Thomas Jefferson and “A Little Rebellion Now and Then”

By |2024-01-24T16:59:23-06:00January 24th, 2024|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Clyde Wilson, Republicanism, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

Nowhere to be seen now are the old Jeffersonians, once a major American type, rebellious men who dared defend the rights of themselves and their communities from outside impositions. But buried somewhere deep in the American soul is a tiny ember of Jeffersonian democracy that now and then gives off an uncertain, feeble, and futile [...]

“The Empire of Liberty:” Thomas Jefferson & the Future of the American Republic

By |2023-11-21T16:31:42-06:00November 21st, 2023|Categories: American Republic, History, Mark Malvasi, Senior Contributors, Thomas Jefferson|

The irony of Jefferson's conception of a republican future for the United States was that the establishment and maintenance of a simple, peaceful, agrarian republic required an aggressive foreign policy that virtually ensured conflict with other peoples and nations. I. Like most of his contemporaries, Thomas Jefferson believed that republican government was, at best, fragile [...]

The Declaration of Independence: Translucent Poetry

By |2023-07-03T16:15:18-05:00July 3rd, 2023|Categories: American Founding, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, E.B., Essential, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, James Madison, Samuel Adams, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

The Declaration of Independence, intended as an expression of the common opinion, is truly a text of "right opinion," a benign practical text which also has a peculiarly sound relation to the realm of thought. Section I:  The Legacy of the Declaration When American schoolchildren first discover that they have a place in the world they [...]

M.E. Bradford’s Revolutionary “A Better Guide Than Reason”

By |2023-03-22T18:33:40-05:00March 22nd, 2023|Categories: Agrarianism, American Founding, American Republic, Books, John Dickinson, M. E. Bradford, Patrick Henry, South, Southern Agrarians, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

No one who reads and digests “A Better Guide Than Reason” can fail to be revolutionized. We had thought that the great Southern political tradition—that of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, and the agrarians—was dead. Not so. A Better Guide Than Reason: Studies in the American Revolution by M.E. Bradford (241 pages, Sherwood Sugden [...]

The Ghosting of Thomas Jefferson

By |2022-10-27T09:27:49-05:00October 26th, 2022|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, History, Politics, Thomas Jefferson|

The sanitizing of Thomas Jefferson has played a role in the crippling of public discourse. Nowadays, anyone who would discuss something so anodyne as political decentralization or states' rights has to walk on eggshells, lest he find himself attacked and stigmatized by enforcers of political orthodoxy. We should question an American political establishment that obfuscates [...]

Marshall vs. Jefferson: Then and Now

By |2022-09-25T17:22:18-05:00September 25th, 2022|Categories: American Republic, Constitution, Featured, Federalism, John Marshall, Politics, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

In sharp contrast to John Marshall’s elitist orientation—with its em­phasis on the primacy of the national government, and restraint of the excesses of democracy—Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy was at once populistic and highly individualistic. Throughout the first decade of the American republic, competing claims regarding the proper interpretation of the Constitution and the application of its [...]

Thomas Jefferson, Polar Star of Discovery

By |2022-05-21T15:09:44-05:00May 21st, 2022|Categories: American Founding, Bradley J. Birzer, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

A rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye, when I contemplate these transcendent objects, and see the honor, the happiness, and [...]

Thomas Jefferson & the Declaration of Independence: The Power of a Free People

By |2023-07-03T16:27:40-05:00July 3rd, 2021|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Declaration of Independence, Featured, Independence Day, Political Science Reviewer, Thomas Jefferson, Timeless Essays|

One of America’s most cherished symbols, of course, is the American Declaration of Independence, and its Promethean author, Thomas Jefferson—a document and a man whom subsequent generations have blurred together in a myth of no mean proportion. It is the immediate task of this essay to unravel that myth so we will know what we [...]

In Honor of Mr. Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday

By |2021-04-13T11:02:20-05:00April 13th, 2021|Categories: Clyde Wilson, Russell Kirk, Thomas Jefferson, W. Winston Elliott III|

Here are recommended essays regarding Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) on The Imaginative Conservative: Looking for Mr. Jefferson by Clyde Wilson Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday by Clyde Wilson The Jeffersonian Conservative Tradition by Clyde Wilson Thomas Jefferson, Conservative by Clyde Wilson From Union to Empire by W. Winston Elliott III Was Thomas Jefferson a Philosopher? by Eva Brann [...]

Music in the Life of Thomas Jefferson

By |2021-04-12T18:33:25-05:00April 12th, 2021|Categories: Michael De Sapio, Music, Senior Contributors, Thomas Jefferson|

Music held a notable place within Thomas Jefferson's cultured and humanistic life—a point reinforced by his insistence on having music instruction at his newly founded University of Virginia. This shows the importance Jefferson placed on music in the life of the mind, just as his involvement with music throughout his life enhances his image as [...]

Jefferson Against Conformity, 1945-1960

By |2020-08-10T16:02:14-05:00August 7th, 2020|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, History, Politics, Senior Contributors, Thomas Jefferson|

Thomas Jefferson, many scholars have thought, represented the ideal of human individualism and personality, a renaissance man who struggled mightily against mediocrity. In the spirit of Jefferson, an individual can reach his own unique potential by properly pursuing a liberal education. Though perhaps odd to our ears in 2020, the time period dealt with in [...]

Harry S. Truman and the Legacy of Thomas Jefferson

By |2020-08-03T15:33:10-05:00August 5th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Declaration of Independence, Foreign Affairs, History, Politics, Senior Contributors, Thomas Jefferson|

Harry S. Truman explicitly tried to tie Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence to the events and crusades of his own day. He saw the Declaration of Independence as an international document, belonging to all peoples yearning for freedom. When the first copy of the first volume of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, edited [...]

Just How Catholic Is the Declaration of Independence?

By |2021-04-22T10:52:59-05:00August 1st, 2020|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Catholicism, Christianity, Declaration of Independence, History, Senior Contributors, Thomas Jefferson|

An oft-reprinted editorial, “Did Bellarmine Whisper to Thomas Jefferson?,” suggests that the American statesman might have been influenced by Robert Bellarmine. While recent scholarship has confirmed that Jefferson came to Bellarmine through the works of the radical Protestant intermediary, Algernon Sydney, is the Declaration of Independence really influenced by Catholic teaching? In the wake of [...]

“Mount Rushmore”

By |2021-04-22T17:34:29-05:00July 6th, 2020|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, American Republic, Audio/Video, George Washington, History, Music, Thomas Jefferson|

Drawing from American musical sources and texts, Michael Dougherty's composition for chorus and orchestra echoes the resonance and dissonance of Mount Rushmore as a complex icon of American history. Like Mount Rushmore, the libretto is carved out of the words of each President. Mount Rushmore (2010) for chorus and orchestra is inspired by the monumental [...]

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