Thursday, July 4, 2013

Thomas Jefferson: “We Failed”

Via NC Links

 Thomas Jefferson failed

Dated.

Thomas Jefferson – one of my long-time heroes – was convinced that he and his friends blew the chance they had to establish true freedom in America. I know that a hundred thousand self-praising textbooks, speeches, pundits and songs claim that Jefferson and the rest established freedom, but that’s NOT what Jefferson thought, and that is NOT what he said. (You can choose who to believe for yourself.)

Nearly fifty years after the declaration of independence, he was of the opinion that the founders did not fully live up to the moment presented to them.

Here is a letter that Jefferson wrote to John Cartwright on June 5th, 1824. Jefferson’s words are in plain text and my modern paraphrasing of the lines are in italics:

Our Revolution presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position.

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