On Grand Strategy

by John Lewis Gaddis

Jefferson was a genius, the historian Joseph Ellis has noted, at concealing contradictions within abstractions. The Virginian who insisted “that all men are created equal” arrived in Philadelphia attended by opulently attired slaves.36 His declaration coupled universal principles with an implausibly long list of offenses—twenty-seven in all—committed personally by George III: that’s why the complete document can’t be quoted today without sounding a little silly. Nor did Jefferson, any more than Paine, say anything about what kind of government might replace that of the British tyrant. Details weren’t either patriot’s strength. Had they been, independence might never have been attempted, for details dim the flames fireships require. They disconnect ends of arguments from their beginnings. That’s why Paine and Jefferson thought it necessary first to tilt history, and only at that point to begin to make it. Rhetoric, their lever, had to be clearer than truth, even if necessary an inversion of it.37 George III was no Nero, not even a James II. Jefferson nonetheless struck from his indictments the charge that the king had supported the slave trade, for this would have slandered slavery’s reputation. And that would have made the vote for freedom less than unanimous.38