During a recent preaching effort in the Cayman Islands, we companied with Bro. Alan & Sis. Mary Eyre. While transporting people about, Bro. Alan and I were chatting and he mentioned some information which had come to hand regarding Thomas Jefferson. In our own experience, we have often found leaders lionized in public have a private side which is far short of the public perception. The only leader who does not disappoint in this regard is our Lord Jesus Christ. To illustrate the contrast, we invited Bro. Alan to write up his findings. The result follows.
Much of my Research —religious and environmental — over the years has been conducted in the famous Jefferson Building of the library of Congress in Washington, DC The core collection of the library originally belonged to Jefferson, the great statesman Ironically, the same great institution that honors his memory starkly reveals a dark side of Thomas Jefferson The glaring contradictions between the noble public pronouncements and political promises on the one hand and the denial of them in his private life are a warning to all of us never to minimize the dangers of hypocrisy in our own lives.
The egalitarian, deeply religious principles of the Declaration of Independence, for which Jefferson is famous, are taught at elementary levels of Amen-can history His crusading passion for personal liberty, democracy and private enterprise are basic to the North American culture His depictions of the superiority of the happy farmer’s life-style over that of the frustrated city dweller are well known Jefferson’s ideals have shaped the hopes and aspirations of millions, and drawn millions more to America’s shores as eager migrants — including very many Christadelphians
An early assembly line
The actuality of Jefferson’s own life comes as something of a shock He idealized the family farm In reality, Monticello was the center of a personal estate that finally engulfed more than fifty square miles of Virginia farmland, making Jefferson one of the largest land barons m the United States In his writings, he deplored the dehumanization which results from industrial capitalism Yet long before Henry Ford, Thomas Jefferson established one of the very first assembly line manufacturing plants in the western world, shamelessly exploiting the labor of children as young as ten.
To begin a manufacture of nails, which needs little or no capital, I now employ little boys from 10 to 16 years of age, overlooking all the details of their business myself and drawing from it a profit.
Joseph Ellis, writing in Civilization, the Library of Congress Journal, comments wryly.
There is no evidence that It ever occurred to [Jefferson] that his daily visits to the nail factory, with its blazing forges and sweating black boys arranged along an assembly line of hammers and anvils, offered a graphic preview of precisely the kind of industrial world he devoutly wished America to avoid Every morning except Sunday [when he went diligently to church] he walked over to the nailery, soon after dawn to weigh out the iron for each worker; then returned at dusk to weigh the nails each had made and calculate how much iron had been wasted by the most and least efficient workers.
Private view of equality
The apostle of personal liberty, who in public denounced slavery as morally bankrupt, was recognized by the more perceptive of his own contemporaries as an incorrigible racist A French aristocrat refugee who visited Monticello commented:
The generous and enlightened Mr Jefferson demonstrates a desire to see the negroes emancipated, but adds so many conditions that it is reduced to the impossible He keeps the opinion that the negroes of Virginia can only be emancipated by exporting to a distance the whole of the black race He bases this opinion on the certain danger of seeing blood mixed without means of preventing It.
Thomas Jefferson lived, and died, owning more slaves than almost anyone else m America Beautiful Monticello was built by more than 100 slaves working in appalling conditions The same man who spoke lofty public sentiments on the future of a society where it was “self evident” that all men are free and equal under God wrote also in private “The real distinctions which nature has made will produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of the one or the other race “
Public thrift, private profligacy
The same Thomas Jefferson who publicly praised thrift and prudence as essential to the “pursuit of happiness” and the basis of America’s prosperity and moral leadership was hopelessly in debt almost all his adult life His personal financial extravagance and avarice were the despair of his bankers in London and Glasgow, to whom he never (in his lifetime) paid his enormous loans, and very reluctantly paid even the interest Yet he worked feverishly to build himself at Monticello a mansion worthy of the aristocrat he dreamed of becoming Visitors to lovely Monticello today are rarely told that when Jefferson lived there, it was “part ruin, part shell, and mostly still a dream ” Nevertheless, during his three-year retirement, he was constantly “surrounded by his slaves, digging, tearing and hammering away” driven on by their frenetic master desperately racing against the onrushing certainty of mortality. And he lost. Six months after his death, Monticello and all its possessions, along with “130 valuable negroes,” were put up for auction to pay off his clamoring creditors.
The fact is undeniable: Thomas Jefferson’s own life-style was a hollow mockery of his publicly proclaimed ideals.
How different from the Holy One of God who is our inspiration and example!
A searching exhortation
So what of us? I must admit, Monticello is beautiful — except for the spirit of the man who built it. And, if you can stomach the hypocrisy of it all, Thomas Jefferson’s ideals are, I suppose, “not far from the Kingdom of God.” At least both our brethren Thomas and Roberts thought so, according to some comments in their writings. But whenever I am in the Library of Congress and admire those fine words around the walls, I am haunted by the thought: How could anyone be such a hypocrite? Could it happen to me?
Yes, indeed, what of us? The life style we project is well known. The sermon on the mount explains it all. All four gospels develop it further. Deuteronomy is plain. Our priority is the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Having food and raiment, therewith we are content. Our lives are a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable service. We gladly accept the loss of all things for the Master’s sake. We never forget the “poor and needy.” We are generous to a fault. In our generosity of spirit, we give full measure and running over. We forgive, as we have been forgiven. We are dead to the world and live only for Christ. We have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. Our citizenship is not earthly, but in heaven from whence we look for our Savior. We love his appearing more than anything else in all the world. We love the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves.
And everyone knows that, because we not only love the truth, we live it.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One