Althouse: "[W]ere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

March 24, 2015

"[W]ere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

"But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them. I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments. Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves."

Thomas Jefferson, January 16, 1787.

51 comments:

traditionalguy said...: We need to nominate another Tom Jefferson as President. That boy can speak well. Who cares if he contradicts himself sometimes. He went bankrupt buying too many books and going too easy on his slaves.; 3/24/15, 9:29 AM
Bobber Fleck said...: "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

-President Kennedy 1962; 3/24/15, 9:43 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Tommy J. sounds like a hippy.; 3/24/15, 9:53 AM
I Callahan said...: Oddly enough, not much has changed in Europe, and yet a lot of Americans want our own country to be like Europe.

Tom J was prescient, and that's why we were lucky enough to be born in the country we have, and to have the freedoms we do, even if they're under full assault now.; 3/24/15, 9:57 AM
Nonapod said...: Anarchy often leads to warlordism. But a sort of functioning anarchism is not entirely historically unprecedented. For example, Medieval Iceland (between 930 - 1262) and the American Old West both were (arguably) functioning anarchies. Despite both lacking strong centralized government those societies were generally still able to maintain some kind of rule of law and property rights.; 3/24/15, 10:00 AM
Curious George said...: Thomas Jefferson never read the New York Times or Washington Post.; 3/24/15, 10:04 AM
garage mahal said...: Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where

Ew, yuck. I'd rather just hand that all over to billionaires and hope for the best.; 3/24/15, 10:07 AM
khematite@aol.com said...: A very Tocquevillian analysis, fifty years before Democracy in America.; 3/24/15, 10:08 AM
rhhardin said...: Richard Epstein has a better version, namely that governments do what can be done cheaper by governments.

Say to eliminate the free-rider or holdout problem on stuff that makes everybody better off.

But death to competition-killing stuff.; 3/24/15, 10:08 AM
Simon said...: One of the most vile men ever to occupy the White House, in my own view. The most overrated and callow of the leading men of that age after the even-worse Tom Paine.; 3/24/15, 10:09 AM
rhhardin said...: Epstein in particular is big on compensation for takings, which the courts are not.

Having to pay limits what government is inclined to do.; 3/24/15, 10:10 AM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: well said, Tom.; 3/24/15, 10:12 AM
Michael K said...: "We need to nominate another Tom Jefferson as President."

Jefferson was a poor president and a terrible governor of Virginia. He was very good at writing.

Sort of a Ted Cruz type politician. We can't see Jefferson giving a speech.; 3/24/15, 10:14 AM
MountainMan said...: What we need is not another Jefferson but another Calvin Coolidge.; 3/24/15, 10:17 AM
I Callahan said...: One of the most vile men ever to occupy the White House, in my own view.

I would LOVE to hear an explanation for this.; 3/24/15, 10:18 AM
Alex said...: Excuse me if I don't trust a man who heaped praise on the French Terror. Yes Thomas Jefferson was an evil scumbag who owned slaves.; 3/24/15, 10:20 AM
D. B. Light said...: One can find support in Jefferson's writings and actions for just about any position you want. He was a remarkably inconsistent thinker, but he wrote beautifully. His attitude toward government [and federal and executive] authority changed a lot when he became President. At the time he wrote this he was Minister to pre-revolutionary France and was influenced by what he was seeing there.; 3/24/15, 10:25 AM
traditionalguy said...: And how did that totally illegal Louisiana purchase work out for Jefferson's United States? He did what he thought was possible...like a good politician does.; 3/24/15, 10:28 AM
jimbino said...: Thomas Jefferson sounds like David Friedman, son of Milton, and author of Machinery of Freedom.; 3/24/15, 10:33 AM
dreams said...: "Ew, yuck. I'd rather just hand that all over to billionaires and hope for the best."

Al Gore?; 3/24/15, 10:35 AM
jimbino said...: Thomas Jefferson sounds like David Friedman, son of Milton, and author of Machinery of Freedom.; 3/24/15, 10:35 AM
Fen said...: Alex: "Yes Thomas Jefferson was an evil scumbag who owned slaves."

You're such an idiot - judging the past by today's moral standards. In 100 years people will think *you* are an evil scumbag for supporting the murder of babies in the womb.

Yes, Jefferson owned slaves. He's also the reason they were freed. Culture EVOLVES. There would be no equal rights for slaves until equal rights for merchants class was broached.; 3/24/15, 10:36 AM
Fen said...: Garage: Ew, yuck. I'd rather just hand that all over to billionaires and hope for the best.

Dreams: "Al Gore?"

Soros.

And Garage, we've always known you crave a "strong hand". Go dry out your panties.; 3/24/15, 10:38 AM
Michael K said...: "What we need is not another Jefferson but another Calvin Coolidge."

Maybe after the coming collapse.; 3/24/15, 10:40 AM
D. B. Light said...: Traditional Guy, that's the point I was making. Jefferson's words should not be seen as timeless principles; rather they are very well phrased rationalizations of what he thought at the time might be the best course of action.; 3/24/15, 10:42 AM
rcocean said...: the idea that the Indians were better off then the average European in 1787, or that the Indian tribes had little or no government, simply shows Jefferson didn't know much about either group.

In many ways, Jefferson was the original SWPL Liberal.; 3/24/15, 10:46 AM
garage mahal said...: Jefferson was the nation's first libtard.; 3/24/15, 10:47 AM
Gabriel said...: He sure didn't know much about how Indians really lived, is what I take away from that.; 3/24/15, 10:55 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: What we need is not another Jefferson but another Calvin Coolidge

Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.; 3/24/15, 10:59 AM
David said...: You need both. Newspapers (ideas and information) without a government rooted in freedom are in constant danger of destruction or capture by the more powerful. That's the paradox of government. It wants to take our freedom, but we need it to protect our freedom.; 3/24/15, 11:10 AM
David said...: garage mahal ♤♡♢♧ said...

Ew, yuck. I'd rather just hand that all over to billionaires and hope for the best.

Garage, you are a real card today.; 3/24/15, 11:11 AM
bleh said...: In other words, a strong enough civil society can obviate the need for government.

There is a natural tension between individualism's "animal spirits" and the strictures of morality, government and community standards. The American Ideal is about channeling individualism's energies into something productive without descending into anarchy. Government must be justified, as the presumption is in favor of liberty and not the other way around.

At least that's how it should be. If we lived in a more moral society -- i.e., one with powerful social pressures and competing sources of authority, both religious and secular -- individuals could be counted on more to do what's right even if no one is looking. But our society has become less intimate and more unfamiliar, more mobile and transient, more materialistic and ultimately less restrained.

Our beliefs in individualism and limited government are virtues, but I believe there's nothing eternal about them. A community of highly individualistic and utility-maximizing strangers requires a neutral arbiter to combat force, fraud and coercion. The less we can trust each other, the more we trust government, and that's dangerous.; 3/24/15, 11:14 AM
David said...: Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe.

This in 1787, just before a new set of wolves emerged in France.; 3/24/15, 11:14 AM
Krumhorn said...: stop talking about Thomas Jefferson like he's a deity - Danaya Hough, UVA student

...following under aged Martese Johnson's attempt to enter a club with a fake ID.

We've reached very dangerous territory when every single incident involving a misbehaving black guy becomes an exemplar of racial conflict, and the founders of our country are reviled for their original sin of living 250 years ago without the benefit of Danaya's (not to mention, Alex's) infinite wisdom.

- Krumhorn; 3/24/15, 11:25 AM
Simon said...: I Callahan said...
"I would LOVE to hear an explanation for this."

His sheer hypocrisy: Almost uniquely among the leading members of the founding generation, he was acutely aware of the immorality of slavery and yet owned slaves anyway. Other founders owned slaves, but did not seem to believe it immoral to do so; indeed, some, such as Washington, treated their slaves better than did Jefferson.

His callous detachment from human consequences: The famous "blood of patriots" line was said in response to the French Revolution. As people bled out in the streets, as families were destroyed and a nation was put through the meat-grinder this winner mused philosophical.

That's the "vile" part. As to the "callow" part, his record more-or-less speaks for itself. Jefferson and Paine were part of what we might call the "revolutionary" part of the founding generation, in sharp contrast to men like Adams and Washington who were conservatives who saw themselves as counterrevolutionaries seeking to restore the rights of Englishmen usurped by the crown.; 3/24/15, 11:30 AM
rcocean said...: "Jefferson was the nation's first libtard"

Glad you agree.; 3/24/15, 11:52 AM
William said...: Jefferson hired a newspaper editor to spread calumnies about his political enemies. That editor spread the word that President Washington was going senile and was under the spell and machinations of Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson later had a falling out with this editor over money owed for services rendered. In one of the neatest cases of poetic justice on record, this editor was the one who first published reports of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemmings.; 3/24/15, 12:25 PM
Gahrie said...: Ew, yuck. I'd rather just hand that all over to billionaires and hope for the best.

Hasn't the Democratic Party already done that?; 3/24/15, 12:29 PM
William said...: Jefferson put through the Louisiana Purchase and wrote the Declaration of Independence. You can hardly claim that he lived his life in vain. But he was a terrible hypocrite and quite a load in many ways. The deeds were greater than the man who did them.; 3/24/15, 12:30 PM
Michael K said...: "Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again."

No, we had FDR who was Hoover squared but with better press.; 3/24/15, 12:40 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: In one of the neatest cases of poetic justice on record, this editor was the one who first published reports of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemmings.

Jefferson outsmarted him.

He fed Callender false information, which could then be debunked.

Callender was told about a son named "Tom" - but Tom had died long before, in infancy.

He was told about "Dusky Sally" - but Sally was three quarters white and his late wife's half-sister.

And her color was important, because in 1784, which is before any of this had happened, Thomas Jefferson had written in his book "Notes on Virginia" that he was not attracted to dark skinned women - although others were, and differences in attraction were something unaccountable to him for which he had no explanation, but there it was. Something like that.

So, if Sally was "dusky" the story couldn't be true.

But Sally was NOT dusky!!

I suspect William Jefferson Clinton learned a lot about coverups by studying - or being taught by someone - the Thomas Jefferson sally hemings case.; 3/24/15, 1:56 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Jefferson also spread alternate versions of the story, in which he was indeed related to those children, but he was not the father.

This being long before DNA, it was supposed to be one of the sons of his sister.; 3/24/15, 2:00 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Peter Carr, one of the sons of his sister was the chief candidate.

DNA testing of course has ruled that out, at least in the case of the youngest son.

The oldest children disappeared and passed as white. Some decendaants of the otehrs did - in fact Sally Hemings herself did for a while, in the 1830 census in Virginia.; 3/24/15, 2:02 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Callendar never ever got to take a look at Sally Hemings, and of course there wa sno photography in those days, so he thought she was "dusky" - and her being dusky would "refute" the story to anyone familiar with the 1784 book "Notes on Virginia"; 3/24/15, 2:04 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: I'm talking about people close to Thomas Jefferson politically, but not personally - who would have read "notes on Virginia" and visited Monitcello and seen what Sally Hemings looked like.

Having those people convinced it wasn't true, stopped the story from being considered anything but a calumny.; 3/24/15, 2:07 PM
D. B. Light said...: I would also note that Jefferson was an early advocate of the Indian Removal policy for which Andrew Jackson has been so much vilified.; 3/24/15, 2:14 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: I need to straighten out my thoughts and clarify this:

I think people could be divided into 4 categories:

A) People not very familiar with Thomas Jefferson who would really on people who knew more about him.

B) People familiar with the public life of Thomas Jefferson who had read "Notes of Virginia" and thought the story could not be true because Sally was dusky.

C) People who had visited Monticello and thought that Callender did not know what he was talking about because there was no 10-12 (or slightly older a little bit later than 1802) boy named Tom who was a son of Sally Hemings, and that Sally Hemings could pass for white and was not dusky, and if they had questions about her children were told the father was one of the sons of Thomas Jefferson's sister but please keep this secret.

D) People very close to Thomas Jefferson who may have fed Callendar false information that Thomas Jefferson cpould knock down.

Dolley Madison knew the truth because she suggested the name Madison for a boy born in 1805. Promising something she didn't deleiver, by the way.; 3/24/15, 2:21 PM
MarkW said...: It is interesting how influenced the founding fathers were by the freedom of Indian societies. Here's a bit from Benjamin Franklin:

"When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that this is not natural to them merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them. One instance I remember to have heard, where the person was brought home to possess a good Estate; but finding some care necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a younger Brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun and a match-Coat, with which he took his way again to the Wilderness."; 3/24/15, 2:41 PM
hombre said...: Thomas Jefferson: "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

Said by a wiser, more mature Jefferson.; 3/24/15, 4:57 PM
hombre said...: How about Jefferson for today:

"I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them... These ordure’s are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our functionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief... This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit." ~Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814.; 3/24/15, 5:04 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Simon,

I don't know which is worse--to imagine you're ignorant of the real context of Jefferson's remark, or that you are but are being disingenuous about it in service of some agenda.

Put simply: Jefferson was writing from France but about Shay's rebellion. Note that his letter dates from 1787, while the Estates-General was not called until 1789, and while in 1787 France was in very serious crisis, the atrocities you write of all happened in mid-1789 and following.; 3/25/15, 1:28 AM