Happy Birthday, Thomas Jefferson!
That's right! 273 years ago today, the author of the Declaration of Independence was born. It's said that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Well, I hate having to do things over unnecessarily so, let's make sure we always remember the things that are most important to us.
While Jefferson didn't give us freedom and what he did give us wasn't entirely original thought, he was able to bring together disparate ideas and themes to express something in a revolutionary way. The thought that "all men are created equal" wasn't new to humanity but it was the first time that someone had actually incorporated it into a formal decree. This idea, upon finally being expressed in ink, had the effect of galvanizing a group of people as they undertook one of the most daunting enterprises in human history.
Along with other Virginians like Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry, he worked to organize the other colonies and communicate with them so that in the event of hostilities with Britain, no one colony would be isolated. The Declaration was the ultimate outcome of those efforts.
Some historians today tend to be critical of Jefferson because he was a slave holder. I'm not going to defend that aspect of his life but we'd all be remiss if we didn't recognize that he did exhibit some abolitionist traits in his work. Throughout his career, including the drafting of the Declaration, he made numerous attempts to diminish the institution but was generally thwarted.
He seems to have been troubled by slavery but wasn't quite sure how to go about ending it in his lifetime. I guess we could all learn something from that. At the very least, every noble cause is worth the effort of trying.
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