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philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.
The intersection of economic and ideological forces created a climate in which well-off, educated Virginians saw a clearer, more compelling, and more attractive future if they could successfully separate themselves from London.
“I consider you and him as the North and South Poles of the American Revolution,” their fellow Revolutionary Benjamin Rush wrote Adams in February 1812.16 “Some talked, some wrote, and some fought to promote and establish it, but you and Mr. Jefferson thought for us all.”
we can do is to make the best of our friends: love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way of what is bad: but no more think of rejecting them for it than of throwing away a piece of music for a flat passage or two.”
He was not intellectually consistent, but a consistent theme did run through his politics and statecraft: He would do what it took, within reason, to arrange the world as he wanted it to be.
How to live a virtuous life? “Adore God,” he wrote. “Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence. So shall the life into which you have entered be the portal to one of eternal and ineffable bliss.”
