In a recent article on Thomas Jefferson’s mythic and contradictory legacy for Time, Joseph Ellis begins with an account of an encounter during a book tour with an outraged woman. She snaps: “Mr. Ellis, you are a mere pigeon on the great statue of Thomas Jefferson.” Ellis has a decisive retort. “Madam, it makes no difference whether or not you regard me as a pigeon. But you ought not [sic] regard Jefferson as a statue.”
Ellis, of course, trumped the woman in the battle of metaphors and wits (how could he not, as it was his account of the tête-à-tête). His point, made by numerous other historical revisionists vis-à-vis the Founding Fathers, is that neither Jefferson nor any Founding Father ought to be treated as statues—i.e., “creatures of legend more than history.”
As a creature of history, we find, Jefferson deserves censure, not praise.
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