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To have a villainous ruler imposed on you was a misfortune. To elect him yourself was a disgrace.
“Rulers should have little, the people much.” And privilege should make way for genius and industry.
He excelled at friendship, which at its best he termed “thinking aloud together.”
Neither wisdom nor virtue was hereditary.
“The history of mankind affords so many instances of men of exemplary virtue suffering abuse,” he wrote, “that one would think it should cease to be thought a misfortune.”
He admitted to only one brand of nobility. It could be found among individuals of all ranks and conditions; the “well-born” was the man or woman who perfected his or her mind. He issued ode after ode to free universal education, more essential even than laws to a republic. He promoted girls’ schooling, which he considered vital.
In his inaugural address Jefferson aimed at reconciliation. It was time to banish intolerance and come together “with one heart and one mind.” America remained, he argued, “the world’s best hope.” Its government was the “only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.” Differences of opinion should not be construed as differences of principle.
