The Jeffersonian heritage; What the Jeffersonian heritage means today

The National Association of educational broadcasters presents the last in the series of transcribed programs on the Jeffersonian heritage what the Jeffersonian heritage means today. An informal address by Dr. Dumas Malone noted biographer of Thomas Jefferson who is the consultant in this series Dr. Malone. The first thing I want to say about the Jeffersonian heritage today is that it belongs to everybody. If Mr. Jefferson himself were addressing his countrymen right now after surveying the troubled war I think he would paraphrase his first inaugural and say we are all Democrats. We are all Republicans. We are all Americans. And I think he would a had that the American faith which he proclaimed is not ours alone it belongs to all free man in every way. Thomas Jefferson still survives. That is what John Adams said on his deathbed. And there is sure proof of it in the fact that Jefferson's name

is still invoked in political debate. Sometimes he is quoted very carelessly. Even unscrupulously words of his a sometimes wrenched from their context and given a distorted meaning by men who are not in his spirit. He would not like it if he knew that men were taking such liberties with his language. More than that he would regard it is rather silly in anybody to quote him authoritatively in connection with modern matters of which he had no knowledge. Jefferson himself some the matter up in a very wonderful quotation which is emphasized in the first programme of this series and should be in the last. Here it is. The earth belongs always to the living generation. How problems will always be illuminated by the lamp of experience and every generation must build on the one that went before. But the man of the

twentieth century have to draw their own blueprints for tomorrow. Why then are so many people interested in Jefferson today. The main reason is that he has fundamental ideas Austereo full of meaning and inspiration. Another reason lies in his extraordinary Quest agility. As a person he did everything I was interested in everything and for that reason he has never died. There is something in this extraordinary man that appeals to almost everybody. More than that they is symbolism in his diversity. We have all heard or seen the word monolithic applied to the society in the thinking of the totalitarian countries monolithic system monolithic society monolithic mind. The word means one stone into totalitarian states there is a

climate of sameness. They are trying to make society in a definite pattern and have everybody think the same way. Well what do we have to oppose to that. Do we have another kind of uniformity. Different from that of the communists. But uniformity nonetheless. Some people seem to think that would be desirable. But as a matter of fact that is not the sort of society we have and not the sort we ought to want. We have an extraordinarily heterogeneous population. We have an incredible variety of activity. So over against this monolithic system of to Tallaght terrorism this deadly uniformity of life and thought we have to offer diversity. Our motto is E Pluribus Unum one out of many. Nothing is more characteristically Jeffersonian or more characteristically America

than this idea of the richness the glory and the strength of diversity. We are glad to fling that in the teeth of communists fascists o any other sot of to Tallaght tarea Jefferson used the expression the world's best hope. Lincoln spoke of the last best hope of earth. What were these two great leaders thinking if they were thinking of a material power they certainly did not stop by. They were thinking of certain ideas that we exemplified better than anybody else. Now there are a number of these ideas and we cannot talk about very many of them. So I thought I would pick out one which is central in what I'm calling Jeffersonian as it is the idea of the free individual. This is the essence of historic American history. And it is the complete antithesis of the totalitarian idea at the present time. It is a tremendous idea.

And now most important single weapon more important even than the atomic bomb. We might speak preist of the individual and then of the word free individual individual is just what do we mean by these words what Jefferson map was that in any and every field of life human considerations must come first to express the idea politically. Man was not made for the state but the state was made for man. The individual is no me a cog in a governmental machine. It is the purpose of it all. It is for him. He is the reason why we have government as the Declaration of Independence says governments a set up to secure these rights. What rights the rights of individual human beings not only is this true of government but of all other institutions business industry property schools even churches.

Man was not made for these. They were made for him. All institutions must be tested constantly to see what use they are to individuals. This doctrine is not one that very many Americans are going to object to. If you asked them they would tell you they are for it. They could not say anything else if they are familiar with our history. But we can easily pervert or abuse the doctrine of individuals. And one of the main ways of doing this is to narrow and limit our governments and all our institutions exist for the benefit of individual human beings. But the question is what individual human beings the prior stance of anybody is for me. For me and my wife and my son John and his wife very few of us are quite so narrow that we stop by. But many people at all times have acted as if they thought that the benefits of government and society really should belong chiefly to their particular group to people like

themselves. There has always been some objection to extending these blessings to everybody. Well settlers have objected to the extension of privileges to newcomers rich people have thought that they were entitled to special favors and people have often wanted to draw lines on religious all racial grounds. It is not at all surprising that in a group that has enjoyed privileges she would be reluctant to share them with other groups. But it is perfectly obvious that the glory of individual Islam lies in its universality. If you narrow it down to any particular group of person it loses all its glory then it becomes just a form of selfishness and selfishness an individual ism a by no means synonymous terms individual ism does not mean that any one of us has the privilege of acting like a spoiled child. If you define individual ism as a sort of glorified self esteem it is an insufficient philosophy for any people.

We quote the old saying it is sweet and honorable to die for one's country. But why die for your country if it really exists primarily for you. Why give your life for it on some distant battlefield. Yet Americans have been giving their lives for their country throughout history and we take the pride in this fact. And as for Mr. Jefferson this great apostle of individual ism he would never have devoted himself to the service of his country through so many long years as if he had been selfish. He would have stayed at Monticello above the storms of controversy. We cannot allow this precious doctrine of individual ism to be perverted into selfishness. The government is made for us. But our government would fail tomorrow if our people assume that the country owed them everything and that they owed the country nothing. The common sense of ah people would be revolted by any such misinterpretation of our historic doctrine.

There are plenty of difficulties about applying it. But I think there can be no possible doubt that we really believe in individuals. I am not so sure about freedom. Of course everybody says he is for it all hold up your hands in favor of freedom all hands go up. It is just like democracy everybody is for it then everybody defines it to suit himself. Some people want freedom for themselves but are quite unwilling to allow it to other people. There are a number of varieties of freedom. Some people are for some and against others. I should pick out a few of these varieties of freedom and talk about them as I think Jefferson and sap would beginning with the one which he regarded as most important. You may be a little surprised but I believe that Jefferson put religious freedom first. Some people did not regard him as a very religious man. There is no need to go into that question him but at least I can say that it is not a good idea to form your opinion of any man from what his political enemies have said about him.

Also a lot of people are melamine their own brand of religion when they use the word to them the other varieties simply do not count. When Jefferson talked about religion he did not mean just his own church or any other. He meant the spiritual life of any and every human being. To him that was the most sacred thing in the world. The sanctuary of anybody's soul of anybody's conscience should not be invaded to Jefferson and forced religion of in a sought was a contradiction in terms. It was utterly unthinkable to him the highest and most sacred of all freedoms was the freedom of the Spirit. And this could not be separated from the freedom of the mind. The most important thing about a person is his mind. So you come to the most characteristic of all Jeffersonian quotations. It is now emblazoned in big letters in his memory in Washington as it ought to be. I have sworn on the altar of God eternal hostility against

every form of tyranny over the mind of man. As I've already said he represents is complete and with us to totalitarianism. As history often he would detest the communists in Russia on many grounds. But I think he would be most appalled by their attempt to enslave the minds of their people. He always had great faith in the resistance of human beings to Koresh but he would be quick to realize what can be done to the minds of man when terror name masks its designs with a fanatic or patriotism and specious philosophy. Men can be enslaved step by step without perceiving that the chains are being riveted upon them. This can happen in any country especially in times of great danger when unscrupulous men gain control of important means of propaganda impose their pattern of thinking on an unsuspecting people and gradually gain possession of the government along with

other famous apostles of light and liberty. Jefferson believed that the mind is the greatest hope of humankind. They didn't have the early part of it anyway. It has sometimes been described as the bright spring time of the modern mind. I do not know how future generations will describe the age we are living in so far as science is concerned. We may call it a rich and fruitful autumn but in some other departments of life it seems sometimes as though winter is coming on. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were in the spirit of the spring and nothing is more refreshing than to go back and see what these men hoped would flow from the fountains of liberated intelligence. They believe that if men could rid themselves of superstition and prejudice and make them minds really freed not only could they solve the problems of nature but also the problems of human

society. If Jefferson and Franklin could come back and view the presidency in what would they say. Unquestionably they would say that in the mastery of the secrets of nature the achievements of liberated intelligence have Fossa past their most sanguine expectations in some other Theo's they might well be appalled by the slightness of progress. Their physical wear has been transformed but it looks like the same old place when you get the politicians together. They are playing the same old tricks and all too often are getting away with them in many ways there has been great social progress but the statesmen and soldiers have been far more successful in getting us into walls than out of our country was in grave danger during most of Jefferson's life time. And it is in grave danger now though it is immensely strong. Why this vast

difference between scientific and political progress. How would these men from the springtime of the modern mind explain it. Perhaps one answer would be that the greatest trumps have been in the field where the mind has been freest. We really took the shackles off our solders in their laboratories but nobody who moves in the political and social sphere has has quite the same degree of freedom even though there may be no restrictive laws. One is conscious of what people are thinking. Perhaps we may say that only in the realm of natural science has the freedom of the mind been fully tested. Another thing and I wonder if Mr. Jefferson would admit this. Perhaps he did not allow enough for the weakness of human nature. There is a good deal in the old fashioned theological idea that man was born in sin. That after all he has to be redeemed. We are trying to

regenerate the little sinners and to civilise the little savages in our homes and schools all the time. It is a slow process has to be repeated in every generation and we need more emphasis on good old fashioned ethical and religious ideas to hitch up with. But we should make a tragic mistake if we surrendered our ancient democratic faith in the common sense good way oh and fundamental good judgment of the ordinary citizens they can be better trusted than any of the despots and oligarchy of our day. And if we cannot rely on Lamb whom can we rely on. One of the things that has made Jefferson a beacon in our history is the faith he always had in the common people. It was a faith based on study observation and experience. And I'm sure he would not surrender the Supreme an important thing still is to see that the people get the real facts and that they are left free to judge

freedom of speech of course goes along with the freedom of the mind. There is not much point in being free to arrive at a discovery if you're not able to give it up. Not much use in arriving at opinions that seem to you to be corrected less you can express them. But freedom of speech is not absolute like freedom of the mind. There are certain limitations on it that are imposed by common sense. You do not tell everything you know because frequently people are not ready to receive it. We have to follow that policy in education. We do not tell the same thing to all ages. There is a pedagogical consideration. Also there is a social question a question of if anybody went around and said exactly what he thought about other people he would be practically intolerable. We cannot live that way. Then there is the logic question of safety of security. As Mr. Justice Holmes said in one of his

opinions no man has a right to get up in a crowded theater and yell Fox. There have always been practical limitations on freedom of speech and in times of war an acute danger there have to be more. For safety's sake just follow such restrictions ought to go. Here's a question which is perplexed why as man for many generations. And I said you cannot answer it. Yeah freedom of speech can be terribly abused anywhere at any time in some part of our own huge country somebody abuses it practically every day lies about it as well as truths and characters that defame especially in the heat of political campaigns. Freedom of Speech is a very dangerous thing and there's no denying it. But there is something even more dangerous that is coercion. We do not want to imitate the Nazis in Germany and the Communists in Russia. They throttle the press and destroyed freedom of speech to consolidate that tyranny.

Instead we should follow the precept and example of Thomas Jefferson who refused to become hysterical in time of danger. Who did not feel I did as and who believed that it was FOSS safe in a self-governing society like ours on the side of freedom than coercion. The Jeffersonian position is to give always the benefit of doubt to freedom to leave man as free as possible in every field. This brings us to freedom of enterprise which is much talked about in our time. Jefferson said more about freedom of the mind and freedom of speech regarding these is basic. All of those depend at last on them. But if man cannot think and talk freely they will eventually lose all their liberties. But he strongly believed in freedom of enterprise. He believed that everybody should have a real chance to work in his own way. That is the reason he said so much about independent

self-sufficient farmers whom he regarded as the freest and happiest man on earth. He believed in private property of course. There has been some attempt to bury ludicrous attempts to make a Communist out of it. He was exactly the opposite of that. Instead of thinking that nobody should own property that everything should belong to the government. He thought that everybody should have property. He wanted to make it is easy as possible for everybody to get land but he was more interested in the small land owner than the large man in his time there were companies which were seeking to gobble up millions of acres of public land in the West and to use them for speculated purposes. He was strongly opposed to these companies and to all forms of speculation in his economic ideas he was conservative and old fashioned. He lived in an age when the country was still predominantly agricultural and he wanted to keep it so if he was not disposed to regulate business

he was no more disposed to help it. Actually he was a real advocate of laissez faire and his philosophy of government sounds very negative in a modern era. It is first inaugural he spoke of a wise and frugal government. Which should restrain men from injuring one another. But should leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement. And he described this as the son of a good governor. He himself was not quite that negative in practice and I do not believe that he the businessman the labors of the farmers of our time would be satisfied with such a philosophy. They all want more help from the government than that even though they may be strongly opposed to their own regulation. Jefferson was addressing himself to the society of a hundred fifty years ago. If he were to come back now he would find a big government big corporations big

big labor unions. Would he like them. There is no reason to believe he would know more than that. This inveterate countrymen would like how enormous it is what he would say about the relations between the government and these various economic groups in our time is anybody's guess. But as I've said already we cannot expect to find any precise answer to the specific problems of our time. In his writings the answer is No but the criterion is that he would ask what is the value of these things to human beings. Another thing you cannot find there and perhaps this will surprise you. You said little or nothing about the problem of economic security. There is very little about freedom from want in the writings of Jefferson. The time he came nearest to this problem and talked about it most was when he was in France before the French Revolution and was impressed by the plight of the poor people in that misgoverned Kingdom.

But in his own country he did not say much about this sort of thing and did not need to. What he was talking about was equality of opportunity. Nobody then was thinking about giving people security in their jobs preventing unemployment providing old age pensions. I was plenty of land and the important thing was to open it up so people could get it. Many of our present economic problems simply did not exist. But if he were here now he could not fail to see one thing which is too obvious for any intelligent mind to miss. It is this the economic situation of any individual or group or society may be so bad that these higher freedoms we have been talking about will have no meaning. There is little use talking about freedom of speech to a man who cannot get a job. As was true of many a man during our great depression there is no point in talking about freedom of the mind to a man who has an empty stomach. I suppose that when a man has

an empty stomach he becomes mostly stomach. If we define freedom of enterprise as opportunity to work and to raise one SAP beyond the mere level of subsistence it may thus be regarded as the most basic of all the freedoms. Even though Jefferson did not himself place it first in importance I do not know how many people are below the economic safety line in our own country but they are far too many of them in the world and we ought to know by now that they provide vital ground for demagogues to cultivate. And we ought to know about now that conditions in any country can be so bad that people will buy out of their freedom. But what they hope will be security. That is what they did in Hitler's Germany. That is what they have done in countries that have been beguiled by the false promises of the communists to the Jeffersonian philosophy therefore we must had an emphasis on basic economic security which was not required by his times

but is required by ours. One thing more. What are the main dangers to this Jeffersonian heritage of individual ism and freedom in our time. I cannot talk about this is a world problem but I can say a last brief word about own country. In the United States the extensions of governmental power and the consequent limitation of individual freedom have not resulted from the machinations of a wicked man like Hitler and Mussolini. I believe they have come chiefly as a result of all the civil law the First World War the depression that resulted from it. The second world war and the cold war that has come out of that. The necessity is in the psychology of all play havoc with individual freedom in all fields. No one can possibly doubt it. Who reads the record. It is for this reason that some high minded people have been pacifists.

Jefferson was not a pacifist. He could never have written the Declaration of Independence if he had been. I'm sure that he would be appalled by the thought of what another total war might do to all our historic rights as individuals. Much has been said about what the atom bomb would do to the physical civilization of the world. That is terrible to contemplate. We must also consider what it might and almost surely would do to our liberties. What would a person like Jefferson think about this situation. I do not believe he would be a pacifist but I do not think he would talk about the inevitability of a wall and thus make it all the more inevitable. There is nothing inevitable where human beings are concerned. He was no economic determinist but always believe that man is the master of his own destiny. I think he would still be a man of faith and that he would put the emphasis in exactly the same place that he did in his own time.

That is on the human mind. Surely the generation that had brains enough to develop these terrible instruments of destruction ought to have intelligence enough to work out the problems of the world. So I think this man out of the Age of Reason would say to a free man. Come let us reason together. Let us forget these bickering XA politics and partisanship and narrow nationalism when the liberties of all of us are at stake. I am sure that he would renew his ancient faith and would sway again on the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. If we cannot depend on human intelligence to work out our problems in the name of Heaven what can we depend on. God will not save us. God helps those who help themselves by using as fully and

freely as possible. The minds he gave them. You have just heard what the Jeffersonian heritage means today. The last program in the transcribed series on the Jeffersonian heritage following plans of the noted historian and biographer Dumas Malone and prepared with his counsel authentic in historical spirit while imaginative inform these programs have dramatized ideas which are the enduring possession of all Americans and all free peoples. Today's program consisted of an address by Dr. Malone. This program was produced and directed by Frank pep. These programs have been prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. The program you have just heard is made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent organization established by the Ford Foundation.