Apropos to this current debate over the relative sins/merits of
Jefferson and Washington: what accounts for the central importance
members of this list have placed on the personal character of these
founders? The argument that seems to be developing places Jefferson at
one end of the political and cultural spectrum of Revolutionary-era
Virginia and Washington at the other. Whereas Jefferson becomes the
original sinner, the source of scientific racism, parochial
states-rights ideology, and opportunistic governance, Washington shines
forth as the far-sighted, anti-racist model for a fair-minded republic.
Are there not more complicated, incisive ways of analyzing this
material? Or does the health of our republic and our view of history
depend on knocking down one straw man and elevating another?

I ask these questions not in defense of Jefferson. As most of his recent
biographers have shown, he grows more personally repellant the closer
one gets to him. But the recent campaigns against him seem to adopt an
attitude that America will suddenly be sanitized by expunging his
influence over our political culture. If only we follow in the footsteps
of those with sterling character (like Adams and Washington), the
argument goes, we can finally overcome the knotty contradictions that
bedevil us. Well, sorry, I don't buy it. I may find inspiration in the
leadership and character of Washington and in the words and ideals of
Jefferson (some of them anyway), but it seems folly to reduce our study
of the past to a search for appropriate models.

Washington, as Henry Wiencek has shown, did in some respects transcend
the political culture that produced him, while Jefferson seems to have
been consumed by it, but both ultimately shared more similarities than
differences. Somewhere in there may lie a more fruitful discussion. Or
maybe not.

Bland Whitley

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