It would seem that one can always count on the Bible and TJ to supply an apt
quotation in support of any position:
"The devil can quote Scripture for his purpose."
Merchant of Venice, 1, iii
And Shakespeare could be a third name on that list.
=======================================================
Charles L. Dibble
Post Office Drawer 1240
Columbia, South Carolina 29202-1240
email: [log in to unmask]
=======================================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jurretta Heckscher
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 12:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "common-sense Jeffersonian conservative principles"
I believe it does, though I have not yet read it, either--and of course
Professor Finkelman himself has written widely on the subject.
I can't speak for others, but I am not sure that many historians on
this list or elsewhere would consider Sen. Allen's bid to invoke
"common-sense Jeffersonian conservative principles" a wise or plausible
enterprise, however much it participates of a perennial temptation in
American politics. Some years ago Alf Mapp Jr. published a biography
of Jefferson that attempted, at its close, to determine whether
Jefferson was fundamentally "liberal" or "conservative" in the terms by
which we think of those positions today. It does no injustice to what
may well be the other strengths of Mapp's study--I have not read more
of it than that one portion--to say that his attempt was unpersuasive
and has not had any appreciable influence on subsequent scholarly
discourse.
Better to say, as others have wisely done and Mr. Wiencek reminds us,
that Jefferson wrote so much, for so long, and in so many different
circumstances that like the proof-texts of the Bible his words can be
quoted on almost any side of any contemporary issue.
And better, perhaps, to direct Sen. Allen to one principle which
Jefferson proclaimed throughout his life: that the past should not be
taken as a limit on the present or the future. "[W]e might as well
require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as
civilised society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous
ancestors" (TJ to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, page 7;
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?
collId=mtj1&fileName=mtj1page049.db&recNum=260 ).
--Jurretta Heckscher
On Dec 5, 2005, at 8:44 AM, John Maass wrote:
> "I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel
> myself infinitely the happier for it."
> Thomas Jefferson
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