Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson

The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson is a breviary of inspirational reading for people who seek wisdom in public affairs. The 98 Jeffersonian selections included in this volume by Editor Peterson offer a deeper understanding of how America's third President and one of its greatest founding thinkers envisioned the country where all men are created equal with inherent and inalienable rights to life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. It was not only the Declaration of Independence to which Jefferson put his pen. The book offers digestible servings of Jefferson's thoughts on the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and much of his work on the Virginia state constitution. It reveals Jeffersonian values on citizenship, religious freedom and education. It enriches readers with scores of excerpts from Jeffersonian correspondence with contemporaries like James Madison, John Adams, James Monroe and the Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation. Important history, the book is pleasant because Jefferson was such a good writer and Peterson is a helpful editor. The selections are valuable because they explain what Jefferson thought, and why. When he wrote a bill in 1777 for the Virginia Assembly establishing religious freedom, we see his commitment to the separation of church and state. "The imperious presumption of legislators and rulers, civic as well as ecclesiastical who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinion and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time. "Almighty God has created the mind free ... and all attempts to influence it ... tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness..." Jefferson drew inspiration from history as well as from his Puritan neighbors to the north. "Spin" and political disinformation bedeviled Jefferson's world just like they do ours. In a letter dated November 13, 1787 to William S. Smith, Jefferson wrote, "The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them and & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves." Jefferson was saddled with his British gazetteers and we struggle with press secretaries, unidentified administration sources and news bunnies. Skepticism was and continues to be in order. That same day, Jefferson wrote to John Adams, predicting the Constitution needed the 22nd amendment limiting service as President by a single person to two terms that wasn't ratified until 1951. Only Jefferson felt the incumbent should serve only one term. "Once in office, and possessing the military force of the union, without either th