By the Maui Curmudgeon (3rd in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find ou by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

THOMAS JEFFERSON: 1801-1809
~ 3rd U.S. President

Perhaps the most well-known (at least among school children) of our “founding fathers,” Thomas Jefferson stood over six feet tall, and like Washington cut an imposing figure in his times. He is lauded as the writer of our Declaration of Independence, the founder of the Republican Party, the Library of Congress; the man who gave the U.S. a geographic jewel - the Louisiana Terrirory - and the former president who died on the same day as his sometime enemy, former president John Adams. That day was July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Reading about his life I was struck at just how confused and hypocritical a man he was. Without question he was a great writer, and if his only contribution to the world order was that Declaration, it would be enough. But he did much more, and wrote volumes and comparing the two is likely to give a logical person a headache.

He wrote Virginia’s own Separation of Church and State Doctrine, and was so opposed to religion of just about every type that during his 1800 campaign for president many opponents called him a Deist and a heretic. Jefferson himself ranked composing this separation as one of the three most important things he did while alive (the other two being writing the Declaration and founding Virginia College.) Being president was not on Jefferson’s important list. In that I agree with him.

THE BAD

• As Secretary of State, Jefferson ruined many of George Washington’s initiatives while Washington was president. Jefferson’s focus was to curtail executive authority from the start. Like Washington, Jefferson knew Washington’s moves would set a precedent, so Jefferson worked inside Washington’s cabinet to undermine much of what Washington tried to accomplish, in Jefferson’s attempts to protect state’s rights. Finally, in Washington’s second term, he resigned.
• His virulent anti-British (and anti-monarchy) actions, particularly in his second term, all but guaranteed the war of 1812, a war the U.S. lost.
• Turning hypocrite, Jefferson managed to buy and quickly have accepted by the Congress the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France. By his own hand, in writings during and shortly after his presidency, Jefferson admitted that the constitution gave him no authority to make such a purchase. Thus, he exceeded his executive powers by a good deal, action which he condemned in both Washington’s and Adam’s presidencies.
• In fact, Jefferson was so worried he’d be caught that he worked Congress tirelessly to get the purchase passed just three days after he had arranged it, for fear that someone would eventually understand Jefferson’s illegal plan. Also, many Americans, Adams among them, wondered about “buying” land from a foreign power, land which was in fact occupied for thousands of years by indigenous American Indians. Jefferson had no more right to buy the land than France had to sell it.
• He ran the first truly nasty campaign in 1800, in which he had personally assaulted the good character of John Adams, a man who had just kept America out of what would have been a devastating war with France. Imagine Jefferson’s surprise when he was assaulted himself, and by a man who was supposed to be doing his bidding - Aaron Burr. Both men tied in electoral votes (73), and the Congress wrangled for days over choosing between Jefferson and Burr. It settled on Jefferson only when he promised to keep the federalist’s national bank and most of its policies. Thus Jefferson, who spent the previous 12 years railing against these policies, assumed them himself as part of his executive powers, and more to the point, he exercised them.
• He may have written that “all men were created equal” but he didn’t believe it. He never freed any slaves, nor caused slaves to be free, nor supported at the state or federal levels any measure which would free slaves. His inability to manage his own financial affairs throughout his life guaranteed that at his death his slaves were sold to other masters to help pay off Jefferson’s debts.

THE GOOD

• Yeah, that Declaration thing.
• Sent Lewis and Clark off to explore the new illegal purchase (though some historians think Jefferson had Lewis poisoned).
• Nice clothes.
• Yes, I’ll agree I’m cynical here. I was ready to read about a genius who helped build promise into a potentially great nation, and discovered a petty, vain man whose actions often did not accord with his words. Today, it seems, we judge him by those lofty words, and not by those much more damaging actions.

Murray Blessing raking: #4

My score: 50%

Recommended Reading:
The Man from Monticello: An Intimate Life of Thomas Jefferson, by Thomas Fleming
A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign by Edward Larson