The Sphinx at Monticello

I want to thank the kind and generous reader (you know who you are!) who sent me Joseph Ellis’ book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson. I read and enjoyed Ellis’ Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation very much (and to anyone who wants a jumpstart on all this American Revolution stuff – that book is a terrific place to start) – and I’m very excited to launch into this new work on Thomas Jefferson.

I’m a John Adams fan myself, but I think that’s just because my sensibility, to some degree, corresponds with Adams’. Overly sensitive, a bit tetchy, passionate, humorous, prone to self-dramatizing … I grew up in a family that was all about “the Adams family”. I think it was my dad’s mother, (my grandmother), who said, “My husband is cheating on me….. With Abigail Adams.” Maybe it’s the Boston connection. I’ve got family in Quincy, in Boston, all over. The American Revolution was one of the bed-time stories we were told as kids. Because we lived so close to where it all began.

Thomas Jefferson, though … a sphinx indeed. I’ve read I don’t know how many biographies about this man, and there is still something un-reachable, in the heart of this man. This isn’t a criticism. This is why he fascinates. He is a mass of contradictions. He wasn’t overly introspective in his correspondence, so we aren’t really sure his innermost thoughts, feelings – in the way we are with John Adams, who poured his heart out to Abigail in letter after letter. I’ve read the correspondence between Jefferson, John Adams, and Abigail Adams (which … really … if you haven’t read it … YOU MUST!!), I’ve read as much of Jefferson’s actual writings that I can get my hands on – because, when you get right down to it, nobody could touch that man when it came to having a gift with the written word. He is IT in that regard. His writing takes my breath away.

Read The Declaration of Independence (even though it was edited by the Continental Congress – much to Jefferson’s chagrin: He sat there in agony, as they “hacked” away at his prose – while Ben Franklin murmured comforting nothings in Jefferson’s ear, basically talking Jefferson down off the ledge. The edits suggested by Congress, in general, make the document better – although Jefferson wouldn’t admit that, probably. For example, in the striking first sentence – Jefferson’s first draft had: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” It is thought that Franklin suggested it be changed to “self-evident”. Maybe it’s just me but that is one HELL of an excellent change. Self-evident as opposed to sacred and undeniable? Self-evident. It’s angrier than “sacred and undeniable”, it’s a bit contemptuous, too. Now that would REALLY stick it to King George. WE hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT. Why don’t you, you moron?? A brilliant change. Much more powerful, I think.

But the bulk of the document is his and his alone. Not the thoughts and theories perhaps – he borrowed heavily from Locke and others, in terms of philosophy – but the prose is all him. In the prose you can feel the personality of this man.

A revolutionary. With a veneer of gentility. Or perhaps he was truly genteel, with a veneer of revolution. It depends on how you look at it. The prism refracts. He hated authority. He despised government. He despised power. And yet, he used it cunningly. He was a master at this new breed of American party politics, and factions. He helped to create it. More than anything, he seems to have been a master of disguise. He cloaked his own ambitions, he retreated to the hilltop at Monticello, behind the post of: he was just a simple farmer, he was an inventor, he had a library, and plants to tend to … And yet … this man obviously had enormous political ambition. Enormous.

Rather than feeling frustrated with him because he WON’T MAKE HIMSELF CLEAR TO US, the later generations – or rather than writing him off BECAUSE he was full of contradictions (“who needs to listen to that guy? Yeah, he wrote the Declaration of Independence, but he had slaves!!!”) – I choose to delve into the life and mind of this man. I will never get over my curiosity about him.

There is something in him that will always remain mysterious, I believe. It’s sort of like St. Augustine saying, “If you think you understand, it’s not God.” I don’t mean to make too huge a point on this, but I’ve had arguments with people who think they know who this guy was, based on only ONE side of him.

From the back of my new book:

Ellis unraves the contradictions of Jefferson’s character. He gives us the slaveholding libertarian who was capable of decrying ciscegenation while maintaining an intimate relationship with his slave Sally Hemings; the enemy of government power who exercised it audaciously as prsident; the visionary who remained curiously blind to the inconsistencies in his nature.

The more I read, the more I learn, the more it’s like peeling an onion. Is there no center?

For myself, I don’t believe that there’s really an answer here. I think the point is just to continue asking the questions.

I’m excited to read Ellis’ work on Jefferson. The title alone speaks volumes.