Clinton Rossiter in his excellent Conservatism in America, argues that the
conservative attraction to Jefferson is politically contrived because
Jefferson didn't share a philosophical grounding with modern ( a la 1955)
conservatism the way John Adams did.  The problem was that Adams was not as
appealing as a intellectual source as Jefferson was.

Only when I attended a lecture by Robert (name?) Brookhiser in CT. did I
realize the solution the conservative movement had adopted.  That solution
was George Washington.  The political uses of GW's family values as well the
light that the evidence of his will sheds on his attitudes towards slavery
and blacks make GW a much more attractive artifact for the more modern
conservative movement.  Instead of Abigail Adams the feminist or Sally
Hemmings one gets quiet, aristocratic Martha Washington.

All of this has practically no bearing on the scholarly studies of the
Founders or their era, but it remains important.

Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Henry Wiencek" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: "common-sense Jeffersonian conservative principles"


> To follow up a bit more on Bland Whitley's post, which raises excellent
> points--Prof. Gordon Wood has long maintained that we spend too much time
> and effort burning incense in front of the Founders rather than in looking
> for solutions to our problems in ourselves and our own time.  He
> criticizes
> our abiding habit of referring back to the Founders.  And of course,
> that's
> exactly what George Allen has just done.  He wants a "Jefferson" pennant
> to
> fly over the camp of VA Republicans.  It's a smart move because Americans
> instinctively like the Founders.  (I do too; and I don't entirely agree
> with
> Prof. Wood.)  Peter Onuf has shown that TJ's thinking on states rights and
> the Union shifted over time and TJ became more of a Unionist (sorry,
> Peter,
> if I'm oversimplifying here), so which TJ did Allen have in mind?
>
> Henry Wiencek
>
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