Jefferson and Madison go woke?

The continued systematic destruction of the American story.

I was greatly saddened after reading two articles in the New York Post detailing how Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, who among a multitude of other accomplishments wrote the Declaration of Independence, was America's first Secretary of State, a President, and architect of the Louisiana Purchase. And Montpelier, home of James Madison, America’s greatest political philosopher, architect of the Constitution and Bill of Rights and served two terms as President, were historically disfigured with woke culture. The funding was paid for by billionaire David M. Rubenstein. $20 million at Monticello and $10 million at Montpelier.

Monticello is going woke — and trashing Thomas Jefferson’s legacy in the process

Founding father James Madison sidelined by woke history in his own home

I invite you to read each article. It would at least have been honest, so to speak, to portray them in a totally negative yet factual fashion. However, these are cases of blatant falsehoods and bizarre fabrication.

Photo by J. Amill Santiago on Unsplash

So, what would be a more factual depiction of the lives and volumous accomplishments of two of our more prominent Founders?

Building on the ideas of John Locke, Jefferson primarily authored the Declaration of Independence, THE seminal statement on human rights, in just 17 days! The fallacy is it was written only for men, particularly white slave owners. In an earlier version of the Declaration, Jefferson included a 168-word grievance that England forced the abomination of buying and selling of "MEN" on the colonies and King George forbade them from abolishing it. Attacking the slave trade would have been as much an act of rebellion against Britain as was the attack on the tea trade. Only 11 of 13 colonies would have signed, with Georgia and South Carolina refusing. It was removed.

Thomas Jefferson maybe more so than the rest of our Founders believed the people would always do the right thing IF given ALL the information. Two of his numerous observations were:

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty" and "a well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny."

Our Founders thought it absolutely imperative that to stay free the people must be educated. First and foremost, being able to read and write. Without these, nothing else is possible. (Incidentally, with billions each year spent on public education, public schools in the United States of America actually graduate illiterates! A topic for another day.) Then a thorough understanding of how our government works so you can properly participate. Many of the Founders stated their opinions on this, like Washington and Franklin, for example. The most concise, in my opinion, was by Thomas Jefferson, at Virginia University in 1818:

“The object of... primary education [which] determines its character and limits [are]: To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; to enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts in writing; to improve, by reading, his morals and faculties; to understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; to know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgment; and in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he is placed.”

Jefferson was an extraordinary man.

On April 29, 1962, President John F. Kennedy held a dinner at the White House for western hemisphere Nobel Prize winners. In his opening remarks, he stated, “I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House.  I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.  Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet.  Whatever he may have lacked, if he could have had his former colleague, Mr. Franklin, here we all would have been impressed.”

(Jefferson could even write in Greek with one hand while writing the same in Latin with the other.)

As Jefferson is credited as being the main author of the Declaration of Independence, Madison is credited as the father of the Constitution. Baron de Montesquieu in his “Spirit of the Laws," created the idea of three equal branches of government. Madison built on the concept of a government divided into legislative, executive and judicial branches. He laid out their functions to keep them equal and in check. On September 17, 1787, 38 delegates signed the Constitution with sixteen delegates quitting or refusing to sign it at the end because they thought it gave the federal government too much power, among other objections.

September 27, 1787, began the publishing of the Anti-Federalist Papers, written by George Clinton, Samuel Adams, George Mason and Patrick Henry. The devil’s advocate arguments against the Constitution. Chiefly that it didn't include a Bill of Rights. In response, Madison, along with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay authored the Federalist Papers, first published October 27, 1787. They laid out the argument of a strong central government and how it would function. Both essential reading to understand the thinking of the Founders and how our country came to be.

Initially, Madison objected that a Bill of Rights was even necessary while Jefferson insisted, they were. When New York and Virginia formally went on record requesting a second Constitutional Convention designed to address defects they saw in the new government, Madison feared if it went that route all would be lost. During the first Congress, several states submitted proposals for a Bill of Rights. Madison presented his original 19 amendments to the House in 1789. The House agreed to 17 of them. The Senate 12. They were reduced down to ten, the 2nd to the 12th, with some rewriting, becoming the ten we recognize today.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

James Madison

What was James Madison like? He was great storyteller with a brilliant sense of humor. The shortest President, (5' 4"), with many physical maladies. He married Dolley Todd at 43.

William Pierce of Georgia wrote that in the management of every great question, Madison “always comes forward the best-informed Man of any point in debate.” “A Gentleman of great modesty—with a remarkable sweet temper. He is easy and unreserved among his acquaintances and has a most agreeable style of conversation.”

Regarding Madison and slavery. If the Constitution had prohibited it, Southern states would have definitely walked out. Madison successfully got included a clause permitting the end of the slave trade in 20 years (1808). He kept support for slavery out of the Constitution. The Constitution provided that the census count slaves (“other persons”) as three-fifths of a person, reducing Southern representation in the House, not the misinterpretation that blacks were considered less than human. Madison's writings make clear that he believed slaves were human beings and not mere property.

This is the shorthand version of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Actually, you should already know all this. This IS your history! Unfortunately you are not told any of this by tour guides or displays at their respective homes. How shameful. Of course, human beings are flawed creatures. But that is what makes it so awe inspiring when we rise above ourselves to achieve great things and reach great heights as these men and our other Founders did to give us this country.

As an American it is your duty to know your history. First, to be able to comprehend all that was done and what it cost so you could be here free. Second, to be able to defend it against the tidal wave of attacks to flat out obliterate and rewrite it. Third, to be able to elucidate others in the reverent way it deserves.