822 Nekoma
Clay Jenkinson is hard at work on his new documentary: The Charisma of Competence: The Achievement of William L. Guy.
Clay is headed for Nekoma, North Dakota for a 40th anniversary.
"I cannot live without books," wrote Jefferson to John Adams and this week Jefferson discusses a list of books he recommended to Mister Robert Skipwith.
…we are therefore wisely framed to be as warmly interested for a fictitious as for a real personage. The field of imagination is thus laid open to our use and lessons may be formed to illustrate and carry home to the heart every moral rule of life. Thus a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that ever were written.
“Thomas Jefferson to Robert Skipwith, August 3, 1771”
To see the list of books discussed on the show click here
To link to a podcast of Clay's speech A Spiritual Future for North Dakota click here
Show 820 Tribal Natures
This week President Jefferson (prompted by a question from a listener) talks about American Indians and their displacement, European motives for coming to America and immigration.
Show 819 The Classics
Clay Jenkinson made a recent appearance as President Jefferson at Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia. Jefferson talked about the classics, his studies of them and how they influenced his thought. The conversation this week is a continuation and review of that presentation.
Show 818 A Great Purchase
President Jefferson reflects on Lewis and Clark, the importance of New Orleans to the American economy during his time and the Louisiana Purchase.
Show 817 In Moderation
On a previous show President Jefferson expressed an interest in tasting the wines that America now produces and was very pleased to receive a shipment fo Claifornia wine from Ray and Tammy Krause of Westbrook Wine farm, a vineyard and winery in the Sierra Foothills of eastern Madera County, California, near Yosemite National Park.
During this show President Thomas Jefferson enjoys wine and conversation (including Westbrook's famous award winning Fait Accompli) both provided by Ray Krause of Westbrook Wine Farm of Madera County, California.
To contact Westbrook Wine farm:
Ray and Tammy Krause, Proprietors
49610 House Ranch Road
O'Neal's, California 93645
Phone: (559) 868-3499
email - westbrookwine@sti.net
Show 816 Surf's Up
President Thomas Jefferson (as portrayed by humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson) answers a number of questions left for him on the Jefferson Hour voicemail system. Topics include Native Americans, 2 dollar bills, textbooks, Eastern thought, surfing and New England. "I should like to surf", says President Jefferson. He also provides clarification to a woman from New England and offers an apology (of sorts).
Show 815 If We Did Those Things
Clay Jenkinson responds to listener questions and comments on food, modern agriculture, the place of corporations in the U.S. and the state of American society.
Show 814 Schoolbooks
For the past few weeks The Thomas Jefferson Hour has received emails and phone calls daily asking for President Jefferson's reaction to revisions proposed by the conservative faction of the Texas Board of Education. Thomas Jefferson will be removed from the textbooks sections teaching how enlightenment thinkers influenced politics and revolutions sine the 1700s. He will be replaced by (among others) French theologian John Calvin. This week hear President Jefferson's reaction and thoughts on this development. According to Clay "We are not a Christian nation constitutionally."
Clays suggested reading on this subject:
The Republic of Reason: The Personal Philosophies of the Founding Fathers by Norman Cousins
and
American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
by Jon Meacham
Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion
by David Barton
Show 813 The 10th is Clear
This week President Jefferson talks about State's rights and answers listener questions about the Masons, the Postal Service, The American Colonization Society, Spain and space. Clay Jenkinson comments on the news story reporting he has been asked to run for the U.S. Senate.
Show 812 Adams Apple
Jefferson responds to a letter from a listener who believes that "agriculture was an unnatural act" and asks him to consider that "agriculture was the original sin. Adam didn't eat the apple, he planted it." Also discussed on the show: term limits, political parties and the Project Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org. Click here to link to Jefferson's writings posted on this site.
Show 811 France and England
Jefferson answers listener questions about language, France and England, vegetarianism, the Enlightenment and dictionaries.
Show 810 Metaphysics
Responding to a question presented on a previous show, listener's weigh in on Jefferson's secular views.
Show 809 Call Me
For the first time, President Jefferson answers questions phoned in by listeners on the new Jefferson Hour phone line (701-221-2425). Questions come from Colorado, California, Vermont and include queries about spirit of place, bears at the White House, Lewis and Clark, Mr. Jefferson’s daughters and the 35 words.
Show 808 Michael Krannish
A conversation about President Jefferson with Michael Kranish - author of the new book
Flight From Monticello : Thomas Jefferson at War.
Show 807 Flight From Monticello
President Jefferson is interviewed by Michael Kranish - author of the new book
Flight From Monticello : Thomas Jefferson at War.
"My admiration for Flight from Monticello knows no bounds. Michael Kranish, one of America's best reporters, draws a brilliant portrait of Thomas Jefferson in turmoil. His analysis of Jefferson's strategic blunders is pioneering. Only Dumas Malone equals Kranish in dissecting Jefferson the Virginian. Highly recommended!" Douglas Brinkley.
Listeners ask President Jefferson a number of gardening questions and a question about Aaron Burr.
Show 805 Haiti
In 1795 Jefferson wrote to Tench Coxe, "The ball of liberty is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe." In this weeks program President Jefferson discusses The Haitian Revolution (1791-1803) and explains the changing positions he held on the diplomatic relationships with that country.
Show 804 In Our Time
What if Jefferson lived during our time? The President discusses and compares food, wine, communications, fashion, popular culture and a number of other subjects during his time and ours.
Show 803 A New Year
President Jefferson speaks about his health and shares his thoughts on the future of America. He speaks about compromise, the need for civility and offers a plan to achieve it.
Show 802 Flemming on Jefferson
Clay Jenkinson and author Thomas Flemming share their insights about Thomas Jefferson. Recommended reading this week:
Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America
by Thomas Flemming
The Making of the Modern Mind: A Survey of the Intellectual Background of the Present Age
by John Herman Randall
Washington's Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge
by Thomas Flemming
Show 801 Intimate Lives
An interview with Thomas Flemming about his new book The Intimate Lives
of the Founding Fathers
“In this solid, sometimes titillating account, novelist and historian Fleming draws parallels to today's media obsession with our leaders' sex lives. The media were obsessed at the nation's beginning, too. … Showing the more human and sometimes unlikable sides of our founders, the author writes good history.” --Publishers Weekly
“Combines new scholarship and fluent prose to examine the women in the Founders’ lives—and their historical effects.” --American History magazine
(From the publisher) "A compelling, intimate look at the founders – Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison – and the women who played an essential role in their lives"
Show 800 Yankees
A review of listener mail received about the Jefferson-Hemmings shows. David notes it is his 200th show. To see some of Makoché Studios visual works click here or visit www.makochevision.com.
Show 799 More Time
President Jefferson responds to a letter from
William Daniel "Danny" Hillis, co-founder of
The Long Now Foundation and designer of
The Clock of the Long Now.
During 1993, with Thinking Machines facing its demise, Hillis wrote about long-term thinking and suggested a project to build a clock designed to function for millennia:
When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. Now, thirty years later, they still talk about what will happen by the year 2000. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to start a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of the Millennium. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium. W. Daniel Hillis
OZYMANDIAS
Percy Bysshe Shelly, first published in 1818.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.
Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear: "
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away
Show 798 Three Stories
President Jefferson shares three pleasant stories from his lifetime. The stories are about wildlife sent to the White House, the world's largest cheese and a moose he had sent to Europe.
Show 797 Allegations
The show this week is a recap of shows 795 and 796 and the allegations of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemmings.
Show 796 In Defense of
This week Clay Jenkinson interviews William G. Hyland, author of In Defense of Thomas Jefferson.
"For over two hundred years, Thomas Jefferson has been accused of a sexual relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. According to DNA interpretive results conducted in 1998, it is now widely accepted that Jefferson fathered one or more of Sally’s children. Are the accusations true? And if so, could they be proved in a court of law?
IN DEFENSE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON is a startling new book that definitively destroys the myth that Jefferson had any relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings. Allegations that Jefferson had an affair and fathered at least one child with Hemings have been discussed for two centuries. Not only do the authors conclude that the charges are false, but for the first time ever the reader is introduced to the President's younger brother, Randolph Jefferson, as the DNA match for Sally’s children. Along with the most thorough examination of the Hemings controversy to date, new discoveries and details are revealed exonerating Jefferson from this two-hundred year old political scandal.
The author offers an exhaustive examination of this controversy, deftly synthesizing the massive scholarship on the Jefferson-Hemings subject into a swift, insightful account. Hyland has brought as much clarity to a famously elusive subject as anyone can, and accomplishes it all at a concise, readable length. Reflecting both a layperson's curiosity and a lawyer's logical mind, IN DEFENSE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON is both reasoned and logical. The convincing arguments finally put to rest the alleged 38-year liaison between Jefferson and Hemings both by presenting the most reliable historical evidence and rebutting the unreliable, circumstantial evidence of its existence."
Show 795 Affair of Honor
When asked about Sally Hemmings, President Jefferson declines discussion and walks off the show. Suggested reading on this subject:
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy
by Annette Gordon-Reed
In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal
by William G. Hyland Jr.
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
by Annette Gordon-Reed
In production in the Barn - November 2009
Show 794 Jefferson's Bible
Jefferson first discussed producing his own version of the Christian bible in a letter to Joseph Priestly in 1803. He eventually edited together The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, which begins with an account of the birth of Jesus but omits any references to miracles, the divinityof Jesus or the resurrection. Jefferson intended the book for his own use. He shared it with a number of his friends but did not allow it to be published. He wrote to John Adams about it in 1813:
We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines.
Show 793 Adam and Eve
President Jefferson discusses the famous Adam and Eve letter.
From Thomas Jefferson to William Short
Philadelphia, January 3, 1793
DEAR SIR,-- My last private letter to you was of Oct. 16. since which I have received your No. 103, 107, 108, 109, 11O, 112, 113 & 114 and yesterday your private one of Sep. 15, came to hand. The tone of your letters had for some time given me pain, on account of the extreme warmth with which they censured the proceedings of the Jacobins of France. I considered that sect as the same with the Republican patriots, & the Feuillants as the Monarchical patriots, well known in the early part of the revolution, & but little distant in their views, both having in object the establishment of a free constitution, & differing only on the question whether their chief Executive should be hereditary or not. The Jacobins (as since called) yielded to the Feuillants & tried the experiment of retaining their hereditary Executive. The experiment failed completely, and would have brought on the reestablishment of despotism had it been pursued. The Jacobins saw this, and that the expunging that officer was of absolute necessity. And the Nation was with them in opinion, for however they might have been formerly for the constitution framed by the first assembly, they were come over from their hope in it, and were now generally Jacobins. In the struggle which was necessary, many guilty persons fell without the forms of trial, and with them some innocent. These I deplore as much as any body, & shall deplore some of them to the day of my death. But I deplore them as I should have done had they fallen in battle. It was necessary to use the arm of the people, a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree. A few of their cordial friends met at their hands the fate of enemies. But time and truth will rescue & embalm their memories, while their posterity will be enjoying that very liberty for which they would never have hesitated to offer up their lives. The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood? My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause, but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam & an Eve left in every country, & left free, it would be better than as it now is. I have expressed to you my sentiments, because they are really those of 99. in an hundred of our citizens. The universal feasts, and rejoicings which have lately been had on account of the successes of the French showed the genuine effusions of their hearts. You have been wounded by the sufferings of your friends, and have by this circumstance been hurried into a temper of mind which would be extremely disrelished if known to your countrymen. The reserve of the President of the United States had never permitted me to discover the light in which he viewed it, and as I was more anxious that you should satisfy him than me, I had still avoided explanations with you on the subject. But your 113. induced him to break silence and to notice the extreme acrimony of your expressions. He added that he had been informed the sentiments you expressed in your conversations were equally offensive to our allies, & that you should consider yourself as the representative of your country and that what you say might be imputed to your constituents. He desired me therefore to write to you on this subject. He added that he considered France as the sheet anchor of this country and its friendship as a first object. There are in the U.S. some characters of opposite principles; some of them are high in office, others possessing great wealth, and all of them hostile to France and fondly looking to England as the staff of their hope. These I named to you on a former occasion. Their prospects have certainly not brightened. Excepting them, this country is entirely republican, friends to the constitution, anxious to preserve it and to have it administered according to it's own republican principles. The little party above mentioned have espoused it only as a stepping stone to monarchy, and have endeavored to approximate it to that in it's administration in order to render it's final transition more easy. The successes of republicanism in France have given the coup de grace to their prospects, and I hope to their projects. -- I have developed to you faithfully the sentiments of your country, that you may govern yourself accordingly. I know your republicanism to be pure, and that it is no decay of that which has embittered you against it's votaries in France, but too great a sensibility at the partial evil which it's object has been accomplished there. I have written to you in the stile to which I have been always accustomed with you, and which perhaps it is time I should lay aside. But while old men are sensible enough of their own advance in years, they do not sufficiently recollect it in those whom they have seen young. In writing too the last private letter which will probably be written under present circumstances in contemplating that your correspondence will shortly be turned over to I know not whom, but certainly to some one not in the habit of considering your interests with the same fostering anxieties I do, I have presented things without reserve, satisfied you will ascribe what I have said to it's true motive, use it for your own best interest, and in that fulfil completely what I had in view.
With respect to the subject of your letter of Sep. 15. you will be sensible that many considerations would prevent my undertaking the reformation of a system with which I am so soon to take leave. It is but common decency to leave to my successor the moulding of his own business. -- Not knowing how otherwise to convey this letter to you with certainty, I shall appeal to the friendship and honour of the Spanish commissioners here, to give it the protection of their cover, as a letter of private nature altogether. We have no remarkable event here lately, but the death of Dr. Lee; nor have I anything new to communicate to you of your friends or affairs. I am with unalterable affection & wishes for your prospering my dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant.
Show 792 Answering Mail
This week President Jefferson answers questions from listeners. Subjects covered include corporations and voting machines, the design of Washington D.C., playing marbles and the the difficulty of a constitutional re-write. Clay comments on a letter saying that Mister Jefferson was no pacifist.
Show 791 What You Said
This week Clay Jenkinson talks the new Ken Burns/Dayton Duncan film: The National Parks: America's Best Idea, and his participation in it. He discusses working with Ken Burns, voices his thoughts on the film and reacts to what he said in the interviews. His statements in the film include:
“It's not the best idea. The best idea came from Thomas Jefferson that all human beings irrespective of the accident of their birth are entitled to enjoy the aspirations of being fully complete and free human beings. That's America's gift to the world.
But right up there are the National Parks. Jefferson I think would say, if you go out into the heart of America and see this continent in it's glory, it will embolden you to dream about the possibilities of life. That American nature is the guarantor of constitutional freedom; that if you don't have a genuine link to nature in a serious even profound way you can't be an American.
Jefferson looked across America from the portico at Monticello and he saw wilderness all the way out, so he couldn't conceive of a national park because for Jefferson America was a national park. This country is Eden, and we American's had this glorious opportunity to see the world in it's infancy, so that America in a sense had been kept a symbol of what the world once was.”
Clay S. Jenkinson
Noted this week:
The National Parks America's Best Idea
A Film by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan
Show 790 McGovern
This week Clay Jenkinson talks about his recent meetings with Senator George McGovern and America's need for statesmen. He refers to Jefferson as a survivor and notes the one term presidents and reputations of political figures of Jefferson's time.
Books noted this week:
Abraham Lincoln (American Presidents Series)
by George S. McGovern
Show 789 Jeffersonland
This week Clay Jenkinson discusses the September 2009 - Jefferson's Virginia Cultural Tour. The group visited Monticello, Poplar Forest, the Library of Congress and the Special Collections at the University of Virginia.
Recommended reading this week:
Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder
by Jack Mclaughlin
Show 788 Debt
President Jefferson talks about debt this week and explains how the national debt was handled during his time and how he feels a national debt should be handled today. Mister Jefferson shares his view that a debt imposed on an unborn generation is outrageous, and that national spending should be tied directly to taxes of the current generation.
Show 787 Read More
This week President Jefferson discusses one of his favorite subjects; books and reading. Clay discusses reading and offers his own reading plan.
"The short list" - Clay's Recommended Reading about Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation
by Merrill D. Peterson
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
by Joseph Ellis
The Sage of Monticello
by Dumas Malone
Thomas Jefferson: The Strange Case of Mistaken Identity
by Alf J. Mapp
Thomas Jefferson
by Albert J. Nock
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings: An American Controversy
by Annette Gordon-Reed
Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History
by Fawn Brodie
Show 786 Future of Democracy
This week President Jefferson shares his thoughts of the future of democracy in America and professes his faith in the American people and his belief that man is good and government is a necessary evil.
Recommended reading this week:
The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson
Richard K. Matthews
Show 785 Tree of Liberty
This week President Jefferson discusses in detail his letter to William Smith from which comes the famous “Tree of Liberty” quote. The complete text of the letter follows:
The "Tree of Liberty" letter
From Thomas Jefferson to William Smith
Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Paris, 13 Nov. 1787
DEAR SIR, -- I am now to acknoledge the receipt of your favors of October the 4th, 8th, & 26th. In the last you apologise for your letters of introduction to Americans coming here. It is so far from needing apology on your part, that it calls for thanks on mine. I endeavor to show civilities to all the Americans who come here, & will give me opportunities of doing it: and it is a matter of comfort to know from a good quarter what they are, & how far I may go in my attentions to them. Can you send me Woodmason's bills for the two copying presses for the M. de la Fayette, & the M. de Chastellux? The latter makes one article in a considerable account, of old standing, and which I cannot present for want of this article. -- I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: & very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: & what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted. -- You ask me if any thing transpires here on the subject of S. America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. But this country probably will join the extinguishers. -- The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.
Show 784 Education and Health
Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day. Thomas Jefferson
This week President Jefferson talks about education in America, the people's need for it and his own schooling.
Recommended Reading:
The Nicomachean Ethics
By Aristotle - Written 350 B.C.E
As far as the name goes, we may almost say that the great majority of mankind are agreed about this; for both the multitude and persons of refinement speak of it as Happiness, and conceive ‘the good life’ or ‘doing well’ to be the same thing as ‘being happy.’ But what constitutes happiness is a matter of dispute; and the popular account of it is not the same as that given by the philosophers.
From The Nicomachean Ethics
Show 783 Favored Son
On this weeks show Mister Jefferson once again shows his dislike of Alexander Hamilton.
Show 782 Saved from the Fire
This weeks show answers a question submitted by Matt Halsdorff, an American English teacher living in Germany.
Let's imagine President Jefferson's house is burning down and he only has the opportunity to save 5 items from the flames before losing everything. Assuming all friends, family, and parrots are safe.... what items would he choose and why?
If your spirit cannot be refreshed in Alaska, it probably cannot be refreshed.
In Rooseveltian terms, it may be said, that Alaska in 2009 is the biggest mostly pristine chunk of what was once America.
This week Clay talks about his upcoming trip to Alaska and answers questions from listeners, including one who calls the show "drivel", questions about caculus, Mount Rushmore, ballon flights and Jefferson's lack of interest in black culture.
One of Clay's pictures from Alaska
Books mentioned this week include:
Coming into the Country by John McPhee
Looking for Alaska by Peter Jenkins
The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson
by Daniel J. Boorstin
Show 780 Utopia
This week President Jefferson talks about Sir Thomas More and his writings, and the influence of his book Utopia. Clay discusses his studies of Sir Thomas More while studying at Oxford.
Show 779 Cicero
This week President Jefferson talks about the man who is remembered
as one of Rome’s greatest orators: Marcus Tullius Cicero. Recommended reading:
Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt
Tacitus: The Annals of Imperial Rome
Show 778 Cities
"But how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen, unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study and imitation?"
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, September 20, 1785
This week President Jefferson speaks about architecture and
the building of cities.
Show 777 Yes to Bonzai
Clay continues to work his way through a stack of listener questions this week. Subjects he discusses are quotes about Jefferson, unhappy woodworkers (www.woodshoponware.com), explaining the separation of church and state, a Colorado bear in the woods, Jefferson on killing dogs, bonsai trees, a school trout stocking program and a challenge to those who speak a language other than English to make a recording of the famous 35 words from the beginning of the Declaration of Independence and send them to us for a future program.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Show 776 Barns and Parks
This week Clay Jenkinson returns from his journeys through the American west - including trips to Peoria, Illinois and Salida, Colorado. He talks about the New Enlightenment Barn, attending a back yard party where he was shown a book owned by Thomas Jefferson and discusses the future of America's National Parks.
Jefferson's book
Jefferson's correction
Recommended reading this week:
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
For those interested in reading more about the attempt to legislate public hunting in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, an excellent article written by Kurt Repanshek for National Parks Traveler can be found by clicking here
Show 775 War and Peace
This week another show from the Thomas Jefferson Hour archives. Recoreded in July of 2004, the program is a discussion between Presidents Adams and Jefferson. President Adams is portrayed by former TJH host William Chrystal.
Show 774 Oil and Slavery
This week Clay Jenkinson is enjoying some much deserved time off (as is Mister Jefferson). This week's program is from the Thomas Jefferson Hour archives and was recorded in June 0f 2004. It features listener questions about Public Radio, slavery during Jefferson's time and the oil crisis during our time.
Show 773 Sounds of Discovery
This week Clay Jenkinson turns the tables on host David Swenson and interviews David about a CD he produced during the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. The CD is titled Lewis and Clark - Sounds of Discovery and is a recreation of the songs and sounds the members of the Corps of Discovery might have heard.
David traveled from the banks of the Missouri River in South Dakota to the Pacific coast and recorded songs and sounds on location where ever possible.
If you are interested in obtaining a copy of the CD, it is available on itunes for download, or you can call 1-800-NDSOUND to order a copy at a special price this month ($10.00 + S&H) for Thomas Jefferson Hour listeners. The CD includes a 24 page full color booket with photos and notes.
To read more about Frances Densmore, her work and David's article on the speed variations of her recordings found in the Smithsonian collection click here
Show 772 From Norway
This week a listener from Norway (Tomas A. Tjomsland) asks President Jefferson to speak about the 17th of May (Syttende Mai) also known as Norwegian Constitution Day.
In 2009 the Norwegian people mark the 195th anniversary of theirindependence. Norway had a peaceful revolution through a constitutional convention which declared Norway a free and indivisible kingdom. The constitution of the Kingdom of Norway proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly at Eidsvold on the 17th of May 1814 and read in part:
There shall be liberty of the Press. No person must be punished for any writing, whatever its contents may be, which he has caused to be printed or published, unless he willfully and manifestly has either himself shown or incited others to disobedience to the laws, contempt of religion or morality or the constitutional powers, or resistance to their orders, or has advanced false and defamatory accusations against any other person. Everyone shall be free to speak his mind frankly on the administration of the State or on any subject whatsoever.
Mister Jefferson comments on this declaration. He also speaks about the Sedition Act and answers a question from a beekeeper.
Show 771 Colorado
President Jefferson talks about his upcoming trip to Colorado on June 6th and answers a list of questions submitted to him by citizens from that state.
Books mentioned this week by Clay Jenkinson:
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic
by Chalmers Johnson
Show 770 Sine Wave
President Jefferson receives more questions about the separation of church and state than just about any other subject and this week’s questions include another inquiry on the subject. He also responds to questions about farming, where he got his gardening seeds, the tulip bubble, a potter and his tax troubles and constitutional re-writes.
Clay answers a question about his hike along the Little Missouri River. To find out more about the National Park in western North Dakota click here.
Show 769 Symposium
Clay Jenkinson reports on the recent symposium presented by the Dakota Institute of the Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation; The Further Travels of Maximilian and Bodmer. In Clay’s words:
"Swiss-born Karl Bodmer (1809-1893), arguably the greatest artist ever to paint the Missouri River and the Great Plains. You can see his artwork in books or online, or (better yet) at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Washburn, where all 81 of Bodmer's magnificent aquatints are on display this year."
To visit the Fort Mandan Foundation website click here
Show 768 Humans and Nature
President Jefferson answers a question from a listener about humans and their relationship (or lack thereof) to nature. He notes how culture and civilization have progressed to a point in our time where humans can live their entire lives without a connection to nature.
Books mentioned on the show
Last Child in the Woods
by Richard Louv
Show 767 Pirates and Treaties
This week President Jefferson talks about pirates during his time and ours. In 1801 Jefferson refused to pay "tributes" to pirates and sent warships instead. Also discussed is the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli written by the Ameican diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796. Article 11 of the treaty reads:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Recommended reading this week:
The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
by George Friedman
Show 766 Adam Smith
This week President Jefferson converses with Mister Adam Smith (as portrayed by Jack Russell Weinstein). Mister Weinstein is an author, an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion and host of the public radio show "Why".
Recommended books this week:
The Life of Adam Smith
by Ian Simpson Ross
Visit Jack Russell Weinstein's Internet Encyclopedia
entry on Adam Smith by clicking HERE
This week President Jefferson answers questions about gardens and food including his thoughts on the First Lady's garden at the White House, organic food and processed food in his day.
Show 764 Walden
This week Clay Jenkinson talks about one of his favorite books and what a conversation between Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau might have been like. From Walden:
"Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?"
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to five a true account of it in my next excursion"
"Occasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, I joined some impatient companion who had been fishing on the pond since morning, as silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and, after practising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient sect of Coenobites. There was one older man, an excellent fisher and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased to look upon my house as a building erected for the convenience of fishermen; and I was equally pleased when he sat in my doorway to arrange his lines. Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not many words passed between us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but he occasionally hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with my philosophy. Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken harmony, far more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on by speech. When, as was commonly the case, I had none to commune with, I used to raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my boat, filling the surrounding woods with circling and dilating sound, stirring them up as the keeper of a menagerie his wild beasts, until I elicited a growl from every wooded vale and hillside.
"Coenobites," more often spelled "cenobites," is pronounced "see-no-bites," and is introduced for the pun rather than the meaning. A cenobite is a member of a religious community.
In warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat playing the flute, and saw the perch, which I seemed to have charmed, hovering around me, and the moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed with the wrecks of the forest. Formerly I had come to this pond adventurously, from time to time, in dark summer nights, with a companion, and, making a fire close to the water's edge, which we thought attracted the fishes, we caught pouts with a bunch of worms strung on a thread, and when we had done, far in the night, threw the burning brands high into the air like skyrockets, which, coming down into the pond, were quenched with a loud hissing, and we were suddenly groping in total darkness. Through this, whistling a tune, we took our way to the haunts of men again. But now I had made my home by the shore."
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favour in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
Show 763 Return to Monticello
In 1809 President Jefferson returned to Monticello where he spent the remainder of his life. In this week’s program he discusses that return to his home. He also talks about friendship and about growing old.
From a letter written to John Adams July 5, 1814:
"But our machines have now been running for 70. or 80. years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way: and however we may tinker them up for awhile, all will at length cease motion."
Show 762 The State of Jefferson
This week President Jeffersons congratulates a new homesteader who plans to "get off the grid", talks about the proposed State of Jefferson and answers questions about his macaroni machine-
Books mentioned this week:
Ecotopiaby Ernest Callenbach
Show 761 The Long Now
This week President Jeffersons discusses conversation, a 10,000 year clock called the Clock of the Long Now and the development of measuring time.
This week Clay Jenkinson talks about cold weather in North Dakota, answers listener questions including one about Austrailia's past and what Mister Jefferson would have had on an ipod if he'd had one.
Show 759 Priestley
This week a discussion about Dr. Joseph Priestley inspired by Steven Johnson’s new book The Invention of Air which is this week’s highly recommended reading.
In addition, Clay mentions 3 letters on the show, all written by Jefferson, which follow:
To Dr. Joseph Priestley Washington, March, 21, 1801
Dear Sir,
I learnt some time ago that you were in Philadelphia, but that it was only for a fortnight; & supposed you were gone. It was not till yesterday I received information that you were still there, had been very ill, but were on the recovery. I sincerely rejoice that you are so. Yours is one of the few lives precious to mankind, & for the continuance of which every thinking man is solicitous. Bigots may be an exception. What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in Politics & Religion have we gone through! The barbarians really flattered themselves they should be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put everything into the hands of power & priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise and encourage education, but it was to be the education of our ancestors. We were to look backwards, not forwards, for improvement; the President himself declaring, in one of his answers to addresses, that we were never to expect to go beyond them in real science. This was the real ground of all the attacks on you. Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, -- the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man, -- endeavored to crush your well-earnt & well-deserved fame. But it was the Lilliputians upon Gulliver. Our countrymen have recovered from the alarm into which art & industry had thrown them; science & honesty are replaced on their high ground; and you, my dear Sir, as their great apostle, are on it's pinnacle. It is with heartfelt satisfaction that, in the first moments of my public action, I can hail you with welcome to our land, tender to you the homage of it's respect & esteem, cover you under the protection of those laws which were made for the wise and good like you, and disdain the legitimacy of that libel on legislation, which under the form of a law, was for some time placed among them.
To David Rittenhouse July 19, 1778
Writing to a philosopher, I may hope to be pardoned for intruding some thoughts of my own, tho' they relate to him personally. Your time for two years past has, I beleive, been principally employed in the civil government of your country. Tho' I have been aware of the authority our cause would acquire with the world from it's being known that yourself and Doctr. Franklin were zealous friends to it, and am myself duly impressed with a sense of the arduousness of government, and the obligation those are under who are able to conduct it, yet I am also satisfied there is an order of geniusses above that obligation, and therefore exempted from it. No body can conceive that nature ever intended to throw away a Newton upon the occupations of a crown. It would have been a prodigality for which even the conduct of providence might have been arraigned, had he been by birth annexed to what was so far below him. Cooperating with nature in her ordinary oeconomy, we should dispose of and employ the geniusses of men according to their several orders and degrees. I doubt not there are in your country many persons equal to the task of conducting government: but you should consider that the world has but one Ryttenhouse, and that it never had one before. The amazing mechanical representation of the solar system which you conceived and executed, has never been surpassed by any but the work of which it is a copy. Are those powers then, which being intended for the erudition of the world, like air and light, the world's common property, to be taken from their proper pursuit to do the commonplace drudgery of governing a single state, a work which may be executed by men of an ordinary stature, such as are always and every where to be found? Without having ascended mount Sina for inspiration, I can pronounce that the precept, in the decalogue of the vulgar, that they shall not make to themselves "the likeness of any thing that is in the heavens above" is reversed for you, and that you will fulfill the highest purposes of your creation by employing yourself in the perpetual breach of that inhibition. For my own country in particular you must remember something like a promise that it should be adorned with one of them. The taking of your city by the enemy has hitherto prevented the proposition from being made and approved by our legislature. The zeal of a true Whig in science must excuse the hazarding these free thoughts, which flow from a desire of promoting the diffusion of knowledge and of your fame, and from one who can assure you truly that he is with much sincerity & esteem.
Your most obedt. & most humble servt.
To Dr. Edward Jenner Monticello, May 14, 1806
Sir,
-- I have received a copy of the evidence at large respecting the discovery of the vaccine inoculation which you have been pleased to send me, and for which I return you my thanks. Having been among the early converts, in this part of the globe, to its efficiency, I took an early part in recommending it to my countrymen. I avail myself of this occasion of rendering you a portion of the tribute of gratitude due to you from the whole human family. Medicine has never before produced any single improvement of such utility. Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood was a beautiful addition to our knowledge of the animal economy, but on a review of the practice of medicine before and since that epoch, I do not see any great amelioration which has been derived from that discovery. You have erased from the calendar of human afflictions one of its greatest. Yours is the comfortable reflection that mankind can never forget that you have lived. Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome small-pox has existed and by you has been extirpated.
Accept my fervent wishes for your health and happiness and assurances of the greatest respect and consideration.
For more on Steven Johnson, I suggest a visit to his webpage. Click Here
Show 758 Chain of Being
President Jefferson answers listener questions this week. Subjects included are a typical day at Monticello, the discovery of mammoth remains in California, his actual birthdate, time and calenders.
Show 757 Naperville
This week's episode is a special podcast only show in which President Jefferson visits a classroom in Naperville, Illinois (via webcam) to answer questions from students. Clay Jenkinson talks about the possibility of using this type technology on the Thomas Jefferson Hour sometime in the future.
Show 756 A Day in Washington
This week Clay Jenkinson reports on attending President Obama's Inauguration. Clay talks about being there and compares Obama's inaugural address with those of previous presidents.
Show 755 Jefferson's Review
This week President Jefferson talks about President Obama's Inaugural Address. Sections of the speech are played back to President Jefferson for his review, reaction and analysis.
Show 754 Public Perceptions
This week President Jefferson answers questions from listeners and reflects on the public relations problems he faced when he became president and how he dealt with them, including the writing of his famous wall of separation between church and state letter.
Show 753 This Occasion
Humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson talks about past presidential inaugurations.
Show 752 Inaugural
This week President Jefferson (as portrayed by humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson) looks back at his first inauguration in March of 1801.
From that speech-
Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter--with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens--a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
To listen to to Clay Jenkinson read Thomas Jefferson's 1st inauguration speech click here
Show 751 In Review
Clay Jenkinson and host David Swenson look back at the notable news, events and people of 2009.
Show 750 New Years Days
New Years Day was the day of several notable occurrences in Jefferson's life. He was married on New’s Day, wrote his famous “wall of separation” letter on New Years Day and on January 1, 1802 the Mammoth Cheese of Cheshire (1235 pounds) was delivered to President Jefferson.
Books mentioned on the show:
Sheheke, Mandan Indian Diplomat
by Tracy Potter
Show 749 Christmas Past
President Jefferson talks about Christmas during his time and explains his thoughts about Jesus. Referenced during the show, the following letter to William Short.
Thomas Jefferson to William Short
Monticello April 13, 1820 Dear Sir
Your favor of Mar. 27 is received and my grandaughter Ellen has undertaken to copy the Syllabus, which will therefore be inclosed. It was originally written to Dr. Rush on his death, fearing that the inquisition of the public might get hold of it, I asked the return to it from the family, which they kindly complied with. At the request of another friend, I had given him a copy. He lent it to his friend to read, who copied it, and in a few months it appeared in the theological magazine of London. Happily that repository is scarecly known in this country, and the Syllabus therefore is still a secret, and in your hands I am sure it will continue so.
But while this Syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in it's true and high light, as no imposter himself but a great Reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with him in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist, he takes the side of spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentance toward forgiveness of sin. I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it &c. &c. It is the innocence of his character, the purity & sublimity of his moral precepts, the eloquence of his inculcations, the beauty of the apologias in which he conveys them, that I so much admire; sometimes indeed needing indulgence to Eastern hyperbolism. My eulogies too may be founded on a postulate which all may not be ready to grant. Among the sayings & discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I seperate therefore the gold from the dross; restore to him the former & leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and firm corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines led me to try to sift them apart. I found the work obvious and easy, and that his part composed the most beautiful morsel of morality which has been given to us by man. The Syllabus is therefore of his doctrines, not all of mine. I read them as I do those of other antient and modern moralists, with a mixture of approbation and disent.
I rejoice with you, to see an encouraging spirit of informal improvement prevailing in the states. The opinion I have ever expressed of the advantages of a Western communication through the James River, I still entertain and that the Cayuga is the most promising of the links of communication.
The history of our University you know, so far, 7 of the 10 pavilions destined for the Professors, and about 30 dormitories will be compleated this year, and 3 others, with 6 Hotels for boarding, & 70 other dormitories will be compleated the next year, and the whole be in readiness then to receive those who are to occupy them. But means to bring these into place, and to set the machine into motion, must come from the legislature. An opposition in the mean time has been got up. That of our alma mater William and Mary is not of much weight. She must descend into the secondary rank of academies of preparation for the University. The serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects, to whose spells on the human mind it's improvement is ominous. Their pulpits are now resounding with denunciations against the appointment of Dr. Cooper whome they charge as a Monarchist in opposition to their tritheism. Hostile as these sects are in every other point, to one another, they unite in maintaining their mystical theology against those who believe there is one god only. The Presbyterian clergy are loudest. The most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical, and ambitious; ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could be now obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere, the flames in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one, and one is three, nor subscribe to that of Calvin that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to Calvinistic creed. They pant to restablish by law that holy inquisition, which they can now only infuse into public opinion. We have most unwisely committed to the hierophant of our particular superstition, the direction of public opinion, that lord of the Universe. We have given them stated and privileged days to collect and catechise us, opportunities of delivering their oracles to the people in mass, and of moulding their minds as wax in the hollow of their hands. But, in despite of thier fulminations against endeavors to enlighten the general mind, to improve the reason of the people, and encourage them in the use of it, the liberality of this state will support this institution, and give fair play to the cultivation of reason. Can you ever find a more eligible occasion of visiting once more your native country, than that of accompanying Mr. Correa, and of seeing with him this beautiful and hopeful institution in ovo?
Altho' I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write, talk or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs & therefore had ceased to read newspapers, yet the Missourie question aroused and filled me with alarm. The old schism of federal & republican, threatened nothing because it existed in every state, and united them together by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral & political with a geographical line, once concieved, I feared would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion & renewing irritations until it would kindle such mutual & mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to eternal discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question: not by the time which has been so confidently counted on. The laws of nature controul this, but by the Potomack Ohio, and Missouri, or more probably the Missisipi upwards to our Northern boundary, my only comfort & confidence is that I shall not live to see this: and I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers sacrifices of life & fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately whether man is capable of self government? This treason against human hope will signalize their epoch in future history, as the counterpart of the medal of their predecessors.
You kindly enquire after my health. There is nothing in it immediately threatening, but swelled legs, which are kept down mechanicaly by bandages from the toe to the knee. These I have worn for 6 months, but the tendency to turgidity may proceed from debility alone. I can walk the round of my garden; not more. But I ride 6 or 8 miles a day without fatigue. I shall set out to Poplar Forest within 3 or 4 days; a journey from which my physician augurs much good. I salute you with constant and affectionate friendship and respect.
Th. Jefferson
Show 748 Oh Canada
President Jefferson answers listener questions including what the one thing about his life he would change if he could, America's military strength and his feelings about Canada. Books mentioned this week:
The House of Morgan:
An American Banking Dynasty and
the Rise of Modern Finance
by Ron Chernow
Alexander Hamilton
by Ron Chernow
Show 747 Transisitions
President Jefferson discusses the period of transistion between presidents and shares his perspective on the process. He also offers advice on what Americans should watch for during this time.
Show 746 Common Sense
President Jefferson talks about the patriot Thomas Paine and his place in American history. Three quotations from the show:
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself."
"He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
"These are times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
Thomas Paine
Clay's suggested reading this week
Thomas Paine:
Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations
by Craig Nelson
Show 745 Harvest Festival
President Jefferson did not celebrate Thanksgiving and resisted the urges of citizens to declare it a national holiday. In this episode he explains why.
Show 744 Electoral College
President Jefferson discusses the reasons for America's system of electoral votes and reflects on the recent elections and President-Elect Barrack Obama.
Show 743 Central Bank
President Jefferson talks about his theory of finance and banking in America and how his policy may have affected America's financial future.
Show 742 Words and Pictures
A discussion about the recent Dakota Institute symposium The Travels of Maximilian & Bodmer 175th Anniversary Symposium.
Show 741 Election Week
This week a special message - a podcast only edition - from Clay Jenkinson about the upcoming elections.
Show 740 Democracy and Media
This week a show from June 2004 with host Janie Guill. President Jefferson discusses the effect modern media has on our democracy.
Show 739 Gift Books
President Jefferson answers listener questions this week and Clay responds to a great question - "What three books would you give to Presdient Jefferson as Christmas Gifts?" The books Clay suggests:
1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
3. The Unsettling of America by Wendell Barry
In response to requests from listeners, and a promise made on an eariler show, following is the Gov. Art Link speech.
When the Landscape is Quiet Again
We do not want to halt progress
We do not plan to be selfish and say “North Dakota will not share its energy resource.”
No, we simply want to insure the most efficient and environmentally sound method of utilizing our precious coal and water resources for the benefit of the broadest number of people possible.
And when we are through with that and the landscape is quiet again,
when the draglines, the blasting rigs, the power shovels and the huge gondolas cease to rip and roar!
And when the last bulldozer has pushed the last spoil pile into place, and the last patch of barren earth has been seeded to grass or grain.
Let those who follow and repopulate the land be able to say,
Our grandparents did their job well.
The land is as good and, in some cases, better than before.
Only if they can say this will we be worthy of the rich heritage of our land and its resources.
Governor Arthur A Link
October 11, 1973
Show 738 Candidate Jefferson
If Thomas Jefferson was a candiate for President this year, where would he stand on the issues? Mister Jefferson declares his positions and suggests a slogan he feels might be appropriate.
Show 737 A Magic Hand
President Jefferson talks more about the economy discussing the theories of Adams Smith, artificial economic values, and the place banks and the Secretary of the Treasures play in the economy. According to Mister Jefferson, “Government is never the answer.”
Show 736 Physiocrats
Physiocrats were a group of French enlightenment thinkers that believed the wealth of nations came solely from the land; from agriculture and land development. Mister Jefferson discusses his thoughts about physiocrats and also talks about the American economy.
Show 735 TR
This week Clay Jenkinson talks about Theodore Roosevelt - his life and accomplishments, and his time in North Dakota. Also discussed is the documentary Clay and David Swenson have been working on- When the Landscape is Quiet Again: The Legacy of Art Link.
Show 734 Prejudice and Parties
President Jefferson comments on political parties, the current presidential candidates, the prejudice of his time and his own prejudices.
Show 733 Never Been Born
A show from February 2002 during which host Bill Chrystal and Clay Jenkinson explore what the world might have been like if Thomas Jefferson never been born.
Show 732 "China"
A re-broadcast from June 2003. Host Bill Chrystal speaks with President Jefferson about a number of subjects including John Adams, world affairs and the 1st Amendment.
Show 731 "Influential Books"
Our thanks to Scott for this weeks question - Which books most influenced your your life and your way of thinking? Mister Jeffersons list:
1. Homer - The Illiad and The Oddessy
2. The Annals by Tacitus
3. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
4. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
5. The Spirit of Laws by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
6. The Four Books of Architecture by Andrea Palladio
Show 730 "Oppenheimer"
This week Clay Jenkinson talks about portraying Robert J. Oppenheimer, the man often remembered asa the "father of the atomic bomb." Oppenheimer is one of the many historical figures Clay does first-person characterizations
of. In 1988, Clay was recognized for his groundbreaking work in the format with one of the first five National Endowment for the Humanities awards for excellence by President George H. W. Bush.
Show 729 "Public Works"
President Jefferson explains his position on public works and national improvements and why he was opposed to many of them. Mister Jefferson talks about why he felt they where often unconstitutional, and rationalizes his own unconstitutional act of the Louisiana Purchase.
Show 728 "Hornworms"
President Jefferson answers questions about gardening pests and what might have been done differently if the Founding Fathers had known America's future.
Show 727 "Fake Humanitarian"
This week Clay Jenkinson answers questions from listeners and spends time mounting a spirited defense against charges that he is a “fake humanitarian” who doesn’t give Hamiliton due credit. Also Included are letters from a new citizen, letters from listeners in in Russia and Ireland, and a question about which presidents Clay would choose if a 2nd Mount Rushmore were built.
Mentioned on this week's show:
Following Jefferson's inauguration on March 4, 1800 Margaret Bayard Smith commented, “I have this morning witnessed one of the most interesting scenes a free people can ever witness. The change of administrations, which in every government and in every age have most generally been epochs of confusion, villainy and bloodshed, in this our happy country take place without any species of distraction, or disorder. This day one of the most amiable and worthy men [has] taken that seat to which he was called by the voice of his country.”
Jefferson's Letter
THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY
To William Ludlow
Monticello, September 6, 1824
SIR, -- The idea which you present in your letter of July 30th, of the progress of society from its rudest state to that it has now attained, seems conformable to what may be probably conjectured. Indeed, we have under our eyes tolerable proofs of it. Let a philosophic observer commence a journey from the savages of the Rocky Mountains, eastwardly towards our sea-coast. These he would observe in the earliest stage of association living under no law but that of nature, subscribing and covering themselves with the flesh and skins of wild beasts. He would next find those on our frontiers in the pastoral state, raising domestic animals to supply the defects of hunting. Then succeed our own semi-barbarous citizens, the pioneers of the advance of civilization, and so in his progress he would meet the gradual shades of improving man until he would reach his, as yet, most improved state in our seaport towns. This, in fact, is equivalent to a survey, in time, of the progress of man from the infancy of creation to the present day. I am eighty-one years of age, born where I now live, in the first range of mountains in the interior of our country. And I have observed this march of civilization advancing from the sea coast, passing over us like a cloud of light, increasing our knowledge and improving our condition, insomuch as that we are at this time more advanced in civilization here than the seaports were when was a boy. And where this progress will stop no one can say. Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth. You seem to think that this advance has brought on too complicated a state of society, and that we should gain in happiness by treading back our steps a little way. I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it. Your experiment seems to have this in view. A society of seventy families, the number you name, may very possibly be governed as a single family, subsisting on their common industry, and holding all things in common. Some regulators of the family you still must have, and it remains to be seen at what period of your increasing population your simple regulations will cease to be sufficient to preserve order, peace, and justice. The experiment is interesting; I shall not live to see its issue, but I wish it success equal to your hopes, and to yourself and society prosperity and happiness.
JANOTTI, the most excellent describer of the Commonwealth of Venice, divides the whole series of government into two times or periods: the one ending with the liberty of Rome, which was the course or empire, as I may call it, of ancient prudence, first discovered to mankind by God himself in the fabric of the commonwealth of Israel, and afterward picked out of his footsteps in nature, and unanimously followed by the Greeks and Romans; the other beginning with the arms of Caesar, which, extinguishing liberty, were the transition of ancient into modern prudence, introduced by those inundations of Huns, Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Saxons, which, breaking the Roman Empire, deformed the whole face of the world with those ill-features of government, which at this time are become far worse in these western parts, except Venice, which, escaping the hands of the barbarians by virtue of its impregnable situation, has had its eye fixed upon ancient prudence, and is attained to a perfection even beyond the copy.
Relation being had to these two times, government (to define it de jure, or according to ancient prudence) is an art whereby a civil society of men is instituted and preserved upon the foundation of common right or interest; or, to follow Aristotle and Livy, it is the empire of laws, and not of men.
And government (to define it de facto, or according to modern prudence) is an art whereby some man, or some few men, subject a city or a nation, and rule it according to his or their private interest; which, because the laws in such cases are made according to the interest of a man, or of some few families, may be said to be the empire of men, and not of laws.
The former kind is that which Machiavel (whose books are neglected) is the only politician that has gone about to retrieve; and that Leviathan (who would have his book imposed upon the universities) goes about to destroy. For "it is," says he, "another error of Aristotle's politics that in a well-ordered commonwealth, not men should govern, but the laws. What man that has his natural senses, though he can neither write nor read, does not find himself governed by them he fears, and believes can kill or hurt him when he obeys not? or, who believes that the law can hurt him, which is but words and paper, without the hands and swords of men?" I confess that the magistrate upon his bench is that to the law which a gunner upon his platform is to his cannon. Nevertheless, I should not dare to argue with a man of any ingenuity after this manner. A whole army, though they can neither write nor read, are not afraid of a platform, which they know is but earth or stone; nor of a cannon, which, without a hand to give fire to it, is but cold iron; therefore a whole army is afraid of one man. But of this kind is the ratiocination of Leviathan, as I shall show in divers places that come in my way, throughout his whole politics, or worse; as where he says, "of Aristotle and of Cicero, of the Greeks, and of the Romans, who lived under popular States, that they derived those rights, not from the principles of nature, but transcribed them into their books out of the practice of their own commonwealths, as grammarians describe the rules of language out of poets." Which is as if a man should tell famous Harvey that he transcribed his circulation of the blood, not out of the principles of nature, but out of the anatomy of this or that body.
To go on therefore with his preliminary discourse, I shall divide it, according to the two definitions of government relating to Janotti's two times, in two parts: the first, treating of the principles of government in general, and according to the ancients; the second, treating of the late governments of Oceana in particular, and in that of modern prudence.
Government, according to the ancients, and their learned disciple Machiavel, the only politician of later ages, is of three kinds: the government of one man, or of the better sort, or of the whole people; which, by their more learned names, are called monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. These they hold, through their proneness to degenerate, to be all evil. For whereas they that govern should govern according to reason, if they govern according to passion they do that which they should not do. Wherefore, as reason and passion are two things, so government by reason is one thing, and the corruption of government by passion is another thing, but not always another government: as a body that is alive is one thing, and a body that is dead is another thing, but not always another creature, though the corruption of one comes at length to be the generation of another. The corruption then of monarchy is called tyranny; that of aristocracy, oligarchy and that of democracy, anarchy. But legislators, having found these three governments at the best to be naught, have invented another, consisting of a mixture of them all, which only is good. This is the doctrine of the ancients.
But Leviathan is positive that they are all deceived, and that there is no other government in nature than one of the three; as also that the flesh of them cannot stink, the names of their corruptions being but the names of men's fancies, which will be understood when we are shown which of them was Senatus Populusque Romanus.
To go my own way, and yet to follow the ancients, the principles of government are twofold: internal, or the goods of the mind; and external, or the goods of fortune. The goods of the mind are natural or acquired virtues, as wisdom, prudence, and courage, etc. The goods of fortune are riches. There be goods also of the body, as health, beauty, strength; but these are not to be brought into account upon this score, because if a man or an army acquires victory or empire, it is more from their discipline, arms, and courage than from their natural health, beauty, or strength, in regard that a people conquered may have more of natural strength, beauty, and health, and yet find little remedy. The principles of government then are in the goods of the mind, or in the goods of fortune. To the goods of the mind answers authority; to the goods of fortune, power or empire. Wherefore Leviathan, though he be right where he says that "riches are power," is mistaken where he says that "prudence, or the reputation of prudence, is power;" for the learning or prudence of a man is no more power than the learning or prudence of a book or author, which is properly authority. A learned writer may have authority though he has no power; and a foolish magistrate may have power, though he has otherwise no esteem or authority. The difference of these two is observed by Livy in Evander, of whom he says that he governed rather by the authority of others than by his own power.
To begin with riches, in regard that men are hung upon these, not of choice as upon the other, but of necessity and by the teeth; forasmuch as he who wants bread is his servant that will feed him, if a man thus feeds a whole people, they are under his empire.
Empire is of two kinds, domestic and national, or foreign and provincial.
Domestic empire is founded upon dominion. Dominion is property, real or personal; that is to say, in lands, or in money and goods.
Lands, or the parts and parcels of a territory, are held by the proprietor or proprietors, lord or lords of it, in some proportion; and such (except it be in a city that has little or no land, and whose revenue is in trade) as is the proportion or balance of dominion or property in land, such is the nature of the empire.
If one man be sole landlord of a territory, or overbalance the people, for example, three parts in four, he is grand seignior; for so the Turk is called from his property, and his empire is absolute monarchy.
If the few or a nobility, or a nobility with the clergy, be landlords, or overbalance the people to the like proportion, it makes the Gothic balance (to be shown at large in the second part of this discourse), and the empire is mixed monarchy, as that of Spain, Poland, and late of Oceana.
And if the whole people be landlords, or hold the lands so divided among them that no one man, or number of men, within the compass of the few or aristocracy, overbalance them, the empire (without the interposition of force) is a commonwealth.
If force be interposed in any of these three cases, it must either frame the government to the foundation, or the foundation to the government; or holding the government not according to the balance, it is not natural, but violent; and therefore if it be at the devotion of a prince, it is tyranny; if at the devotion of the few, oligarchy; or if in the power of the people, anarchy: Each of which confusions, the balance standing otherwise, is but of short continuance, because against the nature of the balance, which, not destroyed, destroys that which opposes it.
Show 726 "The Nature of War"
This week President Jefferson discusses war and man’s apparent war-like nature. Included topics are the Barbary pirates, the viewpoint of Thomas Hobbs and others who influenced his thinking, Jefferson's reasoning behind the 1807 embargo and his hopes for the future of human nature.
Of all the subjects President Jefferson is asked to comment on, the meaning of the 2nd amendment is one of the most frequent. This weeks show is devoted entirely to that subject. Jefferson discuses what he believes is the reasoning behind a “well armed people” and why the government must be responsive to the people.
Show 724 "Patriotism"
Noting the 4th of July, the conversation this week is about patriotism during Jefferson's time and in America today. Mister Jefferson reflects on writing the Declaration of Independence and reacts to the thoughts of others about patriotism.
Show 723 "Foreign Affair"
Clay talks about his recent trip to Germany with Fort Mandan Foundation president David Borlaug. The purpose of the trip was research for an upcoming symposium titled: "The Travels of Maximilian and Bodmer". Read more about this in The Bismarck Tribune by clicking here. Clay discusses what he learned about Alexander von Humboldt and Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian of Wied and explains the connections between these men, Jefferson and Lewis and Clark.
Also discussed are the results of the "One Fine Day" show.
The Thomas Jefferson Hour®, your weekly conversation with America’s third President
is brought to you by the New Enlightenment Radio Network, Makoché Recording and Prairie Public Radio.
Thomas Jefferson is portrayed by humanities scholar Clay S. Jenkinson.
Show 807 Flight From Monticello
This week Clay Jenkinson turns the tables on host David Swenson and interviews David about a CD he produced during the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. The CD is titled Lewis and Clark - Sounds of Discovery and is a recreation of the songs and sounds the members of the Corps of Discovery might have heard.
