Merrill D. Peterson (1921–2009)

Jefferson has proved enduringly protean, available to represent a variety of positions, and his reputation is on a seesaw with Hamilton’s. Notably, this 1960 work was reissued in 1998; all things considered, I bet Peterson really wishes he’d waited one more year before writing in his introduction to the reissue that the Sally Hemings connection was a “slander” and not “credible.” (As with most of the historians whose accounts he canvasses, Peterson can’t help picking a side, in this case pro-Jefferson.) He attributes the survival of the legend to the hatred of Federalists and their sons, as well as the desire of African-Americans for connection to the great man and the legacy of abolitionist claims about slaveowners’ abuse of slaves. Although he recounts James Hemings’ testimony, he just doesn’t think Jefferson was that kind of man—which really, really foregrounds the question of what ‘that kind of man’ is like, because there’s no explanation of which of Jefferson’s public characteristics supposedly were inconsistent with having children with Hemings. One could, in theory, take his claims of disgust at race-mixing in Notes on the State of Virginia at face value, but Peterson doesn’t say that’s the reason.

More generally, Peterson examines how Jefferson was appealed to by Democrats and Republicans both, including how his populism/states’ rights positions were used in the lead-up to the Civil War and as a justification for the New Deal. Given Jefferson’s focus on limited government, this last required a change in levels of generality: Jefferson was for maximizing individual freedom, and, given the change in economic realities and the increased power of private entities to constrain freedom, a more active government was required to do what a limited government in the past did for the people. The overall ideal, not the principles, of Jefferson were all that survived by the time Roosevelt christened his monument: it was the “disintegration” of the Jeffersonian philosophy of government that heralded his canonization. Ultimately, Jefferson’s eloquence on the ideals of freedom and Americans’ desire for a tradition to appeal to sustained him in myth, memory, and legend.… (lisätietoja)

Reading the preface and prologue prepares the reader for the development of the theme of this book. Reading this with an open mind, without patriotic prejudice or "patriotic faith" can be the stepping stone to how the image we were taught in grade school was not the only one. The late M. Peterson's perspective is like unraveling what was really going on during the infancy of the nation. I found reading this book thus far was an exercise in what Jefferson said: "I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind." page 443, epilogue. (1960 edition)… (lisätietoja)