What Is Still Living in the Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson (1943 PDF)

What Is Still Living in the Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson Author(s): Carl Becker Source: Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors (1915-1955) , Dec., 1943, Vol. 29, No. 5 (Dec., 1943), pp. 660-678 Published by: American Association of University Professors Stable URL...

What Is Still Living in the Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson Author(s): Carl Becker Source: Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors (1915-1955) , Dec., 1943, Vol. 29, No. 5 (Dec., 1943), pp. 660-678 Published by: American Association of University Professors Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40220486 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Association of University Professors is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors (1915-1955) This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms WHAT IS STILL LIVING IN THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON1 By CARL BECKER Cornell University / believe... that there exists a right independent oj force. Thomas Jefferson Many nations have traced their history back to some fable Golden Age, to the beginning of created things, when, as Hes said, men lived like gods, free frdm toil and grief. Our own histo can likewise be traced, through its European origins, back to t mythical time. But we commonly think of it as beginning mo recently, somewhat abruptly, in the clear light of day, with settlement at Jamestown, the landing of the Mayflower, and founding of Massachusetts Bay colony. Men did not then liv like gods, or free from toil and grief; but there were among them men of heroic stature, round whom myths have gathered, a whom we delight, with good reason, to honor. The beginning our history as an independent nation is still more recent, and stil more open to critical inspection, in the still brighter light of eighteenth century; and yet this is for us still more truly the tim of our Golden Age and of our ancestors of heroic stature. Am the founders of the American federal republic (to name only most distinguished) were Washington, Franklin and John Adam Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, Robert Morris and James W son, Richard Henry Lee, James Madison and Thomas Jeffers No doubt we are apt to magnify these "Fathers" beyond their j merits. Their just merits are, nevertheless, sufficient, for it wou be difficult to find in the history of any other country, or in th history of our own country at any other time, within a sin 1 The Penrose Lecture, delivered before the American Philosophical Society Philadelphia, April 22, 1943, in connection with the celebration of the two h dredth anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson. Printed through the cour of the American Philosophical Society. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 66 1 generation, as many statesmen in proportion to the population of equal distinction for learning, probity, and political intelligence. And of these ten men none exhibited these qualities to better ad- vantage or more lasting effect than Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, like Franklin, attained an international as well as a national eminence. Like Franklin, he was familiar with all of the ideas of his time, contributed something to its accumulated knowl- edge, and was identified with its most notable activities and events. There was indeed scarcely anything of human interest that was alien to his curious and far-ranging intelligence. Nevertheless, his name is for us inevitably associated with a certain general idea, a certain way of regarding man and the life of man, a certain political philosophy. The word that best denotes that philosophy is democracy. More than any other man we think of Jefferson as having formulated the fundamental principles of American de- mocracy, of what we now like to call the American way of life. Any significant political philosophy is shaped by three different but closely related influences. The first of these is what Alfred North Whitehead has taught us to call the "climate of opinion" - those fundamental presuppositions which in any age so largely de- termine what men think about the nature of the universe and what can and cannot happen in it, and about the nature of man and what is essential to the good life. The second influence is more specific: it derives from the particular political and social con- flicts of the time, which dispose groups and parties to accept a par- ticular interpretation of current ideas as a theoretical support for their practical activities. The third influence is more specific still: it derives from the mind and temperament of the individual who gives to the political philosophy its ordered literary form. Whatever is original in the philosophy is usually contributed by the individual who gives it this form. Whatever value it has for its own time and place will depend largely on the extent to which it serves to illuminate or resolve the particular political issues of that time and place. But its value for other times and places will depend upon the extent to which the general presuppositions upon which it rests have a universal validity, the extent to which they express some enduring truth about nature and the life of man. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 662 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS II The political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson was not in essen- tials original with him. It was his only in the sense that he gave to ideas widely accepted at the time and genuinely entertained by him a Jeffersonian form and flavor. Nowhere is this peculiarity of form and flavor more evident than in the famous Declaration of Independence; but Jefferson did not claim that the ideas them- selves were in any way novel. Some years later his old friend John Adams, a little irritated (as he was apt to be on slight provo- cation) by the laudation of Jefferson as the author of the Declara- tion, protested to Pickering that "there is not an idea in it that was not hackneyed in Congress two years before."1 To this Jef- ferson replied that it was not his purpose "to say things which had never been said before, but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject/' and to harmonize the "sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or the elementary books of public right."2 It was indeed Jeffer- son's merit, and the high value of the Declaration for his own time, that he expressed in lucid and persuasive form political ideas then widely accepted and thereby provided a reasoned justification for renouncing the authority of the British government. But the Declaration professes to do more than that. In providing the rea- sons for renouncing the authority of a particular government at a particular time, Jefferson took occasion to formulate the universal principles which, as he thought, could alone justify the authority of any government at any time. These principles are set forth in a single brief paragraph. We are all familiar with it, having read it or heard it read many times. But it will always, and at no time more than now, bear repeating; and so I will repeat it once more, not exactly as it appears in the Declaration but as Jefferson first wrote it in the original draft. We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among wnich are the 1 The Works of John Adams (Boston, 1850-56), II, 51a. 1 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Philadelphia, 1869-71), VII, 304, 407. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 663 preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such prin- ciples and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. This brief statement contains the substance of Jefferson's politi- cal philosophy, which may be reduced to four principles: (i) that the universe and man in it are governed by natural law; (2) that all men are endowed with certain natural and imprescriptible rights; (3) that governments exist to secure these rights; and (4) that all just governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed. These principles, made explicit in our Federal and state constitutions, are still the foundation of the political system which Thomas Jefferson did so much to establish. It is indeed appropriate, therefore, in this memorial year, for us to ask, What is still living in this political philosophy? In order to answer this question, I will break it down into two more specific ques- tions. First, what did Jefferson understand by natural law and natural rights, and what form of government did he think best suited to secure those rights? And, second, to what extent is his conception of rights and of government still valid for our time? The doctrine of natural law, as it was understood by Jefferson and his contemporaries, was revolutionary only in the sense that it was a reinterpretation, in secular and liberal terms, of the Chris- tian theory of the origin, nature, and destiny of man. As com- monly understood in the eighteenth century, it was perhaps never better defined than by the French writer, Volney. Natural law is the regular and constant order of facts by which God rules the universe; the order which his wisdom presents to the sense and reason of men, to serve them as an equal and common rule of conduct, and to guide them, without distinction of race or sect, towards perfection and happiness.1 For Jefferson, as for Volney, God still existed. But for them God 1 Oeuvres de Volney (2d cd., Paris, 1826), I, 049. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 664 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS the Father of Christian tradition had become attenuated into God the Creator, or First Cause. Having created the world for a beneficent purpose and on a rational plan, the Creator had with- drawn from the immediate and arbitrary control of human affairs into the dim recesses where absolute being dwells, leaving men to work out their own salvation as best they could. But this they could do very well, because the Creator had revealed his purposes, not in Holy Writ but in the open Book of Nature, which all men, in the light of reason, could read and interpret. "Is it simple," exclaimed Rousseau,"is it natural, that God should have gone in search of Moses to speak to Jean Jacques Rousseau?" To Jeffer- son, as to Volney, it seemed more natural to suppose that God had revealed his purpose in his works, from which it followed that the whole duty of man was progressively to discover the invariable laws of nature and of nature's God and to bring their ideas, their conduct, and their political and social institutions into harmony with them. From this conception of natural law Jefferson derived the doc- trine that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain natural rights. Many otherwise intelligent men have thought to refute Jefferson by pointing out that all men are in fact not equal. With the same ingenuity and poverty of imagination one could re- fute St. Augustine's doctrine of the brotherhood of man by point- ing out that all men are in fact not brothers. St. Augustine would have said that all men are brothers in the sight of God, and Jeffer- son's doctrine of equality comes to the same thing. All men are equal in the possession of a common humanity, and if they are in fact not equal and have not in fact the same rights and privileges, the highest morality, both for the individual and for society, is to act on the assumption that all men should be accorded, so far as is humanly possible, the same consideration and opportunity. To act on this assumption would be, both for the individual and for society, to do the will of God and to live the good life. In these respects - in respect to the primary values of life - the natural rights philosophy was essentially at one with the Christian faith; but in respect to the means by which these values might be realized, it differed sharply from current official Christian teaching. It denied that man is naturally prone to evil and error and for that reason incapable, apart from the compulsion of church and state, This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 665 of arriving at the truth or living the good life. It affirmed, on the contrary, that men are endowed by their Creator with reason, in order that they may progressively discover that which is true, and with conscience, in order that they may be disposed, in the measure of their enlightenment, to follow that which is good. It was per- haps the dominant quality of Jefferson's mind and temperament, as it was of so many of his contemporaries, to have faith in the dignity and worth of the individual man, and it was for this reason that, in respect to the means for achieving the good life, they relied so confidently upon the negative principle of freedom of the indi- vidual from social constraint: freedom of opinion, in order that the truth might prevail; freedom of occupation and of enterprise, in order that careers might be open to talent; freedom from arbitrary political authority, in order that no man might be compelled against his will. These freedoms were precisely what Jefferson meant by "liberty" as one of the natural rights of man, and it was through the fullest enjoyment of these freedoms that the "pursuit of happiness" would be most likely to result in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of men. And so we arrive at the central idea of the natural rights philosophy as to the proper function of govern- ment - the happy idea that the best way to secure the natural rights of men is just to leave them as free as possible to enjoy them, and that no form of government can secure these rights so well as the one that governs least. This idea was so engaging that anyone with an unbounded faith in the natural goodness of men and an equal faith in formal logic could push straight on to the conclusion arrived at by Proudhon - the conclusion that "property is theft," that all governments exist to condone it, and that men will never be free and happy until all governments are abolished. Fortunately, Jefferson had not sufficient faith either in logic or in the native goodness of men to carry him that far. He had more faith in the goodness of men than some of his contemporaries - more, for example, than John Adams, but less than some others - less, for example, than Samuel Adams or Thomas Paine. He had a logical mind, but logic was not for him "a systematic way," as has been said, "of going wrong with confidence" - not, that is, a dialectical device for manipulating empty concepts in the void in This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 666 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS vain - but a method of reaching sound conclusions on the basis of knowledge and common sense. History and political experience, rather than abstract political speculation, convinced Jefferson that man had been governed too much, and above all too arbitrarily, by kings claiming divine right, and that among the institutions that obscured the native goodness of men by depriving them of equal rights none was less defensible than a hereditary aristocracy enjoying privileges that were unearned and exacting a deference that was unmerited. It seemed to him self-evident, therefore, that men could govern themselves better than kings and aristocrats, whose powers rested upon the accident of birth, could do it for them. Not that the people could govern themselves in perfection or without difficulty. All forms of government had their evils, and the principal evil of popular government, Jefferson said, was "turbulence"; but "weigh this against the oppressions of mon- archy, and it becomes nothing."1 Ill Jefferson was thus profoundly convinced that republican govern- ment - government by representatives elected by the people - was the best form, because "it is the only form of government that is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."2 But what, in concrete instances, did Jefferson mean by the people, and how was the consent of the governed to be obtained? The people in this sense might mean all the people in the world, or all the people in Virginia, or all the people composing a particular class or sect. Practical statesman that he was, Jefferson took the world, politically speaking, as he found it, divided into groups that by tradition and community of interest regarded themselves, and were commonly regarded, as nations. Such nations might at any time "assume, among the powers of the earth, that equal and in- dependent station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them." Thus nations as well as individuals had their 1 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford (New York, 1892-99), IV, 362. 7*iV/.,V,i47. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 667 natural rights - the right of national self-determination. But nations are composed of individuals, and individuals necessarily differ in their interests and opinions; and it seemed to Jefferson self-evident that the only practical way of reconciling these differ- ences was by majority vote. Even a monarchy with all of its trappings, or an aristocracy with all of its privileges, if supported by a majority vote, would be a "just government," because it would rest upon "the consent of the governed." The right of national self-determination and majority vote - these were fundamental to all of Jefferson's ideas about the particu- lar form of government best suited to any country at any time. Not that majority vote conferred upon the majority of the moment any fundamental right not shared by the minority. It was simply a necessary device imposed upon individuals bound by their nature to live together, and aiming to live together with the maximum degree of harmony and good will; and Jefferson justified it by say- ing that, this law disregarded, "no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism." There is, of course, no more obdurate problem in political philosophy than the problem of the one and the many, the difficulty being to reconcile the desirable liberties of the individual with the necessary powers of society; and Jefferson was no more successful in solving it than other political philosophers have been. His solution, such as it is, is presented in a letter to Dupont de Nemours, some portions of which I venture to quote, because in it Jefferson states categori- cally, and perhaps better than anywhere else, the principal tenets of his political faith. I believe with you that morality, compassion, generosity, are in- nate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force; that the right to property is founded on our natural wants, in the measure with which we are endowed to sat- isfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings; that no one has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculty inno- cently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature; that justice is the fundamental law of society; that the majority, op- pressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the founda- lIlid. X;89. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 668 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS tions of society; that action by the citizens in person, in affairs within their reach and competence, and in all others by representa- tives, chosen immediately, and removable by themselves, consti- tutes the essence of a republic; that all governments are more or less republican in proportion as this principle enters more or less into their composition; and that government by a republic is capable of extension over a greater surface of country than any other form.1 In this passage, as in most of Jefferson's political writings, we can note the disposition to believe that man is naturally good but that men are prone to evil; or, translating it into political terms, that citizens in the mass are to be trusted but that citizens elected to office need to be carefully watched. I have quoted Jefferson as saying that the chief evil of republican government is "turbulence," but he did not really think so. On the contrary, he believed that a little turbulence now and then would do no harm, since it would serve to remind elected officials that their authority was merely a franchise from the people. What Jefferson really believed is that political power is inherently dangerous and that the chief evil of any form of government is to have too much of it. From this it followed that the chief aim in devising a republican government should be to disperse power among magistrates, separate it in re- spect to function, and otherwise to limit it by applying the grand negative principle of checks and balances. Jefferson agreed with Thomas Paine that whereas society is the result of our virtues government is the result of our vices and is therefore a necessary evil: necessary, in order to preserve order, protect property, and guarantee contracts; an evil, because inherently prone to magnify its authority and thereby impair the liberties of the individual. Jefferson's ideal of a democratic society was best realized in a small agricultural community, such as he was familiar with at Monticello, composed of a few men of substance and learning, such as himself and his friend James Madison, and otherwise chiefly of industrious, upstanding yeoman farmers, making altogether a community of good neighbors in which everyone knows who is who and what is being done and who is doing it. The affairs of such » Ibid., X, 24. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 669 a community, being easily within the "reach and competence" of the people, could be easily managed by them with the minimum of officials, exercising the minimum of authority, and attended with the minimum of palaver and ceremonial display. Unfortunately, this ideal community could not live to itself, and in managing the affairs of the larger area it was necessary for the people to act through representatives. This departure from the ideal was the beginning of danger, but there was no help for it except to prepare in good time by electing the representatives for very short terms and limiting their power to very specific matters. The general principle would then be that the wider the area the less safe it would be to intrust representatives with power; and from this principle it followed that representatives from the coun- ties to the state capital of Virginia could be safely intrusted with more power than could be safely intrusted to representatives from Virginia to Philadelphia. That the states must remain united Jefferson fully realized; but he was convinced that they should re- tain their sovereign powers, and at first the Articles of Confedera- tion seemed to him very nearly the ideal form for such a union. When experience proved that a "more perfect union" was neces- sary, he approved of the Constitution of 1787 but insisted, as a safe- guard against too much power in the hands of a government far re- moved from the people, that a bill of rights should be incorporated in the Constitution, and that the powers therein granted to the Federal government should be strictly and narrowly interpreted.1 As it happened, Jefferson's grasp of international political realities was destined to override this principle. He pushed through the purchase of Louisiana, in spite of the fact that in doing so he was exercising an authority which he believed he did not possess.2 That perverse circumstances should have made Thomas Jefferson the man to usurp power from the people is ironical enough, and it troubled his political conscience not a little; but he could console himself with the reflection that he had tried, although in vain, to get an amendment to the Constitution to authorize the act and lIbid. V, 41-42, 45, 81. 2 Jefferson's views are given in a letter to Robert R. Livingston, April 18, 1802 {Ibid.y VIII, 143), in which he makes the much quoted statement about "marrying ourselves to the British fleet and nation." The reasons given by Jefferson for unit- ing with the British fleet and nation are as valid today as they were in 1802. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 670 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS that in any case his conscience was clear, since he had acted solely for the public good. Closely associated with Jefferson's fear of the open usurpation of political power was his fear of the secret and more insidious in- fluences by which men become debased and corrupted. Republi- can government, he was well aware, could not be very successful unless the majority of the citizens were independent, honest, and reasonably intelligent. Intelligence could be sufficiently trained and directed by education - schools for the people and colleges for the leaders. But honesty and independence depended less upon precept than upon the conditions in which men lived. The best conditions were those of country life. "Cultivators of the earth," Jefferson said, "are the most virtuous citizens." Vice, he thought, flourished chiefly in cities and in industrial communities which produce cities. In cities, where most people are unacquainted with each other, unscrupulous men could push their selfish inter- ests under cover of the general indifference; and industrial com- munities, making so much use of impalpable and evanescent forms of wealth, opened the door to speculation for unearned profit, en- couraged greed, and rewarded useless luxury: provided all the conditions, in short, for the rise of a corrupt and politically influen- tial "money power." Jefferson regarded commerce and industry as necessary adjuncts to agriculture, but he had the farmer's settled antipathy to banks. "The exercise, by our own citizens, of so much commerce as may suffice to exchange our superfluities for our wants," he cautiously admitted, "may be advantageous to the whole"; but he was convinced that it would be fatal for us "to become a mere city of London, to carry on the commerce of half the world at the expense of waging eternal war with the other half." Capital invested in agriculture or useful industry was pro- ductively employed; but "all the capital employed in paper specu- lation is barren and useless, producing, like that on a gaming table, no accession to itself." And as for banks, they "are a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not removed, will end in their de- struction."1 Jefferson was never weary of pointing to England as the most striking example of a country losing its freedom by the unchecked multiplication of such evils, and he was convinced that * /to/., HI, 279; X,28,34. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 671 the United States would suffer the same loss if it did not profit in time by that example. Such in brief was the political philosophy of Thomas Jefferson - his conception of human rights and of the form of government best suited to secure these rights. What then is still living in this politi- cal philosophy? To what extent is his conception of rights still valid for us? To what extent is the form of government recom- mended by him well adapted for securing the rights, whatever they are, that need to be secured in our time? IV Any comprehensive study of Jefferson and his writings is apt, sooner or later, to leave one with the impression that he was more at home in the world of ideas than in the world of men and affairs. He had little of Franklin's zest for life in the rough, little of his genial, tolerant acceptance of men as they are, and none of his talent for being comfortable in crowds, or of hobnobbing on equal terms with persons of every station, from kings to scullions in the kitchen. Jefferson was a democrat by intellectual conviction but by training and temperament a Virginia aristocrat - a man of cul- tivated tastes and preferences, with an aversion from all that is crude and boisterous, vulgar and passionate, in human intercourse. It may be said that he felt with his mind, as some people think with the heart. John Adams said that Jefferson's writings were characterized by "a peculiar felicity of expression."1 They were indeed - perhaps a little too much so. In reading Jefferson's writ- ings one feels that it would be a relief to come now and then on a hard, uncompromising, passionate sentence, such as: "As for me, give me liberty or give me death!" What we expect to find is rather: "Manly sentiment bids us die freemen rather than live as slaves." Jefferson's ideas were also characterized by a peculiar felicity, and also perhaps a little too much so. One feels that they come a little too easily to birth and rest a little precariously on the ideal aspirations of good men and not sufficiently on the harsh, brute facts of the world as it is. Jefferson was no visionary, and on occasions, such as the purchase of Louisiana* he exhibited a 1 Works of John Adams, II, 514. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 672 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS remarkable grasp of political realities. But it was entirely char- acteristic of him that, in respect to the Embargo, he should have taken the position that since our rights were in principle equally violated by England and France, they should be impartially de- fended against both countries, although England alone was in fact able to do us any material injury; equally characteristic that the high aim of his policy was to defend our rights by humane and peaceful methods, and the signal effect of it to inflict more material injury on the United States than on either of the countries by which its rights had been violated. One often feels that if there had been a little more humane sentiment and a good deal more passion in Jefferson's make-up, he would have been an out and out non-resistance pacifist. As it is, he presents us with the anomaly of a revolutionist who hated violence and a President of the United States who was disconcerted by the possession of political power. If Jefferson was more at home in the world of ideas than in the world of men and affairs, it follows that, as a political philosopher, he was a better judge of ends than of means. In all that relates to the fundamental values of life, for the individual and for society, in all that relates to the ideal aims which the democratic form of government aims to realize, his understanding was profound. But in respect to the means, the particular institutions by which these values and ideal aims may be realized, he was often at fault, if not for his own time at least for ours; and when he was at fault he was so partly because he conceived of society as more static than it really is and partly because he conceived of American society as something that might remain predominantly agricultural and with relatively simple institutional devices be kept isolated in a rela- tively arcadian simplicity. But Jefferson's chief limitation as a political philosopher (and in fairness to him it should be remem- bered that it was the limitation of most political philosophers of his time) was that he was unduly influenced by the idea that the only thing to do with political power, since it is inherently dangerous, is to abate it. He failed to appreciate sufficiently the hard fact that political power always exists in the world and will be used by those who possess it; and as a consequence of this failure he was too much concerned with negative devices designed to obstruct the use of political power for bad ends and not sufficiently concerned This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 673 with positive devices designed to make use of it for good ends. This gives us then our general answer. In respect to fundamen- tals - the nature of human rights and the form of government best suited to secure them - Jefferson's philosophy is still valid for us; in respect to particular political forms and policies, much of it is now outmoded. In elaborating this general answer I can touch only on the main points. None of Jefferson's ideas is so irrelevant to our needs as that concerning cities and industrial communities, not because there is not much truth in what he has to say about them but because his hope that the United States might remain a predominantly agricultural society was entirely misplaced. During Jefferson's time there was occurring a revolution of which he was unaware, or the significance of which he at all events entirely failed to grasp. I refer, of course, to the Industrial, or more properly the Techno- logical, Revolution, brought about by the discovery of steam power, electricity, and radiation. It was one of the two or three major revolutions in the history of civilization, since by giving men an unprecedented control over material things it transformed, within a brief span of years, the relatively simple agricultural so- cieties of the eighteenth century into societies far more complex and integrated and at the same time far more mobile and swiftly changing than any ever known before - formidable, blank-faced Leviathans that Thomas Jefferson would have regarded as unreal, fantastic, and altogether unsuited to liberty and equality as he understood those terms. That Jefferson did not foresee this mo- mentous revolution is no discredit to him: no one in his time fore- saw it more than dimly. But the point is that these are the so- cieties in which we live and in connection with which we have to reconsider the nature of human rights and the institutions best suited to secure them; and it is now clear that Jefferson's favorite doctrine of laissez faire in respect to economic enterprise, and therefore in respect to political policy also, can no longer serve as a guiding principle for securing the rights of men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of laissez faire, as it was understood by Jefferson and the social philosophers of the early nineteenth century, rested upon the assumption that if each individual within the nations, This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 674 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS and each nation among the nations, was left as free as possible to pursue its own interest, something not themselves, God or Nature, would do whatever else was necessary for righteousness; or, better still, as Professor Carr puts it in his recent book the assumption that from the unrestrained pursuit of individual self-interest a "harmony of interests" would more or less automatically emerge.1 In the political realm this meant that the function of government should be confined in principle to the protection of life and prop- erty, the guaranteeing of contracts, the preservation of civil order, and the defense of the country against aggression. In the eco- nomic realm it meant that the free play of individual initiative, stimulated by the acquisitive instinct, would result in the maximum production of wealth, and that the competitive instinct, functioning through the price system, would result in as equitable a distribu- tion of wealth as the qualities and defects of men permitted. In the international world it meant that the promotion of its own interest and power by each sovereign state would tend to create a balance of power and of interests which would serve, better than any other system, to promote commercial exchanges and cultural relations and to preserve the peace. It is now sufficiently clear that the doctrine of laissez faire - of letting things go - however well adapted it may have been to the world in which Jefferson lived, is not well adapted to the world in which we live. In a world so highly integrated economically, a world in which the tempo of social change is so accelerated and the technological power at the disposal of corporations and govern- ments is so enormous and can be so easily used for anti-social ends - in such a world the unrestrained pursuit of individual and national self-interest results neither in the maximum production or the equitable distribution of wealth, nor in the promotion of international comity and peace, but in social class conflicts and in total and global wars so ruthless as to threaten the destruction of all interests, individual and national, and even the foundations of civilized living. In such a world the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can be secured, not by letting things go and trusting to God or Nature to see that they go right but in deciding beforehand where they ought to go and doing what 1 Edward H. Carr, The Conditions of Peace (Toronto, 1942), p. 105. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 675 is desirable and possible to make them go there. The harmony of interests, if there is to be any, must be deliberately and so- cially designed and deliberatively and cooperatively worked for. To bring this harmony of interests to pass is now the proper func- tion of government; and it will assuredly not be brought to pass by any government that proceeds on the assumption that the best government is the one that governs least. The history of the United States during a hundred years past confirms this conclusion and thereby refutes Jefferson's idea that the several states should retain their sovereign powers, and that the powers of the Federal government should be strictly and nar- rowly interpreted. Decade by decade the states have lost their sovereign powers, and the Federal government, by virtue of a lib- eral interpretation of the Constitution and of amendments to it, has assumed the authority to pass legislation limiting the activi- ties of some individuals in order to secure the rights of others. This expansion of power and enlargement of function has been brought about, in spite of the inertia of traditional ideas and the pressure of interested groups, by the insistent need of regulating the activities of great corporations which, although in theory pri- vate enterprises, are in fact public utilities, and thereby possess irresponsible power which they are sometimes unwilling but more often unable to use for the public good. It is in respect to this situation that the engaging word "liberty" emerges in a guise un- known to Jefferson and his contemporaries. In his time the most obvious oppressions, for the majority of men, were the result of arbitrary governmental restrictions on the activities of individuals, so that liberty could be most easily conceived in terms of the eman- cipation of the individual from governmental constraint. But in our time the development of free economic enterprise has created a situation in which the most obvious oppressions, for the majority of men, arise not from an excess of governmental regulation but from the lack of it, so that in our time liberty can be understood only in terms of more and more intelligently designed supervision of free economic enterprise. Jefferson and his contemporaries, as James Bryce has well said, "mistook the pernicious channels in which selfish propensities had been flowing for those propensities themselves, which were sure to find new channels when the old had This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 676 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS been destroyed."1 The selfish propensities with which we have to deal are the same as those with which Jefferson and his con- temporaries had to deal, but since the channels - the particular institutions and customs - through which they flow are different, the remedies have to be different also. In this respect - in respect to the proper function of govern- ment - the political philosophy of Jefferson is now outmoded. But this is after all the more superficial aspect of Jefferson's phi- losophy, and if we turn to its more fundamental aspects - to the form of government as distinct from its function, and to the essen- tial rights to be secured as distinct from the particular institutional forms for securing them - we find that Jefferson's political phi- losophy is as valid for our time as it was for his. V Jefferson was profoundly convinced that the best form of govern- ment was the republican - that is, government by elected repre- sentatives - because it was the only form, as he said, that "is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind." The form of government which Jefferson did so much to establish still exists, essentially unchanged; and today we accept it with even less qualification and divided loyalty than obtained in Jefferson's time. We accept it for many reasons, no doubt - because it has on the whole worked so well, because we have become habituated to it, and because there is in our political tradition no model for any other form. But we also accept it for the same reason that Jefferson accepted it - because we are profoundly convinced that it is the one form of government that is not at war with the rights of mankind, or at all events with those familiar rights and privi- leges which we regard as in some sense natural, because from long settled habit they seem to us so imprescriptibly American. Recent events have greatly strengthened this conviction. Twenty years ago we were in a mood to ask whether the repre- sentative system of government might not be, if not at open, at least too often at secret, war with the rights of mankind. That 1 Modern Democracies (New York, 1921), I, 49. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  LIVING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF JEFFERSON 677 was the result of comparing the democratic practice with the demo- cratic ideal, with the inevitable if perhaps salutary effect of mag- nifying the defects and minimizing the virtues of democratic gov- ernment as a going concern. But for ten years past now we have been permitted, have indeed been compelled, to reappraise demo- cratic government in the light, not of the ideal, but of the practical alternative as presented for our admiration in Germany and else- where. And the result of this reappraisal has been to convince us that the defects of our system of government are, in comparison, trivial, while its virtues are substantial. Indeed the incredible cynicism of Adolf Hitler's way of regarding man and the life of man, made real by the servile and remorseless activities of his bleak- faced, humorless Nazi supporters, has forced men everywhere to re-examine the validity of half-forgotten ideas and to entertain once more half-discarded convictions as to the substance of things not seen. One of these convictions is that "liberty, equality, fraternity," and the "inalienable rights" of men are phrases, glittering or not, that denote realities - the fundamental realities that men will always fight and die for rather than surrender. In defense of these rights and of our democratic form of gov- ernment, we are now fighting a desperate war; and in justification of our action we are advancing the same reasons that Jefferson pro- claimed - that the democratic form of government is the one best adapted to secure the inalienable rights of man. We may be less sure than Jefferson was that a beneficent intelligence created the world for man's special convenience. We may think that the laws of nature, and especially the laws of human nature, are less easily discovered than he supposed. We may have found it more diffi- cult to define the natural rights of man and to secure them by simple institutional forms than he anticipated. Above all, we may have learned that human reason is not quite so infallible an instrument for arriving at the truth as he supposed it to be and that men are less amenable to rational persuasion. Nevertheless, in essentials Jefferson's political philosophy is our political philoso- phy; in essentials democracy means for us what it meant for him. Democracy is for us, as it was for him, primarily a set of values, a way of regarding man and the life of man. It is for us, as it was for him, also a set of concrete institutions through which these This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 678 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS values may be realized. We now realize, as he did, but rather better than he did, that the institutional forms are bound to change: they have changed since Jefferson's time, they are chang- ing now, and they will change still further in time to come. But we may believe, as Jefferson did, that the values themselves are enduring; one reason for believing so being the fact that the values we cherish are the same as those which Jefferson proclaimed and the same as those which for more than two thousand years the saints and sages of the world have regarded as the ideal aim and ultimate test of civilized living. If we were to write a Declaration of the modern democratic faith, it might run somewhat as follows: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that the individual man has dignity and worth in his own right; that it is better to be gov- erned by persuasion than by force; that fraternal good will is of greater worth than a selfish and contentious spirit; that in the long run all values, both for the individual and for society, are in- separable from the love of truth and the disinterested search for it; that the truth can be discovered only in so far as the mind of man is free; that knowledge and the power it gives should be used for promoting the welfare and happiness of all men rather than for the selfish interests of those individuals and classes whom intelligence and fortune have endowed with a temporary advantage; and that no form of government yet invented is so well adapted to realize these high ends as one that is designed to be a government of the people, by the people, for the people. To this declaration of the modern democratic faith Thomas Jefferson would subscribe, I feel sure, without qualification. And it is in this sense, the most important sense of all, that his philoso- phy, and still more the humane and liberal spirit of the man him- self, abides with us, as a living force, to clarify our purposes, to strengthen our faith, and to fortify our courage. This content downloaded from 192.231.40.19 on Thu, 31 Oct 2024 16:20:22 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms