An imposing, prosperous, well-liked farmer known for his feats of strength and his capacity for endurance in the wilderness, Peter Jefferson had amassed large tracts of land and scores of slaves in and around what became Albemarle County, Virginia. Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson

If flawed people can do the good he did, then maybe we can too.It is the strong in body who are both the strong and free in mind. “And if we put them on a pedestal, I think it forecloses their capacity to teach and it keeps us from being able to learn as much from them. “They were men before they were monuments,” Meacham says. Meacham says politicians in his experience dislike two things: “failing decisively and failing publicly,” and he therefore deems Jefferson “quintessentially a political figure” for giving up on reforming a system he had attempted to reform as a young man.Īs a final note, Meacham says there is something to learn from the mistakes of Jefferson and the founding fathers. As a young man, he tried four or five times, in law and in politics to reform the institution, and failed decisively and publicly each time.” “He was fundamentally flawed,” Meacham says, “and could not imagine his world without slavery. But he was also a contradictory person himself, especially on the subject of abolishing slavery while owning slaves of his own. “He governed in an intensely partisan atmosphere,” Meacham says. Meacham relates the government in Jefferson’s era to the government today. “He was able to make people fall in love with him without knowing quite why.” As a brilliant writer, Meacham says Jefferson “was an architect of really the politics of optimism.” Meacham compares Reagan, Clinton, the hope and change themes of 2008 to Jeffersonian politics. With “wonderful eyes, women tended to swoon for him,” Meacham says.

Meacham says Jefferson was a seducer and describes him as a “terrific retail politician.” Meacham joins Soledad O’Brien on “Starting Point” today to discuss the potentially hypocritical side of Jefferson and offer lessons for today’s politicians. The founding father who penned the Declaration of Independence is revered by many, but there is another less flattering side to him that has fascinated biographers.Ī new book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning historia Jon Meacham, “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,” takes a deeper look at Jefferson as a politician.

Just days after reelecting President Obama to office, we look to the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas jefferson by jon meacham