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CONCLUSION

Thomas Jefferson: An American Hero

Our examination of historical primary-source documents has clearly demonstrated that the picture of Jefferson’s faith and morals painted by modern critics is definitively wrong. Any point his critics make might initially seem to be irrefutable, but once the rest of the story is told, reality emerges and truth can prevail. Thus, let us review the modern Jefferson lies.

1. DNA evidence has not proved that Jefferson fathered any children outside of his marriage to Martha. His moral reputation was attacked two centuries ago by enemies attempting to besmirch him during a presidential election, but the charges were groundless, not based on any fact. Jefferson, knowing that God knew the truth, regularly appealed to Him as his judge on this issue. He actually longed for the time when the Great Judge would not only clear him of any moral wrongdoing but also prove the accusations false. There is absolutely no historical, factual, or scientific evidence to tarnish the sexual morality of Jefferson. He therefore deserves to be listed alongside John Adams, Benjamin Rush, Roger Sherman, and so many other Founding Fathers whose reputations of moral purity remain untainted to this day.

2. Jefferson enjoyed a thoroughly religious education and was not responsible for instituting secular, religion-free education in any educational endeavor in which he was involved. Because he worked extensively to disestablish a state-approved denomination and to institute denominational nonpreferentialism, he therefore founded America’s first trans- or nondenominational university. He ensured that multiple Christian denominations would be an active part of university life and that Christian instruction and activities would definitely occur on campus.

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3. Jefferson did not write a Bible, not of any kind. He did create two religious works about Jesus that were exactly what he titled them. The first was an abridgment of the New Testament for the use of the Indians and the second was a compilation of the moral teachings of Jesus for his own personal study and meditation. In both he included multiple references to the supernatural and miraculous. Jefferson was a supporter of organizations that widely distributed the Bible. He owned a number of Bibles that he personally used and studied, was a member of the Virginia Bible Society, and financially supported the printing of Bibles. He gave Bibles to younger family members, and the Bible was openly used in institutions he helped start or direct, from Washington’s public schools to the University of Virginia.

4. Jefferson was not a racist who opposed blacks and civil rights but rather was a lifelong unwavering advocate for emancipation. He was largely unsuccessful because of the state of Virginia in which he lived but it was not from a lack of effort or desire on his part. Had his efforts been undertaken in any state north of his own, he likely would be heralded today as one of America’s leading early civil rights advocates. He was regularly praised by subsequent generations for his civil rights efforts and was favorably invoked by numerous civil rights leaders, both black and white. Jefferson referenced religious beliefs and teachings as the basis of his views on emancipation and equality, repeatedly declaring that because God was just, He would eventually bring slavery to an end in America, one way or another.

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5. Jefferson regularly incorporated religious activities into public settings and invoked the “separation of church and state” phrase only to affirm the historic understanding that the government had no authority to stop, inhibit, or regulate public religious expressions. He therefore called for days of prayer, introduced religious bills in the state legislature, signed numerous federal acts promoting religious groups and activities, and facilitated official churches in the US Capitol, Treasury Building, War Office, and Navy Yard. Were Jefferson alive today, he would undoubtedly be one of the loudest voices against a secularized public square.

6. Jefferson did not hate clergy, but he did repeatedly denounce the Period II clergy who participated in the unholy alliance of “kingcraft and priestcraft.” He similarly reprobated American clergy who supported “law religion” that sought the establishment of a particular denomination in a state. Such clergy viewed Jefferson as their enemy (and he, they), but clergy who sought denominational nonpreferentialism were outspoken advocates and supporters of Jefferson. Jefferson praised many clergy, wrote letters of recommendation for them, gave generously to their churches, and recruited them to run for political office. Jefferson was the hero of countless clergy and remained close friends with many of them throughout his long life.

7. Jefferson was not a secularist, deist, or atheist. He never wavered from his belief that God actively intervened in the affairs of men. He thus regularly prayed, believing that God would answer his prayers for his family, his country, the unity of the Christian church, and the end of slavery. And while he always called himself a Christian, he ended his life as a Christian Primitivist, being in personal disagreement with some orthodox theological tenets of Christianity that he had affirmed earlier in life, although still holding fast to many other traditionally sound theological tenets. But notwithstanding his own personal theological difficulties over specific doctrines, there never was a time in his life when Jefferson was not pro-Christian and pro-Christianity.

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On none of these seven points was it difficult to establish truth. Each inquiry was answered by plentiful personal statements directly from Jefferson and those closest to him. Those multiple declarations resoundingly refute the modern lies about his faith and morals.

The reason that an investigation of Jefferson’s faith and morals was even necessary is the deplorable slip in accurate historical knowledge over the past half-century. We briefly touched on the five modern tools of historical malpractice in an earlier chapter:

1. Deconstructionism pours out a steady flow of negatives about traditional heroes, values, and institutions through sniping remarks, belittling criticism, and inaccurate portrayals. It poses “a continuous critique” to “lay low what was once high.”¹ Consequently, even though Jefferson was venerated and honored for generations, today he is regularly attacked, belittled, and dismissed with pejorative epithets such as “rapist,” “deadbeat dad,” “vindictive racist,” “slave-owning, serial slave, sex addict,” and more.

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2. Poststructuralism rejects absolutes such as God or truth, instead asserting that each individual must interpret history for himself, basing its meanings on one’s personal views rather than on objective standards. It encourages individual anarchy against traditional, national, unifying values and institutions, and citizens are made to be part of interest groups rather than allowed to stand individally. Hence, Jefferson is examined as an individual only in order to identify the group into which he should be placed, whether it is that of racists, Enlightenment writers, secularists, immoral slaveholders, Freethinkers, or any other.

3. Modernism examines historical incidents and persons as if they lived today rather than in the past, thereby separating history from its context and producing many flawed conclusions. Because it is certain that no state university today would include religious activities and classes for all its students, then it must have also been that way then, and so Jefferson’s views on education were definitely antireligious. Because religious expressions today must be separated from the public square, it must have been that way two centuries ago, and so Jefferson was clearly a secularist. Because clergy today do not attack candidates from the pulpit as was done then, Jefferson’s comments about the specific clergy who lied about him clearly indicate that he hated all clergy. Such are the suppositions of Modernism.

4. Minimalism unreasonably insists on oversimplicity and reducing everything to easy answers that don’t require thinking or analysis, condensing complex situations into one-line characterizations and squeezing historical individuals into preconceived, preshaped molds they do not fit. Since Jefferson made some comments late in life rejecting specific tenets of Christianity, he is therefore deemed a lifelong atheist, so there is no need to investigate any of the complicated spiritual cycles through which he traveled or even to take note of the adverse effects of Christian Primitivism and Restorationism upon him. These are simply dismissed out of hand because they are too complex for popular consideration.

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5. Academic Collectivism relies on the claims of “experts” rather than original documents as the standard for truth. It advances an incestuous system of peer review as the measurement for whether a historical fact is accurate or errant. Thus, modern professors quote each other in their declarations that the University of Virginia was secular and had no chaplain, that Jefferson hired only Unitarians to be its instructional staff, that Jefferson penned the first Amendment, and so forth, when in reality Jefferson’s own writings, documents of the university, and the testimony of original professors prove exactly the opposite.

The countless errors resulting from these five historical malpractices have so thoroughly infused modern textbooks, the Web, and popular knowledge that it has now become difficult for the average citizen to even discern when history is being misrepresented. But recognition is the first step to avoidance; that is, once one knows what the five tools are, it becomes much easier to spot them and avoid being caught in their errors.

Because early detection helps defeat an enemy, recognition training has always been a regular part of military preparation. For this reason, GIs in World War II were regularly grilled and tested on the identification of Axis tanks and planes so that they would be able to quickly spot and destroy enemy forces. Similarly, the reason animals are caught in traps is that they don’t recognize the snare into which they have stepped; once a beaver, wild hog, or any other animal learns to recognize the device, it is no longer effective. This is why 2 Corinthians 2:11 reminds us that if we can identify Satan’s traps, then he won’t have an advantage over us.

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This same principle should guide our approach to the study of history: recognize and avoid the traps of historical malpractice. But once you recognize a trap, there is more. It is not enough simply to personally avoid the trap; it must also be exposed and removed so that others will not be injured. Thus, when a soldier discovers an IED, minefield, RPG, or weapons cache, he takes steps to neutralize and remove the danger so that no one else will be harmed by inadvertently stumbling into it.

The best means for overcoming the five modern historical traps is given in Romans 12:21, which instructs us to defeat the evil with the good—that is, not just to avoid evil ourselves but also to apply its antithesis, or its antidote, to neutralize the effect of its poison. For example, praise prevails over criticism, light over darkness, gentleness over anger, humility over arrogance, and so on. So what is the antithesis for each of the five poisons so often injected into American history today?

The effects and influences of Deconstructionism can be avoided by training oneself to search out the rest of the story and discover if there is a second view or whether there are positive aspects of the account that were omitted from the original portrayal. Of course, the negatives will always be easy to find, just as they were in Numbers 13 and 14 when ten of twelve leaders went into a land filled with milk and honey but came back talking only about its giants and problems. Joshua and Caleb demonstrated in that story that while the negatives are indeed present and cannot be ignored, the positives must also be pointed out: it was a vast, abundant, verdant land of prosperity and plenty just waiting to be entered. Identifying the negatives comes naturally; acknowledging the positives takes deliberate effort.

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Thomas Jefferson understood this and therefore refused to let negatives prevail in his conversations. His grandson recalled learning this lesson directly from Jefferson.

He [my grandfather] spoke only of the good qualities of men, which induced the belief that he knew little of them; but no one knew them better. I had formed this opinion, and on hearing him speak very favorably of men with defects known to myself, [I] stated them to him; when he asked if I supposed he had not observed them (adding others not noted by me, and evincing [demonstrating] much more accurate knowledge of the individual character than I possessed), observing, “My habit is to speak only of men’s good qualities.”²

Especially in today’s Deconstructionist-dominated environment, it will always be easy to find (or concoct) negatives about any historical figure, but it will require deliberate effort to identify the positives that have been omitted. And omission is one of the most egregious but most effective tools of revisionists.

This point was brilliantly made by Dr. Paul C. Vitz, a professor at New York University. He was contracted to review history textbooks through a grant from the Department of Education and after examining those texts, he concluded:

Over and over, we have seen that liberal and secular bias is primarily accomplished by exclusion, by leaving out the opposing position. Such a bias is much harder to observe than a positive vilification or direct criticism, but it is the essence of censorship.³

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In fact, he observed a strikingly aggressive secularist tendency among those texts:

And the facts are clear: religion, especially Christianity, has played and continues to play a central role in American life. To neglect to report this is simply to fail to carry out the major duty of any textbook writer—the duty to tell the truth.⁴

It is indeed the duty of those who present history to tell the truth—to tell the whole truth, not just a part of it. As John Adams explained:

[T]ruth and right are invariably the same in all times and in all places. . . . But passion, prejudice, interest, custom, and fancy are infinitely precarious [unstable]; if therefore we suffer our understandings to be blinded or perverted by any of these . . . we shall embrace errors.⁵

Very simply, when we don’t tell the whole truth but are “blinded or perverted” by passion or bias, then “we shall embrace errors.”

One of the best ways to find the complete story about an individual is not through a sterile academic study whereby one slice out of a complex historical life is extracted and analyzed under a modern microscope. Rather, the best means is by examining the full life, events, and writings of an individual.

In the case of Thomas Jefferson, one of the easiest ways to check his complete story is to read some of the earlier biographies about him, such as the 1858 three-volume set by Henry Stephens Randall. Even today, this work is still considered the most authoritative ever written on Jefferson, for Randall was the only biographer approved by the family and given full access to the family papers, records, family members, and family remembrances. Many other early biographies of Jefferson are also worth the read⁶ and are usually available for reading online or downloading, as is Randall’s work.⁷

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In short, an antidote for Deconstructionism is to get the full story, especially the part that includes the good things. Lady Margaret Thatcher once wisely repeated the words of a great educator on this point.

Teach them [children] everything that is best in life—teach them all the good things our country has done—and you will find we shall get a very much better education.⁸ (emphasis added)

The remedy for the second device, Poststructuralism, is (1) to acknowledge individuality—to examine the person himself rather than the various groups and agents to which others are trying to attach him and (2) to recognize and acknowledge fixed and absolute overarching transcendent principles. For example, citizens are entitled to enjoy their God-given inalienable rights (as specified in the Bill of Rights) not because they belong to any particular group but rather because they are individual human beings. Someone does not receive the right of habeas corpus or religious expression or self-protection because he or she belongs to the majority or the minority, is black or Latino, is male or young. Rather, it is because those rights are bestowed on every individual by our Creator. Recognizing individuality is the approach that God takes: everyone is accountable to God individually rather than as part of some group; God provides salvation to individuals not groups. So, too, good history focuses on an examination of the individual and not just his group.

And because Poststructuralism also encourages personal interpretation of history based on how one “feels” about the person or event, individual feelings must be set aside in the quest for truth. It really doesn’t matter how someone “feels” about Jefferson or whether or not they like him; what matters are facts and truth. As James Madison affirmed, “For what is the object of our discussion? Truth, sir—to draw a true and just conclusion.”⁹

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Personal feelings must be subjugated to objective truth. Either Jefferson did or did not promote emancipation, did or did not encourage public religious expressions, did or did not include religion in education, regardless of whether someone agrees or disagrees with him on those issues. Truth is transcendent and immutable, not individually constructed and interpreted. Therefore, in order to overcome Poststructuralism, make the quest for objective truth the highest goal. Realize, too, that achieving this goal will always require hard work and deliberate, even aggressive, effort rather than just sitting back and complacently accepting whatever is set before us.

Jefferson expressed this truth when he declared, “If a nation expects to be ignorant, and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”¹⁰ You can have truth and security; or you can have an unworried oblivious ease; but you cannot have both at the same time.

The antidote to Modernism is to learn about and understand the past, not just the present. Unfortunately, this is becoming difficult for two reasons. The first is a growing lack of knowledge about even the most basic facts of American history among those who have been educated in our governmental school system. For example, for citizens who have been trained with our current educational methods:

• 65 percent do not know what happened at the Constitutional Convention.

• 88 percent cannot name even one writer of the Federalist Papers.

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• 40 percent cannot name an American enemy during World War II.

• 81 percent cannot name even one of the federal government’s powers.

• 70 percent do not know that the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land.¹¹

Because our educational system now graduates students lacking even minimal proficiency of the simplest facts, whatever extravagant charges Modernists may make about Jefferson or any other historical figure or event seem plausible. The general public is simply no longer knowledgeable enough about history to recognize the claims as false. Regrettably, much of this growing historical illiteracy is actually a direct result of current education laws.

For example, federal laws such as “No Child Left Behind” require student accountability testing in order for schools to secure federal funds, but that testing covers reading, math, and science, not history. Most schools instruct their teachers to focus on teaching students the subject matter covered in the testing, whether mandated by state or federal law. History is rarely a part of that focus, so it receives minimal attention.

The second impediment to historical literacy is evolution, which is not simply a science controversy but rather a philosophy-of-life debate. Even attorney Clarence Darrow, who argued the case for evolution in the famous 1925 Scopes trial,¹² acknowledged that he was arguing it as “a death struggle between two civilizations.”¹³

When evolutionary belief is applied to law, it results in the “living Constitution,” asserting that what was written two centuries ago is not applicable today and that judges must allow the Constitution to evolve to meet today’s needs. Constitutional history, therefore, becomes irrelevant, and has largely been dropped from legal studies in most law schools.

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When evolutionary belief is applied to education, it results in the constant seeking of new methodologies of instruction, even if the old ones still work well. Consequently, traditional “old” math instruction that involves memorizing the math tables is discarded and replaced with “new” math. Of this, a US senator correctly observed:

This new-new mush-mush math will never produce quality engineers or mathematicians who can compete for jobs in the global market place. In Palo Alto, California, public school math students plummeted from the 86th percentile to the 56th in the first year of new math teaching. This awful textbook obviously fails to do in 812 pages what comparable Japanese textbooks do so well in 200. The average standardized math score in Japan is 80. In the United States it is 52.¹⁴

Similarly, on the grounds that old methods of teaching English are boring and need to be evolved, diagramming sentences and traditional grammar instruction was dropped several years ago. But now only one-fourth of students can write at a proficient level, and only 1 percent can write at an advanced level.¹⁵

Since evolution seeks to leave the past behind and move forward to something new, the academic study of history is the most severely impacted by this philosophy. After all, since evolution states that man is ever progressing, then what is in the past is of little relevance today. The study of history is therefore a complete waste of time.

Embracing this evolutionary approach to history, several states have adopted what is now termed the Twentieth-Century Model, requiring high school students to learn only that which happened from 1900 forward and sometimes back to 1877 (from Reconstruction forward).¹⁶

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It would seem that high school students—young adults on the verge of entering active national citizenship—should study the Founding Fathers, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights along with responsible civics and participatory constitutional government. But in most states, these specific topics are covered in fifth-grade history; and what eleven-year-old really cares about habeas corpus, trial by jury, the rights of conscience, judicial tyranny, or taxation without representation? Fifth graders don’t, but high schoolers should. Yet we teach this material to fifth graders and not high schoolers.

But early American history is not only de-emphasized in high school, but also among post-graduate institutions. According to the US News and World Report, none—not one—of the fifty-five elite colleges and universities they ranked requires any course in American history for graduation,¹⁷ and none of the top fifty even requires a course in Western history.¹⁸ Since all that matters today is who we are now rather than who we were then, history courses have been replaced with modern culture courses.

But for the more than 80 percent of Americans who believe that God made man,¹⁹ there is still much that can be learned from history. In fact, God Himself insists that we study history, admonishing us to “remember the former things of old” (Isaiah 46:9) and “call to remembrance the former days” (Hebrews 10:32 KJV). As the Apostle Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 10, history provides lessons and illustrates principles that we can still apply today (see also Romans 15:4). But with so many Americans having been separated from even a rudimentary knowledge of their own history and its simplest facts, Modernism now has far too significant an influence.

One of the best ways to overcome Modernism is similar to the antidote for Deconstructionism: biographical history. Study history through the eyes of those who made it. For generations we examined the American Revolution by reading biographies of Paul Revere and George Washington; we studied the Civil War by reading the life and struggles of Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman; we learned the progress of science by reading about the tireless efforts of George Washington Carver and Thomas Edison. This long-established custom of learning history by studying the lives of its heroes has fallen into disfavor over the past half-century, but it is this practice that best overcomes Modernism, for it helps us understand what it was like to walk in another’s moccasins and thus understand their times and circumstances. Fortunately, many early biographies are still readily available today and can be downloaded, printed, or read online through sites such as Google Books, Gutenberg, PageByPageBooks, Monergism, ReadPrint, Archive, and others.²⁰

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In my personal experience, I have found that biographies written before 1900 tend to present the most honest and accurate view of the good, the bad, and the ugly about the individuals they cover. Older books generally have not been infected with our modern agendas and therefore more accurately acquaint us with the period, customs, facts, and circumstances of that particular time. I place about a 75 percent confidence in biographies printed from 1900 to 1920 since various historical agendas were beginning to emerge at that time. I place only about a 50 percent reliance on biographies from 1920 to 1950 and less than a 20 percent reliance on those from the 1960s forward. Generally, the newer the book, the more likely it has been infected with the five modern malpractices. Exceptions to this trend are books that have an abundance of primary source documentary citations, such as those by David McCullough, Dumas Malone, Daniel Dreisbach, James Hutson, and others.

In short, to overcome Modernism, develop a broader, macro knowledge of historical persons, events, customs, and beliefs rather than just the modern micro view.

The remedy for the fourth malpractice, Minimalism, is to establish context. Because human nature always has and always will prefer things to be simple, the tendency toward Minimalism is definitely not a new problem. In fact, it has been a trap to be avoided by Christians for the past two millennia. Its solution was long ago set forth by the Apostle Paul when he stated that he “did not shrink from declaring . . . the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) rather than just picking and choosing items that interested him. He similarly admonished those following in his steps to “rightly divid[e] the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV)—that is, to look at the complete picture and then make an accurate analysis.

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Those recommendations from Paul about how to avoid theological problems are exactly the same for avoiding historical ones. Get the entire context of what is being said; don’t separate something from its historical setting. Thus, when a line is lifted from a letter—such as Jefferson’s “separation of church and state” or “question with boldness even the existence of a god” phrase—go back and read the whole letter. And when a word or phrase that you don’t understand appears in a quote, look it up so that you can grasp its meaning and thus understand its context.

The solution for Academic Collectivism is to personally investigate, study, and search out information rather than just accept what the “experts” claim. Become like a jury member of old; get all the evidence, listen to both sides, and reach an independent conclusion warranted by the facts.

The Apostle Paul especially endorsed this approach. He made three extended journeys that carried him from one end of the known world to the other. Having personally seen countless cultures and peoples, he identified those from Berea as being the most noble. He particularly praised them because they did not believe what he told them until they had personally investigated and confirmed it for themselves. Frankly, they were not impressed by the fact that he was an Apostle or that he had been commissioned by Jesus Himself on the road to Damascus. Instead they “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11 NIV). It is truth that matters, not one’s credentials. Therefore, insist on checking primary sources.

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Consider the work In Search of Christian America.²¹ Three academics purported to investigate whether the American Founding, defined as the period from 1760 to 1805, was Christian. They concluded that it was not. On what historical basis did they reach this conclusion? Strikingly, 88 percent of the “historical sources” on which they relied to reach their conclusion were published after 1900 and 80 percent were published after 1950. When a book examining the period from 1760 to 1805 does so by analyzing sources printed two centuries afterward, an errant conclusion is not surprising. But this is a common practice in Academic Collectivism: regurgitate what other modern “experts” have said rather than check the original sources. The solution for this problem is to investigate and check the sources for ourselves. As Thomas Paine long ago affirmed, “[I]nvestigation always serves to detect error and to bring forth truth.”²²

By practicing these remedies, the five traps of modern historical malpractice can be avoided. Learning accurate history should be our objective.

By the way, history was defined in America’s original dictionary (1828) as “an account of facts” and “a narration of events in the order in which they happened, with their causes and effect.”²³ All five modern historical devices fail to meet important parts of this definition.

Deconstructionists avoid telling about “events” in the way “they happened,” preferring instead to selectively pick out a few things in order to construct a negative image. Poststructuralists avoid “an account of facts,” believing instead that history is subjective and must therefore be individually interpreted based on the way one feels about what happened. Modernists and Minimalists both sidestep “causes and effects,” one by avoiding context and the other by dismissing because examining them “causes and effects” would make things too complicated. And Academic Collectivists avoid “a narration of events,” preferring instead to narrate only what other so-called “experts” have said about those events.

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To ensure that justice is done in the portrayal of historical events and persons such as Thomas Jefferson, we must reestablish the traditional examination of history free from agendas. Since the practice of biographical history contributes so much to an accurate portrayal of historical fact, it is worth closing this work with some glimpses into the personal life of Jefferson, showing something of his heart, faith, and character.

Jefferson was one of the rare men who became a hero in his own lifetime, yet unlike many others who attained that distinction, he always remained humble and unpretentious, living and acting as the common person for whom he had sacrificed so much. As a result, people would often converse with him without recognizing who he was. Jefferson’s granddaughter related such an account:

On one occasion while traveling, he stopped at a country inn. A stranger who did not know who he was entered into conversation with this plainly-dressed and unassuming traveler. He [the stranger] introduced one subject after another into the conversation, and found him perfectly acquainted with each. Filled with wonder, he seized the first opportunity to inquire of the landlord who his guest was, saying that when he spoke of the law, he thought he was a lawyer; then turning the conversation on medicine, felt sure he was a physician; but having touched on theology, he became convinced he was a clergyman. “Oh,” replied the landlord, “why I thought you knew the Squire.” The stranger was then astonished to hear that the traveler whom he had found so affable and simple in his manners was Jefferson.²⁴

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On another occasion Jefferson was going from Washington back home to Charlottesville, riding on horseback in company with others. As they approached a stream that had no bridge, they saw a traveler on foot standing and waiting at the edge of the stream, hoping to hitch a ride across. He silently watched the others pass and ford the stream, but upon seeing Jefferson (and not knowing who he was) he stopped him and asked if he could mount behind him and ride to the other side. Jefferson graciously agreed, and after putting the traveler down across the stream, he rode on to catch up with the rest of his party. A man who had witnessed the scene approached the traveler and asked why he had not asked any of the others to carry him across the stream. The traveler replied, “From their looks, I did not like to ask them; the old gentleman looked as if he would do it, and I asked him.”²⁵ He was shocked to learn that the man who had carried him across the stream had been the president of the United States, but such was the character of Jefferson. Whenever he had the opportunity to help others or show kindness, he did so. This fact was further attested in his account books by the frequent charity he bestowed, often secretly, on those he saw in need, regardless of where or when he saw them.

Jefferson was not only unassuming and humble but he was also good-natured, and his manners never deserted him—even to those who opposed him. For example, on one occasion while returning on horseback to Washington, he greeted a passing pedestrian. The stranger did not recognize President Jefferson, but the two began a friendly conversation that soon turned to politics. The man began to attack and deride the president, even repeating several of the lies that had been spread about him. Jefferson was amused, and “he asked the man if he knew the President personally? ‘No,’ was the reply, ‘nor do I wish to.’ ‘But do you think it fair,’ asked Jefferson, ‘to repeat such stories about a man and condemn one you dare not face?’ ‘I will never shrink from meeting Mr. Jefferson should he ever come in my way’ replied the stranger.”²⁶

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Jefferson then promised him that if he would come to the White House at a certain time the next day, that he would personally introduce him to the president. The next day the stranger appeared for the meeting and was taken to meet President Jefferson. The man was immediately embarrassed and began to apologize, but Jefferson, with a grin on his face, laughed off the apology and extended his hand in welcome greeting. The two then spent several hours in delightful conversation, and when the man rose to depart, Jefferson prevailed on him to stay for dinner.²⁷

Jefferson was truly an amiable, polite, and pleasant individual. He also maintained a lifelong passion for accuracy and truth that was apparent on many occasions, including while serving America overseas in France. On one occasion he engaged in a discussion with the famous French naturalist Georges Comte de Buffon, who had penned a massive thirty-six-volume encyclopedia on natural history. Jefferson, himself a noted naturalist, had examined that enormous work and found inaccuracies relating to some American animals, specifically the American moose. He pointed these mistakes out to Buffon, who disagreed. Jefferson then secretly wrote his old friend General John Sullivan, then serving as the governor of New Hampshire, and asked him to send a moose skeleton. The general was surprised by the request but arranged a hunting party, bagged a moose, and sent its frame to Jefferson in Paris. Jefferson then arranged for a dinner with Buffon and during the meal produced the moose skeleton.

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Buffon immediately acknowledged his error and expressed his great admiration for Mr. Jefferson’s energetic determination to establish the truth. “I should have consulted you, monsieur,” he said with usual French civility, “before publishing my book on natural history, and then I should have been sure of my facts.”²⁸

Although a famous public figure, Jefferson loved and cherished his private life, especially time with his family. He had lost so many of his own precious children, and according to his grandson Thomas, he loved his grandchildren as if they were “the younger members of his family.”²⁹ Jefferson’s granddaughter Ellen recalled of her grandfather:

From him seemed to flow all the pleasures of my life. To him I owed all the small blessings and joyful surprises of my childish and girlish years. . . . When about fifteen years old, I began to think of a watch, but knew the state of my father’s finances promised no such indulgence. . . . [But my grandfather gave me] an elegant lady’s watch with chain and seals, [which] was in my hand, which trembled for very joy. My Bible came from him, my Shakespeare, my first writing-table, my first handsome writing-desk, my first Leghorn hat [a fancy hat adorned with ribbons], my first silk dress. What, in short, of all my small treasures did not come from him? . . . Our grandfather seemed to read our hearts, to see our invisible wishes, to be our good genie to wave the fairy wand to brighten our young lives by his goodness and his gifts.³⁰

But Thomas did not spoil his grandchildren with his generous gifts; he also trained them and shaped their character, just as he had with his own children. Ellen recalled:

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He reproved without wounding us, and commended without making us vain. He took pains to correct our errors and false ideas, checked the bold, encouraged the timid, and tried to teach us to reason soundly and feel rightly. Our smaller follies he treated with good-humored raillery [teasing], our graver ones with kind and serious admonition. He was watchful over our manners, and called our attention to every violation of propriety [politeness and decorum].³¹

Jefferson’s grandson, Thomas, affirmed that his grandfather was “soft and feminine in his affections to his family; he entered into and sympathized with all their feelings, winning them to paths of virtue by the soothing gentleness of his manner.”³²

Jefferson also had a genuine sense of humor and would offer tongue-in-cheek comments that his grandchildren described as playful or “sportive.”³³ Some targets for humor never seem to change, such as lawyers and doctors, and according to one of the original professors at the University of Virginia, Jefferson joked openly about doctors:

[H]e would speak jocularly [jokingly], especially to the unprofessional, of medical practice; and on one occasion . . . [i]n the presence of Dr. Everett . . . he remarked that whenever he saw three physicians together, he looked up to discover whether there was not a turkey-buzzard in the neighborhood. The annoyance of the doctor, I am told, was manifest.³⁴

Jefferson was truly a remarkable man. He had some faults, probably much fewer than many other great leaders, but he had numerous virtues worthy of study and emulation. He was unquestionably used as an instrument of God, and all races and generations of Americans—especially God-loving Americans—have benefited from the blessings he helped secure for this nation and its posterity.

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What was once said about George Washington by President Calvin Coolidge can equally be said of Thomas Jefferson:

We cannot yet estimate him. We can only indicate our reverence for him and thank the Divine Providence which sent him to serve and inspire his fellow men.³⁵