Rethink.

Thomas Jefferson’s tombstone | Jefferson’s epitaph and tombstone design – original

A friend asked about the linkage between American government and education: the United States is an Enlightenment country certainly, and we definitely make claims to be a meritocracy. But as any reader of this blog knows, Enlightenment came at the expense of ancient and medieval thought, and the sciences in an almost wholly practical sense can be advanced by commercialism. It isn’t clear that we should have schools, and in fact, education in the law itself – knowledge of how republicanism itself is supposed to work – is left an almost private matter. The structure of our government and the political science it rests on are products of Enlightenment; but what of actually trying to make an enlightened people?

Jefferson’s thought depends on an implicit linkage between freedom and knowledge, with a sentiment not unlike that we get from some more obnoxious atheists today (Jefferson’s phrase: “monkish ignorance”). His epitaph, in its simplicity, accentuates the positive part of this linkage:

Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independence
of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom
& Father of the University of Virginia

Right away, you can see that “Author” and “Father” are different roles, two different types of creation. An author looks to be a creator whose work is fixed and final; America declared independence, Virginia established religious freedom. A Father creates also, but there is nothing fixed or final about that enterprise. There’s a progression in the list – we move from declaring independence, to establishing our own law for freedom’s sake, to exploring and perhaps knowledge itself: the New World is perpetually new. Both freedom and knowledge are universal in that they benefit all men, and that is maybe how “Author” and “Father” complement each other: nowadays, we only think of right negatively, what government doesn’t restrict. A “right” for us involves the right to become an alcoholic or curse loudly at public officials. But the truth is that one is only free inasmuch as one can act with knowledge: if you act without knowledge, you usually find some way of hurting yourself only, and it isn’t clear that you have exercised freedom as much as found restraint. “American Independence” and “religious freedom” in Virginia are by themselves pointing to universality, but it looks like “university” is most emphatic on that matter.

I googled Mr. Ludlow several times, but didn’t find anything particularly relevant. If anyone has any information pertinent to these reflections, paste links or references in the comments. The letter below is from here:

Sir -

The idea which you present in your letter of July 30th, of the progress of society from its rudest state to that it has now attained, seems conformable to what may be probably conjectured. Indeed, we have under our eyes tolerable proofs of it. Let a philosophic observer commence a journey from the savages of the Rocky Mountains, eastwardly towards our sea-coast. These he would observe in the earliest stage of association living under no law but that of nature, subscribing and covering themselves with the flesh and skins of wild beasts. He would next find those on our frontiers in the pastoral state, raising domestic animals to supply the defects of hunting. Then succeed our own semi-barbarous citizens, the pioneers of the advance of civilization, and so in his progress he would meet the gradual shades of improving man until he would reach his, as yet, most improved state in our seaport towns. This, in fact, is equivalent to a survey, in time, of the progress of man from the infancy of creation to the present day. I am eighty-one years of age, born where I now live, in the first range of mountains in the interior of our country. And I have observed this march of civilization advancing from the sea coast, passing over us like a cloud of light, increasing our knowledge and improving our condition, insomuch as that we are at this time more advanced in civilization here than the seaports were when I was a boy. And where this progress will stop no one can say. Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth. You seem to think that this advance has brought on too complicated a state of society, and that we should gain in happiness by treading back our steps a little way. I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it. Your experiment seems to have this in view. A society of seventy families, the number you name, may very possibly be governed as a single family, subsisting on their common industry, and holding all things in common. Some regulators of the family you still must have, and it remains to be seen at what period of your increasing population your simple regulations will cease to be sufficient to preserve order, peace, and justice. The experiment is interesting; I shall not live to see its issue, but I wish it success equal to your hopes, and to yourself and society prosperity and happiness.

My guess – and it is only a guess – is that Jefferson’s later letters have to be read with an eye to their immediate audience. I want to use the above to argue that Jefferson is providing the rudiments of a gentlemanly response to what would be some sort of extremist nowadays, either right-wing (certain homeschoolers) or left-wing (unschoolers, as they like to call themselves). I am going to have to read too much into this letter to make that case, but hey, I’ve got time. Take a look at the end of the first sentence:

…the progress of society from its rudest state to that it has now attained, seems conformable to what may be probably conjectured.

I’ve italicized “may,” “probably” and “conjectured” for an obvious reason: does Jefferson actually believe man progresses in the stages he sets forth? “Tolerable” isn’t a vote of confidence in a “proof,” I don’t think [Jefferson would know a lot about more about the vocabulary of proof than I do, I concede this isn't the greatest argument of mine]. Still, Jefferson doesn’t say what he puts forth about savages, the pastoral, “our semi-barbarous citizens” and “the most improved state” of man is “self-evident,” not at all. We note that the “most improved state” is closest to Europe! See Jefferson’s Travel Notes for Messrs. Rutledge and Shippen to see why I’m very skeptical about Jefferson’s invocation of an “improved state,” and if you don’t want to look that far, keep looking in the letter. Jefferson places himself in the “interior” of the country, in mountainous terrain; one wonders where the animals that were killed and tamed have disappeared: are they now more prominent within man himself?

Somewhat of the same tension that is in Rousseau’s First Discourse is at work here; man’s more savage self under the law of nature, as bold and admirable as it is, cannot be divorced from “civilization.” Things are a bit ambiguous here too – “cloud of light?” Not light parting clouds? The “cloud” is responsible for “increasing our knowledge and improving our condition,” and it has improved everything, including the mountainous terrain Jefferson says he was born upon. I think the key to this part of the letter is that early Rousseau – and an earlier Jefferson – cite individuals they admire, Francis Bacon and Issac Newton for example, as advancing knowledge. Here, Jefferson has kept the individuals from being named, and given what Ludlow wants to do – start his own tribe [perhaps with its own compound at Waco and a radio show and a heck of a lot of guns] – I think we can understand why Jefferson is giving agency to the “cloud” as opposed to any particular person or group.

Jefferson is truly a gentleman in this letter:

Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth. You seem to think that this advance has brought on too complicated a state of society, and that we should gain in happiness by treading back our steps a little way. I think, myself, that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. I believe it might be much simplified to the relief of those who maintain it. Your experiment seems to have this in view.

Jefferson cites gentleness – “the steady step of amelioration” – as the reason why barbarism has declined. He then cites common ground with Ludlow: people should work and not leech off of others, government should be a bit simpler. But that common ground is a bit misleading; Ludlow’s experiment is conceived entirely in terms of “family,” or “tribe” – I’m sure Jefferson knew Aristotle’s Politics, Book 1, when writing -

…it remains to be seen at what period of your increasing population your simple regulations will cease to be sufficient to preserve order, peace, and justice.

Leo Paul de Alvarez has argued that in Aristotle, the family is necessary for political society (polis), but the polis is in a sense prior to nearly everything: it is the association that aims at the fundamental human good, happiness. In other words: if you try to cut government out of the equation when conceiving of the family, you end up with a family that is nothing but a straight-up tyranny. Don’t ask how many times I’ve seen this personally in my own life: try dating girls that have those sorts of parents.

Anyway, I don’t think I need to express my cynicism about “success equal to your hopes:” it’s a way of saying “you deserve whatever you get,” but I don’t think Jefferson means badly in saying this – you can wish someone “prosperity and happiness” even while being a bit miffed at what they are ultimately aiming for. One thing Jefferson, as a child of the Enlightenment, is pretty sure about is that people need to explicitly accept Enlightenment and progress, otherwise they could be aiming for “monkish ignorance” (his phrase, not mine). And if I were Jefferson, and I was hearing about this retreat from civic affairs when the country is so young, I probably would have thrown fire-irons at a servant or something. What exactly did we go through a war for, and sign that Declaration thingy? So that way everyone could go “government sucks” at any old time and live out in the middle of nowhere?

Again, if I’m right, Jefferson’s being a gentleman. Early on when I was blogging, someone who was pretty knowledgeable and very kind called me a philosopher. If I want to take that compliment seriously – it was meant as high praise – I have to say this: I’m no gentleman; I don’t have to be anywhere as nice to the radicals I’m dealing with now. It’s their job to show all of us they appreciate what we’ve got, and aren’t just a bunch of ungrateful, whiny babies.

Letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Paris September 6, 1789

I think we can see a more radical Jefferson in this letter, one who may have changed in some ways after holding the Presidency, but I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that this letter has a few strange elements I can’t quite put together, and there are many teachers of mine and teachers of my teachers who know how to navigate this far better. Leo Paul de Alvarez used to cite this letter frequently for the sake of contrast with classical thought.

Outline of the letter:

Paragraph 1. Jefferson doesn’t know “by what occasion” this letter came about, although he spends significant portions of it speaking of France, what changes he might like to see there, and matters of property. What is curious about this letter is that it sounds like political theory, but the word “practical” occurs everywhere. “Practicable” is a word which occurs in this paragraph, and seems to have set a standard which brought this letter forth.

Paragraph 2. Jefferson proclaims “Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another” is a question that has “never…been started either on this or our side of the water.” He does not dwell on why this might be the case, i.e. that using language means using an inheritance from the past that binds us in critical ways (cf. Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking”), or that laws must be thought greater than us to be obeyed. He rather claims he can prove “no such obligation can be so transmitted.” His “self-evident” ground is “that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living,” and he begins making this evident by literally talking about the earth, or more precisely, the distribution of land after an individual has passed away:

“…The child, the legatee, or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to which they are subject. Then no man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him.  For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be the reverse of our principle.”

Paragraph 3. Jefferson declares “What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.” He then starts talking about an ideal generation, one that is born on the same day and dies on the same day, and asserts that when a whole generation dies, a whole society dies.

Paragraph 4.  There is no substantial difference between this “ideal generation” and generations as they occur now. We can use empirical data to track roughly when one generation was born and died, and we arrive at 19 yrs. as the “term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly extend a debt.”

Paragraph 5. It would have been possible for Louis XIV to go into debt so much that the whole of France could have been ceded to creditors in Genoa. Our “self-evident” principle about the earth belonging to the living, along with the expiration of debts every 19 years, allows us to say the French should not be kicked off their land, even with that amount of debt.

Paragraph 6. Our 19 year term makes it clear what one generation is doing to another when they rack up debt – they’re making the future literally pay.

Paragraph 7. “The law of nature” means “one generation is to another as one independent nation to another.” There is no moral obligation to take on the debts of one’s ancestry.

Paragraph 8. France’s national debt has an interest small enough that the payment of the debt is “practicable enough.” But since we’re talking about debts – contracts – wouldn’t the 19 yr. term, if applied, force people to be more rational? Borrowing would be kept within its “natural limits,” and the “spirit of war,” exacerbated by lenders’ inattention “to this law of nature,” would be “bridle[d].”

Paragraph 9. “No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law.” The earth, which belongs to the living generation, is managed and goods from it are taken “during their usufruct.” The living are “masters… of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government.” “Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.”

Paragraph 10. France, at the time of this writing, “most especially” applies the “principle that the earth belongs to the living.” Land is affected, and that in turn affects the holders of the land, and that in turn affects the efficacy of the values those who hold the land have as well as property claims in the future.

Paragraph 11. Jefferson exhorts Madison to talk about this subject as regards “contracting debts.” It would be assailed by some as “theoretical speculation” [yes, that is redundant. The theoretical is speculative by definition in this blog], but if it accompanies the first law on “appropriating the public revenue,” it could prevent European excess and keep despots away. After all, according to Jefferson, giving the power to declare war to the Legislature keeps the Executive in line, unlike so many other countries.  The 19 year term keeps debt and reasoning that would indebt us indefinitely in line, and is more in accordance with reason, as opposed to relying on “English precedent” [which, of course, is where Montesquieu - not exactly an English name - principally argued from].

Paragraph 12. There is no news in this letter, for there has been no occasion.

Comment:

When I was at Rutgers, what bothered me most was the criminality hiding underneath “we’re all cool, right?” I remember seeing groups of people who had no business being in school pick on others in any way they could: one of the worst examples in my mind was a group of potheads, all failing out of their classes, who were housemates with a friend and got him, through very serious-sounding house meetings with all sorts of thinly veiled threats, to put bills they racked up in his name. They weren’t above stealing anything they wanted, and the only thing differentiating them from people you’ll meet at bars who’d be happy to stab you for five bucks was that they were stoned or playing video games most of the time to get to the bar. I’ve run into the latter sort of “outright criminal” before [boyfriends of exes find newer depths continually], and I always knock on wood before I travel, because I like to explore, and am very susceptible to running into those sorts and being taken in just long enough.

Libertarians and anarchists always irritate me because they don’t take this sort of awfulness seriously. The former would probably go so far as to argue that what I’m calling criminality is some kind of survival trait, and they’re more fit to reproduce. Karl Maurer used to say this wonderful thing in class about how there were people in life that were like “bubbles in the champagne:” without them, it isn’t clear life means a heck of a lot. Somehow I suspect those “bubbles” would find themselves “popped” if anarchism were taken more seriously.

Right now – even though I haven’t worked through the stranger parts of this letter, and I could be very wrong – no less than Thomas Jefferson is irritating me. He employs the difference between “natural right” and the “law of nature:” the failure of “natural right” to “oblige” means that whatever it has to say about justice is useless. The “law of nature” is all that reigns, and the term “natural right” drops out of the letter entirely in favor of “right” simply, as the “law of nature” drops out for the sake of “force.” He understands enough to reduce the political problem to a merely practical one. We recall, of course, that “natural right” properly speaking is the question of whether anything is just independent of our saying so.

He understands, and he reduces, which leads me to think the man who was implicitly carrying out “give me liberty or give me death” in authoring the Declaration may not entirely understand. He may just know the terms for the test, given by his teachers Bacon, Newton, Locke.  Excellent teachers, to be sure.

And yet he assumes he has a oneness of mind with Madison. This I find most strange: if I were Madison, I would have thrown this letter in the trash. Does Jefferson understand at all that property protections are about letting people keep their heritage, be the caretakers of it? The problem with Bourbon France was that it alienated the people from the things dearest to them: the glitz of nobles and clergy took away from genuine pride in the nation, and worse, genuine piety. The reason why religious freedom matters is so that disgraces like St. Bartholomew’s Day cannot happen here: that was not faith, that was savagery.

But this letter may be far more nuanced than I’m letting on. Take note of Jefferson’s use of the term “usufruct” in paragraph 2 [quoted above] . Usufruct means you can do what you like with the goods produced by a property as long as you don’t damage the property. “Natural right” may oblige in less effective but more important ways. In paragraph 9, “they [the living] may manage it [the earth] then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct.” We could be uncharitable and tie Jefferson’s reduction of thematic numerology into empirical science in previous paragraphs to this; we could say that usufruct has been reduced to the power people actually wield – if the property is damaged, after all, they can’t get what they want. But again, the term could have dropped out altogether.

Still, it remains to track the term “justice” in this letter. There’s only “just,” and it occurs in paragraph 8: a “wise and just” nation declares that they cannot contract more debt than they themselves, within their own lifetime, can pay. Nevermind that some nations have had to save the world, and incur enormous burdens doing so: Jefferson’s notion of justice here seems to be the joking one in the Republic, where, when Glaucon gets his city in Book 4, Socrates identifies the guardians with the courageous and the wise, and everyone else with temperance perhaps, and then goes and looks for a class that is just. Since they can’t find a just class, Socrates declares that justice is “minding your own business.”

It is because of men like Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton I can do philosophy, and will continue to do so. The truth is not simple – it is difficult even to accept when found, and pursuit of it creates enormous debts, ones that make our current national debt and economic crisis look very small.

A copy of Jefferson’s First Inaugural is available here. The text is about 1700 words long.

Commentary:

Jefferson introduces a problem and seemingly solves it in the opening. He first says he is afflicted by “anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of [his] powers so justly inspire.” Then he says:

Utterly, indeed, should I despair did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal on which to rely under all difficulties.

We must wonder why, if the first paragraph introduces a problem so easily solved, it is there in this speech at all.

My own suspicion is that the problem the first paragraph introduces is not merely a personal problem. Jefferson claims he is there to “express” thanks and “declare” his consciousness that the task is above him right before he “approaches” that task. He moves from expression of a sentiment to a declaration of knowledge and then to action, except that his action – the approach – is incomplete.

That movement parallels the description of the United States in the same paragraph. The “rising nation” is passive in its richness, more active in the seas it crosses and trade it engages in, but its action is ultimately incomplete too. “Advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye” has an ambiguous antecedent – either Jefferson means that the United States is advancing, or the other nations that “forget right” in their lust for power, or both.

The deeper problem of the First Inaugural is how the United States of America will remain true to itself even as it gets prosperous. Will it descend into despotic empire even as it thinks itself ascending? Will republican rhetoric merely be what it was in Florence prior to Machiavelli, a way for a few thugs to do as they pleased?

The parallel between the man about to become President and the nation itself is reinforced by what he sees. Jefferson sees this nation bound to today – from the present arise its sense of honor, happiness and hopes. “Honor” might be considered that which drives nations to advance “to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye,” but it is Jefferson as speaker who sees America’s honor squarely before him. To that end, the resources that may check any irresponsible imperial ambition the US might feel exist in “wisdom, virtue and zeal” – wisdom supersedes honor, virtue informs happiness, and zeal is what is required to make hopes actual.

But those are only the “resources.” Something has to give those resources form to make them effective.

The Second Paragraph

The deliberation antecedent to the election parallels the problem of the President in his fear before the office, and therefore the problem of the nation’s success. The only difference is that speaking and writing thoughtfully has been resolved into a voice (note “called” in the 1st paragraph), a voice that can be oppressive but was made legitimate and can stay legitimate as long as it respects “equal rights.”

The difference, then, is that there is no “approach.” The popular will has spoken and is legitimate. There is a chance for a just unity now that has not been seen before.

Before, religion attempted to unify people, but it was intolerant. It did not recognize that people wanted “liberty,” and so the countries still tied to this model of unity do indeed export something back to the United States – an “agitation of the billows” that can threaten our peace.

People differ on how we can be safe from this in the United States. Should we emphasize our own liberty (“republicans”), or should we place emphasis on unity (“federalists”)? “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle” – the end is the same, and even the means have something in common: they are being expressed reasonably, and it is clear that unity and liberty are essential to the preservation of the other via reason.

The second paragraph then moves from religion (and the problem of intolerance) to liberty (defined as a debate over security) to reason (fostered by the law). The law encourages people to think and make decisions for themselves – in giving us this private good, it thus encourages us to “fly” to its “standard.” It might be possible to have someone wholly reasonable rule and dictate perfect laws, but that would be the rule of angels who were kings, and the disunity of what is divine and human is Jefferson’s point.

In the third paragraph, a list of nine items is presented to us. The US is “separated by nature and a wide ocean” from one warring part of the earth, its citizens are “too high-minded” to worry about others’ insults, and it is a country with ample room, a “chosen” country. These first three items describe opportunity, and what it takes to realize one has an opportunity.

“A due sense of equal right to the use of… faculties, to the acquisitions of… industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow citizens:” these next three items describe making use of opportunity. One uses the same discipline in keeping presence of mind for the sake acquiring to make sure one does not lose reputation in the sight of others. The virtues that drive acquisition ultimately make man social in a good way: merit is a more expansive concept than birth, as it asks man to act, not merely be.

What ties opportunity and action together at the moral level is religion. Religion moves man from “honesty” to the “love of man” through “temperance.” Moderation involves self-knowledge, and when one knows and is happy with oneself, one is grateful. A trust in Providence means that one need not be fearful of the future, and that there are actual benefits in this life is a sign that there is a world to come where things can be truly better.

All government does, for Jefferson, is stay “wise and frugal.” It prevents people from exercising the opportunity to injure another, it allows for acquisition of all sorts, and it protects what people earn so that they may be confident in the future. Government therefore mirrors weakly the list of nine – the public is a shadow of the private.

The Fourth Paragraph and Conclusion

Jefferson gives a list of sixteen items this time, which illustrate a “general principle” that is “essential” to the government. We find that every fourth item unifies each group of four in the list: “the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigor” means “equal and exact justice to all men,” and that all nations are treated equally, and all states. “Supremacy of the civil over the military authority” means that in a country where the citizens “fly to the standard of the law” that the majority through rightful election is itself defending the country by governing it. “The diffusion of information” means that all matters of management and policy can be trusted to be brought before the people – commerce and spending and debt require secrets and result in complications, though. Agriculture reaps benefits of virtue and obvious goods (and obvious costs) that make deliberation far easier. Finally, jury trials mean that the judgment of any group of us, we being sufficiently informed and humane, is a manifestation of the justice of God.

The speech winds down with Jefferson pleading forgiveness for his own proneness to error and his full confidence that the job of President alone with precedent already established will “be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all.” He seems to see in Constitutional form alone equality. There is no pretension, as he is already ready to resign the office if he does not retain the “good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance.”

It concludes with a movement from “obedience to… work [given],” to sensibility, and then to counsel led to by the Infinite Power. This movement is more explicitly from the religious instinct (humility and fear) to the rational. The “sensibility” is that there may be something better at a given moment. It is a passion that is affirming, uniting of the self, and not dismissing one side of man for the other without cause. The question of equality has always been the question of justice, and to speak of one is to invoke the other as sacred.