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President wigs out in Pueblo
By Rich Stromberg, Feb. 11, 2006 See the photo gallery  A
former U.S. president visited Colorado recently to share his
vision for the American West. Unlike most of his counterparts,
there were no Secret Service agents, no security measures and
the former president willingly answered any question from the
audience – none of which was prescreened.If a true town-hall-style meeting seems counter to the last 20 years where administrations put on staged events with preselected audiences and scripted questions and answers, there’s a good explanation. And if the former president urges repeatedly for this country to tear up its constitution, there’s a really good explanation. You see, this president has been dead for more than 180 years. Well-known historian Clay Jenkinson took on the persona of Thomas Jefferson in front of a packed crowd in Hoag Hall at Colorado State University-Pueblo, just as he does in his weekly radio show, The Thomas Jefferson Hour. Dressed in a wig and clothing styled from the early 1800s, Jenkinson addressed the crowd for an hour as the third president of the United States and then opened the floor to questions from the audience on any topic whatsoever, answering in the manner in which his scholarly studies leads him to believe Jefferson would have responded. After an hour and a half of fielding questions ranging from expanding presidential powers to freemasons, Jenkinson removed his wig to make a brief critique of his/Jefferson’s responses. The two-and-a-half hour version of his normal radio format was provided free of charge by the Hirsch Lecture Series. Early Preconceptions of
the American West[1] “Because I didn’t see the west, we believed at the time in the principle of symmetrical geography assuming that the Rocky Mountains would be the same height as the Appalachians,” Jefferson said. “When Meriwether Lewis went west, the Bitterroots[2] were 9,000 and 10,000 feet. His party almost collapsed.” “Honest people believed that the wooly mammoth might still be grazing in Colorado,” Jefferson said. “We believed that the creator built the universe as a celestial mechanic – what you would call intelligent design. At the beginning of time he created all the creatures. We believed that every creature once designed would continue to exist, otherwise God must be imperfect. Whatever had been created was still out there.” Jefferson went so far as to urge Lewis to keep an eye out for a mammoth and bring one back. He wondered whether the lost tribe of Israel or Welshman rumored to have come to America in the 13th century with a man named Maddock might be encountered. William Clark met one of the Flathead Indians in 1804 and thought that guttural sounds in their language might sound a little Welsh. “The dinosaur had not yet been discovered,” Jefferson said. “The mammoth was to us what the T-rex is to you. It stood between what we know and don’t know. Mr. Lewis came across a Plesiosaur and just listed it as ‘big fish’ because we didn’t have a name for it.” American’s were primitive by today’s standards, assuming the west was just an extension of Ohio. No one figured in aridity. People thought it rained equally across the continent. The truth would have revised Jefferson’s concept of an agrarian America significantly. Much of the west turned out to be arid and inhospitable, but not without beauty.
In a later interview, Jenkinson spoke about Jefferson’s interest in geography, particularly rivers, in the way we would be interested in the interstate highway system. “Jefferson believed the major rivers would have interlocking sources and it would be possible to begin commercial relations with the Spanish southwest,” Jenkinson said. “The term ‘height of land’ keeps coming up in the literature - a high plateau where all rivers met. Gunnison is about as close as we get to a place where five rivers[3] join.” Jefferson hoped the rivers interlocked in a way to facilitate trade. People of the time were consumed with the notion of commercial linkages to the point where Lewis’s map makes the Willamette River run clear down to Nevada - which is doesn’t. He tried to link them up. Jefferson and his contemporaries also greatly underestimated the population of the American West and the extent of established towns in New Spain. Clearing up our
misconceptions of Jefferson’s time “In my time, there was no birth control,” Jefferson said. “Imagine your life with no birth control. In Virginia, the average woman was pregnant between nine and 17 times. The lying-in period was between one and four months. In the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, the woman would go to bed for four months.” Jefferson’s wife, Martha, was pregnant nine times in their 10-year marriage. Six children were born and four died before the age of five. Martha died at 33 from complications of pregnancy. Although Jefferson was not a freemason[4], many of founding fathers were, as can be seen in the Masonic Rosicrucian symbols on our money,[5] despite the common misconception that this country was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs.[6] “I greatly admire the freemasons,” Jefferson said. “They were deists and deism is the notion that instead of a Jehovah or Allah or Calvin’s God, that God is a celestial mechanic. He can be called by different names, but he doesn’t answer to you or me. When you pray, he isn’t listening. He might be tuning the clock, but he’s not returning your call. He is an overarching designer - a Unitarian god who answers to God and Yahweh and Christ and Manitou, but prefers that you don’t personalize him. Jefferson said that our government has changed drastically from his time and has turned into an empire. “You all know you are an empire,” Jefferson said. “Does anyone doubt that? You say it is our business in the world to sort things out. We have a mission in the world to chastise the aggressors and protect the weak. I urge you to read Mr. Madison[7] and ask where the Constitution says that. Mr. Washington said to avoid getting involved with rest of world -look inward instead of outward.”
“Pitch doth defile,” Jefferson said. “If you get involved in pitch, you will be blackened by it. Which faction in Syria is the right one? You will inevitably compromise your integrity.” Granted that Jefferson saw the Atlantic as essentially a 3,000-mile moat between the United States and any potential enemies. Napoleon would have taken three months to get here by sea and his men would have scurvy when arrived. A member of the audience stood up and asked the president to speak about renewable and non-renewable resources. “In my time, we only used renewable resources - not you,” Jefferson said. “I know a great deal about renewable resources – I’m a farmer! The earth belongs in usufruct to the living. If my father had a 5,000-acre estate, I as inheritor had the right to usufruct – the fruits of that land. I did not have a right to impair its fruitfulness. In fact I had a moral and legal obligation to be its steward and, if possible, improve its state. If you believe I am right, you have a lot to answer for. You are gobbling up resources and hoping your children will be more inventive than you are to solve your problems.” The early administrations were unsure about the specific role of the president having no prior precedent. Jefferson said that his predecessors erred in monarchical form. Washington wouldn’t shake hands, expecting people to bow to him. He wouldn’t touch the American people and even made it clear to a friend that he was not to be touched. John Adams was just as bad, believing in titles of nobility because he thought that the “law works under reverence.” Adams tried to get Congress to adopt specific titles of nobility. Congress rebuked his requests with the exception that they henceforth referred to him as “His Rotundity.” As for Adam’s cousin Samuel, Jefferson said he would have been called a terrorist, because he dumped tea in the harbor. Jefferson’s impact on
Colorado Jefferson was not personally involved in Zebulon Pike’s expeditions to go to the source of the Mississippi in 1805 and the Arkansas in 1806. General James Wilkinson authorized these missions without Jefferson’s knowledge[8], who only learned of them later. New learning from Pike’s expedition paled in comparison with Lewis and Clark. “Pike was a pretty good man, but he was no Lewis,” Jefferson said. “Read five pages of Lewis’ journal and 50 of Pike’s and tell me who was touched by enlightenment.” After the lecture, Jenkinson commented that Zebulon Pike definitely stirred up this part of the world when he came through in 1806. If the expedition had been sanctioned under his administration, Jefferson would have urged more caution. His diplomats were trying to convince the Spanish that the Arkansas River Valley was in fact part of the Louisiana Purchase. Angry letters were sent back and forth between the Spanish and U.S. about Texas and Colorado, which would be clamed by the U.S. and later won in war. Bent’s Fort was established not long after Jefferson’s death and fit in with his plan of convincing the Indians to assimilate at least to the degree that there was commerce. “We brought them kettles, tools and blankets that they couldn’t produce themselves,” Jenkinson said. “The point of it was to bring them into a relationship with commercial agents of the U.S. so they would inevitably be slowly civilized - although there was more Indian resistance to this than what Jefferson might have anticipated.” Jefferson’s view was that Indians, as long as they were not in our way, could continue to live the way they wanted in the short term. He didn’t have messianic or missionary zeal in converting them religiously or politically. “If we only wanted Iowa, the Indians could be whatever they wanted in Nebraska,” Jenkinson said. “Jefferson[9] thought that by relocating Indians out of Tennessee we were doing them a favor as they would be overwhelmed by disease and land-seeking white people. The best plan was to keep relocating them west. He thought it was virtually infinite country.” Jefferson’s temporary fix was to separate the two cultures.[10] The permanent fix was for Indians to cease to be Indians culturally. They would behave like every white American, but would have a certain exotic quality to their life because they were Indians. Jefferson’s dream of an agrarian society had long-term impacts on Colorado. Jefferson believed the best use of land was agriculture. “Till late in the 20th century, Colorado tried to produce Jeffersonian farms - dry-land farms in eastern Colorado that eventually failed,” Jenkinson said. “The Reclamation Bureau still lives with this myth, but not as strong as 25 years ago. They thought they could irrigate the land and meet the Jeffersonian dream. The dream played out in Colorado.[11] It wasn’t like Iowa, Minnesota or Missouri, which were more central to his immediate vision.” Jefferson’s advice for
people of today “The farmer of my time didn’t need a government,” Jefferson said. “He was self sufficient. You are less free. If the government collapses or thrives the farmer is fine. Those who labor the earth are the chosen people of God if ever he had a chosen people. And when farmers come to vote they vote their mind and heart - not to keep the supply lines coming. Is it true for you? You have to vote for a government that can keep fuel coming to you and light and food.” Jefferson didn’t blame his audience, but pointed out that we have lost some freedom and integrity over the years. “Each one of you should try in the next year to grow something - if only an asparagus,” Jefferson said. “Even if you grow only one tomato it will make you freer. If you share it with your family you will say we can do that and live outside the system. I also urge you to read books. The more you read, the more you will be free.” His final advice was less settling. Throughout the evening, Jefferson urged his audience to tear up the Constitution. He felt that expecting the Supreme Court to use a 200-year-old set of guidelines to solve modern problems such as abortion, advanced weaponry and cyber porn was an exercise in metaphysics. “I wrote to Mr. Madison saying each generation is like a country,” Jefferson said. “The preceding generation and succeeding generation are like foreign countries. Your grandparents are a foreign America. They had a system for their time, but it won’t necessarily work for this time. You should tear up the Constitution once every 19 years and use natural law for each new generation to start fresh.”[13] People of Jefferson’s time had the opportunity to ratify their government and consent to the system. All later generations simply have given tacit consent because we haven’t objected to the system. Even the provision for amendments to our Constitution has only been used about 20 times after the Bill of Rights and most of those were merely procedural changes.
“What if you had followed my advice and had a balanced-budget requirement?” Jefferson said. “The only reason you have as much in your list of government is because you don’t have to pay for it. You track yourself at half of X and pass the remainder on to your grandchildren because you are too spineless to pay your own bill. Taxation without representation is tyranny – it’s morally unjust. Why would you handicap your own children?” We all have the right to revolution, he told the audience adding that a free man is a man with a gun. You need guns in case you need to bring down the government at any time. “Government must never have a monopoly on uses of force,” Jefferson said. For more information, please visit the
following Web sites: [1] [Ed.] Jefferson had no preconception about Phoenix-based America West. [2] Bitterroot Mountains in Montana. [3] The five rivers being the Animas/San Juan, Arkansas, Rio Grande, Colorado/Gunnison and Platte. Even here, significant portages would be required between navigable sections. [4] Jefferson was not much of a joiner, eschewing organizations that have excusive membership because he felt that they create conditions of inequality. [5] Jefferson thought that no politicians should appear on money. “Why not a buffalo or Niagara Falls or a Sioux Indian leader?” Jefferson said. “Why Hamilton? You have the most beautiful continent on Earth and you put former presidents and Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, on your bills?” [6] [Ed.] Concepts such as not killing or stealing are universal. [7] [Ed.] Chief author of the Constitution for those of you who didn’t learn anything in Civics class. [8] As it turns out, Wilkinson was a traitor and a double agent, taking money from the Spanish Imperial Authority in 1807. He betrayed the U.S. to Spain and sent memos to them on how to frustrate our policies in the west. The Spanish kept good records of payments made to Wilkinson. [9] It wasn’t just Jefferson. This was the conventional “wisdom” of many. It could be worse. The main competing opinion was to exterminate the Indians. [10] White versus Indian. Technically, there were and are hundreds of Native American cultures. [11] [Ed.] For those who wish to argue Jenkinson’s point, compare yields per acre between Colorado and Iowa or, better yet, cattle per acre in Iowa versus acres per cow in Colorado. If you still doubt the infeasibility of the Jeffersonian farm in Colorado, try drilling for water. Hope you don’t mind paying for a dry hole or two if you don’t happen to have land along one of the river drainages. Farming and ranching can be found across the state, but it is far more challenging for those in the Centennial State. [12] [Ed.] Corporate welfare falls into this same category. [13] [Ed.] Madison was not very keen on this idea, seeing Jefferson as too Utopian. If the country had followed Jefferson’s advice on this matter every generation or two, the changes would probably not be so drastic. If we tried it for the first time in 2006, the process might be something akin to anarchy. For this to work, we need to develop educated citizens rather than educated consumers - people who have read the Constitution, paid attention in Civics class and, most importantly, value the civil rights of others at least as much as they value their own. |
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Jefferson,
who never traveled further than 75 miles west of Monticello,
said that many preconceptions of the American West during his
time have since been debunked.
“I
bought a natural bridge over a chasm 90 miles west of
Monticello,” Jefferson said. “I regarded it as a stupendous and
sublime place and wrote that it was worth a trip across the
Atlantic just to see it. Compare it to Utah and it is of no
value.”
The
former president also took time to clarify misconceptions many
people today have of his time. Many of the founding fathers
owned slaves including Jefferson and James Madison. Madison
regarded Indians as possibly of another species. Women were
viewed as creatures of the nursery. Their destiny was to bear
and nurse children. 
Not
a Christian in the sense of the word, Jefferson saw fit to quote
the Bible on the matter of foreign relations. 
Many
of the policies and actions of the early 1800s have had a
lasting impression on Colorado and its people – for good and for
bad.
Jefferson
advised caution with pseudo aristocrats, or those born into
wealth saying that natural aristocrats, people who had talent
and excelled at something, were often born in hovels. He said
the purpose of society is to “punish pseudo aristocrats –
certainly not give them help.”
“You
are conservative and would rather live on Mr. Madison than face
your own culture,” Jefferson said. “If you held a national
constitutional convention in 2006 you would see who is worried –
the people with the most to lose would begin to cry out.”