In the Hands of the People: Thomas Jefferson on Equality, Faith, Freedom, Compromise, and the Art of Citizenship

by Jon Meacham

The point of this book, though, and of the conversations it aims to inspire, is to explore citizenship and the role of the people—the ways and means of how we can form dispositions of heart and mind that find expression in the public life of our nation. Why turn to the slave-owning Thomas Jefferson for counsel on how to live in the diverse world of a global age? The author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was a patriarchal white supremacist; the third president of the United States and the founder of the University of Virginia had little interest in securing the rights of women and played a critical role in the dispossession of native peoples from their lands. And yet, and yet—so much of our history can be summed up in the phrase “and yet.” For all his faults, Jefferson repays our attention. “I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it,” Frederick Douglass said in 1852.